Dave W

Which colour door cards do they have ? I've just bought a set of doors with manual windows and am about to buy a pair of electric lifter mechanisms and matching electric window door cards for them. The current black door cards for electric windows are on back order at the moment although the ones for manual windows are available.

Been using the Britpart HD ones on mine for a year now, put them on for the 2008 Outback Challenge. As well as doing the OBC I've done challenge events and trials in Ireland and the UK since and they are still in good, straight condition. I don't use a steering guard either so they are pretty much on their own. Got mine from Devon4x4, I suspect the Paddocks ones will also be Britpart. Surprisingly, considering they are Britpart, the track rod ends that came with the bars are also still in good condition !

Be interesting to see how this pans out as I'm currently trying to decide if the next 3.9 I do should be MS1 or MS2. Tempted to go for MS2 as MS1 seems to have ceased progress, particularly with good reports about the closed loop idle control. Anyone running without EDIS btw ?

Those Bowman headsets look ideal, just ordered one to try. Best of all it still leaves the choice open as to whether we use radios or bluetooth as it will work with both.

It's from either a Disco 2 or a P38, I'll try and find out for sure for you. Visually the top of the pump assemblies all look the same whether it be a Freelander, Disco, Range Rover etc... I know you can also get a "pump assembly" to screw into the hole and allow the use of an external pump because one of the Defenders with an LS1 engine has a plastic Disco 2 fuel tank with just a pickup in it.

I'd seen people wearing ear defenders but I just assumed they had all been in the same team as MDM, hadn't realised they were using them for comms !

The swirl pot is built into the fuel pump assembly on the plastic tanks and very good it is too.

The fuel pump from a 4 litre discovery with a plastic fuel tank will fit with some minor mods, failing that a 50th anniversary pump will fit straight in. If you can use an LR fuel pump assembly you should do, the plastic tank ones have the best in tank swirl pot design I've ever come across, if i could figure out a reliable way of fitting one in to my aluminium tank I would have done by now ! I'm rebuilding Pam's 90 this year and picked up a plastic TD5 90 tank for a song off ebay and then acquired a 4.0 Disco fuel pump assembly with a knackered pump that was going in the skip at the local 4x4 specialists. The pump is about an inch too long but as they are sprung with a variable length it's just a case of shortening the rod that stops it going short enough to fit. I can probably sort some pics out at the weekend if it'll help. Current plan is to see if I can mount a RRC 3.9 pump into the 4.0 assembly or failing that I'll get a replacement unit as they are a LOT cheaper than the TD5 one. I don't want to butcher the TD5 pump assembly as it's in good working order and will probably sell for more second hand than a new 4.0 pump will cost as they're about double the price new.

Is it just on the outer panel or has it spread inside as well ? Is there any buckling that might suggest it's being caused by the weight above it or is it just that there's a bit of movement there and it's down to the panel vibrating ? Difficult to tell from a photo, you should have told us all at the trial and you'd have got a different answer from everyone there

Kind of related to this, I was put off using bluetooth headsets when lots of competitors using them when we were in Australia kept complaining about losing comms altogether when they were out of line of sight as it seems to me that's when you need it to work at it's best ! The problems seemed to be at their worst when there were groups of competitors together, i wonder if people in the UK are experiencing more problems with them as the number of competitors near you increases. After all, they all operate on the same frequency so even with a digitally modulated signal they will still interfere with each other to a certain extent. We opted for a vhf radio solution using a vhf handset and a plug in headset with vox for the navigator and me using the main set in the cab. This worked really well apart from the problems with vox sensitivity - after your navigator has just run 50 metres carrying a winch rope, strop and blanket they have a nasty habit of breathing hard enough to trigger the vox making it sound like you're receiving a dirty phone call in the cab and ruling out any comms from driver to navigator. Since the Muddy Truckers we've decided to take another look at comms and we've got two issues that I'd be interested in hearing others solutions/views on. The first thing is how the hell you actually wear the kit. It's easy when you're wearing a helmet as you can fix everything to the helmet but what do you use if you haven't got a helmet ? The second consideration is the technology. As I've said the VHF had some drawbacks, not the least being the lack of duplex comms and the limitations of vox. On the other hand it has an incredible range (we've used the handsets to cover 20 miles in Australia and they'll easily cover 5 miles in a built up area) so you can always hear the other person. They also have the advantage of being usable for four way comms for when you're running in a team event. If someone can convince me I should give bluetooth a go and can point me in the direction of something to strap it to my head, I'd be grateful ! Am I right in thinking that Cardo can handle 4 way comms btw... something along those lines was suggested on one of the bike web sites selling them ?

Do you just have the ECU ? The simplest way of telling a Hotwire ECU from a flapper ECU is the colour, normally flapper ECUs are bare metal, hotwire ECUs are painted black. The hotwire will also normally have a part number of 14CUX on it somewhere.

Just how much freedom do you want, really ? Do you want people to be free to break the law ? With freedom comes an obligation to respect others. The owner of this site has shown no respect for his neighbours or, before he was banned from keeping them, his livestock. He has only been interested in making money and beyond that doesn't seem to care that he's been breaking the law and neither do those "customers" that use and abuse his land and cause his neighbours grief. The countries you mention have one thing we don't and that is simply space. We live on an overcrowded island where it is impossible to get away from other people. There is a lack of tolerance in the UK and we as 4x4 owners are often on the receiving end of it but sites like this one, the way the land owner and his customers behave is unacceptable and reflects badly on 4x4 owners in general.

What do you intend using it for ? For off road max torque at 4500 seems a bit high or do you mean power rather than torque when you say "grunt" ?

The P&P "expedition" full external cage is all bolt on and is supplied powder coated and with all fittings, it's all bolt on and is braced to the chassis. I'm looking at fitting one to Pam's 90 when I rebuild it later this year. It won't provide the same level of protection as a motor sports one but it also doesn't take up any internal space. I'm a little concerned about any increase in fuel consumption but what the hell, it's only money. This one from P and P is on ebay at the moment...

One of our club members got a bare (ungalvanised) chassis from Richards so he could modify it. Once the modifications are done he can return it to them and they'll galvanise it. Worth asking about if you need to make a lot of mods ?

No they're a real odd ball U shaped thing using "standard" connectors would be way too easy for LR ! Simtek site is up again, I think it's this one... http://www.simtekuk.co.uk/www.simtekuk.co....ch=&sought=

I'm far from an expert on this as I've only really been toying with the idea myself and originally I made the, incorrect, assumption that as long as the year was correct I'd be good. The Australians have been putting Nissan axles under their Rovers (and just about every other make of truck) for years and the consensus is that the GU axles are the dogs dangly bits even in standard form. The GQ axles are almost as good but the CVs are weaker (smaller) than the GU and Longfield (which I think are what Ashcrofts supply) upgraded CVs aren't available for them. For this reason the GU axle is widely used in Australian comp motors even on GQ trucks. For reasons best known to Nissan, Europe didn't get the GQ or the GU as such, all we got was the GR. The GU was released in Australia in 1997 to replace the GQ that was released in 1988. The GR was only fitted with the GU axle for a couple of years and to specific models as far as I can understand it. I've yet to find one with the GU type axle in the UK that's available for sale and I'm not the only one looking. Had we known they'd be so difficult to find here we'd have brought some back with us in the container last year. In the UK we also have the added disadvantage that we need RHD versions which narrows the choice down even further, at least the OP is looking for LHD ones (I assume). The GQ front axle isn't as strong as an upgraded Longfield/Ashcroft front axle (diff excluded) which doesn't really make the hassle of changing over to the axle that cost effective IMV. After all, we're only talking about a pretty standard RV8 here so it's not exactly putting much power through the axles. A full set of Ashcroft CVs/shafts/drive flanges will set you back about £1200 and take less than a day to fit. I'd probably go to the effort of fitting GU axles over Ashcroft but not the small/weak CV type fitted to the majority of GRs. I'm kind of hoping someone who knows more about Nissans will pipe up at this point and tell me I've got it all wrong and GU style axles are easy to get because they were fitted to .... etc...

I'm pretty certain that Simtek stock a connector for the late side repeaters, I was browsing their web site a couple of weeks ago for another odd ball connector and spotted them. Can't seem to get onto their site at the moment but it's normally http://www.simtekuk.co.uk/ When I fitted mine I decided to go the whole hog and bought the TD5 wing harnesses and grafted the connectors off an old TD5 bulkhead loom onto my loom. The advantage of going this way is that you get all the connectors in a single loom without the damn silly bullet connectors and when you have to take the wings off you don't have to disconnect all the wiring, just the one connector at the bulkhead.

Not much point in upgrading to the Nissan axles unless you get exactly the right model, the correct axles with the large CV are very rare in Europe. The small CV type, which make up the majority in Europe, are just as likely to break as the LR stuff. The diffs and shafts are better though. No point at all in going to 24 spline standard gear as it's no stronger than 10 spline. Your best bet is a complete set of uprated 24 spline gear from Ashcrofts, the only thing that's not as strong as the Nissan "GR" is the diff then, that can be helped by pinning it and replacing the centre with an ARB. With a 3.9 that shouldn't be too much of an issue anyway.

Last time this came up elsewhere the consensus seemed to be that Marslands were slightly cheaper but you had to drill out all the holes and their customer service was average. Richards Chassis were slightly more expensive but came ready to fit and customer service was excellent. I'm about to order a new 90 chassis in the next month or so, I'll be ordering from Richards.

Parallels or boot camp are OK, VMWare Fusion is better IME though if only because you don't notice the Windows OS at all. Obviously this all assumes you're running an Intel Mac ! I've tried all 3 as well as VPC and VMWare is the most transparent. Boot camp is just beyond the pale, booting a Mac with windows is like running a Diesel Range Rover, you feel unclean afterwards, like you've abused your Mac. There was some talk of an open source application and Nanocom released the source code for their app to encourage this, not sure if anyone took it up but that would enable a native app to be written or you could run the unix variant if it exists.

Watching this thread with interest as I'm going to be rebuilding Pam's 90 this year and one of the jobs is to improve the sound system. The LPG tank is currently behind the bulkhead and is covered in by a fairly large MDF box that I trimmed using auto carpet. The new back body has no bulkhead so I'll have to adapt the design to fully encase the LPG tank and I've been wondering about using the LPG tank "box" as a speaker housing, maybe for a sub pointing into the back and 2 forward facing mid range speakers ?

Left foot braking is the answer to this and many other problems. It just takes a bit of practice to get rid of the "clutch" mentality in your left foot so you stop putting everyone through the windscreen when you brake. I do it by second nature these days and often don't even realise I'm doing it both on and off road.

Change into 3rd on uphill stretches, saves fuel and wear and tear on the engine and box. That's why there is no "notch" between D and 3 so you don't even have to push the button to move the lever between them. What you are describing sounds like pretty normal behaviour when the engine hasn't got enough power to pull top gear.

Yes, that's what you need, each tap cuts the thread progressively deeper.