FridgeFreezer

If you're factoring the garage's labour at £50+ per hour (and many now are £100/hr) it's hardly worth fixing anything that's worth less than 5k, but that's not the point. If the lifters have leaked down (and I would fully expect them to) it will sound tappetty and horrible, but as long as it's got clean oil, good oil pressure, and it's warmed up, sometimes the only way to get them to pump back up is to rev it to about 4k briefly.

Average 3 years, that's optimistic - I bumped into an old friend recently who has been building a Westfield kit-car for about 22 years now...

Only thing I've found that will live with brake cleaner long-term is the Wurth pressure sprayers with the extra swanky seals, there was one guy selling them on eBay but he was dodgy as hell, every order would be "lost or damaged" and then take twice as long to arrive - suspect he was nicking them from his works to order or something! For WD40 I'd hope almost any of the industrial ones would be up to it. The Wurth ones are the most robust I've yet found though.

LT230 are incredibly simple, even I've done a couple, no special tools needed. However, as they're so plentiful and robust it's hardly worth the effort unless you really want to build a properly refurbished one.

Looks awesome! BTW I'm a fan of the clamp type earth lead, not that flimsy giant crocodile-clip nonsense

Hard to say, I suspect the prevalence of water heaters as OEM fit is a packaging thing as much as anything, you can use the existing heater fan + matrix etc. and they're easier to tuck away somewhere without big fat air ducting to route. I guess the question is what you're using it for - warming a running vehicle up faster (as OEM do) I'd go water, warming a parked vehicle overnight you'd want air otherwise you're heating a huge engine block that's just dissipating heat back out to the environment.

I have a collection of these and they're awesome for scraping stuff off - you can get plastic versions with plastic blades too:

Plenty of silicone kits on ebay in a variety of violent colours, and plenty of cheap non-gen stuff out there. Up to you - the genuine ones have lasted this long after all. TBH unless it's delaminated or got a hole in it it won't affect performance.

Wow you must be bored!

Really felt for you this episode - reinforces my belief in never buying a Land Rover with a sunroof!

Had the wheels balanced & alignment done? Track rod ends, spring/shock mounts?

That would give no drive at all surely?

Which is why all those trophy trucks, Baja racers, Dakar buggies, and all modern cars use independent suspension I guess... it'll work fine, handle better, and I will still bet you that the new Defender is more capable from the factory than the original Defender was from the factory.

TD4 has two fuel pumps, be careful of making an expensive mistake! One in-tank and one (very) high pressure one either on the chassis or in the engine bay if memory serves, I think I did the engine bay HP one on mine and it was fairly straightforward, that got sluggish and you could hear it moaning before it finally failed. I'd be tempted to at least do the fuel filter while you're in there.

All this grumbling and no-one's appreciating the fact that LR are clearly testing the thing off-road. If they didn't care, as many here are claiming, they wouldn't be spending millions of pounds in R&D dragging it over rocks in Moab etc. (How many other manufacturers bother? Do we believe a BMW X5 prototype has ever been rock-crawling?) For all the grumbling, LR take off-road ability more seriously than most others - the fact they even do it with the likes of the Evoque deserves a bit of credit, especially if you hold it up against its competition. Jamie's comments about the exhaust hanging down miss the point too - that's the same idea as the freelander and it works well - banging the exhaust makes a terrible noise but is ultimately harmless and lets you know you've run out of clearance. Likewise the front ARB was the lowest point at the front and is a robust but ultimately non-critical part that you could hang the car on (much like a Defender gearbox crossmember) without causing damage, and the CLONK lets you know you need to back up. Compared to the low-hanging fruit of major drivetrain components you see protruding under other SUV's it's very elegant design. I'd rather replace a £50 back-box than poke a rock through the rear diff. I don't see a problem basing it on the D5 - they based the Defender on the Range Rover platform after all - same thing, different century! Air suspension may be novel on a utility 4x4 but then coil springs and disc brakes were novel on a 4x4 in 1983 - and are still novel on plenty of modern 4x4's, and no-one's bitching about the Defender being too fancy compared to proper leaf springs and drum brakes

If you have a USAF contact you might negotiate a replacement engine arriving in the boot of a transport plane with somewhat discounted postage...

Me too, but it's a weeee bit spendy compared to the other flavours! My lathe came with a Dickson type one (RDG Tools have them) and I wouldn't be without it. RDG tools are pretty good value for reasonable quality gear - not ABOM / This Old Tony quality but equally not awful Chinese tat. Likewise Chronos. I've never bothered faffing with the (dead) coolant pump, not sure how necessary they are?

Glad you found it, this does confirm my anecdotal 100% record of it being wiring problems and not a faulty EDIS module! MS3 is a brave move, and a tad unnecessary and complicated IMHO... you can do it all pretty solidly and simply with MS1+EDIS, if you really want the extra resolution etc. then MS2 has finally reached some sort of maturity (apparently, I don't keep up with developments), whereas everything I've seen and heard about MS3 is it's just massively complicated

With difflock OUT, does the rear propshaft turn? If NO I'd suspect the transfer box. If YES it's the back axle. If it's the back axle it's either a half-shaft or the diff. You can remove the half shafts without even jacking a wheel up, and you'd have to remove them to change a diff anyway so may as well check 1st.

I'd be surprised if that works for EDIS, if it's trying at all the sparks are so big it should have no problem. EDIS is pretty darn reliable, if it has power & ground & a good VR signal it *will* make sparks, the usual issues are wiring / plug lead order, don't think I've known a dead EDIS module yet. Just for the sake of triple checking:

Funnily enough I just bought a bucket of "lokuts" for my dash, I didn't pick part numbers - I just bought the black ones as they look smarter you need the BIG red ones for the larger holes / to hold the dash cowling on. I also bought a party-pack of ZP J-nuts and U-nuts as I couldn't be faffed to work out which size/shape was needed where: Kayfast selection pack As others have said, progress is progress - if you hit a wall with one thing, doing another thing is fine, it all needs doing in the end after all! Some days I end up doing "nothing" but putting all the tools away and sweeping the floor because I run out of bits or whatever, but next time out all the tools are in the right place and the floor's clean so it's not wasted

From the table I posted it looks like the default 7.50 is 100% profile (sidewall), which sounds about right to me.

Michelin XZL would not be most people's first choice, they are very hard (designed more for military trucks than small 4x4) and do not grip as well as many other popular alternatives. They're also expensive. Now most people use 235/85 or 265/75:

Yes, it's proved remarkably solid - I was discussing it with him as I'm looking at using a similar idea on my front anti-wrap when I revise it. I think he's done the same trick on a few other vehicles since as well.

Those coil packs were fitted on millions of Fords worldwide, I'd be very surprised if you can't find one But anything kinda similar from a similar application should work - at the end of the day it's an ignition coil. I'd check the resistance to ensure you're not about to overload the EDIS.