FridgeFreezer

Yeah they seem to have a very keen sales team, I told them I'm not worth their time as I'm only buying their cheapest 3mm ali cutters for my tiiiiny mill. Their catalogue does show all the various inserts sizes / shapes etc. though and they might help you identify it through pictures even if you don't buy owt from them. They do have some cheaper stuff, but as they're aimed at industry they're not going to compete with the cheap cack on eBay etc.

^ This, there's a fair few variants of switch that turn one or more feeds off when cranking.

The thing is it's very hard to sell a "new classic" because no-one can know ahead of time that a car will become a beloved classic - and let's face it, a lot of the classics out there are absolute junk to own and drive and were considered utter carp by the motoring press of the day. Face it, 90% of the moaners on these threads are driving Defenders because they're too soft to drive a proper Series Mate of mine happened across a mint Triumph Spitfire at a bargain price, bought it as a summer toy, drove it a few times and realised that although it looked cool, it was all awful British Leyland cack underneath and was basically horrible - tarted it up and flogged it quick while the sun was shining! LR have to sell the new one on actually being what people want, not in the hope it'll be looked upon fondly in 20+ years time.

TL;DR it's the low fuel level warning light for diesels.

This video shows very well how far batteries still have to go:

Cars people love and cars which are actually good are two very different things - we all look back fondly at all sorts of old cars when we see restored examples at car shows etc. but people forget all the awful faults and reliability that are the reason people moved on in the first place. 95%+ of the market want something reliable and cheap to own that ferries them and their junk from A to B safely - aside from the few folks who were spending 50k+ on a new Defender at the end of production, all the other people that you bemoaned Land Rover had "deserted" are buying stuff based on cost-of-ownership - farmers, builders, police, etc. are buying utterly grey Jap pickups or Transits or even Dacias or quads to do the job because they're cheaper to own. Give most people a week or two of commuting in a Defender in winter and they'll be begging for a Ford Focus with a working heater, wipers, door seals and a decent radio and bu&&er whether or not it's got any character.

@miketomcat can hook you up you know how many do you want?

Local electrical factors should be able to match it - that's what I did when the one in my lathe gave up. Cost me all of about £30. Think the one in my welder has given up now too - mind you, date code says 1974 so I've had some mileage out of it!

I know you know what you're talking about more than most but that's not cutting it for me; I don't have anywhere at home or work to reliably charge an EV, my commute is ~50 miles per day and there's no fast chargers on that route. At best I'm looking at loitering round a motorway services for an hour or more once a week compared to my current 5 minute fill-up once a fortnight. Assuming there's charging points available. We park our cars on the street in competition with the neighbours and the location means there's zero chance of a charging point being put in and I can't be running a cable across the pavement for people to trip over.

Not even online? It's a fairly simple shape. Postage would likely be prohibitive or I'd offer to run round to my local chaps with a measurement and get them to knock a couple up for you

You could try Cutwel tools, but hold on to your wallet!

The nearest custom exhaust shop should be able to knock that up in 5 minutes.

Not quite the same - the motors and controls etc. are all absolutely fine and well developed / very efficient, we've been using electricity and electric motors for quite some time, it's literally just that batteries are huge and awful and until that changes IMHO these things aren't going to be practical for the masses. It's more like where we were when steam-powered trucks were a thing and no-one had made petrol or diesel engines yet, the concept was there but it wasn't practical for the majority no matter how much you improve your boiler design - it needs that breakthrough leap.

I think we all know a few owners who will buy £250 worth of lights and stickers and be driving around with bits hanging off

Face it, most LR owners wouldn't notice if you replaced all the bushes with soft cheese and unbolted the dampers entirely, they're usually just happy the damn thing's working today and that the MOT man didn't see the cardboard and bathroom sealant "welded patch" on the chassis. Number of cars you see driving along with one almost-flat tyre and no-one notices that, I think finer subtleties of handling are lost on most of the population.

It's the same party trick to distract from the lack of practicality - 0-60 is an easy win in modern EV's as you can throw the switch and dump 200% power into the motor for the 5 seconds it takes to hit 60 before the thing melts into a glowing ball of copper. Much like you can bolt a NOS kit to your ratty old motor and claim it makes 500hp - which it will, for ~3 seconds until a piston comes through the bonnet.

According to the parts guys who know everything at Gotts, the only good bushes now are SuperPro or Genuine, and TBH I believe them.

If it makes you feel better I've been b**ering things up and failing to make progress on the 109 as well as killing equipment Had the MIG, the CNC mill and the garden strimmer all die on me during quarantine (I'm not mourning for the strimmer), and a brake calliper bracket that would be 5 minutes work on a mill has been causing me grief for weeks as I keep ending up down various dead-ends trying to work around it with what I've got to hand. Means the 109 is disabled in the garage, still covered in sh*te and in the way of about 20 other jobs I could be getting on with

The few robot-made bits in the last Defenders caused them problems because they were too accurate and wouldn't always fit the wonky stuff they were being bolted to

No worries, I wrote it up properly in my garage build thread if you need all the deets. ISTR it's Jewson who sell the HD screed as a lot of it is very light-duty for indoors only (no cold, no heavy weights, no impacts, etc.), so far mine's taken a lot of abuse with no problems.

I've been scanning my piles of old LR mags during quarantine and noticed this classified ad from 2003 - this has to be a rare 2-door that is unlikely to have increased in value;

That's a neat solution but I hate the execution, adding a little bit to the end of the already weedy stock steering bars like that makes me nervous, especially as the drag link is now acting on it off-centre. The Volvo steering does similar using a double-ball TRE, Dan re-made my steering bars to use 3/4" heims and it works nicely so far; Mind you, that's 30mm solid EN32 for the bars which is a tad beefier than the stock Series ones.

HD levelling screed - it's what I did on the "old" half of my garage floor and it's been great. Clear junk out, sweep floor, seal with SBR, pour screed.

I find non-knackered Defender seats quite comfy to be honest - I've done a few 1000+ mile journeys on them. The 109 has standard Defender front seats front & back, that works very well. The rears have a cubby between them as part of the seat base: I really must re-do that box without the tacky chequerplate some day