BigSi110

The valves that are bent will be the ones which aren't straight. The number of them will be whatever the total number of valves is (16) less the straight ones. The valves which aren't straight MAY be a mix of inlet and exhaust or MAY be purely inlet or exhaust. You've got my address from the recent clutch fork purchase.

I've had exactly the same dilemma on my 300Tdi 110 for a similar trip across France to Italy in late July. My clutch occasionally judders. Nothing serious. No slip, slop or slap. But with the trip looming, the potential failure takes on a new meaning... So, a reinforced clutch fork from Sir Les Henson, 130 plate and Genuine / OE bits elsewhere including slave and master cylinders. An extremely handy and thorough friend is doing the work in a few weeks in return for the satisfaction of a job well done, potentially not having to repair my 110 in the Alps and just because he loves doing the work. It's cost me ~£150 and massive amounts of gratitude.

From memory, the Allisport kit works out to around £800 fully fitted with a refillable tank. The price drops a bit without the tank, using a normal propane cylinder. Fitting is only about £80. Damn, I'm really tempted, but it's a lotta money and I haven't done the number-crunching to see if it's justifiable. Has anyone done the payback calcs for theirs yet? Anyway, guess which stand I'll be visiting at Billing...

Thanks Ralph! I COULD do it in 3 minutes if ever there's a second breakage. The Chimp.

Funnee!! Just doing a thorough job old chap.

Yeah, then I'm a chimp. With one hand tied behind my back. Drunk. Blind. And with a mental age of 2. It took about 40 minutes. Had a chat with Twisty first, who confirmed things and offered to pop in from Wales (!!) if I got stuck. Then a lot of playing around with mole grips (not enough access) and bent-nose pliers to get the tube settled the last 2mm into its hole. Didn't work. So I just pushed down bloody hard on the tube from the top to get the bracket bolt hole aligned and fiddled with a ring spanner. Seems fine now. I hope. Thanks chaps!

Chaps, The day of the dipstick tube replacement has dawned. I'm doing an oil change on the 110 too, just in case there'a any mess. The oil's due for changing anyway. Had a look. There's no nut or thread. The new tube has two small metal collars with a rubber O-ring in the middle. Below that, there's about half an inch of tube. I assume it's just a push-fit job? Can anyone qualify this. There's no fixings anywhere on the block. It's just flat. Bonnet up, 110 on ramps. Oil draining. Any nice people out there able to give me a quick reply to encourage my next move? Si.

It looks like another 8ft over to the left and you'd have missed it.

Not this time, Mike.

I've replaced mine with Genuine springs and dampers, which work fine when it's just me, but my 110 rolls a little when loaded, as you'd expect. I'm going to put in air-assister bags in the rear with an on-board compressor, thereby giving me variable roll stiffness to suit the load, or my mood without giving me a bone-shaking ride all the time when empty. Matt Savage sells kits for what I consider a very reasonable cost ~£250 all-in ~ with the benefit of the compressor for other jobs.

I'd have thought the service manual would list all Authorised Service and Repair Centres. Might also be worth looking on LR's website for details and updates? If they don't tell who you can use, how do you know, so it's in their interest as well as yours.

Beautiful! Hasn't that been in a magazine recently? The numberplate looks familiar.

Yep. 1:22 transfer case. Not sure about the cross-drilled gear, though. Better wait for a grown-up to answer that. I'd like to know too, but I'd always assumed it was a further upgrade.

Q for Quiet. The disco t-box (or even the later Defender ones?) had a lower-noise gear-set in them. Ashcrofts do the upgrade, amongst others. It's on my list of sensible jobs to do.

Look on top of the heater box under the bonnet - top right when looking from the front. You'll see the cable and actuator arm for the heater on top of the box. Ensure the cable is adjusted so that it moves the actuator arm through its full arc and not just part of it. It's an easy 5 minute job. By the way, I've one of those scoop boxes on top of my 300Tdi's front wing. It creates a bit of extra wind noise (maybe because I modified the original horizontal vent to fit inside the scoop so that it acts as a filter for leaves, bees etc) and the effect on my heater is marginal, in my opinion. But it does look good!! Like a nostril poking out the wing.

John, is that after the soft top, rock sliders, new MT's....? If / when you do, no problem at all old boy. However, if you want a decent secondhand drum assembly, my old one's still in the garage.

The clue's in the sig. It appears you've got a carbon build-up in your exhaust which is being ignited by the hot exhaust gases - probably helped by the wind flow over the tailpipe causing it to glow. I'm no expert with what causes the carbon build-up, other than posssibly too rich a mixture. Maybe a long motorway drive would help clear it a bit? Someone correct me, please.

Thanks! Just another thing to add to my list of regular checks.

Ralph, sorry to sound like a numpty - it's easy enough for me - but where is this and how is it tightened / checked?

Have a look here for the RR handbrake conversion.

Agreed. Or treat it as the perfect opportunity to buy an X-Brake.

PM sent, Cat.

We were there all weekend. Anyone who saw a sad sod polishing one of the 'Raiders on Saturday morning would have seen me... . Fantastic show - the highlight, for me, was meeting Tim Slessor. Two days and I still didn't see and do everything I wanted.

I have fairly exacting standards for work done to my cars. My local Merc specialist, although expensive, has never let me down and I won't go anywhere else for repairs and servicing on our E-Class. However, finding a truly great specialist for my 110 is a problem. In 2 years, I haven't yet received that all-important comfort factor from the 2 specialists I've used, so I won't be returning to either of them. I know someone who I trust implicitly and who offered his services at very short notice and without hesitation to replace the cylinder head on my 110, but it's not his day-job and I feel that requesting regular servicing from him is too much. So, that leaves me with a dilemma, but a few new options to explore.

Little, ...no, TINY tree. But then I guess the ickle V8 wouldn't struggled with anything larger than that.