martyn668

I had Dynabeads in my tubed 7.50 x 16 for many years. A set of Avon Rangemasters and a set of remould MTs. Very happy with them in both sets of tyres. Filled all 10 tyres through the valve, although it did take FOREVER. No choice though as both sets of tyres had inner tubes. I think from memory that I had to buy the smaller size so they would fit through the valves. I was very pleased with how good they were, and the chap in the UK who sells them is very helpful on the phone. Lots of free advice.

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/drop-kit-easily-convert-classic-110802708.html I've heard prices of £70k before (fully fitted), and this kit (DIY?) doesn't seem as powerful, or have the range, but it is a good start. Hoefully we'll have more manufacturers soon, and more choice for those that want to go down this route. I'm interested, but probably in 5 or 10 years' time, when technology and the infrastructure has advanced more, and/or my current diseasal lump has died. Until then, black, oily stuff.

+1 for Milliput or also Chemical Metal has worked for me for in the field repairs to a cracked diff casing.

Progress is slow, because I'm only doing a bit a day, but I did pop the stator windings into vinegar for 24 hours. I decided against cola, because I figured it would be easier to rinse the vinegar. Any residual cola would be loads of sugar, and that wouldn't be good if it got hot! I decided to use vinegar because when I looked at them, there was so much crud on the windings, rust, oxide, dirt, etc, that I figured it couldn't do any harm to give them a gentle acid bath. Apart from the paint, so far I've spent £5 on some ribbon, and I've just spent another £5 (+£2.50 P&P) on some special anti-tracking lacquer that i'll recoat the stators with. I'll have everything by the weekend, so it will be re-assembly time then. There isn't anything else I can do, so if this fails, it's a new motor. Looking at the (clean) stator windings, i don't THINK they were damaged, and even of they were shorting along the windings, that would just underperform (or not work), so I think it is more likely to have been a short from the windings to the case. So my cereal packet is on standby to go in there too. As I said, when i started, all I wanted to do was take the rope off, and that stupid grub screw wouldn't come undone. I had no reason to suspect the motor was shorting. It's been a while since I used it, so perhaps it has rusted a bit more internally since I last used it. Any despite the shorting, it still runs (but sends out smoke signals when there is Vaseline on the terminals!) That's why I painted it before I starting sorting out the gremlin. Fingers crossed I can sort the motor issue.

Testing on the motor revealed that there seemed to be a short between the motor terminal posts and the motor body. Resistance around 40kOhms. Not going for a new motor just yet. I've now pulled the motor COMPLETELY to pieces. I've removed the field windings from the body. There wasn't much left of the paper. It was as if the paper had rusted! The rust seems to have actually got into the paper, and I can pull it apart in big rusty flakes. The cloth ribbon around the windings isn't much better. So I've unwrapped the ribbon from the windings . (Unwrapped is a loose term; it's been more like shelling eggs.) The windings themselves underneath look pretty good; two of them are even still shiny. I figured I'd have a go at cleaning the windings using Coca Cola or vinegar to get tall four shiny, then rewrapping them (bought some ribbon this evening), and replacing the paper and see if I can resolve this short circuit.

So far this rebuild has taken me hours, but it's quite enjoyable. It's on the bench, so I'm not lying underneath the Defender getting dust and mud in my eyes! A lot of that time has been prepping and painting to be fair. I did manage to break the plastic housing on a solenoid, which gave way rather than the rusty nut on top undoing. but some epoxy has sorted that out. Tested and working. Going to test all the motor bits tomorrow. To be honest I have spent a fortune on spray paint. That stuff works out expensive! Etch primer for the aluminium. High build primer, paint and lacquer. It looks lovely now though. Just got to sort out the smoking. I can;t see why I won't be able to track that down. But if I can't, then maybe a Bowmotor.

Thanks Redline Mike and Bowie69. Yes, I figured there must be a short somewhere. Will be investigating with the help of my trusty multimeter. There are plenty of YouTube videos in diagnosing shorts in electric motors, so I reckon I should find one if there’s one there. If I can get the field windings off I’ll replace the paper too. There’s so much rust in there it’s probably penetrated the paper and bridged something. One worry I have is the cloth protecting the windings. That seems to have plenty of rust in it too, so if I take it all apart I may have to re-wrap. Oh well. These jobs are never quick. I actually only wanted to take the rope off, but the bolt holding the end was rusted in. I needed to take the winch apart to get better access, and it has tuned into a complete rebuild!

Evening all. I thought I was nearly finished rebuilding my Warn M8000i winch, but when I put it back together, I got some smoke from the motor, which even I know isn't good. It ran fine, and the cables weren't getting hot, but smoke is never good. It could be that I put vaseline on the motor terminals (which melted, and it might just have been that that caused the smoke), but I figured that they recommend you put vaseline on your battery terminals, so it must be OK on a winch terminal, right? Anyway, I decided to go deeper into the electric motor. I'd already cleaned up the carbon brushes, and "polished" the armature, so i decided to look at the field windings. (That makes me sound like I know what I'm talking about. I understand the principles, but really, electricity is still magic to me.) I figured there might be arcing between the windings and the case. The insulation here is/was paper. Over the years, water has dissolved most of this, but I figure any trapped between the windings and the case is hopefully still there, but might try to replace it if I can get the windings out. But that got me thinking,why paper? Why not something hardier, like a plastic sheet? Was it all down to cost at the Warn factory? If I can get the windings out, should I replace with thin plastic sheet rather than paper? Or is paper the best thing? Plenty of stuff on the internet about rebuilding Warn winches, but I couldn't find anything about paper, so I thought I'd ask here.

I see this in the B2B world too, where a piece of lab equipment can be more like 50% more expensive between Austria and Switzerland. (My Swiss friend knew someone in Austria who was able to buy it locally and then just ship it to him.) I agree with tuko. The justification is unjustifiable. Before I boycotted Amazon I sometimes bought things from Amazon.com if they were cheaper than .co.uk. And I’m happy to buy from private sellers on eBay in Europe, and pick up large items myself (a set of third row seats from a Def110 from Northern Germany for example. I probably spent £150 getting there and back but saved three times that amount over an identical item in the UK, where it’s more of a seller’s market. It feels good to win, but lousy when you can’t beat the system.

That's smart Western. Not fitted to my 2001 CSW-spec 90. And cheap!

Hurbie, you’ve got some sort of retainer attached to the seat box too. That’s not a bad idea. Moves the seat belt away from the catch.

We all know how your seat belt doesn't retract fully all the time, and sometimes gets caught in the door locking catch. I have "invented" a little gadget that should help stop this. I came up with it myself some time ago, but have since seen it in a car (in China), but I didn't copy it, honestly. It's so simple. It's basically a loop of fabric around the seat belt (the Chinese car actually had one of those plastic runners you see which stop seat belts retracting too far) and a piece of elastic back to the bulkhead, or a suitable attachment point behind the seat. (I simply tied it round the roll over cage upright.) I was going to use Velcro to hold the loop together, but I couldn't find any at home. I had a couple of these buckles lying around so used one on each side. That means it can be undone, but it doesn't need to be. But if you sew the loop together around the seat belt, you have to do it outside in the cold, so I did it indoors and clipped it into place. Cost about 50p for the buckles. I had the elastic and the "ribbon" for the loop lying around. You could do it with one simple loop of elastic. And HERE'S video of it in action, being retracted.

Or just slam it in the door. I had mine like that for years. If you put it nearish to the bottom you won’t notice any new leaks It worked fine.

Why make it thicker at all? It will still be mounted on the chassis, which provides the strength and rigidity. You don’t need the body panels to be stronger. It won’t have been designed to crumple safely, etc., do I can’t seem it being any more than VERY moderately safer in a crash situation. Doesn’t make any sense to me. It may have to be 3x thicker just because they’re building it as a single piece?

As Fiip says, a bit more testing with a bicycle pump and gauge to see if I can activate the actuator with my own compressed air.