Davo

I think they all had less protective coating! I can't imagine that shambolic factory going to any extra effort for different regions. I had a '79 wreck that was all body colour, and my '83 is all black underneath.

Yes, definitely follow this advice.

But . . . but . . . there must be a better class of girl out there somewhere!

Well, that's what's so funny about it - as people have found over the decades, with that much power you have basically have to turn your Defender into a stiffly-sprung car with a scary centre of gravity. So it's pointless in many ways.

That's good to hear about the Esprit. I hadn't paid any attention to such things since they are merely cars and no good for anything but fast driving and impressing girls, (oh dear God I've wasted my life!), and not for lugging jerry cans through remote areas, but I dare say middle age has now given me a regard for the finer aspects of motoring. As for the 2-door, I've had lots of rotten experiences dealing with galvanisers which I can tell you all about it you like, but the short version is that you have to be very careful as they do stupid things. I wouldn't use galvanising again. There are other ways to deal with rust and some very good paints these days. And I've found that even after galvanising you still have to rustproof the bits inside the chassis they missed because they hung it the wrong way, and overlapping metal parts can still have rust inside them anyway! Oh, the memories . . . I need a lie down.

Just a thought - do you have any specialists nearby who do this sort of thing? People have put kid seats into all sorts of things and you might find a company which has built up some expertise in the area. It never occurred to me until I needed some anchor points for the RRC, (the things you learn when you have kids!), and it was amazing to see what the owners of other marques had done in the same situation.

I think it's when you're sure you know what you're doing that it all goes wrong, not when you know you're trying something very difficult. Good to hear that you don't need to start a rebuild thread!

One of the funniest things about it is that when the Land-Rover first came out, its success was something of a problem for the old hands at Rover who assumed they would return to making fine cars for bank managers as they had before the war. That stop-gap noisy tin box would have been an embarrassment for them, and yet it saved the company - because they weren't otherwise capable of adapting to the post-war market. And yet, though it took a few decades, here they are again, without a foundation product and completely unready for the world's next catastrophe. The ineptitude is incredible, but the pig-headed stubbornness is pretty special, an unchanging feature of Britain's ruling class that must go back to when they could still see the glaciers retreating.

Over in Queensland, yes, they raised the houses in some places but on this side of the country it was probably just too expensive! I looked up Esprit construction and was amazed. Can you imagine a factory making anything like that these days? Would it even pass the various crash tests? So, given what a mystery such a car is for many of us, I just thought you might like to cover what it's actually made of and how they put it together. It would also help to explain what you're doing with yours and how you're going about it. I'm definitely looking forward to when you start work on the 2-door!

Well, isn't it nice that JLR are catering to their modern customers?

That size tyre and Disco I steel rims are a really good combination.

I really do think you're getting a bit carried away here. Body armour isn't going to protect everything, and if something big hits you, you're going to go flying anyway. Have you looked at what industry uses? I'm glad to see you're thinking about safety, but: Hydraulic Press Safety Shield Image Search

You're not done yet. You'll need some body armour for when a little part shoots out and through your chest . . .

Yes, that thought had occurred to me as well. It wasn't that long ago when he was in the news commenting on that aftermarket stuff. I'm so very sure that he is the man, and this is the answer, to fix that particular situation. <sarcasm at full boost>

That's about it. "Glamstoration", eh? You read it here first, kids.

It's a bit unsettling to think that some of the world's best schooling produced the minds that came up with this. So, what we have is a company that stops producing the only workhorse it has because of reasons that haven't stopped other car companies, but now they're producing the same car, but with a lot of improvements first called for at about the time the executives behind this were born, instead of, you know, when the thing was actually in production and not selling partly because of the lack of these improvements. Do I laugh or cry? Because admitting you own a Land Rover these days is like admitting you support the worst sports team around, you know: "Oh, but, they'll get there one day, just you watch."

That was my next question! Thank God they're not allowed there. You should see what people get up to here when putting kids in the backs of Troopies.

Hmmm, I feel I must point out that lap belts are horrible things, and I wouldn't use anything other than a lap/sash, either static or inertia. Also, I don't understand where you want to add the belts - in the front or the back?

It's amazing, isn't it? It will be a bit of a pain to do, so it's on the list . . .

We're simply spoiled for choice these days. What exciting times we live in.

Just another bump; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjnJAR-MBiQ Seventeen episodes is a real achievement! Well done! Ah, winter time . . . in Canada I had a shed that would flood when snow thawed, and then all the water would freeze, so then I'd have to work on a layer of ice, and then in spring I'd usually hack up the ice and put it in a wheelbarrow to dump outside . . . and now over here in summer we've had a couple of cyclones go past, so my open carport is soaked, and when it isn't pouring then the mossies come out, and the humidity is apparently at 1000%, and I seem to spend too much time scheming how to get all the coconuts down from the tree next door . . . man, if I lived in a moderate climate I wouldn't know what to do with myself! Anyway, I'm most interested in the construction of the Esprit. Of course there is plenty on the internet but would you like to cover it with your car as an example? Also, I understand what you said about those fluxcore welds on the Range Rover, but now that you've done so much of that type of welding I can see what you meant way back when you wrote about using it. It's what you had and you've done quite well with it.

Hmmm, maybe I should put a big fuse in that brown wire on the Rangie . . .

And still with a two-pin diff in the front as well I suppose? This quote has me tickled: "We knew the demand was there for a powerful and fast Defender". So, they followed this up by doing nothing. Briliiant!

Ha ha, stoopid factory finally makes a Defender with more than enough power, only 20 or 30 years after the market wanted one. Meanwhile, Toyota manages to stumble along with a 4.5-litre twin turbo V8 diesel . . . no wonder people think you're mad for owning a Landie.

Yes, it would appear Mercedes have indeed. Then, on the other hand, there is JLR: supposedly no market for the Defender, front end can't pass regulations, blah blah blah. Are they the dumbest car company around, or is someone else even better at this business of not making as much money as they could?