Ed Poore

I meant putting the chassis alone through a stress test / fatigue analysis. The only other manufacturer I have heard of doing similar is New Holland Tractors because then bought an instrumentation system off us to test their tractors to destruction.

A number of years ago my professor was doing some work in conjunction with Warwick University and went on a tour up there. They had a rig that had been flexing and twisting a chassis (what was to become the Disco 3 if I remember correctly) continuously for a year. Not heard of any other manufacturer doing that.

I did a quick trial around home with the spare (265/75R16 KM2) on the bonnet and it massively restricted forward version. My godfather many years ago when I started driving and had a Series 3 bought me a swing away wheel carrier (think it was sold as a Paddock Spares one but was actually built by Mantec) and it's been superb. Was only £50 at the time - I see that they're now almost £300. Sorry not much help but I've been thinking about alternative locations for a while because I'm tempted to build a split tail gate back door for the Defender and it would be easier without the spare wheel there but not really found anywhere suitable - not enough space inside with the L322 seats and what I normally carry, bonnet restricts visibility too much so going to have to be back door. Considered running without a spare as I've never had a puncture or needed one on the Defender but I know the moment I take it off I'll do something.

And I think no Defender or road going vehicle is going to have enough clearance for the tyres that are fitted to the average tractor around here. Met half a dozen contractors on the road a few days ago whilst everyone was rapidly trying to get the silage done - each tractor's front tyres were half way up my Defenders windscreen...

Holiday?

So you're in?

Ignition on or off? If it's on can you put a screwdriver / crow-bar to prise open the window and trigger a window to go down?

Is there any resistance to the door handle? It's not unheard of for the cable to the handle to snap and thus won't allow you to open it from the outside.

They were just prototyping the convertible Evoque waaay before it was actually released.

That's is a very good point and one I had not considered. Hmmm, perhaps some experimentation with rubber bushings is in order 🙂

I've gone one level up and fitted seats from a 2004 Range Rover to my 110, all 5 of them . Electric adjustment is working, still to get around to the heated seats and TVs though... As a bonus they're easier to keep clean too being leather and all. Most of the comfort from a Defender comes I think from the seating position. You're actually sat upright rather than squashed down on the floor. I actually found my 110 as comfortable if not more so than the 2007 TDV8 Full Fat Range Rover I had for a number of years. Seating position had a lot to do with it but also it was higher up so drives, particularly in the south east, you could see further and were a bit more relaxing. The main downside is it is noisier, hell of a lot so, but then again sound proofing isn't as thick (but it's not as fat) and it did have more tread on the sidewall of my tyres than the RR had on the tyre. The doors are rusting up on mine and the bulkhead is a little tired so once I sort those will be soundproofing things a bit more and fitting cruise control

He should know that's too heavy - unless it's from titanium.

You surprise me - I'd have thought you'd have gone bespoke

Equally I suspect I'll be heading up north again - cost an extortionate £77 to get the tick repellent for the two dogs so might as well make the most of the next 3 months protection

Sort of... There's plenty of "Ultra 4 vs Rock Bouncer videos" but they're all time-based competitions. I know the Ultra4 guys don't air down and run more "all-terrain" biased tyres due to the mixed racing they do and instead prefer to throw power and speed at the problem. What I'd be more curious is seeing them on, I suppose, would be more along the lines of what we might see in the UK - a mix of bogs, (thinking Highlands ), mud, rocks, grass etc. but rather than throw power into the equation follow the Green Lane Code and tread lightly so to speak. I.e. eliminate the huge (and admittedly fun) HP and speed figures and try and complete a course with minimal wheel spin and damage underneath. That should tell us a little more about the actual capabilities of the vehicle, momentum and speed can overcome a lot of shortcomings. I mean the Norwegian Army wanted to learn to fly and they didn't have any planes - so momentum and speed helped out here

Does the FL2 have air suspension? / Did yours? That's the crucial bit with the Terrain Response that LR developed, it mimics a solid axle through the use of those cross-link valves (not something I'd heard of on the FL2). Having said that for basically a glorified shopping trolley the FL2 did remarkably well and it was more your (understandable) desire not to trash it that hindered it's progress. It was the same reason why I stopped using the RR for laning trips it was just a little too nice and I didn't / don't have enough disposable income to justify trashing it. Whereas I feel perfectly justified in doing that to the Defender. The major advantage for me on the Defender is that the same basic design has been around for so long that you can build a vehicle from the ground up on new parts quite easily as there are so many after market suppliers. Hence parts can be sourced readily and at a variety of price points. Case in point - I had the RR for about 4 years and it cost me roughly the same as my Defender has over 9 (except that the Defender has had a new gearbox, transfer box, two new axles with Ashcroft internals / pegged lockers (courtesy of @Hybrid_From_Hell), two engine rebuilds (oops ), two sets of BFG KM2s and two sets of wheels over the course of 130k miles. I'd be curious to see how a vehicle setup for pure off-road such as Shannon Campbell's Dragon Slayer (see below) compares on technical off-roading vs. a similar vehicle with no IFS. I know he switched to IFS due to the large gains he could make on the high-speed sections. He was willing to compromise the rock-crawling sections of KoH because he could make up so much time in the fast desert sections. I seem to remember a question posed to him or someone else running an IFS car about not airing down to which the response was it's not worth the time taking to air down and back up when you can chuck 800 horses at the problem . Mind you I don't think he falls into the category of an amateur driver having been the first person (and one of two) to win KoH three times. Awww shucks

They're also considered to have better armour aren't they? Also from what I recall there's only ever need one destroyed and it wasn't by enemy fire but a blue-on-blue incident. There have been injuries due to non-friendly fire but the only tank ever lost was due to another Challenger 2 targeting it. I hadn't thought about it before but does EU law apply for areas of National Security? I know when that caveat is applied there are a lot of exemptions. One company I have worked for in the past was allowed to "discriminate" against employment to a certain extent due to the fact you needed a security clearance to work there and in order to gain that security clearance you had to be a British Citizen.

If you look at the recent (modern) vehicles Land Rover have produced with air suspension you'll see that that is not the case. For example on the L322 when you enable the Terrain Response system it will automatically open up cross-link valves between the air bags. This means that as one wheel gets pushed up the opposite wheels get pushed down as air flows between the bags. I.e. what happens on a solid axle setup. The bonus being that when you disable the system then it goes back to being fully independent suspension which is far superior for road handling. As to the limitations of travel on the suspension I think it was @Retroanaconda following me on a laning trip in the Lake District. We were going up a climb and the rear wheel kept dropping and dropping way further than a standard Defender setup would do. Once the suspension actually drooped out then the vehicle simply stopped bothering applying power to that wheel, every so often you could see it apply a bit of power and the moment it detected some traction and something under the wheel it applied power back to that wheel. I still own my Defender but sold the L322 a while back because I didn't really have the space for it (ironically I do now) but in standard setup the L322 knocks the socks off a Defender on the road and in the vast majority of situations off-road too, the main fallacies of it are tyres, width and weight. When I started taking my Range Rover off-road there were basically no options for an all-terrain tyre in 18 or 19". Fast forward 7 years and there's now a lot of options, so whilst they may not have the height of the side-wall the main gripe I had with the tyres was lack of side-wall protection - they were essentially road tyres with a chunky tread. Now BFG and Cooper are all manufacturing tyres with stronger sidewalls in these kinds of tyre sizes. Having the lower sidewall will be more pleasant most of the time on the road and then traction control / suspension designs will likely compensate when you go off-road (i.e. you won't need such a large sidewall because with the traction control you won't need to air down as much). If we move onto weight then you can see with the L322 -> L405 that Land Rover have done large leaps on that front shaving off almost half a tonne so now an L405 with all it's leather seats, 4.4l engine, air conditioning, infotainment, massaging seats etc is not far off what a 110 weighs. I wouldn't be surprised if the new Defender is lighter than the old. Now if you look at the width then the only major downside with this is that most tracks in GB (green-lanes, pay and play etc) are predominantly carved out by vehicles with Defender track widths. However for the vast majority of stuff the extra width will be more useful (more spacious cabin despite the sound deadening, insulation etc). I know I'm always peed off by the fact that a station wagon Defender's back-door is not full width, the saving grace is a Defender is a box so you can always pack a surprising amount of stuff in. If you're going off-road then I'd argue that unless you're always in narrow tracks then the extra width is a great stability boost. A simple comparison - Defender at ~70", the L322 and L405 are ~80" but then if you look at what is arguably one of the most capable off-road vehicles in the world (Shannon Campbell's Dragon Slayer) then that has been designed with an close to 90" track. So I wouldn't go knocking the extra width, after winning KoH three times I suspect Shannon know's a thing or two about building a capable off-road vehicle.

Well you've not made it worse then

I'd personally just get them blasted and pins replaced if that's a free option. You've got nothing to lose by doing it. If you can't leave the vehicle without them attached then you could always source another pair and still get yours blasted, serviced and painted. From what people have said nothing seems to last compared to the "old" Land Rover hinges. From some people I've spoken to my original 1994 hinges have less play in them than vehicles from the end of the production line.

Yeah but has he made it to work yet...

I've sent him a message to see if he has anything lying around in the yard.

Bob may have a motor lying around (tends to swap them out for hydraulic) so if it ever happens could swap bumper for motor?

If the windings aren't burnt out then chances are it's a simple fix. I'd try pulling it apart first and assessing the damage. Measure the impedance through the windings and you should get an ohm or two. You've got nothing to lose by it.

You sure it's working? The impacts suffer greatly if you have a loose fit, amazing how a snug fitting socket with no extensions changes things.