Turbocharger

I've challenged with my Ninety, full hard top and a Milemarker (though it does have a cage). I found that if you enter with a plan to play safe, have a laugh, you'll enjoy it. If you want to bring trophys home, you'll want to push the truck harder and that means risking damage. I bent the rear crossmember a little and put a dent in the hardtop when I pushed a little harder, but I was willing to take the chance each time. Nothing prevents you stopping short and saying "I don't want to break the truck". At the end of the day, it depends why you're doing it - I was only really competing against myself, and that took the pressure off.

I can't see that the valves would make it stop as quickly as if it'd been switched off. It must be something on the fuel side. Put a smear of grease around all the banjos and fittings on the low pressure side, on the injector pump and the injectors, see if it's drawing air somewhere. If you decide the FIP is at fault then I'll happily take it off you for spares?

If it stops "as if it's been switched off" then that's where I'd look. If it was bad enough to be stopped by air in the fuel, poor compression, valve clearance or a kitten boxing the airbox I'd expect it'd splutter a bit first. The solenoid is the first place I'd go - keep an eye on the voltage at the spade connector while it runs?

I borrowed an air hacksaw, it's my new best friend Two (slightly untidy) holes cut, looks like the intercooler will fit without hitting the headlights and I can see a route to piping it up too.

My radiused curves didn't work as well as I'd hoped, but my metallic thuggery has delivered an intercooler-sized gap in roughly the right place - see pics from outside, and from inside the wing looking towards the headlight aperture. However, cutting the hole has blunted my holesaw (which may or may not have been suitable for the task) so I now have to repeat the job on the other side, ideally without removing the wing and cooling pack. It's not pretty but I'm thinking of my angle grinder...

http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopic=78340 It covers UK too, though you need to call their contact centres in Germany or France first. Have a read of JasonG4's experience in the thread linked above.

ADAC, no question. Under £100, European cover, any car.

Pulling up an old thread here, but I think I'm fitting exactly the same intercooler to my Tdi at the moment. It's 'kin huge, so needs to chop into the inner wings and avoid the headlight bowls. The issue I've found is that there's a folded ally bracket inside the wing. Could/should I just chop out the space that I need - and if so, how? I've used a hole-saw to create a radiused curve, I'll do the same at the bottom and then make two straight cuts between them to form a slot - but the strengthening bracket will still be in the way. Thoughts?

"one of the subjects in which I was in the bottom three". Michael, approach the front desk!

Steve Hill gets decent reviews, there used to be a guy just beyond Brislington P&R on the A4 towards Keynsham too, though I've never used either. For bits, I wouldn't go anywhere other than Christian Autos on Hanham Rd in Kingswood, east end of the High St. Pete is a gentleman and leads on customer service rather than price - which usually means it's cheaper in the long run!

The code on a serpentine belt describes the number of grooves, profile and its length - something like 6PK17 is a 6 groove belt with a PK profile, 1700mm long. Not sure if the same thing works for plain V belts though?

With the 5-degree cant on the rungs I'd say they're geodesic - loving the structural approach to the rungs as well, I think that's a well thought-out product. They still look heavy though - I'd love to see the same thing with more, lighter rungs to really get the weight out. (I don't love the idea enough to get some steel myself, mind... )

What have you got, what have you used? I understand that soundproofing needs to do three things: separate sources of noise, reduce transmission and add damping. The latter two add weight too, which isn't ideal but generally can't be avoided. I've just used some cheap underseal to coat the inside of a Defender door skin, but the solvent had evaporated as it dried to leave a lightweight coating which doesn't damp vibration as well as I'd hoped. I'd really like something which will foam up as it's applied for maximum isolation. I want to coat the inside of the doorskins, the front arch liners and the underside of the rear wheelboxes. Product recommendations well received!

Dad, Caching is easy, press the 'sheets of paper' icon on the top right, then 'select areas for download'. It helps if you zoom out a bit first so you can see the whole area you're requesting. Pick the maximum zoom you want (this is the detail vs file size decision) and then leave it chuntering away on Wifi. When my tablet "became broken" on our last Spanish trip, we ended up downloading 400MB of maps over the free wifi in a foreign McDonalds somewhere...

The V8 ZFs certainly got the bottle-brush type here (no cooler on UK R380s AFAIK), and that's what I'm using - though mine's a mongrel install anyway. It's worked fine so far, but I think I'll follow the advice and get a matrix-type cooler while it's apart. The aircon condenser I have is tempting but probably not really suitable, and might overcool it once I'm back in the UK anyway. I don't have aircon on the truck, nor a roofrack as standard and I'm not wild about putting something up there where UK branches would tear it apart quite quickly.

Boydie - you say your oil lines got too hot to touch on the Anne Beadell with the standard cooler - do you mean a radiator-style matrix cooler, or the bog brush one like in the foreground of my photo above?

This is rather running away with itself. I took a wing off to fit the cooler I have in stock, then discovered that the stock item is a aircon condenser, and rather larger than I'd remembered. Am I being entirely ridiculous in considering piping it up as an oil cooler? It'll be rated for pressure well enough but the matrix might restrict the flow ... Though its sheer size would offset that. Can the box be overcooled? Otherwise there's a P38 cooler on ebay which has a temperature switch. I don't currently have any monitoring beyond one of Dave Ashcroft's temperature strips as linked above, though I've not been for a run with it fitted yet.

That looks like Biggin Quarry to me, on the A515?

I'll be there, but only 2WD for the car park.

I don't understand why anyone would be messing about with rooting etc so they can use maps which cost money in Memory Map, when they're available for free via a $10 app on Android - Backcountry Navigator? I've got it on my phone and my tablet, and I cache the maps I need before I leave home (or use McDonalds Wifi in France )

I've got one of his earliest gauges, I think it's an industrial fridge display, just a 3x 7-segment LED readout. The individual numbers change quickly but if it's moving 67x - 68x - 69x etc quickly then that tells you enough really!

I've got the Madman system, I use it to run more fuel than I'd normally be 'allowed' for a safe state of tune, but I also accept it's my fault if I melt anything.

Ahem. We were looking for someone to fill a passenger seat on our Morocco trip (see other thread). Due to an intervening MOT inspection, and frankly I can't disagree with the tester, it's best that we don't take the 70% of the chassis which was remaining on my mate's Ninety. He'd still like to join the trip so we're now looking for someone with a truck who'd like to split the cost of the adventure. I'm guessing somewhere around £2k per car, but we have a ready-made companion to share that cost with you.

Looking at that eBay gauge, I'd suggest the scale looks better than its utility in real life. A bit like a fuel gauge, most of the scale is "for interest", it only becomes important between 600 and 900 degrees C. I don't like to take mine over 725'C, it'd be easy to slip to 750 or even 800'C on a little 52mm gauge like that, unless it has an alarm too?

Have you considered driving somewhere that the vehicle actually fits?