nicks90

i've noticed veg oil has gone up in price quite a lot at my local indian cash and carry... methinks they have cottoned on to all us yorkshire folk in landrovers turning up and buying 50l at a time in the past week

thats a fantastic fix! agreed that his alternator adjustment is crude, but that can be dealt with easily enough by getting some proper slidimg adjusters from something appropriate at a scrappies. i'll be going there anyway to get a leccy fan. many thanks folks and when i get around to it i promise to post pictures.

Viscous fan bearing is starting to get a bit noisy after 159k miles. But rather than the hassle of sourcing a new cover and removing crank pulley etc to replace it.... is it possible to fit a shorter serpentine belt and just not have that pulley turning at all and fit a leccy fan? Cheers for any advice Nick

no. sorry.

yep - overall duty wont change, its just the petrol stations will be really quiet next week :-) personally i dont mind this 'panic buying' too much. In a kinda strange way its better than the alternative. Panic buying now when there is fuel still being delivered from the depots means everyone will be running about with full tanks and the petrol stations will be restocked and full also. Thats better than panic buying when the strike starts and no fuel is being delivered from the depots!

it is quite frightening how much play there is in the system when you add up all the areas that can jiggle. splines into transfer box, 3 diffs, 4 splines into diffs 2 or 4 splines into drive members. as a test, lock your centre diff and put it in gear, then jack one front tyre and one rear tyre in the air and see how much play there is between the front and rear tyre when you rotate one of them. Quite scary.

i looked into this when i repainted my 90 CSW. only places i could find wanted £85 plus vat for the pair so i left the decals on when i repainted it, so that i would have a slight raised edge as a guideline. I then bought some quality black pin stripe tape and layed that on those raised edges and then (dont laugh) coloured in the "County" wording with permanent marker pen result was pretty bloody good if you ask me, and looks quite smart - although not original! apologies for it being black and white - forgot to reset the camera after taking some lunar shots last night.

i've always just tightened the inner up until i can feel the hub 'drag' and then loosen the nut off 1/4 turn until the 'drag' disappears. then bung the lock tab on and do the outer nut up tight. never had any problems doing them that way. one thing to note when doing it, you pack the bearings full of grease and do them in whatever method you decide to pick and then run them. the grease squeezes out of everywhere and within 10 miles they can feel loose. Hence why i always spin the hub as i;m tightening the nut so that the grease 'settles' around the bearing and race and you get a true seat whilst tightening them.

you have that one absolutely spot on. when people are sat in a queue for fuel over the next few days - and if the stike happens and fuel stocks run low - do you think average Joe is going to blame the govt or the truckers on strike? thats right, they'll be yelling at truckers and Unite for being **/@ers - and dont forget the govt will make sure that the press reports on average truck driver wages in the run up and over the strike (i beleive avg hgv driver earns more than the average national wage, so instantly they will alienate 50% of hte population who earn less than them). cameron et al may not be the brightest sparks in the world - but they are still canny political operators.

i'm going to go against what the others have said - and say upgrade your axles and fit lockers. you WILL go further with centre diff lock and front + rear lockers than you would with flappy suspension. Plus, whats the point in spending loads on suspension, when you might have to re-do it all to get the 35" tyres to fit?

as said above, us your transfer box. its all there and set up. get the engine and gearbox from the donor disco and the wiring loom from a defender and then start scratching your head - throwing bits around the garage - asking millions of questions on here - have fun!

local indian cash and carry to me is doing veg oil for 82ppl

Just a quick post to say - yet again - I have recieved excellent service from my local parts supplier, http://www.4xfortyone.co.uk/ I hate using big mailorder companies, its all very impersonal - you never know what brand you're going to get posted to you - you often get the wrong bits and it goes against my Yorkshireness to pay postage! So i always try and use my local suppliers and garages for any parts i need and for spannering when i cant do it or dont have time. Yet again, 4xfortyone has come up trumps after grenading a cv and shaft in my 90 yesterday. Quick phone call to them and i shall be picking up a bearmach cv joint and genuine landrover front long shaft (new take off) for the princely sum of £55 all in. Plus I can fit the parts this evening and not have to wait for delivery. Paddocks et al all wanted simillar money for britpart dross, whereas I am again supporting my local experts and local businesses and getting better quality parts too. If you live in or around Wakefield area, please support your local suppliers and dont buy rubbish from the internet! if this offends any online retailers, sorry Nick

Unless it s like mercedes wheel arches - paint looks fine but there is nothing but dust underneath..... Pick some of the underseal off and hope for the best before doing anything else.

Standard oem wins in my book. Best all round performance as designed by landrover. And if you do lots of high speed to full stop driving and towing, then possibly upgrade to 110 setup.

I put a set of greenstuff pads on my 90 and thought they were horrible. Either wooden or grabby when they were cold and driving in town, and when hot they performed no different to normal pads - which I put on a couple of months later!

Lol. Yep sure there will be plenty of 'mate of a mate bent his motor in half' stories. It ain't as strong as your average winch bumper, but should be stronger than a standard one. Sure i'll get a chance to test that at this weekends trial!

lol - i know its pretty pointless and i could have bought one much cheaper - but i keep bending standard ones, so hopefully a fully boxed one will survive a little better. Plus i built it cos i was bored and fancied making noise, sparks and flashing lights!

On a static test you shouldn't be able to hit the bump stop. If you could, imagine the ride 'quality' if you hit a significant bump at a ny speed? You'd be bounced into outer space!

I would expect a remould to be taller than the stated size, especially something like a simex clone. If the stated carcass size is 32.8inches and you add on 18mm tread depth (times 2) then you should be be knocking on 35 inches tall when new. I personally think thats why there is some real disparity in overall tyre sizes, as i'm sure some manufacturers think overall tyre size inc. Tread should be the stated size, whereas others will use a carcass of the stated size then add tread depth to that. Not an issue really on road cars with road treads - but very important when you can be having 1.5" of tread across the diameter of the tyre.

Ermmmm. Didn't see much there other than that end section that would have challenged any 90 on normal muds.....

i didnt mention i dropped the fekker on my foot and have now got a black nail on my big toe and broken the toe next to it (which has now swollen to the size of my big toe)...

As I had a day off unexpectedly today and nothing much planned, decided to make a new bumper for my 90. currently its got a home made tubular bumper and a winch on the front - but i havent used the winch in over 2 years since i fried the solenoids. So pointless having it on the front, might as well sell the winch and make a new bumper with better approach angles. as ir happened i had a length of 75mm x 75mm 3mm thick box section lying about and plenty of 2.5mm welding rods, thought i would amuse myself! cut the box section up a bit and used some of it to make 4 tabs, top and bottom for the bumper bolts to go through (still need to drill the holes for these) and then round off the ends and box them up. Quick coat of primer and then some black paint and its done! Please dont critique the welding too much, I know it aint the best. But my arc welding isnt as good as my mig and i dont have any gas for the mig at the moment.

Same with the federal couragia mt... lovely looking tyre at a good price (when converting from dollars).

Probably not. Certainly not an objective one anyway. Difficulty is that retread carcasses can vary, such as a light truck carcass being very stiff against a 4x4 tyre carcass. So when its made into a retread you can get varying results when you use the tyre to its extreme - like aired down to 5psi on a rocky side slope. So it all depends on what carcasses where used for the retread. So you would get more consistency with a simex at least. However you then get the argument about rubber compounds and the size of the gaps in the tread etc. Noone is gonna spend £1000 and then say they're rubbish..........and people who spend £600 are always going g to try and justify what they bought is cheaper AND better than a simex.