nicks90

on a side note to my paint request - i actually like my defender county side decals that run across the doors and down the rear sides of the tub. Any idea where is can get some new ones?

fridge, you say you got all 4 for £220 - is that including postage and the dreaded import taxes as well?

when you fitted the paras - did you leave all the nuts loose and take it for a quick spin to allow everything to settle before torquing them all up? If not, there is the chance you have nipped up a bush with the springs on full extension and its all bound up.

the bit about back pressure saving turbo bearings is a red herring i;m afraid. If your turbo is set up to produce 18psi, then you will have a pressure differential across the turbine of X psi on the exhaust side to produce 18 psi on the inlet side of the impellor. (reason i say X psi is because there are efficiency losses in a turbo, its never 100%). At maximum boost, you are still having to create the same pressure differential across the exhaust turbine to spin the intake impellor fast enough to create 18 psi in the inlet. So for every bit of back pressure your exhaust creates in the system, the pressure on the exhaust manifold side of the turbo has to increase by an identical amount to overcome it.

i think your pump must be tired - chap in our club recently changed teh washer jets on his rangie for the front bumper jets off a disco and its an absolute deluge when he squirts them.

well i have finally managed to source some replacement wings for my truck - but they aint the right colour. So my 90 is going to be epsom green, with a plum coloured roof, red door and 2 mismatched wings. Plus every panel has a miriad of scratches. so its time to repaint the thing. I;m going to do it by hand, with the gloss roller and paint brush method mentioned many times on various forums and on here. But my question is, who is the best supplier for coach enamel types paints and what is the code of epsom green - as i would like to keep it that colour? cheers Nick

i'd be tempted to just put on some standard 90 springs and see how it goes. at least that will give you a nice baseline if you fancy tweaking the ride height and stiffness with some different springs later on.

just thinking out loud - but why cant you fit disco / rangie classic springs to a 90 to get a much nicer and softer ride? both of them are heavier than a 90 and i believe they all use the same anti roll bars front and rear as well. So theoretically you could fit them and it would work, as discos and range rovers dont fall over all the time - so in principle it would be safe on a 90. Looking at the figures... D90 front 175lbs/inch and 15" long NRC9446 disco front 150lbs/inch and 17" long NRC4305 D90 rear 225lbs/inch and 14.8" long NRC9449 disco rear 155/215lbs/inch and 15.3" long NRC8044 So you shouldnt actually lose any ride height either, as the drop in spring rate is offset by the longer spring. In fact i am pretty sure the gap between the bumpstop and axle bump pad on a disco is the same as a defender anyway, so it should sit 'normally'. Combined with decent uprated shocks (or twin shocks) and good ARBs front and rear - would make it quite nice. Would imagine you would lose some payload capacity though. Would a 10-15% drop in spring rate make it ride like a rangerover on air springs though? Narrrr. but might make it more comfy though. Nick

maybe a dense question - but why cant you fit a standard short nosed 4 pin diff from a p38 straight into the standard axle and just use a spacer on the prop to account for the difference in nose length?

hmmm, having a closer gleg at them pictures, why do i get the horrible feeling this is a defender that had a rotten chassis and it was replaced by the previous owner by chopping up a used disco chassis and they painted it with shiny metallic paint to make it look like a 'new like for like' replacement chassis? either way, vehicles identity is now very much in question. As a disco chassis would be classed as a disco on the V5. Plus a disco chassis wont fit under a defender without some butchery - and therefore be classed as a radically altered and need an IVA/Q plate

whatever happened to that chap on here who was putting on a single point injection from a VW (i think) to his series petrol? The one with the plastic chopping board cut up as a spacer to the manifold???

this intrigued me so i did a quick search on some aus yota sites i occassionally browse and i would appear the lexus V8 will bolt up to the petrol 80 series auto box. I think its the 4.4 amazon? Means all the shifts points would be about right too and the tranny outputs are in the right position.

i would have tempted to build a little ramp for the left hand wheels and given it some 'beans' to clear the hole.

how big a tank do you need? I have seen the tank from a mini used before and it fitted nice and neat and easy behind the drivers bulkhead.

i would be rather more inclined to use some heavy duty vinyl/rubber flooring, like the stuff they use in shops. Pretty much bomb proof, stain proof and easy to clean. and if you do happen to put a hole in one, pull that tile up and replace it.

i would love to do a disco2 for general road/greenlaning and RTVs, you can fit decent sized rubber under the arches without cutting too much - as the wheel arches are bigger than a D1. Decent front and rear HD bumpers can be had from many places now and same goes for sliders. Also, dont ditch the ACE system. Under 10mph (i think) it is not active, so you get full wheel travel offroad and still have exceptional anti roll bar system on road, plus they dont 'flip' like conventional arbs when flexed on a lifted truck. Add a centre diff lock lever and combined with the traction control, makes it a brilliant performer in the slippy stuff. ps, altering the steering lock is not as easy on the D2 axles. Instead of adjustable nut/bolt system that you find on defenders, they have 2 cast metal tabs - effectively setting the turning circle with nothing you can do about it. However a few minutes with a grinder and you can adjust it

when i made my exhaust, i painted the whole thing in high temp anti rust BBQ paint. If it copes with the temps of a BBQ then it will cope with an exhaust clamp. stuff i used was B&Q own brand in matt black. 4 years later my butchered exhaust is still black and rust free.

problem with those is they do nothing until your engine has warmed up. Once the engine is warm, the injection pump and injector pipes are already hot and preheat the oil to a certain extent as it passes through. So although one would be nice, i still want something to warm the fuel up from engine start. I might invest in a second heater from fatty wagons and have both, have to see....

hi folks, my 300tdi currently runs on a mix of veg oil and dinodiesel, using an electric heating system from fattywagons (http://www.fattywagons.com/fwproducts.htm). Basically all it is is a resistor wire fully insulated that is wrapped/taped to the metal pipes from the IP to the injectors. Idea is that it heats the metal pipes up and therefore heats the veg oil inside the pipes before it gets squirted into the cylinders. Seems to work well, as the flow rate of fuel in those pipes is quite low and it gets a good chance to heat up before being injected. having cracked off a pipe to an injector, i can confirm that the fuel is quite hot! however, as much as this seems to work well - it doesnt really solve the issue of cold veg oil trying to be forced through the fuel filter and injection pump. What i was thinking of doing was relocating this heating wire to the fuel pipe that goes into the fuel filter and also along the pipe from the fuel filter to the injection pump. Both appear to be a sort of hard shiny plastic stuff and i have no idea what sort of heat these pipes can cope with before they go soft and melt. Anyone got any ideas on the specs for these pipes? other alternative is to use very thin ally sheet and bend it round the fuel filter and wrap / insulate the heater wire round that to make a heated fuel filter. But again i have no idea what heat the fuel filter will cope with before the glues start to melt. any help would be appreciated, Nick

standard defender front springs are actually classed as disco H/D fronts by landrover themselves. defender rear springs are also good HD option for discos too. 225lbs/inch i believe, so should firm it up nicely. I fitted my standard defender springs on my old 200tdi disco and it lifted it about an inch and it was noticeably firmer. edited to add as Q-rover so rightly pointed out - defender 90 springs......

i see visions of a £500 vitara sitting on your drive shortly. Cant beat them for a cheap as chips greenlaner, expecially hte 1.6 16v as its quite a peppy little engine.

td5 every time. Its like chalk and cheese to compare the two! Early td5 will not be much more £££ than a late tdi - both will be rotten, both will have their foibles and need tinkering with. So might as well get one that is much nicer to drive and much more powerful. dont be put off with the electrics and gubbins on the td5, it is easily fixable by the home mechanic. The only thing you cant do is reset the ecu of fault codes, but that aint the end of the earth. Get it chipped, or a dastek unichip on it and the thing really flies and will return over 30mpg on a manual. Be aware of the massive road tax hike on anything but early td5, so earlier disco 2 motors are more sought after than 02-03 plate models and their price reflects this.

yes it does,

alternatively - unbolt manifold from the block and unbolt down pipe from the turbo and remove. Then spend hours and hours trying to extract broken manifold studs out of the head and drilling out the 3 snapped bolts from the turbo to downpipe flange....

talking of that thread - lara never finished off posting the piccies of the rebuild....