Tanuki

If you hear any odd gurgling/swooshing/whining noises from the fuel-pump before you start the engine - do the standard TD5 "fuel-system-prime" process a couple of times before trying to start it. [Air/combustion-gases or other 'trapped wind' in the fuel system will prevent a clean start]. And get the injector copper-washers checked. It's a *lot* cheaper than having to drop the fuel-tank and pay out £300+ for a new fuel-pump. Leaky injector-seals don't do the fuel pump any good at all.

I think it's something aroubd 65-70% Glycol, as other posters have said. Increasing the Glycol concentration also increases the boiling-point of the mix - up to around 75% Glycol. Back in my old days of rallying Ford Escorts a 75% glycol mix and a 16PSI radiator-cap would let your bulk-coolant-temperature go up to around 120 Centigrade without problems.

"They all do that, sir". It's the effect of the variable-geometry turbo doing its thing.

If the turbo's seals have gone and dumped oil into the intercooler, then the engine may not idle nicely - the airflow will be sucking random quantities of oil from the intercooler and this oil will be randomly supplementing the combustion in random cylinders. Take the intercooler off and flush it through with Diesel to remove any oil/bits-of-broken-turbo-rotor. Then dry it inside thoroughly with compressed air. The engine should still start/run with the intercooler removed - if it still sounds like a bag of nails only then do you need to investigate further.

If the alternator's dishing out 100 amps at 12 volts (because you've drained the battery for whatever reason) then that's 1.2 Kilowatts - assuming the alternator is 100% efficient. In practice it's probably more like 70% efficient - so to get 100A@12V out you'll need more like 1.5 to 2 Kilowatts of power put in via the pulley. That's a hell of alot of grunt to transmit via an old-style V-belt. It's one of the reasons the auto-industry swapped to the serpentine poly-vee belts a couple of decades back. (other reasons being longer life and less noise).

The whole point of "torque-to-yield" bolts [the kind you first do up to a torque-value then add so many degrees] is that rhe bolts stretch in a controlled way. This stretchiness provides a much more-uniform and repeatable clamping force - which persists through innumerable heat-cycles. As an analogy: if you keep your underwear in place using a belt whose tightness you set at the beginning of the year, it cannot compensate for the day-to-day changes in your waistline. Elastic, OTOH, reliably stops your pants falling-down when you breathe out. I like torque-to-yield fasteners. The automotive industry should make more use of them. --Tanuki.

IMHO it all depends on how much you value your time. How long will it take to fix-up your rotted chassis to the standard of a galvanised new-replacement ? And wouldn't you rather be doing something else? Or working overtime to raise the money to buy said new chassis? [i generally 'value' my time at £30/hour - that's what I generally charge people for doing casual 'work' in my non-work hours - but only if the work interests me! Boring work gets charged at 'deterrent' prices.] Also, if you're going into the game of chopping-out and replacing large sections of metal, you're probably going to need to construct a jig or something similar to make sure the combined structural-weakening of cutting out metal and the heating/distorting-effect of the welding doesn't leave you with an interestingly twisted chassis that's an inch longer on one side than the other. [You may laugh - until you come to try fitting the doors]. --Tanuki.

If you need to tow any LR product to get it to start, something's ++wrong. They don't tow them to start them off the production-line. I'd suggest doing the stock fuel-system purge-cycle 2 or 3 times. If it won't start after that you have a deeper underlying problem that needs solving before you make any further attempts to start it. --Tanuki.

If you have been wading recently you could have got wter in the starter motor: either the rotor is rusting to the casing, or there is corrosion thats causing the brushes to stick or something. Sounds like you ned to pull the starter and do a bench stripdown.

Having been in the same situation a year or so back, I bit the bullet and bought a set of gas-filled Bilsteins. IMHO they were a spectacularly worth-it investment in that they totally cured the self-changing-lanes effect previously experienced when passing buses/articulated-trucks at 80MPH, and made fast-towing the big flatbed trailer a lot more acceptable too. One hint: when refitting dampers, there's a tendency for the body of the thing to rotate when you're tightening the nuts. My quick solution: put on a new rubber-glove: it will give you a much better grip on the damper-body! --Tanuki

If you really nail the brake-pedal, you should be able to lock all 4 wheels on any non-ABS vehicle. Check the discs - they should all be uniformly-shiny over their whole surface-area on all four wheels. If not, you've got a sticking caliper. You say you're using 'off-brand' pads: replace them with proper Mintex/Ferodo/Delphi-branded ones, follow the specified bed-in process [generally gentle driving for the first 50 miles then a series of repeated hard stops from high-speed] and see how it goes.

Check the wheel bearings: if they are slack or worn then 'excessive' loads can cause the disc to be deflected, pushing the brake-pads/pistons further back into the caliper than normal. Then it can take a "pump" of the brakes to push the pistons back to the point where the pads actually contact the discs.

I'll be interested to hear what the actual failure was caused by: Could the "ticking" have been the crank-pulley coming loose on the nose of the crank and mashing-up the keyway? You wouldn't be the first to have had this happen.

The problem with towing-dolly things and A-frames is that they are unbraked: here in the UK an unbraked trailed-load must not exceed 750Kg (except where it is being used to recover a disabled vehicle to a place of safety). How much does a S3 weigh? What is the rated towing-limit for an unbraked trailer on your RR? Be aware that the German/French police are seriously trigger-happy when they see a 'foreign' vehicle they think might be breaking some obscure local regulation. Get it a bit wrong and they'll impound your vehicles until you can prove you're legal. I'd suggest a proper twin-axle, braked flatbed-trailer - but again look at the gross-train-weight you'll be towing and check that your UK driving-licence classes allow you to tow such a load in Europe.

Is it the motor? I'd rather bet that it's either that the bundy-tube-and-wire that connects the motor to the wiper-wheelboxes is full of rust rather than grease, or that the wheelboxes themselves are seizing. The wheelboxes in particular are a spectacularly bad design: a 'monkey-metal' aluminium alloy tube that fits through the bulkhead with a steel shaft running inside it - and no way to keep it properly lubricated. Once water gets in the gap between the spindle and the outer part, electrolytic corrosion sets in and the whole lot binds up irreversibly.

Possibilities: Fuel-filter blocked (either the canister one or the strainer on the end of the pick-up pipe in the tank). Fuel-pump on the way out. Oil in injector/ECU harness. Internally de-laminating turbo-hose blocking airway. Injector copper-washers leaking. My first step would be to change the canister fuel-filter, and do half-a-dozen fuel-system-prime cycles. If the fuel-pump continues to be more-than-usually-audible after all the air's been purged, then I suspect your bank-account is about to feel some pain. --Tanuki.

Definitely fit a plug & socket so you can easily remove the light-bar. A friend fitted a bolt-on "flashing strobe beacons" recovery-vehicle type light-bar to his Discovery for an exercise. After 24 hours of ministering to the 'casualties' provided, it was 03:00 and he was really rather tired and hungry. He headed for the 24-hour-opening McDonalds drive-thru he knew locally. Which had a height-restriction barrier. Exit one light-bar. The creases and scars on the Disco's roof left the lease-company unimpressed - he had to pay around a £3K damage/condition penalty when he gave the car back.

If the system is in good order (always been kept with the right antifreeze concentration, and any topping-up's been done with clkean water) then it shouldn't need flushing. Easy way to drain the system is to park facing downhill, then detach the bottom radiator-hose and one of the small pipes that connect to the heater unit on the bulkhead. Remove the filler-cap and watch the gurgling! So long as what comes out is clear (and doesn't contain rust or anything gritty) you'll be OK. Then reconnect the pipes and refill with an appropriate quantity of 50/50 antifreeze and water. Your biggest problem is likely to be getting all the air-locks out when it's refilling. Remember to use the right antifreeze though: it's not recommended to mix 'classic' blue Glycol and modern red Organic Acid Technology (OAT) antifreeze.

Definitely time for new discs/calipers/pads. The 'spackle' pattern on the non-rusty part of the disc shows that the pad's not been applying much in the way of uniform pressure - suggesting that the caliper is really rather sticky. Chances are the pistons are corroded on the bit that's been exposed, so they won't slide back in easily. [You should never need to resort to tyre-levers G-clamps or big screwdrivers to push the pistons back in: if, after loosening the bleed nipple to let the displaced fluid out, you can't push the pistons using a six-inch screwdriver, they're binding and it's time for either a strip/rebuild or a replacement].

Thanks for the info guys - hadn't realised you could get end-on access. It doesn't sound like it will be such a horrible task after all. New park-switch is here, just waiting for the weekend . My initial looking made me think that it could turn out to be one of these horrible instances where the production-line started by taking a wiper-motor and then assembling a Land-Rover around it ! --Tanuki

The wiper self-park function on my 2001 Defender has stopped working - meaning the intermittent wipe doesn't, and when using the wipers in normal-mode they stop instantly you switch them off. How easy is it to get to the motor? I know it's *somewhere* on the left hand side of the dashboard, under the plastic moulding that has the scuttle air-vents and stuff in it. Looks like taking this moulding off to access the motor is a truly horrible task - is it possible to get to the motor any other way (like through the hole the left side loudspeaker fits in?) --Tanuki.

What mileage has it done in that six months, to have consumed 4 litres of oil? First things I'd check are the various crankcase-breathers, and whether the oil is the right grade: someone might have filled it with 0W30 or something similarly daft.

Spitting back through carb/exhaust sounds like you've got ignition taking place on the intake- or exhaust-strokes.- check that you've put all the HT leads back on in the right sequence! It's easy to do, trust me. I once managed to reassemble a V8 with all the HT leads sequentially 'off by one', which took several flattened batteries to identify.

Could be a load of things: Underinflated tyres; Dragging brakes; Failed coolant temperature sensor; Thermostat stuck open; Collapsed catalyst or exhaust-baffles; Failed Lambda-sensors. First thing I'd do is get the engine fault-codes read. --Tanuki.

The 15/16/17ACR type are considered obsolete. Better to go for a Lucas A127/A133 or - my preference - a Bosch K1-55, which fits the same mountings and gives you 55 amps. These were specified for 1980s/1990s Ford Escorts/Transits/Sierras so should be easily available from your local motor-factors. If you really want to go heavy-duty a Bosch K1-70 will give you 70 amps, but that's going to be pushing it if you want to stick with a single-belt drive - you'll need bearing-life-shortening levels of belt tension and it'll 'twitter' when charging hard after a cold start. Whatever, you need to make sure the wiring is up to it - you need a paralleled-pair of thick brown cables from the two big terminals on the alternator direct to the battery + terminal to handle the output. The small terminal on the output-plug is the warning-light.