Tanuki

Yes, that "fibrous material" is probably stressed controlled-deformation cellular composite - precisely what I would hope /expect to find in the underlying platform of any third-millennium 4x4. It's there to yield in a collision and absorb the energy of the impact - so my legs/pelvis don't have to absorb the loads. I **want** my cars to be squashy-and-deformable! Because as an ageing mammal I'm a lump of flesh who is day-by-day becoming not-so-squashy-and-deformable. Cars are cheap; I'm expensive. I'll enthisiastically accept a car that's full of crumple-zones airbags safety-restraints and deformation-areas if it means I can walk away from crash. I only get one life; I can pay for loads of cars.

They'll fit, yes - but you need to adjust the steering-travel-stops on either side of the front axle in order to limit the amount of 'turn'. See: http://defender90xs.blogspot.com/2013/11/steering-lock-stop-adjustment.html This will stop your tyre-against-metal-fouling problem [which will otherwise give you an instant fail at MoT-time], but it will also make your already-poor turning-circle even worse!

Neither does the "New Defender" ! All the features I mentioned are standard in a £25K (or, rather, £250-a-month on a 3-year PCP) car these days. In the 21st century I don't want to buy the automotive equivalent of a house with no double-glazing, no central-heating and an outside toilet.

It was too late arriving on the market, though it has all the features [airbags, decent intelligent ABS/traction-control, proper structural rigidity/crash-survivability, NVH-suppression, aircon-that-actually-works, heated seats/mirrors, reversing cameras] you'd expect to find as standard in a 21st-century car. But too-late-to-market. I'm replacing my 2001 90TD5 CSW with a Toyota Landcruiser!

I don't see it as brand-realignment, more an honest recognition of market-realignment. "Normal" car-buyers today expect certain levels of functionality: it doesn't leak, it has air-conditioning/reversing-cameras/airbags/roll-over-protection/side-impact-bars/ABS/traction-control along with a decent radio/satnav/phone-integration. Infinitely-adjustable, comfortable seats, electrically-heated-windscreen-defrost and electric mirrors? Sure! It seems to me that a lot of the naysayers here are the sort of types who would have said in times-past "You really don't *need* a TV/fridge/washing-machine/dishwasher/central-heating/indoor-plumbing/electric-lighting in your house! Having one bath a week in a tub in front of a coal-fire in the living-room is surely enough? And those crazy antibiotics? Surely you should just die of tuberculosis/pleurisy/syphilis like my ancestors did?" I for one rejoice in progress, whether it applies to cars, houses or medicine. OK, my 'Progress-from-the-Defender' path is to follow the Zen-of-Toyota... but TBH it's crazy to denigrate JLR for including in their new Defender the sorts of things we've come to expect as part of a basic car.

It looks interesting - not so sure about the odd styling of the half-blanked-out side windows though? What's that all about?? It's not elegant. A bit too late for me though - I've decided to defect and go the LWB Landcruiser "Commercial" route.

While you've got it in bits, consider replacing the clutch [full 3-part kit] and replacing the release-arm with one of the reinforced variety. It's a job that's a lot easier to do when the engine/transmission's not in the vehicle.

Agree on what's been said about the cam: I've seen a V8 which had half the valves with only about 0.2 inch lift, which made it totally gutless even though it ran beautifully smoothly! Also worth checking is the centrifugal advance/retard on the distributor: Engine heat hardens the grease over the decades and can be sufficient to glue the mechanism in the retarded position which will make the engine feel very 'numb' over about 2500RPM.

I'd really not suggest bonnet-mounting, unless you also spend serious money on a robust and lockable 'prop' to keep that 50+ Kilograms of wheel supported while the bonnet's open and you're fossicking-about below... Can you not flat-mount the spare in the back? I'm always instinctively minded to stash heavy-stuff as low-as-possible in the vehicle's weight-envelope, if only because when you need to swerve and you're cruising at 75MPH you don't need to engage with the sway-and-lurch issues of unnecessarily-high-mounted weight.

I'd do as you have, and see if there exists a magnetic sump-drain-plug option for your engine, which - *if* the fragment has gone inside the crankcase - would hopefully catch it. Having seen the lumps-of-stuff from the bottom of crankcases of engines that have been running-normally-for-ages: bits of timing-chain/segments-of-timing-gears [Ford Essex V4/6es were prone to shedding these like confetti], washers, valve-collets, sheared-off ends-of-valve-springs - my instinct is that your fragment will probably settle into the sludge in the bottom of the sump, where it could live for decades without troubling you.

JLR are in the business of building/selling new vehicles. As such, their interest in what happens to those vehicles when they're 5, 10, 15 years old and onto their second, third, fourth owners [and haven't seen a JLR-franchised-dealer workshop for a service for ages...] is not a large part of their business-model. I can totally understand their mindset here, in that they're not making any money from such legacy vehicles. For reference, the average age of a UK car at scrappage in 2015 reached 13.9 years.. It was 6.8 years in 2003. [Source: https://www.smmt.co.uk/industry-topics/sustainability/average-vehicle-age/ ]

What about calling them Defender3.0 ?? Defender 1.0 - Original versions with petrol engines or mechanical-injection Diesels (TD, 200/300TDi) Defender 2.0 - Those with electronic engine-management/controls (TD5/TDCi) Defender 3.0 - These new ones.

TD5-onwards Defenders have a semi-decent soundproofing of the bulkhead, the footwells, the seat-boxes and transmission-tunnel. Can you perhaps replicate this? Remember that a lot of the noise is radiated from the bellhousing/gearbox/transfer-box, and the big silencer-box that sits under the passenger-seat. Soundproofing on the underside of the bonnet is worthwhile - a lot of noise is radiated that way, where it then comes in through the windscreen and the vent-flaps. [to prove it, listen to the engine with the bulkhead air-vent flaps open, then close them and see how the noise-level reduces. Aim to make this better] I noticeably improved the [relative] quietness of my TD5 by attaching some thin 'cow mat' rubber to the insides of the vent-flaps, as well as replacing the rubber seals round the flap-edges so they actually made an air/noise-tight seal.

I see the historic Defender marketspace as having split two (or three) ways in this century. 1] Off-road farmer/estate-vehicles like the Deere Gator and Kawasaki Mule. Or even the Dacia Stepway 4x4! Ideal for dragging bales out to your flock on the hill or taking feed to the pheasants on your shoot but you wouldn't want to do a 300-mile motorway journey in one. 2] The 'Utility' pickup-market (where the old truck-cab, pickup and HCPU Defenders lived) - now occupied by the VW Amarok, Fiat Fullback, Toyota Hilux, Ford Ranger, Mitsubishi L200 and in some cases the 'microtrucks' like the Mitsubishi Fuso. My local forestry-people have released their 130 HCPU Defender and replaced it with a Fuso. 3] Middle-class multipurpose vehicles: Mitsubishi PHEV, Toyota Landcruiser or RAV4 and the assortment of Mercedes/BMW/Audi equivalents. For people who can't quite afford a Range-Rover, Mercedes G-Wagen or a Lexus RX. I'd see "Defender 3.0" straddling these last two classes - if it could combine the ruggedness of the second class [and be tax-efficient as a commercial vehicle] with the upmarket features and image of the third class, yes I'd go for it. Bubbling-under, Mr. Ineos and his "Projekt Grenadier" seems to fit in between my first and second categories. I don't see it as being a big seller in the 'sophisticated' UK/EU/US markets, who have rightfully come to expect a reasonable degree of creature-comforts and features! OK it may sell in the third-world where people can accept a car with no satnav or air-conditioning, but that sector's been dead in the first-world since the turn of this millennium.

For the oil-cooler pipes, a lot of agricultural/plant-workshops will make them up for you on the spot, using proper swageing machines and 'professional'-quality parts, at a not-too-horrific price. (Agricultural fitters are always under time-pressure but right now, with harvest in full-swing, might not be the best time to ask for a pipe to be made up - their minds are more focussed on that big harvester that's just blown a line and is costing someone £1000/hour in downtime)

The wing/bonnet-lines I rather like - at least there are flat surfaces for antenna-mounting (which is something you can~t do with a 'clamshell' style bonnet). The one shown in the photo appears to have totally-opaque rear door glass/side windows. '"Commercial" version???

As Gazzar noted, the traditional Defender has buggerall strength in the body when compared to a Disco1/2 or RRC or pretty much any equivalent SUV/truck. This is one of the major reasons for Defenders giving such awful occupant-protection in collisions. The rigidity's all in the chassis, none in the body. Look at a Defender from the side - apart from the bulkhead-mounting outriggers and the tubes that stick-out the sides of the chassis ahead of the rear wheels, there is essentially zero structure there to protect you against a side-impact. Front-on, the bumper and front-chassis-irons mean there's no crumple-zone if you hit something, either. Then there's roll-over safety - or rather, there isn't roll-over safety because the roof/screen/door-pillars are just thin aluminium pressings. To make a Defender rigid-in-the-right-ways and deformable-in-the-right-ways you'd need to add rigidity down the sides of the sills - link the bulkhead-outriggers to the tube-ahead-of-the-rear-wheels, strengthen the hinge- and lock-mountings and put proper side-impact beams in the doors. Preferably also drop the seat-boxes and footwells down so they then sit within the reinforced 'sills' rather than above them (that's not a new idea - Hudson did it with their "Step-down" body-on-frame construction in the early-50s!). From an occupant-safety PoV the Defender is a total nightmare.

The corrosion on the aluminium bits (and the rust on the out-of-focus turbo) makes me think the engine's been sat for quite a while; Where did it come from?? Do you know that it ran properly beforehand? Blowing-back through the inlet is worrying! #1 thing I'd be doing is a compression-test.

Electric has its place - for small, slow city-cars - but even there it has issues: a friend has a Tesla and when you're in summer-on-the-M25 traffic for a couple of hours with the aircon going full-blast, or stuck in stop-start snow with the heater on full-power in winter, it really guzzles battery-power. I could use a battery-car for around 50% of my journeys (I have 3-phase here so an overnight charge of 150KWh is not a problem) but for longer journeys the need to hang around a charging-station for half an hour is a real offputter when compared to the "Energy-bandwidth" of the fast-fill HGV Diesel pumps. Though I must give Tesla some credit for producing an electric-car that has want-one-on-my-drive aspirational styling, not something horribly-geeky like the Honda Insight! As to the Bollinger, I'd *hope* it was built using modern weight-saving composite construction [think lots of honeycomb-cellular carbon-fibre and magnesium/aluminium alloy for weight-saving to offset the heavy batteries]. And have all-independent intelligent suspension, decent audio-system/soundproofing, infinitely-adjustable seating... Now why don't our Japanese friends offer an all-electric version of the Lexus LX?? "It was cheap, relatively fast and an idiot could use it: these were major selling-points in the online world".

A 'clunk' on my 90TD5 turned out to be the nuts holding the rear prop to the transfer-box/brake-drum flange had de-torqued themselves a bit. One thing to try - with the handbrake applied, have someone 'rock' the car back and forth by pushing repeatedly from behind - if they time the pushes right you can get quite a bit of oscuillation set up (like pushing a child on a swing) by way of the transmission-slack and suspension. Then while they're doing this, crawl around underneath and listen! In my case the drive-flange revealed itself by creaking when subjected to this rocking treatment.

I'd definitely check the damper - not only for the rubber-boding delaminating but also for the tightness of the bolt that holds it to the crank. I've seen a couple of cases where the bolt has come loose [it's supposed to be Loctited and torqued-up to something quite ridiculous] and the result was the groove in the crank-nose for the woodruff-key for the damper and the bottom timing-belt sprocket got mashed up to the point where a new crank was needed.

I doubt they'd be buying them outright, more likely leasing them via one of the big "White Fleet" leasecos in the same way that airlines do with their planes.

Old-style analog voltmeters use either a 'hot wire' gauge or a two-coil balanced-armature. They do get warm but they also include temperature-compensation so this is not a problem. Generally, capillary-gauges are more-consistent in their readings than electric ones - the electric ones, even with voltage-regulators [the old Smiths/Lucas bimetal ones are horrid!] can be affected by battery voltage variations whereas a capillary one won't be. As regards oil-pressure gauges the important thing is not the actual numbers-on-the-dial (they're only generally accurate to +/- 10%) but to learn what is 'normal' and watch for any departures which will indicate that there's a possible problem. A while back the oil-pressure gauge on my 90TD5 warned me that a Chinese "Blue-Box" oil-filter I'd fitted was really restricting the oil-flow - replacing it with a genuine JLR filter [made in France] probably saved me an engine. See https://forums.lr4x4.com/topic/103319-blue-box-oil-filters/

3.2Amps @12V means something like 40 Watts of power is going somewhere! That will be making something somewhere rather warm. Try feeling the alternator-casing some hours after the engine's been run to see if it's still noticeably hot - in the past I've seen failed diodes/regulators continue to energise the alternator rotor when the engine's stopped.

No Defender's going to be comparable to a post-1970s car for handling, quietness, comfort. That's life. I've driven pretty much everything - from 1960s 2.25 petrol SIIAs and 2.6 straight-sixes (which sound lovely under load) through desperately-numb "Stage One" V8s, the horrid TDs, 200/300TDis, TD5s and TDCIs - none of them compare to a 'car' for everyday driving. Of the post-1980s stuff I prefer the TD5 - it really shows that it got 'worked-over' by BMW - it's free-revving and sounds great when you give it some serious welly in the intermediate gears [flick down to 3rd at 50MPH for overtaking, the rev-limiter is there to tell you when to change up]. 200/300TDis are lethargic - and are starting to pose problems regarding spares-availability (important if your vehicle's a daily-driver and downtime costs you). I never got on with the TDCi ones either - the gearing is odd [first's far too low, I always started off in 2nd] and 6th is too high (I was happier cruising at 75MPH on dual-carriageways in 5th). If you want to keep the wife, get her a Toyota Landcruiser on a 3-year PCP lease... and keep the 110 for yourself!