BogMonster

I was wondering the same thing, but I haven't figured out where Firefox caches files yet... (haven't looked very hard though) It is also of use to those with a slow connection as you can't watch them "live" - even my 256K connection won't stream video fast enough - so better to download and watch offline.

And people who swear at them

Wow. I haven't seen a picture for ages, it looks absolutely amazing Did you go and park it on TOP of the Scrap Iron stand and say "Now THIS is how you do something in orange boys!!!"

Brilliant

On the D2 seat the shoulder strap is built in to the seat itself. Not hitting anything is a good idea though, I try to do that as well

Yes, what I mean is that due to a sticky cable or expander it doesn't release completely. On each revolution of the drum, the shoes catch on the "high point" on the drum (if it is one where the drum is not completely round) and causes a "snatch" effect through the transmission, which is most unpleasant! It may well not be that, but its not an uncommon fault.

Discovery 2 vehicles have exactly that. Whether you could make a whole D2 seat fit into a D1, I don't know.... but it might be worth some measuring

Check to make sure the handbrake drum isn't binding. More often than not the handbrake drum isn't perfectly round, and if it is binding a little bit then you get a horrible judder right through the transmission.

I suppose it's partly down to the road conditions here which are probably not unlike what you'd find in bits of Africa, but I have seen quite a lot of tyres fail structurally before the tread has actually worn out. Only the other day I was out in a Freelander with a horrible wobble, and when it went up on the wheels free it turned out that three of the four tyres were out of shape - after only about 4 years and (I think) 20k miles - and they were Michelins.... seen the same thing with BFGs as well, for some reason the AT's often found on the Japanese market Pajeros seem particularly bad for this. It is one reason I am sceptical about remoulds which by definition are starting with a carcass that is half knackered. Having said that I am still trying to get hold of a set of those Insa Turbo Special Tracks because they are too nice to resist if they fall to bits I'll go back to BFG's.

Mo is right, I can't remember where the official spot was but a blob of yellow paint somewhere on the timing case is a marker to show that one of the upgrade kits has been fitted to cure the alignment problem. So yes to all your questions, it can be any of those things

I just wonder what the point is of fitting tyres which 1) are rubbish on road (no grip) 2) are rubbish off road (no grip) 3) look rubbish 4) don't have good puncture resistance 5) don't have a good wear rate And they aren't even cheap What does the inside of the UK spec ones look like these days Tony - any different? Does it have the part leather seats? I see it has the silver plastic on the front so it must be a posh version, we only get black plastic here

Definitely not Alveston, well not unless the colour balance in the photo is seriously cocked up. Rimini is nicer anyway - my next new one will probably be a 110 Crewcab in Rimini Red, gonna leave it for a while to make sure the new Fraud engine doesn't have any horrible problems though I don't know why LR fit such carp tyres, there isn't a decent tyre on any of the vehicles these days. They even look rubbish, put a set of 265/75R16 BFG AT's on and it will look much better I was out in one of our company 110s the other day, a nearly new one with the Michelin 7.50s they now fit on the new tubeless steel rims. It was a test drive so among other things I did an emergency stop and the braking - or lack of - was shocking - there felt to be much less stopping power (on a dry road) than the BFG MTs on my 90, and the Michelins are supposed to be road tyres...

Nice, but I think you need to put the tyres in a skip Must be new or nearly new is it Tony? It looks like the new Rimini Red which hasn't been around too long.

I don't think you will find individual serial numbers on any tyres, but brand name ones certainly have batch numbers. I had to track down a bunch of Avon Rangemasters a few years back which were faulty, and that was all done with batch numbers. No idea how big the batches were though.

New diagnostics

Naaaaah you don't wanna do that, Ermintrude is much better.... Discuss

Happy Birthday

Well that is just plain rough

You'd get yer chips pretty quick though

Fantastic engine. Put it in a 90 and take out a mortgage for the laundry bills

Yep - same here. Not for the first time I refer anybody who says that tyres can always dig down to the hard, to the Hitachi thread - dig away! 33x12.50R15 are the preferred size round here for Defenders. I also agree with Chris re. the driver. I have been away with (or recovered) some clueless drivers in vehicles broadly similar to mine (open diffs and ordinary MT's) and driven straight up or through things that they have had to have several goes at and/or got hopelessly stuck in. Reading the ground is more important than anything else, especially when it's soft!

I don't mind that so much - what I don't like is things that will make you "fail to proceed". If your leccy window breaks, the worst that will happen is you might get wet I can tolerate complexity where it brings real benefits to me. Aircon, electric windows, central locking, a CD player, fuel injection on a V8, that sort of thing. What I can't be bothered with is things which seem to me to have no real use, e.g. stupid swivelly headlights, electric seats, traction control which doesn't work as well as an old fashioned difflock, in car DVD systems, etc etc etc. Edited to add in car networking to my "bah humbug" list after reading Jez's post - I do not need my engine to know what the #kin instrument pack thinks the time of day is....

Actually they do galvanise things like the body cappings nowadays, they just paint them as well. Galv body cappings were reintroduced in (I think) 2002.... and I've not seen one with corrosion problems on the cappings since then, compare that to the early Td5s which were terrible. Rear crossmembers on the last couple of years production don't rust as badly as they used to, though I agree with you that the deletion of the black sticky goo they used to put on the chassis was a bad move. Mine is 2.5 years old and a couple of the screws on the back crossmember are rusty but that is all. No rust on the chassis that I have noticed. Granted a lot less people do it these days since we have roads, but if you think somebody tackling a swamp with 11.5" wide tractor tyres fitted, flat out in 3rd low range diff lock with the right hand pedal welded to the floor and fountains of **** going up twice the height of the vehicle isn't hard on the drivetrain then you obviously haven't seen some of the boys round here I know one vehicle that has had nine transfer boxes in its life, which partly supports your view that they aren't strong enough but it is mainly due to extreme abuse! For me, the biggest backward step was the introduction of electronic engine management because that was the point at which the vehicle could not be fixed pretty much anywhere with basic tools, but that is partly due to customer demand for more refined/powerful engines and mostly due to emissions law - so blame the Government for that! As Chris pointed out though, Land Rover probably don't really care what people who aren't likely to buy the vehicles are saying, they are interested in the folks who buy the vehicle and those who keep it for about the first three years. I think it's a nice update and while I'll reserve judgement until its been out for a year or so, I may well buy a 110 crewcab by about the end of next year, finances permitting of course. I wish they were going to carry on building the Tdi for people like us with no regulations, but sadly there's not enough places like this left these days to make it viable for probably only a thousand or so vehicles a year. All good things come to an end I suppose, but it says a lot for the upgrades that the vehicle it will be replacing of my two is more likely to be the Discovery than the 90, because the new one might actually be comfortable and have a heater now

The crossmember criticism is true enough (can speak from personal experience there) ... but most of the rest of it hasn't changed much, the back diffs on 110s and 130s are not as strong as they used to be but that is the only bit of the drivetrain. My personal opinion having driven rather a lot of them is that the assembly quality of some components (transfer boxes and diffs) is not as good as it used to be, but it is the same basic part.

The noise is likely to be the alternator bearings. I don't know what bearings fit a V8 alternator (still assuming it is a NAS V8....) but the Tdi ones take an ordinary 6203 bearing, same as many motorbike wheel bearings, chances are the V8 may be the same, it is a lot cheaper than a new alternator if you are doing it yourself, but if you are paying somebody else to do it, there may not be much in it with the labour costs.