BSF

The engine does work very well without the turbo. Performance a bit better than a two-and-a-quarter petrol and it will go twice as far on a gallon. OK, you are losing about 25% of the potential power from the engine, but on the plus side: 1. It is a much easier job to fit. 2. The series gearbox will last longer. 3. Exhaust is easy to cobble together. 4. You can use the series cooling setup and you don't need a fan. Have a look at the glencoyne site. http://www.glencoyne.co.uk/200di.htm The engine backplate mod and the alternator fitting kit are well worth the money. I did my conversion to a Series 3 109 a few years ago; I have never regretted ditching the turbo.

Thanks for that. Further investigation this afternoon leads me to believe it is a waste gate issue. The operating bit on the outside (which has also become disconnected with the end bit, not the circle missing) seems to be moving too freely to actually be closing, or even moving, the waste gate. Further investigation will have to wait until I get a 17mm crows foot spanner to get the exhaust off. It should arrive Wednesday. Getting it off will be no mean feat as most of the Series 2b FC cab and parts of the upper chassis are built around it! As usual the manifold to turbo nuts/studs are rusted solid. From the way it failed (working and suddenly not working, but without any noises) tends to sound like the waste gate has fallen off. Would the lack of the waste gate cause there to no pressure at all?

OK, it's not actually in a Discovery, but it came out of one. Turbo working and then suddenly not working, no bangs or noises, just doesn't work. I have a boost gauge that reads zero and engine lacks power. All hoses and pipes still connected, but cold. On inspection I found that the waste gate control connection had fallen apart and a bit was missing, but wherever I put the waste gate by hand there is no pressure on the gauge. Any ideas short of replacement? How much of the turbo do you get with the replacement cartridge?

OK, it's not actually in a Defender, but it came out of one. Turbo working and then suddenly not working, no bangs or noises, just doesn't work. I have a boost gauge that reads zero and engine lacks power. All hoses and pipes still connected, but cold. On inspection I found that the waste gate control connection had fallen apart and a bit was missing, but wherever I put the waste gate by hand there is no pressure on the gauge. Any ideas short of replacement? How much of the turbo do you get with the replacement cartridge?

I think someone has already done the half shaft and hub bit as it already has a fully floating rear axle.I'm just fed up with the 80inch brakes with no pull-off springs/adjusters that stick on all the time. Fronts are discs, so they're no problem.

Will the rear brake backplates from a series 2/3 88 inch fit on a series 1 80 inch Land Rover? If anyone knows it might save me a lot of effort trying and failing!

This has been the subject of a number of posts. The 2000kg is a "Recommended maximum" on some Land Rovers, usually the earlier ones. I think later ones are placarded at 3500 kg. I think the general wisdom is that stopping is more likely to be the limit. If you drive it the way you normally do it should be OK, after all it is the torque that breaks the transmission and that is controlled by your right foot, not the weight of the trailer.

I'm a bit late on this, but why do you need the glow plugs on a 200 tdi? I've never connected them and never needed them through 3 winters. I will admit to a can of easystart in the cab, but never needed that either. There about as much use on a 200 tdi as a radiator fan. I haven't got one of those either.

I have three vehicles on the same policy (only one a Land Rover) and all historic vehicles. I phoned them up and just kept increasing the values (very co-operative guy on the other end) until the premium started to go up a lot and then reduced them a bit. The real question is how do you personally value the vehicle? If it is a second (in my case 5th) vehicle, then you can probably get by without a replacement for a while, so enough money to buy the next project should be enough. My motto is that you don't need to insure something that you can either do without, or afford to replace, so save yourself a lot of annual outgoings. You need road legal insurance, of course.

In my view the best engine mod to a series land Rover is to fit a 200 Tdi; they seem to go for £500 plus, or a MOT failed Disco with a good engine for a bit less for some reason. The donor vehicle can give you all sorts of extras to help the conversion and a few, like the wheels, that can also be useful. Fitting a 200 di (without turbo) into a series Land Rover is not difficult, gives you a bit more power, quite a lot more low down torque and halves the fuel consumption. The only part that needs any real effort is inventing a new exhaust. It should also last for ever. Have a look at http://www.glencoyne.co.uk/200di.htm The only series Land Rover I have experience of the full fat 200 Tdi is a Series 2b Forward Control; that was a more serious job which involved (in my case) cutting the chassis, tilting the engine 5 degrees to the right and rebuilding the seat box to give clearance as well as spending weeks trying to sort the exhaust. However, it goes like a bird, or did until the pinion bearings went in the rear axle. Go diesel. However, if you really want to experiment with 2 1/4 petrol engines I (and I expect many other people) have two of them you can blow up.

Also worth remembering that if the weight (mass?) of the towing vehicle and trailer exceeds 3.5 tonnes and the vehicle is being used commercially i.e. someone else is paying, you will also need a tachograph.

Having spent 3 years rebuilding a Srs2b I can quite understand why Land Rover don't want to go there again. In order to get he driver over the front wheels needed a fairly hefty subframe on top of the chassis; the same applies to getting a flat loadbed. By having to have effectively 2 chassis the weight went out of control, both total and distribution. The lack of a powerful enough engine didn't help. A forward control is a completely different vehicle from a normal control and trying to build one out of stock parts didn't work. They had to make it much bigger or it was in direct competition to the 109. I think my vehicle is fun, but probably not very practical.

But sadly at the moment it only has 2 wheels! I now need to read up on setting the preload.

No problem. I'v never fully worked out how to put pics here, but try the link. http://www.verdunluck.com/roll-out/

Got the axle off, the diff out and the pinion out this afternoon. The jamming was, as has been suggested, the remains of the pinion bearing between the crown wheel and the pinion. Apart from the bearing there doesn't seem to be too much damage. There are certainly marks on the surface of the pinion teeth, most of which seem to be wear marks, and some roughness on the top of the teeth which is hardly surprising since they have cut up a roller bearing. Crownwheel looks OK. Now, holding in our minds that there are NO spares for ENV axles, but that I can probably get new pinion bearings from Bearing Traders, I will probably rebuild the diff with what I have left. Never done a diff before, so would it be reasonable to replace the bearings and put it back together with all the original shims, or do I need to worry about adjusting the mesh?

In order to move it into the workshop without doing any more damage I have isolated the fault to the rear final drive/diff. Disconnected prop shaft, pulled halfshafts out of engagement and drove it in using drive to from axle. Rear axle will come off tomorrow and stripdown as time permits. Since the World has no ENV axle spares any more, I will hoping for no damage to any major component, but...

Series 2B accelerating up a hill and sudden loud noises (crashing and banging). came to a jerky halt. In attempting to move somewhere safe it became apparent that there was something major wrong with the alternate jamming and jerking about 4 times per wheel revolution. Prop shafts looked good and no obvious damage to outside of major components. During the long wait for a recovery vehicle it occurred to me it could be the front axle half shaft UJ that had failed. Unfortunately the vehicle doesn't have freewheels, so I couldn't test my theory. Vehicle now outside the barn and reluctant to move at all. I will start work tomorrow, but any ideas from the assembled company?

Bleeding Land Rover brakes is very often more art than science. I recently spent over a year trying to get the bakes on my much modified Series 2B to behave. Somehow, whatever I did (including using an Easybleed and bleeding backwards) I could never get rid of all the air. The problem was eventually isolated to the master cylinder, which was a new item. It seemed to be able to suck air into the system whilst bleeding was happening. The cure came with replacing the "correct" item (a "big nut" series 2 item) with a series 3 non-servo one (the only one that would physically fit). I still don't understand it, but they work now.

You don't say if it is an 88 or a 109. If it is a 109 there is a small plate in the floor of the tub with two screws. If you take that out you can get to the top of the fuel tank. Take the pipe out and check that the little filter at the end is clear. they tend to clog up when there is very little fuel in the tank.

For all sorts of reasons I went for the Heystee system on my 2B rebuild. I had no choice as there was not enough room on the Forward Control to fit any of the other setups (the steering box would have to have been about a foot in front of the bumper!) The Heystee ram based system is not cheap, but it is very easy to fit with no chassis mods at all, you simply take off the rod between the idler and the arm on the nearside hub and replace it with the ram (bolts onto the dead-iron and a ball joint onto the nearside wheel arm and then fit the supplied rod between the idler and the valve on the ram. The 200 TDI pump runs it fine and you just need to plumb it in. If you want to revert to the old system just reverse the procedure. On the road it seems fine and not at all "notchy" as some had suggested it might be. As I say, not cheap, but very simple to fit and my only option.

In the end it proved to be the stop solenoid, at least that is the only thing that has now changed and it seems OK. I did at one point change the lift pump for a nice shiny new one in a box with Sh*tpart on the outside; this came with an interesting little packet of bits including a spacer. With the spacer between the pump and the engine the operating lever didn't seem to touch the cam, the manual operating lever worked fine, but the pump didn't work when the engine was turning. Fitting the pump without the spacer had the opposite effect in that the operating aren was so compressed that it didn't pump and the manual lever didn't work either. With the pump off the engine it worked fine on either. Not sure which engine it is intended for, but obviously not a 200 Tdi. Put the old pump back on and all is sweetness and light with an adequate supply of diesel. Thanks for all your suggestions.

In the end it proved to be the stop solenoid, at least that is the only thing that has now changed and it seems OK. I did at one point change the lift pump for a nice shiny new one in a box with Sh*tpart on the outside; this came with an interesting little packet of bits including a spacer. With the spacer between the pump and the engine the operating lever didn't seem to touch the cam, the manual operating lever worked fine, but the pump didn't work when the engine was turning. Fitting the pump without the spacer had the opposite effect in that the operating aren was so compressed that it didn't pump and the manual lever didn't work either. With the pump off the engine it worked fine on either. Not sure which engine it is intended for, but obviously not a 200 Tdi. Put the old pump back on and all is sweetness and light with an adequate supply of diesel. Thanks for all your suggestions.

Thanks, but I don't think it can be that as it has been intermittent with it being normal in between. It does seem to be worse when it is facing uphill.

Tried that, no change. It is now so bad that engine only just idles. I've checked the fuel supply at the injector pump inlet and it is good and the flow out of the return is also good. I am guessing it will be a very expensive injector pump overhaul.

Tried that, no change. It is now so bad that engine only just idles. I've checked the fuel supple at the injector pump inlet and it is good and the flow out of the return is also good. I am guessing it will be a very expensive injector pump overhaul.