Inigo

I seem to have won a Safari roof for a 110 and am only now trying to work out how to collect it. My thoughts were to strap it, upside down to the Patriot rack on my 110 and then drive very slowly. Any reason why this should not work. I'll have to try and support it on battens to avoid crushing the bumps above the vents. Any tips gratefully received.

Oh, ok, I see what you mean now. I'll give it a go.

Does yours have a built in vacuum pressure switch? I have an external one, and was going to figure out how to connect them up on the bench, but it maybe surplus to requirements.

Thank you both. Found a similar one to that listing on German ebay that came with a bracket (that I can modify to fit). It seems to have decent rubber mountings to reduce vibration and noise. I see that Hella make a range of vacuum pumps that look very similar to the Audi one, but Hella said they don't supply direct to end users. I did find that Summit racing sold them all though. Is the one linked man enough to be used on its own, some descriptions suggest it is suitable for use to assist or improve brake vacuum. Should I be thinking of adding some sort of vacuum reservoir, or would that be overkill?

Do you have any details on the pump you bought? I'm trying to track down something similar and not having a lot of luck.

I fitted a lightweight mechless (ie no CD, etc only radio and memory sticks) stereo in a mud dash, so only flimsy plastic to support the weight, but it has been ok so far. It needed to be mechless to be shallow enough to fit. That said, I never use the stereo as a) I can barely hear it over the engine and b) I prefer listening to the engine.

I have found some beautiful drawings on how the coolant and heater hoses are arranged in a Range Rover V8, but cannot find anything for the Defender. I've ploughed through the workshop manuals and user manuals and even the V8 overhaul manuals, but nothing that spells its all out. If I am correct, the basic setup on a 3.5 litre Carb V8 is hot water pushed into the engine block by water pump, then comes out of the top of the inlet manifold into the top of the rad, out the bottom of the rad back into the water pump. There are an additional two connections on the rad for expansion tank and carbs. I have an Edelbrock performer manifold which seems to have a bypass connection on the front (teed from the back of the water pump, I think) and have a pipe running underneath it from the back of the water pump to the heater matrix. This is fed back in to the back of the inlet manifold. I have a new John Eales crossover manifold to fit and it seems to have no such connections on the back of the inlet manifold for the heater matrix. Also, my new water pump does not seem to have any additional connections on the back, although I guess I could tee off from some of the other hoses. If I need to run a flow and return for the heater matrix under the crossover manifold this might clash with vacuum pipes I will have to run for brake servo vacuum (one from each cylinder to avoid leaning out one cylinder) so may get a bit crowded under there. Any reason I can't run these around the side of the block?

I have a 1987 110 V8 and a 2012 Puma 2.2 110 USW. I'm struggling to justify keeping both. The Puma is quicker, quieter, warmer (winter) and cooler (summer - air con) than the V8. It has an extra gear and following a BAS remap drives really nicely throughout the rev range (for a Defender), but I'm probably going to keep the V8 and get rid of the Puma. I'm already on my second engine (25,000 miles in total on two engines) and it wasn't covered by warranty. I know that whatever happens to the V8, I can fix it and, if needs be, just chuck another engine in. When my Puma engine let go, there were none available secondhand or refurbed. Land Rover wanted £9,000 for a new engine - which would buy me a nice big rebuilt engine for the V8. It took me three months to find a secondhand one. Some of the money saved from getting rid of the Puma will be spent on a galvanised chassis and lots of fettling for the V8.

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but are Hobsons still going? I'm looking to replace the aging loom on my 1987 V8 110, but adding things like heated seats, heated windscreen, etc. After reading this thread, it seems like a ROW loom would be a good starting point, but I am balking slightly at the price of a new one.

Doh, somehow missed this. If you had any spare sets made up, I'd be interested in one.

Following Nige's epic exhaust thread, and my leaking manifold and overheating woes, I found an old Disco cast manifold 4-2-1, had it coated by Zircotec and got a custom made mandrel bent stainless exhaust by Powerspeed in Ashford. Sounds great, and seemed to go a bit faster, maybe around 5mph on the top end.

I think I remember that Mobile Centre's carling switches are the right way up as well.

I believe VDO made the original ones for Land Rover, hence the good match. I added VDO temp gauge (needed to replace temp sender as well), VDO fuel gauge (I think the fuel tank level gauge is iffy - but it goes from full on the gauge(full in the tank) to empty on the gauge (tank 50% full), so better than the original gauge it replaced) and VDO rev counter. Rev counter fed from W terminal on alternator and switchable for V8. I got a bit carried away and also added VDO voltmeter, VDO oil pressure gauge, existing vacuum gauge and an AFR gauge in the mud dash.

Ah, OK. All clear now. I'll check mine later.

Belt was Dayco and new-ish. When I came to replace it with the same size belt that I had in stock, it just slipped over the pulley which suggests that I hadn't tensioned the previous belt very well. I have now found something to lean on while tightening up the alternator, there is a few mm of movement when I try to deflect belt by pushing on it. Collegiate, what do you mean by a gap under the belt?

Had a look tonight and found the remains of my v-belt snapped and scorched. I think AMB got all of the details. Only had a chance to refill rad (only half empty), check oil for mayonnaise, fit new drive belt and ran it up to temp briefly. By some miracle, it seems OK, alternator charging as expected, rev counter back, no nasty clunking sounds from engine. Thanks everyone. So, longer term solution? Go back to a 65 amp alternator? Don't use the winch? Upgrade to a serpentine belt front end? Make sure drive belts are properly tensioned and stop if anything begins to smoke?

Single v belt. I knew it was marginal at best when I replaced the alternator, but thought I didn't have much load. This was before I added the winch. I currently have a 3.9 with oil pump driven distributor. I understand it might be possible to convert this to a serpentine system.

That's what I'm more worried about. Alternator is easy to replace, if need be. I guessIng should be checking oil for water to see if head gasket has gone. Any other symptoms of overheating?

V8 Oh, that does make sense for the symptoms. What do you think was the fatal blow for the alternator?

I used my winch in anger for the first time at the weekend and it didn't go well. Pulling a short distance up a steep hill and I quickly ran out of juice. Single battery only, recently uprated alternator from original 65 Amp to 100 Amp - but I didn't upgrade the cable to the starter as suggested. Battery was obviously low and lots of smoke from the engine bay, particularly when revving engine. Got back on the road home and noticed that volt meter was reading around 10 volts, rev counter was stuck at about 1000 rpm and if I ever was at high revs for a period, the battery charge light would come on accompanied by a burning smell. Eventually got off the motorway and the charge light was now on permanently, rev counter dropped to zero. Crawled the last mile or so home and as I pulled up, heard the radiator boiling and noticed the temp gauge at 100+. I had been checking the temp earlier, but had been distracted by the bright battery charge light, so not noticed the temp gauge being in the red. Too dark and cold to investigate now, but any tips on what I should be looking for? My feeling is that as I drained the battery, the uprated alternator was trying to add charge back through the inadequate cable, which burnt some of the insulation. Rev counter is fed from W terminal of alternator, but I did get a chance to briefly check that and it doesn't seem to have melted. Not sure how it is affected by damage to main alternator cable. Can't think of a mechanism for alternator problems leading to overheating unless alternator has seized or damaged the belt and so the water pump is not running.

Well I have one, and I think it sounds great. I had the LPG mixer, but I found it problematic finding lpg in unfamiliar places. This is not my everyday commuting car, so I don't need to worry so much about mpg. I have off road needles to add, but haven't quite fitted them as yet. I haven't tried it in anger offroad since the lpg was removed. Megasquirt is one of my options for the future, but at the moment, I am mostly enjoying the induction roar through the unrestricted carb.

I have a 110 V8 that was converted to LPG. It has three underslung tanks, so all load space retained. I could get around 250 miles from full tanks. However, I found that finding LPG can be problematic. When I was bringing it home, I found an app on my phone to tell me where petrol stations that stock lpg are. The first three I tried were all out of lpg, so I had to switch to petrol. When in France recently, there was a 50 mile round trip to get to a station that sold lpg from where I was staying, which somewhat negated the cost benefits of using lpg. I'm removing the lpg tanks and putting a big petrol tank back in.

Our fire extinguishers at work are regularly retired as they reach a certain age. I am told the old ones are not allowed to be reused, so I have one in my garage and so does everyone else at work. Most recent batch, I couldn't find a home for, so still have one lying about. Probably not worth the postage cost to you, but other companies local to you would probably have the same issue. Might even be worth speaking to a fire extinguisher servicing company and asking if they have any scrap ones- you are not going to be using it as a pressure vessel, so they should be ok with it.

That's my ebay listing for the bracket. I was going to do the same conversion and started collecting bits, then was persuaded that it would be simpler to just swap in a whole TD5 axle. In the end, I replaced most of the components on the TD5 axle I bought from a breakers as they were shot. It would have been much cheaper to just convert the existing axle to discs. I also have a pair of brake discs that I collected and tried to use for the TD5 axle having forgotten that I had bought them for the old Salisbury axle.

There is a flame trap on the front of the left hand rocker cover with a black poor coming out of it leading to the carb. This pipe provides vacuum to take fumes from the rocker covers. The other vent on the back of the other rocker allows air in to the rocker covers and crankcase. There should be some sort of filters on it to stop dust and grit getting in. In an original setup, there would be a pipe connecting to the main air filter so filtered air gets in that way. Real Steel and others sell little filters that should just push on the breather pipe.