Gringo

Well, this is a Defender, not a Disco,but yeah, that's probably right. We don't use diff lock. Have never used it on the 90, either. No need for it. But I guess this means I can't use two wheel drive to try to isolate the clunking issue. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the front u-joints, so I will grease them up and re-install the front prop shaft. Probably tomorrow at this point. The mosquito hour (bug:thirty) is due to start in about five minutes. then it will be dark.

I just trotted on down the hill and tried that. I am six ft one, 220 lbs, and I could not get that lever into Diff lock. Have never used it, come to think of it. But there's no way to get the shifter to move to the left just using my own strength.

I am pretty sure the handbrake ( transmission brake?) is functioning. Oh, it gets cranky if we splash through puddles on the way to the airport and let it sit for a week, but I am fairly sure it's not the problem. I have had both Defender brakes apart, so am moderately familiar with them. BUT here's my latest. I just now removed the front propshaft entirely. I wanted to check both u-joints and slip joint thoroughly, so I just removed it. My intention was to drive the 110 down to the pizza shop and back tonight ( Friday night. Big deal on the island) in rear wheel drive only. hence my earlier questions. I thought maybe this might not only help me check out the front U-joints etc, but also isolate where the clunks are coming from. Well, when I went to put it in gear to drive it from my garage...it won't move. I had just driven it about two feet half an hour before, to rotate the propshaft so I could get to the top bolts. The only thing I did was unbolt and remove the front prop shaft. the engine starts. Clutch and shift levers feel just like they always do. But when I let out the clutch, nothing happens. It's like I have no drive to the rear. this must mean something.

Nah, just going to drive it the four miles from the house to the nearest pavement, then a brief half mile on the smoothness....then four miles back. Clunk busters.

I continue to have my hands full trying to keep two 2005 Defenders running in a very caustic environment with no good local expertise or parts source. I just this week discovered a totally new noise a rear u-joint can cause. And it wasn't until I removed the rear propshaft that I even found the problem was the u-joint. It was totally frozen in one axis, but no slop in it at all. thats pretty totally frozen, but makes it hard to locate the problem. Anyhow, U joint is replaced, my burnt t-shirt ( sparks from cutting wheel needed to cut u-joint in half...)replaced, and now I am trying to find the source of another noise. When backing off the accelerator and rolling down hill in gear, there are some alarmingly loud "clunkety clunk" sounds coming from the drive train. I think. I have been back underneath, and wiggled and twisted everything I could think of but cannot find the source of this noise. Its loud enough that I do not want to let it ride. My immediate question...Can I safely drive the vehicle with the front propshaft totally removed? I am thinking that I need to take it out to check the u-joints, but if they are not bad then a short drive with it removed might help me isolate the source of the slack to the front or rear. What do you think? Can I drive it as a rear wheel drive only for a few miles without hurting anything?

Oh, yeah I did a "search" and also looked at the photos in your link. Does your switch have two wires? or just one? This was driving me nuts. I even put on my highest magnification eyeglasses and was trying to see if somehow the switch was switchable, but nope. It's about as simple a switch as there is. Moving contacts and a spring, basically. Well, now the hand brake is all freed up, and the rear caliphers cleaned up, and I was able to start it up and drive it out of the garage. Tomorrow, I will work on the front brakes. Unless the weather is good. There is a Marlin tournament going on and I might want to go do some fishing .

Ah ha! It all became clear. First, of course, I unplugged the single wire connector from the switch on the hand brake lever assy. Stuck a small nail in that and shorted it to chassis. Light stayed on. Then I climbed underneath and wedged my poor old sunburned shaven head up between the muffler, propshaft, and floor. or ceiling, I guess it is when you are under it. Found an inline connector there, took it apart. inspected it, as it were. No probs with that. Then, while ruminating and remounting the two rear tires, and cursing the idiot who specified alloy wheels with those stupid ( and I do mean stupid) lug nuts that need a special tool to operate.....the light came on. Well, metaphorically and mentally speaking, of course. There must be something else on the circuit. SO, I checked the brake fluid resovoir, which was near empty. ( I had disassembled both real caliphers to clean them up after they froze up due to sea water, negligence, and stupidity. All but the first one mine.) And the brake fluid resovoir cap has a sensor in it. And guess what, fill the resovoir, and the brake light goes out. Assuming the hand brake stuff is all okay, of course. SO, that was it. It's a multifunction brake indicator light. It indicates something is wrong with the brakes, somewhere. WOuld have been nice to read that in the manual two days ago. If it's there, I can't find it. It only mentions the hand brake. Western, sounds like the wiring on your switch is different. Mine is definitely switch closed, and wire earthed, when the light is on.

ha, I believe it. And to an old DIY like me stranded on a desert island....EVERYthing is expensive. BUT I digress.... You see, the switch is NOT stuck or dead. Little spring works just fine, pushes plunger in and out. When out, there is no resistance between the terminals. Plunger out, switch is closed. When the cam on the hand brake lever pushes it in, it opens the circuit. Which means that the single wire that goes to one exposed terminal....... is normally shorted to ground Or earth, as I believe you guys say, when the brake is on. Now, the funny thing is that this seems backwards, to me. I would think that pulling the brake on would close a circuit and light the lamp. I am unclear on how this is supposed to work. It defies my limited logic and makes me want to drink. I mean, if it were just a messed up switch, it would seem that unplugging the wire would turn the lamp off. It doesnt. Hey, I just thought of something. I am going to go out and try shorting that wire directly to the chassis. Right now....

Did you find out what is causing your light to stay on? I am having similar problems with a D-90, and also a flickering light with a D-110. I just took the switch off on the 90, and cleaned it up, and put a ohm meter on it, and it seems to be working fine. Well, if working fine means that the switch is normally open, and when you depress the actuator plunger it closes the switch. Anyhow, I cleaned it all up, put it back together, and verified that the switch is getting opened and closed by the hand brake lever while installed. But the light still stays on. So, it seems that shorting the wire to earth turns the hand brake indicator light off? Actually, I didn't try that. Yet. I checked the single wire that comes from that switch, and it is not chafed or disconnected under the body. It goes through a connector and then into a wire harness. No signs of damage. Does this make sense?

I was going to mention Dremel, too. I have had great results using mine to gently create two flat spots on opposite sides of a low profile, domed head, and then using an adjustable wrench to hold the thing steady while I attack it at will. You mentioned you have new hinges...so don't care about damaging the one you are removing? How bout drilling a small hole through the edge of the head and into the hinge just far enough to get some kind of small pin into it to lock it from turning? I was thinking a cut-off finishing nail.

Hey, great idea on the video. The 110 we just bought makes a lot more noise than that. I know some is the AC compressor, but it shakes like crazy. I already tightened the radiator mounts...but it still does the mambo big time. Yours sounds pretty good to me.

Well, I thought some of you guys might be interested in what I have found so far. I was pretty frustrated, yesterday, after a week with hardly any response of any kind. So I emailed, faxed, and generally tried to make a nuisance of myself. I basically sent the same list of goods to every Land Rover parts dealer I could find that seemed to be set up to handle the order. So far, today, I have received replies from Land Ranger, Rimmer Bros. and Craddock, and have a partial reply from LRP. Pricewise, Land Ranger is far and away the most attractive. LRP Camborne is close to Land Ranger. Rimmer Bros. is the highest price, by far. Everyone quotes the Exmoor hood at 226, for example. Rimmer quotes it at 250. That's quite the markup. There are some major differences in carriage costs, as well, mostly due to the different ways each vendor proposes to ship. There may be some adjustments there.

Well, it's now noon on Tuesday in the UK, and the ONLY one of the bunch who haved responded to my emails is the courier company, Transglobal. They sound on the ball, offering door to door service. At this point I am about ready to throw all previous correspondence in the rubbish bin and start over.

Can you bump start a Defender without a battery?

Did you have to move the door's locking hardware out a bit to compensate for that spacer? What did you use for that? I can't tell from the photo. I have tons of aluminum sheet from an expensive 8 ft. diameter sat dish that Hurricanes Hannah and Ike destroyed for me...

Hot damn...NOW you tell me. I have a couple seat belts starting to look like they have been eaten by squirrels. And we don't have squirrels here. Any other nifty little tricks like that you might pass on?

Boy, it's a good thing for LR that these things have so much character. Otherwise we would all be driving Toyotas.

The more I did into fixing up this D-90, the more small stuff I am finding that needs replacing or repair. This harsh, salt-laden dust has really gotten everywhere. The latest is that the seat belts do not retract very well. They will retract slowly if I mess around with them for a while, but they really don't want to. They just stay loose when you unhook, and typically get into the door latch mechanism when you slam it. Before I start digging into them, I thought I would ask here if anyone knows whether there is a spring that can be repositioned, tightened, or similar inside the mechanism. Is this a serviceable item?

You actually exceed the speed limit once you get out of Stanley????? You have some island to move around on, though. Roads to open her up on. This one I live on is only seventeen miles long by a few miles wide. Offroad is our day to day driving, though. We live three and a half road miles from the nearest pavement. I did some oceanographic mooring work down your general vicinity a few years ago. I was in Rio Grande, Ushuaia, and out in the ocean. Three trips, but we never got to the Malvinas. Uh...I guess you don't use that name. Probably.

Well, it probably helps that the maximum speed limit in this entire nation is 40 mph. We don't need a lot in the way of highway speed handling characteristics. On the other hand, ground clearance is very important here.

Does anyone know, offhand, what the largest tires are that I could put on both the stock D-90 alloy, and the stock D-110 steel rims? I am more concerned about height and clearance through flood waters than I am about mud.

I write a blog on tropical life, and had mentioned this hassle getting parts on it this week. I just received a comment from one of our readers, and they said that they had imported stuff from the UK in the past using a company called Transglobal with great success. She sent me a link to their UK operation. I will be contacting them, because Fed Ex is very expensive. One of the reasons I have tried so hard to find all the parts under one roof, to just pay one shipping fee. This Transglobal Courier service looks interesting. It is looking like Bob can save me some money over the big boys on the merchandise, and perhaps these guys can save on the shipping. Good stuff!! I have copied you on my email to them, Western.

I have no doubt, and his prices seem to be extremely competitive. Ah, but the question is..... can he export? There is still the matter of shipping, and whether his system can handle a non VAT sale...

Thanks Western,. I did get your email, and have sent one of my own to Bob. I did ask if it was possible for him to source the Exmoor EX 5187 Truck Cab hood and add that to the list.

Thanks, that's good info. Funny, our IP here is InCapable and Useless too. Hmmm... I looked long and hard at the Bearmach website, but damned if I could figure out what they have in stock or how to search for it. I seem to have just gotten descriptions of various Land Rovers ( some wrong, by the way) and I found ways to download various catalogues, and I kept reading about them, but I tried downloading the one for Defenders and got a PDF thing with a bunch of exhaust manifold drawings. I guess that if it took me more than two minutes to figure how how to do a "search" for a known part number, I moved on.