Gringo

actually, it's more to keep track of a certain Jack Russell Terrier than anything else. He thinks he is ten feet tall and bulletproof. He picks fights with Rottweilers and such who run alongside the Defender trying to see what kind of animal makes THAT many threats in that tone of bark. It's also helpful when towing a boat. And launching it.

I am thinking I should put shoes on when I try this stuff. But I don't remember where I left them last September when I left the islands..

Not much blood really. I mean, the human body has at least twice that amount, and your bones make more, right? Wanted to let you guys know that it is not so simple as just gluing a piece of flat mirror on the thing, if you want to fix it correctly. The mirror in it is not flat. In cross section,it's a trapezoid. And the grooves around the housing vary in width accordingly. I took the whole bloodstained, lethal mess to the local glass guy and said 'fix it'. Those guys are funny about customers dripping body fluids on their lily white floors, aren't they.

Well, if anyone is interested, the glass does indeed shatter into multiple shards, and powder, and sharp bits. It is not safety glass in any form. I also found out that the glass fits into a groove, which is within that band. The band itself seems permanently attached to the housing, so if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, you might save a lot of wasted time by not even trying to take it off. The glass is not glued in. It is a pressure fit into that groove.

Yes, I had the same experience. The hot water did eventually seem to allow me to prise back the edge of that hard plastic rim. I even put a little leverage against the edge of the glass in several places, with a flat bladed screwdriver. But the glass did not move. I am loathe to lean on it too hard, still trying not to break it because I don't know if it will break in just a couple of pieces, or shatter into tens of thousands of miniscule slivers of deadly flesh eating glass in an explosive shower of glittering fletchettes... which of course would add an increased level of complexity to the plan of using that piece as a pattern, should I survive the potential blood loss and shock.. well, that's where I am so far with it.

Unfortunately, it was. And local LR prices, for example: A few months back I was here seeking help on a clutch master cylinder that went boobs up. (And thank you all again for the help.) Local dealer, $ 270 for the part, $ 140 for the tow, and the fabled "three weeks" delivery. Reality of it? 270 in parts 140 tow to dealer 400 labor ( estimated, but a good estimate) 1,600 rental for four weeks while waiting on parts for Defender $ 2,410. my real out of pocket costs. my way? 60. for part found on internet, new. 60. Fed Ex from the States 18. import duty for part (free tow, using used rope and a friends truck) ( a Freelander,btw) $ 138. out of pocket, three days without the vehicle waiting on Fed Ex, which I used to ask you guys how to fix it, and maybe four hours of my time to do the repair. I think now you see why fixing the mirror myself is how I would do it. By the way, I stopped by auto parts store to look at aftermarket glue/on mirror, but the angle is all wrong. Those are for slanted windscreens. not enough adjustment for the upright Defender.

I appreciate that, but we can forget mail in any form whatsoever. It would be less frustrating to just send the vendor the money and tell them to keep the mirror. At least that way I would not be sitting here for months in anticipation of it showing up. It would never arrive at our PO Box. Packages disappear. Even cards and letters disappear. And the ones that do make it typically take two months to travel 600 miles from the US. It's not the US or UK mail service that is at fault, its the TCI mail. I am not joking. Mail is just not an option. Two CDs sent from Australia, for example, took something like seven months to get here, and I was frankly quite surprised they made it. The postmarks on the package showed me that they had been in Atlanta Georgia, Iceland, and Germany. Figure that one out! I warned him not to mail them! It would have to be FedEx, and while I don't know exactly what Fed-Ex would be from the UK to here, I would guess something on the order of 100-150 US dollars. I could order one through the local LR dealer, but I know the price will be three times what it is in the UK, and they will tell me "three weeks" and if it got here in two months that would be exceptional. This is part of the price we pay for living on a third world tropical island. It's really best if I can just fix things here.

Well, maybe, but probably a lot of bother. Mail doesn't work here, for starters. Not at all. Worst mail I have ever seen, anywhere, bar none. Federal Express, well, it's $50 just to send a letter from the USA, only six hundred miles from here. I did try putting it in a pot, and dumping boiling water on it, and letting it set for a while, but no luck. It did not seem to appreciably affect the flexibility of that plastic band around the edges. I am not actually sure if that holds the glass on in any way, or if there is some adhesive involved. So as of tonight it's still intact. And unusable.

Thanks for the tip. I will try that. I suppose if it breaks, as long as I can fit the pieces together I can get a replacement cut. Working with glass is out of my baliwick.

The windscreen frame mounted mirror, the central one inside the Defender, has turned all black. I think that if I can get the glass out, that I can get a piece cut locally and can glue it back in. But it's not obvious from looking at it what it takes to remove it without breaking it into smithereens. I don't want smithereens, if I can help it. Have any of you ever removed that mirror glass?

Ahh...Now I am the proud owner of a Defender that actually shifts from low to high range and back. Nice. Still having issues with the Diff lock. I can force the lever over to the left and the console light will illuminate briefly, but it will not stay in that position. do you think this is likely more linkage issues? I have had to button it up for the night, as we have to use it in the morning, and I will be out boating and exploring another island all day tomorrow. So I won't be able to get back to it with tools until Monday at the earliest. I could pry the diff linkage over with a big screwdriver against the gear box housing, but I cannot do it with the shift lever alone. That linkage seems loose enough, now. Wondering if there is something else I need to focus on. Oh, and while reassembling all the various pieces of floor mat etc. I noticed that the firewall cover on the passenger side has been flopped over since we got the vehicle! I always thought it was just ugly, before. Now I realize that we have been looking at some kind of adhesive on the back of it. It won't stay up on it's own. Were these originally glued with something? And thank you, again, for the help. The people on this forum have been a very nice resource down here in the land of Make-Doo...

Ah, I have managed to find, on the internet, an exploded view of the transfer box. It looks slightly different from whichever one I have, but the bit I was not sure needed motion appears to actually need to be mobile. Its the High/Low operating arm. That sounds, to me, like something that definitely should be moving. The view I have is for something called the LT230R. The linkage I am looking at is different, but I managed to fit an "Eureka!" in amidst the %#*$^& and some of the *#&^%$. And now, I will smear some chemicals on my ankles and wrists that should help slow down the voracious little insects that come out this time of day in the tropics to enjoy the sunset over the crystal clear water while dining on human blood....and get back to it. I am assuming I cannot count on being able to shift it into low with the engine off and the drivetrain sitting still. Is that right? Most of the 4x4's I have owned over the years liked for the vehicle to be moving a little so that the gears would mesh. I am hoping this Defender is the same.

Thank you. I continue to work on it. Taking breaks from time to time to look up new profanities. I did find some "Liquid Wrench" penetrating oil, which seems to be loosening it up slightly. I can now wiggle the shifter back and forth as though this Defender and I were cheerfully going to lock the Differential...of course it won't go all the way into lock. Still no fore and aft movement, which I would expect if I wanted to shift it into Lo. Which I do. I cannot tell, yet, whether the rearmost bit of linkage is actually supposed to move something on THAT little box. I would hate to pound on something that is not supposed to move. I have had bad luck with that kind of approach in other endeavors. .

I got them off, just now, using Vise-Grips...( I guess if you use those on a LR they become Mole Grips?) And I see a lot of cruddy looking linkages that make no sense whatsoever trailing down from a little box the HI-Lo lever is attached to, But I do see they are all gummed up with rust, dried mud, the viscera of countless insects who did not pay attention...and lord knows what else. So, its heavily sprayed-with the rest of my can of WD-40 at the moment, since I don't really have any decent lubricant here at the house. And WD-40 is a solvent, not a lubricant, so this might work..... Wonder why they didn't build these with stainless fasteners....they certainly have a good idea what their clientele are going to be like...

Thanks for the advice. And the gearbox cover would be the big plastic, tunnel shaped thing secured by about 10-12 totally rusted up and frozen phillips head self-tapping screws?

We have this 06 Defender 90 with a TDI, manual gearbox, locking differential etc. Recently I tried to shove the transfer case lever into LO range, probably for the first time in two years. Needed to haul a boat on a trailer, etc. I could NOT get that little sucker to shift. It seems locked in HI. Which of course in this baby is 4 HI. Now, from help here and things I have read on the internet, it seems that the external transfer shifter linkage might be the only culprit, if I am lucky. So, any advice here on what to do about that? Do I need to take the floor mats out and the rubber boot, to get at the top of it? Where should I be looking for the problems? Its only got 16,000 miles on it, but this is a real harsh place. The soil itself is the same salt concentration as sea water.

here's an update for other relative Land Rover newbies, like me. Well, I am not exactly a newbie, having had this Defender for a year and a half now, but I am a newbie when it comes to working on it. So far, all I have had to repair in the first 16,000 miles was the clutch master cylinder. I had been looking for this rumble. I greased all four of the propshaft Universal joints, and they did seem dry. Understandable, since we have been driving it in sea water. I also greased the CV slip joints. Hoped that would take care of it. But it did not. I was still suspecting a wheel bearing, but this rumble was pronounced while in fourth or fifth gear, when letting off the accelerator. It did not happen at slow speeds. In my experience, wheel bearings make noise at ALL speeds. In the past when I had wheel bearing issues I could feel the problem with a wheel jacked off the ground and turning it by hand. So I was puzzled as to how I was going to isolate this if I had to be doing 30 mph on the pavement to feel it. So today for grins, and in the spirit of trying all the easy stuff first, I checked the oil in the differentials. The rear one was fine, but the front one was so low I could barely touch the oil with my finger inside the filler hole. I topped it up, and within about five miles of driving the rumble went away. I tried several times to get it to rumble again, backing off the accelerator, etc. I cannot make it happen now, whereas I could not stop it from happening before. So, fingers crossed, I think perhaps the low lube in the front diff was the problem. Sure glad I checked that before I started pulling wheels off.

Well, a thorough greasing of the six grease fittings in the "prop shafts" (thats a UK term, right? Same thing we call drive shafts?) didn't make a difference. So I guess I am stuck with two problems...the rumbling going down the pavement, and the inability to move the transfer case shifter in any direction at all. You guys SURE they designed these vehicles for bad conditions? I live in a tropical, balmy, warm climate. I would think a Defender would be grateful to be here.

Thanks, I will try that. By 'lift the clutch', do you mean release it slightly? I am assuming you have it all the way depressed when trying to shift. I cannot get the shift lever to move at all, in any direction.

Later....well I just slithered around in the dirt and rocks and pumped a tube and a half of grease into those six grease fittings. They were pretty dry to take that much. We have been driving in a lot of salt water this year. We had a couple hurricanes in Sept, and were stranded on a small hillock with the only road in and out under six feet of ocean for days. Couldnt have been good for u-joints.

Well, if it does freeze up in Hi, is this something that can typically be resolved by moving the shifter, or it now transfer box disassembly time?

Interesting you mention the transfer box. I was unable to get it into Low while launching the boat on Friday. I meant to drag out the manual and see if I had the right combination of planetary alignments, tranny in right gear, clutch either in or out as the case may be, vehicle rolling or stopped, or in reverse.... we have never used Low Range here, although I vaguely remember checking it out when we bought the vehicle. I certainly could have used the low gear range to launch the boat. We did manage to get her launched, of course: But alas, it was not to bein Low range. Do these Land Rover transfer cases freeze in Hi on a regular basis?

We just started hearing, and feeling, a rumble when backing off the accelerator. It also makes the rumbling noise coasting in neutral. It has been a long time since I replaced wheel bearings or universal joints in a vehicle, but i still remember how to do it. Universal joints.....they don't typically rumble when they wear out, do they? I seem to remember them making more of a clunk. Of course I would rather replace ujoints than wheel bearings. Maybe they just need some grease. This started not long after pulling this boat from the customs dock through town, and then down about three miles of extremely bad, unpaved, dirt and exposed rock road, up a few grades even: I could see that pulling the trailer might stress a u-joint, but it wouldnt matter to a wheel bearing would it?

Sure I have been to the UK. Maybe something between 50 and a hundred times. I have worked for two UK companies, and done a fair bit with ARE. Have also spent a fair bit of time in Oz. Dampier, and then with the RAN in Jervis Bay. I am not sure we want another copy of the original top. This one has been here on this island for something like three years. The fabric has been turning into individual threads, which was of course really aggravated by the two hurricanes we had this month. Does this look normal to you? for awhile I thought the constant UV was doing it. We have sunshine something like 350 days out of the year here, and constant trade winds. But then I noticed the inside straps are doing the same thing, and they are in perpetual shade. And these are the straps, which are much stronger (initially) than the fabric of the top. What happened during Hurricanes Hanna and Ike was that the seam stitching holding it all together started to fall apart. I contacted the good folks at Trim Technology, and a gentleman named Dean Holt emailed me almost immediately. A pleasant surprise to receive immediate attention, in itself. He says they can supply me with a new hood, but that I need to supply a part number, to be found on a tag somewhere on this top. I haven't seen one yet. Mr. Holt also tells me that what they supply now is PVC hoods, and not the fabric ones. I am not sure that's a good idea here. It might be better in the UK, with the rain, but we have sun. Lots and lots of sun. Zodiac inflatable boats, for example, don't last here. The sun eats the PVC. I also contacted Badger ( again your kind suggestion) and they are telling me that yes they can supply a top for approximately the GNP of a small african nation, with a delivery of seven weeks. Ouch. I don't think this thing I have will hold together another seven weeks. One of the things we do not particularly like about the standard top is the solid side panels. Visibility when changing lanes is severly restricted, and we do from time to time put people in the back. Of course, that will be coming to an end as the Exmoor seats in the Defender are falling apart only slightly slower than the top.

I am still on the learning curve with the language barrier (my first language is Texan). So...while I had boot and bonnet pretty well established when I installed the aluminum plate....am I correct in assuming what we call a top you call a hood? And what then is a 'tilt'? I am curious...why can't you buy soft tops in the UK? Our vehicle is only an '06, two years old and it came with one.