oneandtwo

I bought a paddocks one a few months ago. All the crimped connections just pulled straight off, I ended up recrimping and then soldering the lot. Their wire colour coding was all wrong too according to both common sense and their own wiring diagram, mine had red for earth, blue for alternator feed and also main beam and black for dip beam. Cheap Chinese relays. On the plus side it did arrive next day, and now I've sorted it and added some Wipac crystals with Osram night breaker bulbs the performance is excellent.

My ashcroft R380 has had a disappointing 1-2 shift from 'new' - second has to be forced in when cold and baulks. I've got used to it but my other two defenders with old / unknown r380's shift far better. Disappointing especially as they claim to modify them to improve the 1 - 2 shift. I bought it as the original stripped it's output splines, if I'dve known then I'd've just bought a second hand disco box and swapped the shift rail and saved myself £500.

Personally I would be looking to buy a good standard 94-98 300tdi 90 with no modifications or chequerplate. I'd certainly be avoiding disco engine conversions, 2" lifts and the like unless you want a project putting it all right. I occasionally look on ebay at cheap defenders just to see how badly people will bodge in a disco engine!

They are exactly like this from factory, just standard ex disco 1 wheel carrier. Still it's better than the old three long studs on a plate, any slight misalignment of the studs meant pushing and shoving of the wheel in an attempt to get the last nut started when putting an alloy on it!

I fitted a 300tdi pedal box into my series then cut the pedal pad off and welded on the original series pedal pad.

Swivels are the same, I converted my 80" to railko bushes with the conversion kits, although I had to machine a bit off the top or bottom pins in my lathe - was about 6 years ago now I can't remember exactly! 10" brake back plates are the same.

You may struggle to find a galvanising company to do rims in the UK. I had a set of boat trailer rims done and I had to write a disclaimer that they would not be used on the road before they would dip them.

Just tape up the left hand headlight connector, you only need one feed for the dip nd one for the main to trigger the relay.

The genuine ones are only £1.79 + vat and easily fitted with nut and bolt method. I fitted two last week - the part number is WYH100470

Id just go for spacers as you have the later one piece post 2002 seat rails which are much stronger than the pre 2002 rails which can just snap and drop.

I have a G reg hicap which like yours was a v8 and now a 300tdi. The chassis was an inch thick with mud throughout but was pristine with no welding and no rot anywhere, even on the original rear crossmember. I couldn't beleive it when a power washed the mud off. Unfortunatly the chassis was badly bent by about three inches from a jackknifed trailed at some point in its life - looking from the rear it was visibly out of line.

My brakes aren't as sharp as they should be, they've passed an mot fine and work but comparing them to my other defenders they could be better. At slow speed manoeuvring the brakes are excellent, however at speed they are not so good - I think the servo is to blame. The servo is two years old and in excellent order with no rust or cracks in the usual places and will maintain an excellent vacuum for over 20 minutes when the engine has been switched off - I tried removing the master cylinder and I had to really pull it off the servo to defeat the vacuum once it had been unbolted. However when the brake pedal is depressed there is a loud hissing that can be heard from the footwell. When the pedal is depressed when the engine is off the vaccum is immediately defeated. I have replaced the master cylinder O ring seal and the hissing cannot be heard in the engine bay so I am presuming there is an internal fault with the servo? Anyone else had this? It would tally in with the fact the brakes are excellent at 5mph where one quick press stops the 90 dead but at any speed the brakes are poor due to the vacuum leaking out as the pedal is kept depressed.

If it's any help I bought a "boomslang" headlamp loom from paddocks. Really poor build quality, all the headlight crimps pulled off the wires with no effort. I ended up soldering up all the connectors. The wiring colours are complete opposite from their supplied wiring diagrams. They used blue for live feed and also earth connections!

I had intermittent headlamps on an old 300tdi 90 I had when I took it to Isle of Man some years ago, sometimes they would work, sometimes absolutely nothing. I found that it was the headlamp switch at fault, although there was no visible problems with it, no melting of the plastic and all the contacts were spotless. The fixed contact points are riveted through brass strips, the sprung loaded pressure of the moving switch contacts was causing the rivets to lift by a minute amount and cause a high resistance or total lack of contact. I did a temporary fix by buying a soldering iron and soldering the rivets to the brass strips, intending to replace the switch when I rturned home. That was probably 8 years ago, My brother ended up with the 90 and the soldered switch is still going strong today.

I am pretty sure I have a set of the headliner mounting brackets still attached to a scrap 1998 110 if you do need them.

If you are fitting a full headlining to a van you will need the extra brackets that rivet to the sides of the roof to hold the headlining up, and there are also 4x brackets spot welded to the rear of the roof to hold the finishing piece which also holds up the rear section

I sold an old 90 on the last couple of days of October with 9 months tax on it. I have had the letter back saying I am no longer the owner but have never received a refund in the post - my partner paid for the tax online - would It've been refunded straight into her account by DVLA? I will ask her tonight - I have only just remembered we haven't had the refund when I read this thread

It turned out to be one if the intermediate shaft bearings had failed. Whoever reconditioned it had no idea about preloading the bearings- it had been wound up so tight it had collapsed the inner race circlip.

Just been for a spin I my newly rebuilt 90, Unfortunatly there is a rough howling noise coming from the transmission. My gut feeling is that it is the transfer box - the R380 is a new Ashcroft box with 0 miles on it, I rebuilt both axles and found no problems. I have not used the transfer box until tonight, I was under the impression it was a good one as I was told it was a recent replacement. After using the box and hearing the noise, I disconnected the front prop but no better. I noticed that the front output flange had slight up and down play but then realised the flange was actually loose, the nut was finger tight. I tightened it up to spec and refitted the propshaft, and cleaned the drain bung magnet. The noise was still there. After five miles I checked the drain magnet and it had a lot of metal flakes on it again. Anyone heard of a loose flange damaging the rest of the box? Chers

I ordered a genuine ROW tailpipe from Land Rover but they came back to me as No Longer Available, so ended up making my own 300tdi mid to td5 tailpipe adaptor. Spent ages measuring a td5 90 for various datum points so my tailpipe sat in exactly the right place. The adaptor was dead simple in the end, what was most annoying was making the td5 flange, I could've made it in two minutes with my rather expensive Hypertherm plasma cutter but when I went to use it, it seems to have developed a fault, so ended up making the flange the old fashioned way with drill, die grinder and files

I've got a rear plastic tank and proper 300tdi ROW sender so no low fuel light. The fuel guage still works fine, but I'll use my other speedo from my hicap for now.

Yes it is all wired correctly. I have just read up about the speedo damping the fuel sender signal and activating the fuel light so I replaced the speedo with the one I have purchased for my hicap- with a replacement speedo it all functions fine, put the original speedo back in and the fuel light is playing up again, so I am guessing that the original speedo has a problem with its fuel circuitry?

Fitted a td5 dash to my 1996 300tdi 90, everything works fine except for the low fuel warning light - it stays in all the time except when the fog light is switched on it turns off, then when the fog light is turned off again, the low fuel light comes back on. The vehicle didn't have a low fuel warning fitted so I have wired it up to the td5 speedo / fuel gauge feed Any ideas? Thanks

I am on my second pair of insa special Traks on my old 90. I use it in the summer on the beach for launching my rib and used in muddy fields for off road towing. Prior to the Insas I used Deestone Extra Grip 750 and the insas are brilliant in comparison on the sand. Both sets however have cracked really badly and need replacing again, the tread hasn't worn at all but the cracking is all around the base of the lugs, possibly too much flex in the tall lugs when used on the road - the steering is awful with them fitted, again due to the lugs flexing - I put a set of the old BFG mud pattern tyres on as a test and the steering was pin sharp again, but the 265 tyres were too wide for my Wolf rims. I might try the slightly less aggressive pattern next, I think they call it Insa "Sahara"

The more I think about it, the more I think that my tailpipe is incorrectly labelled, Land Rover are unlikely to get the parts numbering wrong, My mid section, ESR4526 is identical to my friends 1997 90, so I'm happy that i have the correct mid section. The tailpipe part number is hand written in felt tip pen. I've just cross referenced the Bosal part number stamped on it (who manufactured the tailpipe) it it indicates that it is a td5 pipe 90 rear pipe. I think I'll bite the bullet and order a genuine Land Rover WCG102890 on Monday and keep my fingers crossed, it's booked for MOT a week on Monday!