steve_a

I did say a check of the earthing, I suppose I should have added wire the light sensibly. relay? relay? we don't need no stinkin relay...

It was the lower ones I got. The crystal are not E marked, so technically an MoT failure if fitted to a post 74 as they say. Your guess is as good as mine if they would spot and fail for it though longest part of the job on the defender is getting the stupid plastic surrounds off, you have to remove both the indicator and side light to get the headlight out. I've put series headlamp panels on because of that.

Easy job, you can order a pair (with bulbs!) from paddocks for about £20. They go straight in with no fuss. You might want to consider getting some replacement plastic bowls at the same time, mine were in a bad state when I swapped over and I only ended up having to do it later. Plastic ones are £7 each. Final tip is to get some plumbers mait or boss white/green and seal the bulb into the housing with it. This hopefully means when you go wading you minimise the amount of water that goes in. Best to do this before wading, if you do it afterwards you can't get the lens fully dry and then it goes steamy inside because the water can't escape. Might be worth checking your earthing though since that was the underlying problem with my sealed beams.

30mm was the size of mine I removed off a 1986 90 and it was also the size of the new one from paddocks. You really do need the spanner to do that job, I found focus selling a pack of 30/32/34/36/38 mm spanners for £15. You can't get a an adjustable on it, you can't get a socket on it. so you probably need to buy the spanner before starting the job. As I found out... .

As I found out renewing all my swivel housing bit over the last couple of weeks the brake caliper bolts are not easy to come by. They are a special head which is the same as a ring spanner shape. Mine rounded off and I spent nearly a week waiting for them to arrive, I did find that LR centre Huddersfield (google for that ) have them on thier website for a good price (don't ask how much I paid for mine coz I got them from a local dealer!). Try both your 13mm and 1/2" socket and use the one which is the best fit, the old bolts were 1/2" and my new ones 13mm. My use of the 13mm helped to round them off I think. probably is worth at least having an oil seal, you can pry the old one out easily after the brake discs are removed. Then clean and repack the bearings if they are OK otherwise renew, not too difficult a job. IMO don't buy a box spanner for £5 or more, go to classic car world or somewhere and get a socket for £10ish. Means you can be sure you have correctly tightended the bearing nuts. The method I have used the last couple of times is 61nm initial tighten (pulls the bearings tight) back off tighten hand tightish (4nm has been mentioned) or back off 1/4 a turn I have seen. put lock washer on tighten out lock nut to 61nm. it's about the same for a box spanner, tighten as much as you can, back off a bit and then put the washer and lock nut on.

Oi! you can't say we'd wreck it *until* you've seen our other work. Once you have then you can say we'd wreck it. The thing is he will only sell the 110 for the right price, so otherwise I think he'd prefer do something like this. bobing rangies is done to death, effective, but not particulary unique. Bobing the 110 would make an interesting vehicle IMHO, practical vehicle with potential for good off road capabilities. RR 4 door would be the next choice, but the 'boot' area wouldn't be as good I think? Again, 90 just doesn't come with a real 4 seat option. To be honest, it's probably just a pipe dream, the sensible thing to do would be get a dog 110 and try it on that, then do a decent vehicle like this if it worked.

Kind of looks long though, I like the short look of the max chop. I was wondering if it would be legal to put a filler sticking out on the rear body, that way you could use either side of a petrol pump. I think the std 90 overhang looks good on the blue truck, the window makes it look weird in that last image. So this mod would improve departure angle, but would it make any real difference to the 110 off road, the main problem seemed to be ramp over which I guess could be improved with a bit of lifting, the truck is reasonably std in the photo's, i.e. 7.50 tyres and HD springs so going for a 2" lift, putting some simex on would probably help the ramp over a lot. Plus at the end of the day, proper 4 door car with 4/5/6/8 seats and a 'boot' area. Better than my truck cab with 2 seats, or a 90 hard top with 2+ benches Mike - No idea, I am down saaarf, near Fareham, so I only go to the Hoggs lodge in Waterlooville, there was another pub mentioned on the calendar pages, however that's not there at the mo, so I can't remember.

HBRO sticker Mike. I'm trying to think what work would be involved. A new fuel tank and filler location (series high postiion looks good on the photo), probably a custom tank, he thought an under seat 90 tank would be good, but I pointed out that it's tiny (like 40L or something to judge from mine) and since it would be a good tour car a bigger tank would be wanted. A custom exhaust of some sort, probably not to diffiuclt. A new rear X member, wonder if a std one would do. Cutting of the tub, cutting of the roof panel, I think a solid side one would be easier than a windowed one as shown, then do as Nige has and just put a simple pane in. Roof would need cutting. Doesn't sound the worst job in the world. But what would the insurance and DVLA think.... there's the problem...

Just talking to a friend about his 110 since he is considering keeping it and we started BSing about bobtailing it. However with a bit of crappy photo manipulation I did this. thing is I really like that. Anyone already done one of these? OK HT quickly added and also original for size comparision

James, I'm happy if I get my mail and that it arrives sometime around when it should. Expecting things such as redelivery and payment while they are out and about is way beyond the way over my way. I guess in a rural area you get to know your postie, round here (Fareham) I'm pleased if I haven't got the dyslexic postman (seriously, I'm all for equal ops etc but I've had notes saying left at no 13 when it was 31 or 32 and things!) not to mention the guy down the road from me who got a recorded delivery parcel thrust into his hands as he opened the door. When they checked it was for me, (BTW Mr & Mrs Morely if you are reading thanks for dropping that off at the house afterwards ) the post in GB is pants now IMO

So that is what that was about, wondered if it was a bday card. If I don't pick mine up what happens to it? Just isn't worth my time and money to go and pick it up (no reflection on your efforts Nige, just post office is out of the way and another quid to the post office I can do without) Think I'll just read someone else's.

I would have been there, but putting my truck back together to fix MoT things is taking ages, parts just aren't arriving probably would only specate or marshal though, I'm convinved I'd hit all those canes if I drove and everyone would laugh, plus the truck is not arc legal.

A couple of good tools to have are procexpnt from url=http://www.sysinternals.com]www.sysinternals.com[/url] which will show you all processes running on your machine and the associated filename with a path for it. This allows you to see if any dodjy looking processes are running. If you right click one it will even google for the process name. adaware is the next one, I think a website called castle cops is the place to find it, but a quick google will find the right thing. Note that is adAware there is a nasty bit of software called ADWARE (not the lack of A) which will infect you instead. Oh just read back and you already have adaware (hopefully that is just your typo!) If you like PM me a screen shot from procexpnt and I will see if I can see anything untoward in the list for you Steve

Good summary, taking the wings off seems to be an excercise in patience and undoing bolts How come the wings contain about 30 bolts or something and the radiator is held in by 3. Have a look at a series wokshop manual, I think it had some decent diagrams on how to remove the wings, and I don't believe they are any different from defender to series? Steve

If anyone knows how to refurb one let me know, mine rattles like crazy and the channels are looking poorly, but I can't see obvious way of starting the disassembly process.

Apparently they tried painting the disc red but it didn't work out :-) sorry couldn't resist a quick dig at scrapiron. If you're reading this, put your prices on your advert you have nothing to fear, I on the other hand might be a tad frightened by them

You probably already know them Nige, but Silverlake near waltham chase and harris's in east nutbourne? Both let you wander around and let you remove stuff, price has seemed OK for the bits I have bought from them. I think it's jacksons on Hayling island are a PITA, don't want to let you wander and were obnoxious and rude. Stupid thing to do to a man who is carrying a mallet........ don't know anymore in the area and will be interested to know of any more that let you wander. Steve

I'd like to add that I can't get the stain out of my trainers since I had my feet under mine when I did my bearings the first time. Got to say I'm with Will though, it is a good chance to check everything out. One thing to think of is that if the seal is leaking oil out it could be leaking carp in, so a chance to clean out the inside of the swivel at the same time might still be worth it. I'd guess this is even more an issue if you use one shot grease rather than EP90. And there does have to be better way for that brake bracket, I can't get a socket in to torque the top pin properly because it is so close to the head

I was about to say you might get away with it, but on second thoughts I don't think you will unless you detach the brake line. The drive shaft that runs from the CV to the diff will be too long to manouvre. You could take the caliper off, that's two bolts plus the two on the top pin, that would allow you to remove the whole thing. Won't it be a big wieght, since it will be the drive shaft and CV as well, and about 4ft long or something. Sounds like a two person job, especially when reassembly takes place, as you need to align the drive shaft with the axle. Not sure I'd do that, I'd either consider cutting the seal as I've seen suggested and put the join at the top or just bite the bullet and take apart fully. nice weather for it

As usual it looks like it is a combination of things. The left bearing failed yesterday (made quite a mess too) there was no warning about it because I am pretty sure it was caused by my bodge of the swivels, I think it caused the CV to bind in the chalice, at least on reassembly it all went tight and I couldn't turn the hub, so I removed the packer and it was back to normal. On top of this I had missed that the chalice to axle bolts were loose, the bottom half had about 3mm showing, it was probably this combined with my tightening that caused the failure, I am convinced this was the noise. From what you are saying mike then it looks like it might be time to swap the front diff out for one of my spares and fix or sell the current one. There is play up/down/left/right, I wonder if this could be a lot of the play in the drive train then. Phil, you're right, on the rover diffs there is no crushable spacer/washer, I think the last time I looked at doing the oil seal it was on my friends 110. MoT failed it on the drop arm joint, as expected, and the rear A frame ball joint, because the two wings are badly rusted, I did suggest that considering the effort to get them in and out that those wings didn't make a lot of difference, but you can only argue so far. So garage will be doing both those jobs, pain and grief is too high to do them just at the moment. Also failed for a hole on the drivers footwell My rubber mat had too much structural integrity so I hadn't noticed it Bad news is I am pretty sure I am going to have to do the swivel pin railko and bottom bearings on both sides before I put the truck back in for the test. Expect rain all week Thanks for the input Steve

Bit of an old one I know but I thought I would look for any information as to find out what is causing a very disturbing noise before I do loads of work. def 90 with TDi engine. The noise is intermittent and is 'rotational' i.e. only happens when the wheels are in motion and is road speed related. Dipping the clutch and putting in gbox neutral the noise is still there. Current known issues: (quite a lot of) Play in drop arm ball joint (getting done on Monday fingers crossed) - don't think is the cause? Front axle: Play in diff nose, it can be waggled, it's not the UJ as they are new and the play is actually on the flange. Play disappears or reduces after driveline slack is taken up by turning the prop. It almost appears to screw in turning anti-clockwise. Play in swivel pin - on my jobs to do this month, however as a stop gap i removed the shims and padded the thrust washer to remove play for the MoT. This was done just before the noise started. However this can't cause it can it? since it doesn't affect rotation, and to do the job I just took the top pin out, unless I have moved the hub assembly far enough that a CV catches sometimes??? Front CV, left I think is in need of changing, right I am positive needs renewing, going to do the job during the swivel pin change. So my plan was to look at dropping the front prop off and taking off the drive flanges on the front wheels, this should isolate the front axles diff and CVs, if I still get the noise it is obviously transfer box or rear axle then? Is that the way to do it? Assuming that the noise is the front axle, how can I tell if diff or CVs? I think I already know what's gonna be said, take the drive shafts out, which will mean I'll tell if it's the CVs anyway. Since the noise just comes and goes it's difficult to pin down, however this morning it seemed to come on a gentle bend at 30-40mph, which makes me think it is the diff, as a u turn doesn't seem to have any clicking or banging from CVs. The diff is obviously running fast and any problem would show up more during a 'high speed' corner rather than slow hard cornering? I have a spare diff, so I was thinking about just putting one in when I did the swivels, however it will mean I will have to dismantle both sides at the same time won't it? finally the play in the diff nose, this is presumably the bearing and crushable thingy that needs replacing isn't it? It is leaking some oil. Oh, I did also check that the diff had oil in and while ugly and needs changing it was full.

Hmmm, I have to discount Nigels answer since he has so much weight that his probably wouldn't lock up anyway Maybe I should consider a fluid change, it may that the front isn't getting pressure because of contamination, I can't seen any other reason off hand. At the moment I have new pads all round, and I think the discs are all OK (ish rear ones have some scoring after HBRO event in Aldershot). I did replace a pipe this week and thought the front braking improved. I've kind of put it down to the fact that with soft springs as I brake the front dips and back lifts and the wheels lock on the rear. (90 truck cab) could the master cylinder cause it, the dual system seems to have 2 springs, I was wondering if they were a proportioning device, since there doesn't seem to be another one. It may also be that there is no G valve on mine (I don't know if there is, I haven't looked) which would make a big difference.

defintely consider getting the brake propotioning valve, about £40 to £60. My 90 has a rear RR axle and the rear locks like a beast, drives me mad. However you know what it's like, you don't like faffing with the brakes if they are working, so I haven't got around to getting the valve and fitting. As a side note the valve may be useful for events, you could alter the bias to be more rear orientated making it safer to go down slopes? I'm thinking if the rear locks up it might not slip around as much as if the front did, however considering how far I can get the back out I am not convinced I'm talking anything but b****ks about that

last photo is nice, first time I have seen one at full chat, they rarely run them fast because we can't afford the fuel. I work with one of the guys that is trying to get the retreat for falkland vets down your way, in fact I work with about 3 guys who were on ships down that way, everyone of them is a pleasure to deal with, seems to remove the BS from the naval people IMHO, some of the newer lot seem to have BS in abundance. For information the red sea dart missiles are display ones, Southampton was obviously trying to fly the flag at the time

ahh yes, had my first experience my ez bleed kit for the clutch this week. sure can empty a whole bottle of fluid quickly can't it. please tell me it works better for brakes than it does for a defender clutch. I've heard a suggestion of using it dry as it will apply the pressure to still allow you to do it one man, however you need to keep an eye on the fluid when doing it without any back up.