Snagger

Yep, the nature of the documentation hasn’t changed, just EU imports and exports are now subject to it. You’d think the big exporters, like the Scottish fish industry, would have read up on the various options that may occur, including non-EU export requirements, to be prepared. But it’s easier to blame Westminster. For all that, Westminster should have stopped negotiating on the original deadline to give smaller businesses with less admin staff and less export experience time to study...

Great work and brilliant ideas. I have watched a lot of videos on a van life channel, and it seems they get a lot of abuse in some areas because they are conflated with the type of travellers who are mobile crime waves and leave mountains of rubbish and damage. It’s unfortunate, as most of them appear to be quite mindful of where they camp, but having seen many of the bad sort, I can also understand the reaction of local residents and businesses. Your solution is smart, and it makes the vehicle more efficient and secure while reducing build costs. Like you said, how many places are you going to stay where you need the view from indoors. It might be worth having some discrete external cameras, though, so you can see what is going on outside - those van dwellers have some worrying stories.

The problem at the moment is exporters working out the new rules and paperwork, with some new costs. There shouldn’t be any tariffs, but some exporters are having problems with the transition. So, if you can wait a month or two, things should settle down. A lot of fuss is being made in the UK media about a Dutch online bicycle parts supplier refusing to ship to the UK because they haven’t looked at the new export regulations and are claiming it’ll be too expensive to process the export, and I can sort of see their point in that reading all the legislation would be time consuming and could detract from dealing with other customers if they only ship to the EU, are a small outfit and are very busy, but since the regs for UK companies to export to the EU are identical to those to export around the rest of the world, it shouldn’t be an issue for UK companies who already ship globally. The question is, are Ashcroft a company who ships directly, or do they rely on other companies to handle their exporting process? There can be tariffs for goods exported that have components or ingredients from overseas. This is causing problems in Ireland for the food industry as they import so much flour from the UK, of which much is made from Canadian wheat. Similar tariffs are being added to other UK products that have components from the EU, which is pretty self-defeating as it’ll hamper the EU businesses supplying the UK manufacturers. I presume the same is true of EU manufacturers using UK components. So, if the Ashcroft items have non-UK manufactured parts, there may be some additional costs to EU customers.

He did my last set and the pump and I have been very happy with both. It was him who mentioned that pumps running vegoil need a slight advance on the timing.

I think she’s looking a little more distinguished, like a fine wine.

Running the engine at very lazy revs with tall gears is softer on the ears, but it’s tough on the engine - you’re getting a lot of force on the crank shaft journals without much oil pressure. It also means the water pump isn’t turning fast for the engine load. They’re problems that standard or lower gearing won’t give you.

I know a Bosch specialist in east Bedford who might do the same. But if the parts are rare, this purchase would at least allow you to send the nozzles with the old injectors to a refurbishment specialist, rather than them dismiss the job for lack of parts.

You can still use the RR master, blanking the unused port with one of those plugs that looks a lot like a solid bleed screw without a head.

Can you fit a remote servo?

I’m interested.

It should have a 1.6 already, but who knows what has been done to it since it was demobbed? Even the serial number on the casing is not reliable, as it may have been rebuilt with a different ratio. The only way to know would be to open the rear and bottom covers and count teeth. If you’re changing the 12J engine for something with a bit more poke, and I think you said you’d be sticking with normal sized tyres (7.50 or 235/85), then I think 1.6 is going to be a bit of a nuisance, even in town. It’d not only give a low top speed, but would also put the gears closer together on the speed range, so you’d be changing gears a bit more often. I think you need to decide on which engine you want first and then select a transfer box to suit, but a 1.4 is probably going to be the best bet - that’s why they’re standard on most 90s, 110s and Defenders.

It’s a good test of bulkhead integrity, for certain!

Since you can’t move the lever any further, if you want to use the Ashcroft gaiter, you need to move the aperture. With a little molding of the PU adhesive, I think you’d get a subtle joint and a spray of the paint would hide it almost completely. I think you need to post up more photos of the lever, mount and link to get ideas for moving that and keeping the tunnel, mat and gaiter standards if possible.

Agreed, Steve. They should have made this vehicle the Discovery 5, and be done with it, instead of having it compete with the Discovery and cause brand confusion as well as increased logistics and production costs.

It’s not the ideal solution, especially with expensive cosmetic parts, but you could move that lip aft a little and cut the matting aperture a bit bigger. If you’re planning to use a rubber top cover over the aperture, genuine or the single lever aftermarket special, then you’d have to move the whole aperture, which could be done by adding the material removed from the back edge to the front of the aperture. It’d need careful cutting with a sharp blade, but bonding back in with grey or black Tiger Seal would give a strong bond and would be close to the right colour, and Drew was very practical in choosing standard colours for the polyurethane, the dark grey being RAL02 for a paint match. He reckons that plain acrylic aerosol will stick, but if in doubt, some PIO from Buzzweld in that colour would, work. If that join is not neat enough for you to leave after the above, then you could cover it with some kind of storage tray. Like I said, not ideal, but I think you’d get good results with a little of the patience you’ve shown so far.

This is what upsets so many Defender fans - it’s the positioning of this vehicle in the lineage of the Series and Defender line, rather than as a separate model like the Discovery, Freelander or whatever else. This vehicle fits well in the Discovery camp, but is the antithesis of what Defenders are all about. So, the upset is that they killed the Defender, promised a replacement and gave us something totally inappropriate and gave it the same name. They doubled down on destroying the name and the heritage. The new model is very clever, too clever to be trusted many argue, but an excellent option for those who want a family SUV. It is hopeless for anyone wanting a working vehicle. The name is as much the problem as its predictable electronics reliability.

I remember watching a TV programme talking about car crashes and it showed that almost all resultant fires are caused by the hydraulics rupturing and spraying the brake/clutch fluid onto the exhaust system. They ran en engine up to moderate temperatures and sprayed diesel, oil and petrol onto the exhaust manifold, and not much happened other than boiling off. Then they sprayed some brake fluid and it was quite spectacular.

I have the Protection and Performance type in my 109. It does the job well and is very stiff, but it only a.lows a bit of extra seat movement, impinging on the outboard edge of the seat where it curves down from the B post upright. I’d recommend the type Bigj66 has from Mudstuff.

I followed his rebuilt and he seemed very happy once it was running. I haven’t seen him on here in a while, though - the last comments I remember on his 90 thread were him pondering removing the tubular front wing system and fitting standard wings, which was a few years ago now.

Yes, GKN only fits the 1.4 and I think the same is true of the commercially available underdrives too - they were all generally intended for Defenders, not Discovery’s or RRC. Having been in a vaguely similar position with my 109, using a standard SIII transmission with overdrive and finding it under geared on the 4.71 diffs and trying the 3.54s, I strongly agree with the couple of comments above that it is far better to to be under geared than over geared - within reasonable bounds, both will have similar fuel consumption, but the under geared vehicle will be far easier to drive and will be far more reliable, wearing or breaking transmission parts far less than the over geared one, and not needing to slip the clutch as much. Driving around town or in hilly areas is horrible with an over geared vehicle, and can even be a bit dangerous at junctions. I can see the argument for fitting higher than standard transfer cases like putting a 1.2 into a Defender or the Ashcroft HRTC into a Series vehicle, but having the standard unit and an overdrive is far superior, even though it introduces more moving parts and potentially more energy losses and reliability issues (the GKN seems the most problematic). The flexibility of having standard gearing for most circumstances and being able to step up on the move is enormous, rather than living with a compromised transmission that struggles with accelerating, hills or towing and makes town driving a chore.

The kit comes with three or five parts - seat base, bulkhead centre and the foot well/tunnel cover. The Defender kits come with the outboard click panels, I think. Maybe they’re just optional. The seat base section used to be identical for all models, with guide lines printed on the underside for each different version, showing where to cut. I don’t know if that is still the case, but it was an efficient and flexible way to make them, so there is no reason to have changed that.

Overdrives only fit the 1.4 LT230s.

I think colour coding for flow directions might be hardly, like hot and cold side for heater hoses, oil cooler lines and such. I think there is probably not much need for colour coding fluid types, though - if you can’t tell a rad hose from an oil hose, then you probably should put the spanner’s down! 😉

Ah, I forgot you had a V8. I’d love that, but couldn’t afford the fuel bills, so went diesel. 😏. Autos don’t have a stellar reputation behind Tdis, and I wasn’t that impressed with a Tdi RRC VogueSE with auto when I was trying to find a good Classic (narrowing the search to a manual), but with a Defender or Series, they’re driven slower, so I figure it might not matter like it does in the RRC.

Use the inboard mounting holes if you can! I have a 109 which had the basic flat seats, but I installed Defender seats with single bolt feet and used the inboard sets of holes for each original seat rail, since the cubby box is much narrower than a centre seat, and it gives an enormous amount of extra elbow room and prevents my shoulder hitting the B pillar as it did before. If you strip the top of the seat base clean, then lay the WOR seat base cover in place, you can mark through the bolt holes to cut the holes for the bolts and washers exactly where needed. Just make sure to put the seats in position first to check which holes you need. And yes, you do need to stack the washers to have the seat rails just clear the matting.