Snagger

Bloody hell! Those engine prices are insane! Given that, I’d find a good Discovery II’s V8 and source the bits to mate it to the LT77, or if I was likely to do much city driving, swap the engine and transmission complete (maybe a transfer gearing rather than the 1.22). That’d go really nicely and would keep the all-LR theme too.

I remember Chinooks and Super Pumas having gear box issues in civil use, but seem to have been ok in military use. Sea gulls are surprisingly solid and heavy birds. I have destroyed a couple of radomes in striking them, one at less than 200kts. Had a hell of a mess when I took one down a 737 engine as I was stowing the reversers - it took the engineer over an hour to clean it all out, but luckily no damage as the engine was at idle,

Yep, I’d try a piece of plate steel and a big hammer first (the plate steel will spread the load and prevent the hammer denting the cross member). If that doesn’t work, then the truck repair shops may be a better solution than a body shop, but either should get that out.

By the same token, you could find a used diesel…. I think I recall the Cummins being 7-8k, still a lot of money. 12-15 would be way over the top.

It almost looks like a 109 Safari roof.

That’s nice to know. I suspect many Grenadier owners are ex-Defender owners and still have a fondness for the older car, given the Grenadier’s roots.

I have TI Console (now called Heystee, the owner’s surname) which haven’t sagged at all in over 25 years. They are very expensive compared to the others, though. Expect about 2” lift, so be wary of the brake lines, not just the dampers. Avoid ProComp dampers, typically sold with parabolic springs as a kit - they rust and leak very quickly, and their common ES9000 spec are far to stiff even for road use. ES3000 works fine until they rust.

I suspect the damage can be dealt with by a bit of reshaping and the use of correct spreaders. A body shop might do it for a much smaller fee than the cost of a new cross member and all the aggravation involved in welding it in.

I suspect it’s Drivelodge too. They don’t have quite the opening area or volume of the Alucab types, but they are a fraction of the price and I think they are a much neater installation.what would be better for me is if they had a parallel lifting roof version (a bit like a Maggiolina tent) that covered the flat section of the roof with the same small side curve overlap but not covering the front slope, so the slightly different profile of the Series roof and the existing sunroof wouldn’t be a problem, and also to maximise the internal volume instead of having a shallow wedge at the front. They make systems for many vehicles, not just Defenders, so it’s possible they have something. I’ll ask them one day.

I don’t know that a Cummins would be so much more than a new LS - I haven’t looked it up. The 2.8 Cummins is pretty compact, though, so might be an easier fit. As to noise and smoothness, these are generations ahead of the Tdi and it didn’t seem too noisy, especially considering the 90 it was in had no interior linings and the tunnel cover was still absent. Most of the noise came from the big tyres. I do get your point, and yes, a V8 has to be smoother on the transmission, but most damage is from heavy feet rather than the crank impulses, and an LS is at least as likely to kill the transmission as a four pot diesel.

That much is true, but diesels do have much better mpg and most Americans are upset about how much fuel prices have risen, even though it is far cheaper than in Europe. North Americans (and Aussies) do tend to drive much greater distances than most.

D5 is just a needless thing outright. They should never have made it, called the new Defender the Discovery 5 and kept everyone happy.

Maer seem to enjoy a good reputation as far as I can tell.

It is sometimes the bore for the shaft wearing oval, but more often than not, it is just the o-ring going hard and flat or being torn or split. It’s hard to tell until the shaft is removed.

I tried a friend’s 2.8 Cummins 90 work in progress, and it pulls like a freight train. Well worth considering, given the costs and pitfalls of sourcing a Tdi over there. That does look a tidy 110. It wouldn’t have left the Army like that! The 12J engine is a steady plodder, reliable and quite capable off road in low ratio, but if you cover many road miles, I can see why you’d want something a bit fruitier. As Drumstick mentioned, most 12J 110s in the UK Forces had 1.6:1 ratio high range, which will leave you a bit undergeared with a stronger engine.

😂😂 He does scrub up alright! He was in his work clothes and was working on the centre dash of his 130 pick up when I arrived. He showed me around (nice change for me from being shown out) before taking me upstairs for a brew and a good chat before we went out for lunch. Mike is a really lovely guy, just how he comes over in the videos. He has a bit of a Dr Doolittle thing going on with the local animals, too. I always thought you can tell a lot about someone by how they treat animals, and perhaps more revealing, how animals react to them.

No, he’s a customer in very recent videos ( bought the Spanish white 110 with black roof and blew the turbo up - nice guy, but no mechanical sympathy😉).

I believe LRs within 8HP have plastic sumps too, but have bash plates underneath.

Took a bit of a drive (during which it started snowing) on the layover, but had a good lunch with Mike from BritRest and it wa an interesting to see his workshop in the flesh. He has a lot of interesting stories to tell.

They said he had a stroke, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was vodka related.

Apparently, it was planned but dropped. There is speculation that it was for cost saving on a vehicle that had already significantly exceeded planned sales price, that it was to save weight and a few other reasons floated. One more unlikely suggestion was that the guards were produced in Russian or Belorussian plants now under sanctions. The scale models of the car have the plates fitted.

Yeah… I think that is past treating with a spray of lanolin.

Might still crack if it takes a hard knock, though it should be tougher than the original plastic sump. Probably good enough for moderate conditions, but the broken vehicle wouldn’t have been put into extreme conditions on that trip anyway. A bit of bad luck, probably. Anyway, thought I’d share the warning.

You’d like to think so. 🙄 Apparently the 380 was fixed, ferried back and is already back in service.

I quite understand the need for larger brakes - the big engined variants would be quick. It’s the nature of the single-acting callipers that I’m critical of. I suppose they would have needed wheels with a bigger rear void for double-acting callipers, but they’d have had more clamping pressure which would have allowed a smaller diameter. Maybe it’s the lack of space from the complex suspension…