Snagger

I had BFG ATKOs (235/70) on my RRC and thought they were fantastic, especially in winter. I have never tried the Grabbers, though.

Red is right. It matters not what the path is; if the ends of the drag link are at different heights, you're still going to have bump steer with the panhard rod out of parallel. You need to either lower the ball joint at the steering box end by having a swan-necked drop arm or lowering the box down, or raise the opposite ball joint up so that the rod is horizontal with some sort of adaptor/extender block on the swivel housing arm, which would be very difficult to make robust. I think the best you'll get is to use a P38 steering box, which is much taller, with new bolt holes drilled in the chassis and a new lower bracket welded to the chassis, possibly in conjunction with a modified drop arm to crank the arm lower. Frankly, I think you'll find very little benefit for all the work and would be best returning everything to standard. Are you sure it's not new panhard bushes rather than geometry which reduced wandering?

He buggered the rear joint angle on your down pipe too, then? He did that on both my 12J and Tdi pipes. His workmanships is nowhere near as bad as the company's service, though. Expect to be shouted and sworn at and called a liar if you call them with a complaint.

If it's a UK business, then under the Sale of Goods Act he has to replace the part or refund your purchase (and perhaps shipping costs, but not sure about the latter).

http://www.nickslandrover.co.uk/easy-breathing/ The first photo in this post was while I still had the 12J, the second after the Tdi was installed, but the filter system has stayed unchanged. You see the adaptor pipe between the corrugated hose (from the Defender side intake) to the 19J filter housing intake, and it has a union on the top of the adaptor. In this case, I'd blanked the union with a rubber cap so that the 12J's breather fed directly into the manifold to keep the filter clean, but on the Tdi installation, I routed the breather to that union as, firstly, you cant plumb it into the pressurised manifold, and secondly, I wanted the oil caught before it contaminated the ducts, turbo and intercooler. By using a K&N, I don't have to worry about the filter getting soggy and collapsing - K7Ns need to be moist, and the dirtier they are, the better they filter the air.

As said, make sure the waste gate actuator is free to move, as they can seize. Seized shut, this will result in an overboost. As far as adjustment goes, if the yellow factory paint is on the lock nut, leave well alone. If not, a local tuning specialist should have calibration equipment and it's simple to set. Apart from connecting the boost pipe from turbo to pump and readjusting the fuelling, there is nothing to be done on those parts. I think the screw is wound in to increase fuelling, so just try 45degrees at a time until you get light smoke under full acceleration. If you call Bob at Dieselbob Tuning, he'll advise better on how to do it - he did my pumps and was generous with advice. The L-bracket and U-clamp for the exhaust use a single bolt into the side of the block roughly half way along and a couple of inches above the joint with the ladder frame. If I remember correctly, the U-bolt ends were forwards, but you won't be able to fit it the wrong way around. The U-bolt is fitted horizontally.. I'll look for photos. Edit: look at the second last photo in this link http://www.nickslandrover.co.uk/not-a-lazy-sunday/ and look for the bolt hole between the starter motor and engine mount in the reinforcing webs, and the second photo of this http://www.nickslandrover.co.uk/engine-oil-leak-remedy/ in the shadows behind the engine mount, showing the bracket and U-bolt nuts.

I was concerned that the 4.71 diffs on my 109 would be too low for the retrofit of a ZF and BW transfer box to work well, but this is an element that make me think it will be rather good, even though it'll be similarly geared to a Series transmission with overdrive. Anyone know if 4.1:1 diff gears have become cheaper of late, though? Last time I looked, they were horrifically expensive.

You'll be astonished by the transformation. Just be sympathetic to the gearbox - feed the throttle in rather than just booting it; only fourth can take a clumsy right foot in the long term. As long as you ease the clutch and throttle in easily, though, the other gears will cope fine. But Series transmission with the low diffs make a Series pull extremely well with a Tdi, far better than a Defender. You just run out of gears, even with an overdrive.

A really good refurb costs more than the saleable value, so just do anything that is relatively cheap or is essential tot he use of the vehicle. Firstly, that reduces your risk and expenditure of time as well as money, secondly it gives you a much bigger market by not being in the top price band.

I think they're a great tool in general, though I have no experience of this specific type. Checking internal sections of chassis, bulkheads and doors seems the most common application, but you can check all sorts of ducts for trapped moisture, mould, oil, foreign objects (like dropped screws rattling around).

I would use a 110 or 240V mains fed one. For the amount of use that yours will get, and the torque involved, you will forever be waiting on batteries to recharge, and batteries on modern tools don't seem to last many cycles (my Bosch drill batteries stopped taking much of a charge after two years). The flex is a bit of a nuisance, but not as much as a dead battery, and the gun will be much more powerful while no noisier than the battery operated one.

Try Dunsfold Land Rover. I always found them very quick and very well priced with a stock of odd and eclectic as well as the usual genuine Series parts.

The genuine rubbers have weaves of fibre in them, similar to canvass but must be waterproof. Pattern rubbers are plain and tend to stretch and tear far more easily. Make sure you have the brass eyelets for the bolt holes, too, as they prevent crushing and tearing of the rubber.

The centre and rear sections are standard V8 or 2.6, I can't remember which. The routing is different behind the rear axle, and I had to make up a bracket to fit to the chassis with rivnuts. It makes fitting mudguards harder, too.

My Defender heater has air too hot to keep your fingers over the vents. It has markedly better airflow than the SIII heater, but it's still weak compared to a modern car or the Defender TDCI heater. A RRC/Discovery heater would eb great if you can find a neat way of fitting it.

I suspect that the outer face is rusted through and will need a new sheet of steel welding in after cutting the existing panel along its corner and just above the hinge, drilling the spot welds out. The good news is that the front face looks alright - they usually go there too, so your repair will be significantly easier than usual. If you're lucky, the inner panel above the door hinge will clean up with the wire cups, but that may need a new sheet replacement welded to the aft side of the door pillar. It doesn't look too bad, but is almost certainly a cutting and welding job.

You man when finishing up, or when fitting the input pinion in the bell housing? If the former, then any hang up is likely to be the lay shaft rear bearing sitting outside of its race. It's very fiddly to ensure the bearing is seated properly, but you should get smooth rotation when it is. Do this job with the gear box vertical. Rotate the lay shaft until you are certain the bearing is in. Then assemble the front end parts - bell housing and pinion, lay shaft drive gear and spacer, with one finger through the layshaft bearing hooking the spacer and gear in place, and lower onto the gear box shafts. A second pair of hands helps a lot with alignment and guidance.

I would guess the only reason it could whistle on throttle reduction is turbo lag causing higher boost in the induction system as the pistons and valves slow down, allowing less of the compressed air in, in exactly the opposite way of turbo lag on acceleration. That would suggest an air leak between the compressor casing and the head, though where is anyone's guess. I would be suspicious of the o-ring between the turbo's compressor housing and core sections, which will be exposed if you remove the compressor housing. Other likely candidates are the manifold gasket and a holed intercooler.

Always make sure the table top is dry before dancing on it, Mike! Mend soon.

The last SIIAs had SIII boxes anyway (Suffix A, of course). It's a stronger box than the SII - the lay shaft is single piece with radiused blends to the gear wheels, preventing the stress concentrations of the sharp changes in section of the SII shaft where splines or clip groves were cut. For that sake, the ease of driving and the retention of the existing clutch hydraulics and brackets, I'd recommend you fit another SIII unit or refurbish what you have.

Try this: http://www.nickslandrover.co.uk/fitting-a-defender-heater/

For what it's worth, my 109 still has its original (2.25p) ignition switch, despite running a Tdi since 2008 and a 12J before that since 1994. That is without a relay between the switch and starter solenoid. I still think you need to investigate the wiring between switch and relay to see if there is a short.

Bizarrely, my '95 RRC has one, despite being factory fitted with an R380. It's a nuisance as it stops me stretching my leg on long drives. I'd recommend you try driving without one first, and if you find it uncomfortable, then fit one after sitting in the car for a bit with varied trial positions until you find what you want. You could always make slotted holes to allow adjustment.

I've read about far more broken SII and SIII boxes than Defender boxes, even with the known LT77 spline issue. As for being unable to push start a vehicle off road, unless it is on a down slope with a very even trail surface, you just aren't going to push a laden 109 or 110 by people power alone, especially with one of the (likely) only two of you inside. A rough track or a field is not going to permit hand pushing to bump start. So, in either case, manual or auto, you'll be waiting for a tow. As for reliability, which do you read about on here more often? Clutch (including fork and hydraulics) or torque converter? I take the point about the need to keep the ATF temperature down, but from everything I have read on other threads, everything suggests the auto is far more robust and also far gentler on the prop shafts and axles than the standard manual transmissions. Of course things get greyer when modifying, but I can't see why a non-standard auto is "automatically" worse than a non-standard manual, just like I can't see a strong argument that one standard transmission is better than the other. Like I said, I have never driven off road with an auto, and only done trips with a standard SIII transmission (+OD) behind a Tdi, which is not an ideal combination for remote areas, so I'm keen to learn good, logical reasoning for both types.

If the switches are Britpart, then it could be them. I had no end of trouble trying to adjust a Britpart brake light switch, which ended up in the bin, replaced by a genuine one, which was a doddle to set up.