Snagger

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.

Limestone will look odd against dark green, especially metallic. It works better with solid pastel colours, ie. the old Leyland and earlier colours of the Series era. The only modern Defender colour it'd go well with is the modern Pastel green on the Heritage special edition and the specials last year, similar to the Atlantic green of the first SIs. I think Chawton or Arctic, if that was the Defender roof white name, would be best, but it doesn't really matter as long as it is a fairly clean white and you make a note of the code for future touch ups.

If you're burning out that many switches, then it suggests a short between the switch and the relay. I see the permanent live to the switch has also burnt, which suggests loom damage too.

Fair enough, but if serious overlanding, wouldn't a starter motor be one of the spares you carry, given that any vehicle in the bush or on rutted roads will not be able to be push started and you might be waiting a long time for a tow, auto and manual alike? As for their overheating, surely an appropriate oil cooler deals with that very easily? I accept that autos are hard to rebuild in the field, but so would an LT77 or RT380 be. A Series box is simple to repair in the field, but is more likely to fail in the first place...

Like the others said and you found, disconnect the diff ends first to allow you to rotate the prop and flange to get the special long socket onto the nuts, especially the rear prop. Use a single bolt through the diff end and flange to support the prop while you work on the gear box ends. I find the bolts on the 3/9 o'colck positions easiest to work on, so rotate the prop 90 degrees to do each bolt.

No. You have to assemble the front of the box vertically to align the shafts and bearings (still fiddly even then), and you wouldn't have enough separation of the units to get the tools in the bell housing in situ anyway.

The HRTC is overgeared regardless of engine - even if you have the low torque of a big engine to avoid stalling in the raised 1st gear, then it'll be juddering, which is no good for the Series gear box - Tdis and V8s produce far more torque than the box was designed for, and while the box copes admirably if driven sympathetically, juddering and thumping will eventually kill it. Furthermore, you lose engine braking for descents, which is not so much of an issue on road using HRTC, but generally just an issue off road in low range, which is why HRTC is a much better option than 3.54 diffs in a Series. The best option by a long way os overdrive, as you can just select it when needed and go back to standard low gears for low speed or hills. But with a Tdi or V8, that still leaves a Series under geared, and 3.54 diffs will still handicap the vehicle. That leaves a choice of changing the transmission for something better suited to the engine, or using an overdrive with something like 4.1 diffs, which will avoid fabrication and chassis/cab alterations but will still be expensive and have some small compromise for low ratio unless you also fit the SII Suffix B low range gears (simple enough swap for the experienced, and not staggeringly expensive). I don't know of a calculator for ideal ratios, but I'd use the LR ratios and engine figures as a rough template. The Defender transmissions are very flexible, though, with much taller top ratios than Series, and significantly lower low first, so you get the best of both worlds.