Snagger

I can spot the first job. Bin the FWH!

I had a new shaft made up and the cover machined to suit standard bearings as the LR unit is unavailable separate from a new timing case front cover. £££!

As Mike says, it should do fine with an electric fan. 14" is what you need, and I strongly recommend the X-Eng X-Fan thermostatic switch and hose adaptor, plus a backup manual override switch in case the thermostatic switch fails. Works fine on my Discovery 200Tdi in my 109. I'd still rather have the viscous fan, but can't, so this'll do. Just make sure the fan is installed and wired correctly - I had a puller fan to mount behind the rad; the box and internal wrapping were labelled puller, but the impeller was on the pusher way around. It seemed to work, but it did a poor job climbing mountains until I found the wiring needed reversing (so it now has blue feed and brown earth) and not it works well - clearly it was a pusher, and you need to reverse the polarity as well as fan.

Likewise the photos! Tdis are quite heavy, noisy and harsh, so you will need some type of noise proofing and if you can, find a way of retaining the Discovery mountings. You can just use the original engine's left hand mount and bracket and perhaps the right side too, though you might need the right mount from a Defender (or earlier 12J or 19J diesel engine and perhaps the 2.5 petrol, as certainly all the diesels and possibly the petrol had the same mounts). The Discovery engine has a higher mounting of the fuel injection pump, so there is a chance the Series mount will squeeze under it, but I really don't know. Certainly doesn't with the Defender engine. You will have problems with the turbo fouling the chassis, but on an 88", you can rotate the compressor housing to clear it. It's a good conversion and should be reliable as well as very drivable and fairly economical. The only downside is the noise.

Roamerdrives are much more reliable, being epicyclic and using EP90. I have had one on my 109. I had to rebuild it because I damaged the bearings when the transfer box lost a lot of its oil, but the rest of it stood up very well indeed, which is testament to its strength. It's a shame they don't have the option of solenoid control, like the GKN, rather than just the extra lever, but you can buy one with confidence.

That makes sense, sadly - the Boosts are the best looking 110 rated alloys, the rest are too blingy!

There was no relay on the genuine SIII diesel heater plug wiring, so nothing should be making a click. If someone has retrofit a relay, then the relay, its earth or its command wire from the ignition switch is at fault.

If that is what you're mechanic told you, he is not only an idiot but also a liar. Find another mechanic!

Fatboy is right; you have them the wrong way around (upside down and on the wrong sides). The diagonal map stowage strip should be on the top of the visors when folded up.

I much prefer them to the Freestyle or the turbine looking type. I was never a fan of the Deep Dish, either. Boost are fine as they look chunky and strong, and they hold their value because they are rated for 110s.

"I don't know if you would be able to feel roughness in the bearings if you took off the serpentine belt and felt the PAS pump pulley by hand for anything unusual - might be worth a try, I didn't think to look!" Yes, you should. The pump should turn easily and smooth;y by hand with just a little resistance from the seal. Any play, roughness or stiffness is indicative of a failed pump.

And do not buy a typical recon box, only Adwest recon (the original manufacturer) - the rest are just cleaned and painted with new seals and fail in months.

Yep, normal at low power settings, and worst on the over-run.

Try draining it down and replacing the fluid - it does break down and get contaminated, and needs changes just like the other fluids.

Poly carbonate is very tough, but it does suffer from UV. Most plastics do, which is why most modern cars' headlamp covers go opaque and yellow after 2-3 years. Occasional polishing with T-cut or similar prevents it and will repair the surface of the plastic, though I'm not sure it'd get the yellowness out of those which have discoloured (I suspect that is a cheaper plastic - as far as I know, polycarbonate doesn't discolour; BT phone boxes and many bus stations used it, and while it became more brittle and the surface went milky with age, I never saw a yellowed one).

The Discovery's water pump is in the wrong place anyway, putting the fan too low and it will foul the cross member, never mind the rad. You'll need to retain the electric fan, loathe as I am to say it.

Lifting hinges don't lift the farm gate 12"! Ideally I'd have concertina doors folding outwards - I have plenty of drive space (about 20' wide by 30' or so long), and while it is shallow enough to use engine cranes, axle stands and so on, it's too steep for outward opening doors unless they could deform like the side barriers on cattle or sheep trucks, but having so many sliding slats would be a maintenance nightmare. And I doubt it'd be feasible for two 7x8' doors. Building a stud wall in front of the door retraction area uses up a little more space, but since I already put up a stud wall between the two separate doors I want to replace with one, I already have the materials. The track for the sideways rolling doors can be shimmed at regular intervals to take up moderate unevenness, and would be fine for my floor at the doorways. I cant have an upward rolling door because the eves wouldn't be big enough and I don't want a dormer effect box along the front.

Something like this would work well for me as my garage slopes up from the doors, meaning swing doors won't work. http://www.thegaragedoorcentre.co.uk/hormannsidesectionaldoors.php

The 200 rad doesn't have a baffle plate and two passes through the core, as I understand it, because the outlet is on the opposite end from the inlet. On the 300 rad, they're both on the same side. That also means the oil cooler is sitting in fully cooled water on the side of the rad, rather than semi cooled as per the 300, so that may be a factor too.

Yep, just need a party agreement just in case of future disagreement and for when either property is sold.

That slight slope is a good thing - I would make it that way deliberately as it'll minimise problems if you ever get a leak or some minor flooding. I have a similar sized garage in the UK. The floor was poorly levelled and has a few big cracks from drying too fast. The main problem is the doors - it has two up and over doors which just let the lightweight squeeze under and are just wide enough for the RRC, but with the shelving down one side and workbenches along the other, it makes getting the vehicles in impossible on one side and tight on the other - I have to use wheel trucks (the steel trucks with four castors for each car wheel) to move the car into a workable position. A door like yours would be much better, and I'd like to move the front lintels up to one big lintel level with front ends of the roof trusses to create a tall enough door to get the 109 or a Defender in. So, you have a lot of the things I'd like to do already.

They can fail open or closed - open means the fan still idles through residual friction instead of being locked to the shaft. Failing closed means they're locked even when cold. The penalty there is small. If it fails open, then you can use a couple of cable ties to lock the fan to the hub. It's always worth having a few cable ties in the car for securing wiring, hoses or other items that come loose anyway. I have had two viscous hubs fail, and both failed closed. It's not a big deal - they're far more reliable than electric fans, and easy to check; they should have a bit of resistance when cold, but be easy to turn by hand (or stop with the aid of a tool, not fingers, when running cold), and should be ocked up when the engine is up to temperature.

Back on form then, Nige! Those blades can be bloody dangerous, literally. It'd be worth buying or fabricating a handle for them - better grip, more control, less cramp in your thumb and less time at A&E...

As BSF says, fitting without turbo is a conversion with merit. It limits the car's performance to pretty much what it is with a late 2.25 petrol, but for most SIII owners now that's fine. Most who need more already have a Defender. It certainly makes installation easier and cheaper. I used the same engine as you, but used Defender 200Tdi manifolds and turbo (harder to get hold of now). You can also use 300Tdi parts which are a direct fit. The installation is covered in the engine section of my blog - click my signature below if you want to read it and check the photos.

Diff swaps are the cheap way of reducing rpm, but it makes driving horrible - overgeared at junctions and town driving in mid rpm 3rd gear rather than low revs 4th means it doesn't work in practice, increasing fuel consumption and noise, making junctions unpleasant and eventually killing your gear box. It also bggers off road ability. High ratio transfer box does the same, but without the ruining of low range and without needing to recalibrate the speedo. Overdrive sorts all the problems without any negatives (other than purchase price), and gives an optional rather than fixed gearing increase, giving you eight forward gears and two reverse. Best only used in 3rd and 4th, though, for practicality as well as avoiding gear box stress.