Snagger

The water pump is the problem; it's much lower on the Discovery engine so the viscous fan won't fit and you'll end up with an unshrouded rad with electric fan. The ancilliaries are all in different locations, too - alternator and PAS pump will be in very different locations, needing new hoses for the pump. It is a very wide assembly and routing the intercooler pipes may be a challenge. You'd also need to replace the fuel lines from the fuel filter to injection pump with a custom line due to the Discovery pump's higher position. In all, it's going to look like a DIY retrofit, and certainly scruffier than the Defender engine.

Good. I had a horrible vision of a big person pulling for all their worth with a breaker bar!

I fully understand your desire to personalise the vehicle. Most of us here do just that. The thing is, for it to reflect you, you have to live with the car,get to know it and get to feel which changes to make. Going straight out at it without your own choices and asking for others' suggestions will get you a bad compromise and probably a vehicle you'll hate. Take your time and let it guide you the way you lean; asking for ideas on a blank canvass is asking for others' personalities to be written over your car, not your own.

That's insane, to do all that just for small differences in appearance, especially when it means you can no longer use the proper fan and have to bugger about with the exhaust down pipe.

Please tell me you used the correct initial torque and then the prescribed angle tightening, and that you made sure the bolt holes were free of debris and liquid (coolant and oil) first!

The designers intended it to come in turbo charged and normally aspirated form. The normally aspirated version was dropped.

Can the Defender timing case not be repaired? Most machine shops could look at it and give you a price, which will be less than the cost of all the parts you'd need for a conversion.

Definitely not. All you need is a cheap stereo from any stockist with a CD player and USB connection to connect a stick or phone. Don't waste money on a fancy stereo you won't hear properly and will likely be stolen. Why are you so keen to waste money? Fix what is worn or broken, then see what you NEED to change.

Have you checked the throttle is moving fully and that there are no kinked fuel or air hoses? Quite possible with a conversion like yours.

Monkie, don't scare people if you don't know the answer. Eric, the three hole gasket is the most commonly used and is a fraction thicker than the two hole, so you won't break anything. As I said, the compression will be down a tiny bit, but it should have no noticeable effect. Oddly, the thickest gasket has no holes. One hole gaskets are the thinnest and are very rarely used.

That is a 200Tdi thermostat housing - the 300 is a square box with an unboltable horizontal elbow with two 90 degree bends.

The core engine is the same for both 200s, so you can just swap the Defender timing case and manifolds to the rebuilt engine. The turbo core is the same too; just swap the turbine and compressor casings over if the current turbo s worn out. Then you don't need to replace or reroute all the plumbing.

What age or engine type is the vehicle? Post photos of the hubs if you can, as it makes a difference as to whether alloys will fit without mods or spacers.

You can fit the Defender 200 or the 300 Tdis, but not the Discovery/RRC 200 with the turbo still attached - it fouls the chassis badly. 109 chassis are much deeper than 88s.

Read the bulkhead plates again, specifically the parts about the red knob. 30mph limit sounds about right for low range.

It will reduce the compression a tiny bit, but will have next to no effect. I doubt you'd notice it.

Do you mean the potentiometer on top of the throttle spindle? If so, that's the EGR input (signals the EGR open or closed); just leave it disconnected or remove it completely. If you mean near the back, over the fuel solenoid, I think it's called EDC and is the bit that corresponds to the "spider" on the heater blower that is connected to the immobiliser. You can swap it out for a regular solenoid setup.

The radiator cold outlet is on the same side as the hot inlet on the 300, so you'd need to either play about with making hoses fit or replace the rad, but given that the engine would still be aft in the 200 position, 300 pipes will probably not reach. You'll have the same fun with the intercooler piping, but that'd be true of using the Discovery 200 too.

I'd say that is the rear axle centreline, and always will be - it is the only point that always points at the centre of the turning circle, and does so on all radius, not just minimum, unless you have rear axle steering. I suspect it is only written in that confusing way for double rear axled vehicles, as that transverse line will be roughly half way between them (probably slightly closer to the axle bearing most weight, or if one axle has castoring or steer-assist, then closer tot the axle with fixed wheels, so there will be exceptions to it being through an axle). So, the overhang would seem to start from above the rear axle or at the back of an 8-person cabin, whichever is the furthest aft, as far as I can understand.

The facelift parts get stolen a lot, though less than when the cars were still young. I doubt it's worth the trouble. What is certainly worth the money is getting the chassis and body shell treated. It'll cost £5-600 to be done well, which means steam cleaning inside and out and then cavity wax inside the chassis sections, door frames and the body shell voids and tubes, plus a more resilient coating of the chassis, axles and bodyshell underside (floors, wheel arches, etc). I recommend Rustmaster near Hatfield - he did a great job on my wife's 90.

Another vote for the LR bottle jack. They were also included by LR on TDCI Defenders, not just RRC, Discovery and P38, though my wife's was black rather than the deep red most were. You see plenty of them for sale at the big shows for £10-15. Pick a good one (check the pistons for scoring or damage by extending it fully) and remember the two-piece handle! Trolley jacks are great on the driveway, but awful things to lug around in the car. I just use the LR type - they are surprisingly strong and with their double piston, lift a long way (Halfords and other general types only have a single piston, so only have half the lift height; don't get one of those)

Just one or two, though, Fridge... Tackling a rebuild without manuals is crazy. The Haynes manual is for the most part a reproduction of the LR Workshop Manual, with added photos. The Parts Catalogue is worth having, too.

... well, it would, because there is not enough space for the standard rear tank and they cut off the back end along the forward edge of the original filler aperture, and those Series front filler assemblies are easier to install than Defender types as they need no spot welding or folding of the cut edges. With a little effort, they could have used the original filler, and it would have looked far neater.

He'd want to keep the other engine complete, so you can swap your undrilled elbow with his switch equipped one. The rubber seal around the thermostat should keep your engine water tight when you do the swap; there is no gasket in the joint. You'll just need to top up the coolant on completion. You can use the aircon without those switches, if you keep an aye on the engine temperature - a manual switch to activate the booster fans and switching the aircon off if they can't cope will do the same thing. It's just nice to have t taken care of automatically.

Yes to all of the above. You will need the exhaust manifold from a 10 or 12J normally aspirated diesel. Glencoyne Engineering has instructions on his website how to mate it up as the stud patterns are a little different. I would also recommend a 2" bore exhaust; I found a standard 2.25l petrol exhaust caused high temperatures on long hills. As for the flywheel housing to gear box bell housing, you can try the Series flywheel housing, but I know the 12J (2.5nad) housing fits the block and only needs one stud moving to mate to the SIII box. The Discovery housing will also fit, with a few studs added after their blind holes have been tapped out, but you still need to do something about the four bolts that go through the bottom of the Discovery bell housing and the flywheel housing into the ladder frame under the block. I recommend using socket head screws that secure against the surface of the flywheel housing, drilling holes for their heads in the bell housing flange. Received wisdom is to shoulder bore the flywheel housing to recess the heads, which is neat, but then you can't remove them to get the ladder frame off for crank shaft access without removing the gear box.