Snagger

Five big screws, the four small screws holding the vent trims in, and don't forget the two small screws in the lower edge roughly in line with the vent flap levers.

Wards are cheap, about half the price of Turner last time I looked. I remember they did the engine (or parts of) for an LRO vehicle (Saville's SI, IIRC), and I think there were some problems. I haven't heard much about them, but after several dealings with Turner, I've always found Richard and Frida very helpful indeed and the work excellent. I'm happy enough to pay the extra because they do make the engines better than LR ever did.

I have previously replaced a windscreen without removing the frame or dash - only the bottom screw in the centre vertical is obstructed, and that can be removed with mole grips and pliers. I then left that screw out on reassembly for ease of future repair (replaced during the big rebuild).

I suspect the light problem is actually a short between wires in the loom to the back of the vehicle, the brake light wire shorting into the warning lamp, or a loose and chafed earth wire from the warning lamp making an incorrect earth and shorting when moving under braking inertia. The brake lights earth directly to the body inside the rear body (inside the internal cover panels behind the rear lights), so shouldn't affect instruments which earth through their senders and through the dash (faulty dash earths do cause instrument problems as many dash components share the.same earths). I think you also need to repair your keyboard, specifically the punctuation keys.

Turner Engineering do exactly what you're after, and no-one does LR engines better. They'll ship a stripped engine to you and have the old one taken back by the courier in exchange, saving time.

Stobbie, contact Trading Standards, which is the UK authority on such matters. They will take the details and investigate and arbitrate. If there are other reports, they will prosecute him.

You will neither either Defender 200Tdi manifolds and turbo or 300Tdi; the existing turbo can be rotated to fit an 88", but not a 109".

I wish you a speedy recovery. It is an unfortunate aspect of road use that an erroneous driver puts others at risk, not just themselves. Drink/drug driving is on the increase again, people driving while unfit to do so, people driving unsafe vehicles, aggressive driving, use of mobile phones and other distractions, speeding - they all kill. I wouldn't care if it was only themselves they harmed, but they ruin others' lives day in, day out. That is why I think the law should be extremely harsh on them. By the way, 175kmh impact equates to 49m/s, not 400 - that's mach 1.3!

Chawton white is a whole vehicle colour. The roof would match. I think the normal white is Arctic white. Im not sure if this is just an old name for Chawton - as far as I know, Arctic is very slightly yellower than the chalky tone of Chawton, but that may be a perception error when seeing white roofs against coloured panels as opposed to a completely white vehicle. The old creamy colour has always been "Limestone", used from SIs to 90s and 110s.

You haven't looked at their prices, Neil!

But it is an easily transferable part - you can fit it to another vehicle if you replace yours, or you can sell it on separately for a large sum. So, yes it's expensive, but it is a life-long investment with good fuel (and ear) saving and a high residual value.

If the back end has already been replaced, and now you have had to get the rotten middle section removed then trust me, the rest is not OK - it's on borrowed time. The repair sections are very vulnerable to rust because they are bare inside and have overlaps with the old steel that prevent coating with wax. It's a fairly temporary measure unless it was butt welded in and the inside cleaned out and waxoiled diligently. Hopefully, you'll get a few years out of it. But be warned that once you start having to replace more than the odd outrigger or the rear cross member, the rot is already well advance inside the entire chassis.

It doesn't take much effort to move the floor braces on the tub, and you would be getting the steel away from corroding aluminium in the process. Moving the chassis hoops would be simple, too - just clamp a bar along the tops of all the hoops, then move one at a time to where you need them, the bar keeping the height alignment.

Sounds like you've been conned. You have spent money on repairing a rotten chassis, other areas of which will need attention very soon, and you will have to replace the whole thing. How is that better than stumping up for the big and long term investment straight away and avoiding the costs of futile repairs of the rotten chassis?

I'd also not use sealant (it makes getting the seals out intact difficult or impossible) and brush in some waxoil with the seal prised open before fitting the retaining strip. It'll keep the metal protected while allowing creep, rather than splitting like sealant.

The easiest way is a process of elimination - run a temporary replacement earth wire from the dim bulb to a good earth. If that doesn't work, run a length of wire from the Lucar connector (where the wire from the switch splits for each light under the slam panel). Once you identify the failed wire, replace it. Better still, get a few meters of the right coloured wires from vehiclewiringproducts.co.uk (you could just go to a local autofactors if you don't mind using wrong coding plain coloured wire - I'd suggest plain white for substituting the blue with white trace and red for the blue with red trace), all run with protective wrap and grommets through the wings, to replace the old wiring outright. 8A wiring for the individual runs to the lights will be ample, 17A if you replace the wiring from the switch to the connector.

Your wheels are going to be well outside the arches on a Lightweight. You'll need some arches, and the slim ones I've seen on the market won't be enough; you'll need something around 4" or so. What are you doing about regaining some of the lost ride height on the front axle? Fitting 1-ton shackles on the front springs will do it, but you need to do that before welding the brackets to the axle to get the castor angle right.

I think anyone planning a project, be it rebuild, modification or a scratch build, would be unwise not to have a good read of the regs before diving in, but many still seem to...

If one of the lights is bright, then the fault is in the wiring for the dim light. I would suspect corrosion in the connectors or frayed wiring entering the bullet ends, but it is possible that you have a broken wire on a vehicle that age, with only a few intact strands. Find the fault as a matter of urgency; poor connections overload the spot that is conducting, making it behave like a filament and getting very hot - it is almost as likely to start a fire as a short circuit.

That works. Toe in at the wheel rim should be 1.2-2.4mm. That sorts the track rod. With the wheels straight ahead, the steering relay drop arm should point straight ahead. That sorts the drag link. With the above set, the steering relay upper arm should be at 81 degrees from the drop arm, in other words, pointing 9 degrees forward of due right. Setting the steering box drop arm is the trickiest bit; if you set the steering box at mid lock (equal rotations left and right to the end of travel), and then put the drop arm on vertically, then you run out of right lock early as the drop arm hits the foot well. So, set the box to full right lock, fit the drop arm with just enough clearance for the ball joint to clear the foot well, and tighten the nut. Then rotate the steering wheel back to midpoint of its rotation range. That should leave the drop arm slightly forward of vertical, at a guess around 9 degrees, which is why LR introduced the 9 degree amendment to the relay top arm (used to be set 90 degrees from the bottom). So you now have your longitudinal rod distance. All of the above is for right hand drive. For left hand drive, it is all the same except that you need to have the relay upper arm 9 degrees forward of pointing due left, and set the steering box drop arm on the rocker shaft with the steering column at full left of rotations.

A vehicle can only retain the original VIN if rebuilt on the original, unmodified chassis (repairs are allowed, not mods) or a brand new chassis of equivalent specification (ie same wheel base, same suspension mounts and overall configuration, etc), with supporting evidence of the purchase or manufacture of the new chassis. Using a second hand chassis is permitted, but the car must go through a VIC (to ensure no parts are from illegal sources) in addition to getting a new VIN and losing tax exemption if it previously applied. That has been the case for well over a decade. You seem to be presenting a lot of old information as new. Check your dates before saying there have been changes, as you could cause undue concern to someone with a project on the go.

Which in turn implies that any failed vehicle is "unsafe", in which case it should not be driven. In response to Sheffield's question, the law is quite clear that a vehicle with no MoT can be driven to a place of repair or the MoT testing station, with a booking, but nowhere else. So, if you were going to carry the work out at home, you are theoretically legally covered for that drive. The trouble is, if the failure is the cause of an accident or is an exacerbating factor, you can't plead ignorance about it and could still be prosecuted for negligence or driving an unsafe vehicle. Tricky, isn't it? Basically, they have you either way, if anything goes wrong.

The reason I mentioned the above was the likelihood (and certainty if the vehicle was previously maintained properly) that the other side's disc was fitted at the same time as the failed one, and thus by the same fitter. That means the bolts on that side are almost guaranteed to have been similarly overtightened (if it was over toque that caused the failure) or to be of the same low quality (if it was a quality issue) as on the failed side, so it is quite likely that you have another impending failure.

There are initial lengths in the manual and Haynes book, which you then adjust to suit. I don't have the manual here with me, so can't give you the values.

Difficult to see how he thought he could retain the body donor's VIN, given that everything else has been changed and the body parts used radically altered. While it's not to my taste, it's still beautifully done and quite and interesting read. He really suffers OCD with the paint.