Snagger

Sharp clutches with a bit point at near-full pedal movement are usually caused by trapped air. Try to lift the nose of the car as high as possible for clutch bleeding by using ramps or axle stands (not sloping ground or high lift jacks) to make sure the air in the slave cylinder goes to the port end, not the piston end. It makes a huge difference. Just make sure the slave has been plumbed in correctly, too - the pipe should feed into the lower port and the bleed nipple or pipe into the upper port.

Take a look at the axles section of my blog ( nickslandrover.co.uk ) and you will find articles on how I modified my identical rear axle with discs in the cheaper manner. It's not too dictate how you must do it, but it does show a way that worked for me and has given me excellent brakes (comfortably over 80% efficiency on the MoT the other day). It might at least give you a little inspiration. Ignore the suspension bracketry mods on there - those were to fit the axles to a leaf sprung 109 so don't affect you.

I think they may be the same diameter as the bulb holders for the speedo's warning lights. If they are, you will be able to use T9 (wedge tailed) bulbs and plastic bulb holders from any auto-electrical outlet, which have tails for the feed and the earth. That way, you can splice them into the existing loom well back from where the wiring is breaking down and have plenty of slack for when you open the dash. I got the new bulb holders (used in the speedo) from Holden Vintage and Classic.

235438 replaces the newer 532979 on the transfer box main shaft, and 521330 replaces the later 533080 intermediate cluster. More here: http://www.nickslandrover.co.uk/axle-swap-transfer-box-gear-change/ and http://www.nickslandrover.co.uk/new-lows/ The gears cost me £80 inclusive of postage and VAT, and they're genuine. The prices may have gone up a little since.

The photo is clear enough for the purpose. It's a Salisbury. The diff pan has a ring of bolts, but the diff housing is integral to the axle casing, and you have the two large holes in the rear face of the diff housing which are for a spreader unit (like a jack) to spread the opening wider to get the diff and its bearings in and out of their seats. It's the strongest axle LR used on Defenders, though the ENVs used on some Series vehicles may have been stronger. It's a very good axle to have, and swapping the drum brakes for discs isn't hard - the calliper brackets bolt on to the flange where the drum brake back plate and stub axle are located. You can either go the expensive route and fit 300Tdi (and later) callipers, discs, hubs, stub axles and half shafts, or do what Gremlin and I did and use second hand 90/110 front hubs and the correct calliper brackets, and try different combinations of discs and callipers to see what fits. He and I came up with the same solution - 110 rear discs and Discovery or RRC rear callipers with a spacer between the axle flange and calliper bracket to line the slot in the calliper up with the disc. I don't know what the alignment would be like with 110 rear callipers - the Discovery callipers I used came with the entire braking system and front axle from a donor vehicle. Using the 90/110 (pre Defender) front hubs will allow you to retain the existing stub axles, half shafts and drive flanges.

It's very unlikely that you have the SII suffix B transfer box - not that many were made. Suffix C is the same as all the later SII and SIII units (except 1-ton models). Suffix A had a smaller diameter shaft through the intermediate cluster, so they wouldn't fit anyway.

Well, my 109 is draught free, but that's because it has Defender doors and seals and I worked hard to seal all the gaps!

I fitted SII suffix B low range gears to reduce the off road effects of the 3.54 diffs. They're a straight swap for the later spec gears and I was able to do it without removing the unit from the vehicle. They drop the ratio by about 17% compared to the more common low range, so that offsets half of the gearing increase of the diffs when in low range. The V8 should have a bit more engine braking than the original engine, going from 2.25 to 3.5 litres with a similar compression ratio, so the remaining gearing increase should 't have too severe effects unless you do very long steep descents.

Very smart. It looks like Ardennes green, and seems to be remarkably rust free. Has it been resprayed or just barely used? My M-reg 300 soft dash is good for its age and mileage (197k), but the bonnet is not as pristine as that. Glad the wife approves - I'm lucky that Helena is similar in being a fan of the marque and likes our RRC enough to let me do a full restoration on it once the 90 arrives. These vehicles deserve to be preserved.

I would assume there is a hefty return spring somewhere on the pedal - there certainly is on Series and Defender vehicles, and the latter use very similar components to a near identical system as the non-ABS RRC and Discovery. I'd bet the spring is broken or incorrectly fitted.

I spotted the LHD/RHD mismatch, I just credited you with not making the mistake yourself!

Late roofs have five or six very low profile external ribs pressed into the panel which don't add strength, they just prevent drumming. They also have one internal spot welded significant rib along the centre-line for reinforcement. My 109 used to suffer roof leaks through the joints covered by the outboard ribs (the centre rib being over a single sheet). Part of the problem is that the little drain channels in the ends of the ribs fill up with debris - these are little humps that extend sideways in the spot weld flange at the point where the curve at the end of the rib reaches the roof sheet. I did also consider drilling a few holes to allow me to fill the ribs with expanding foam to keep water out in the first place, but after cleaning the drains, it wasn't necessary. Of course, adding a headlining really helped too.

I too would keep the Rover rear axle and just uprate the brakes on that. Again, they're a direct swap, and 109 spec brakes were fitted as standard to the 1980+ rationalised axles. It would also then be very easy to uprate the diffs to 3.54, which will help enormously with mpg and cruising rpm with the V8 engine - with 4.71 diffs, you'll run out of gears even with an overdrive, and will be revving the engine uncomfortably hard at a mere 60mph, which is a problem I had with my Tdi retrofit. I am now using 3.54 diffs, which are a bit too tall for my liking, but my 109 has a lot of extra drag and weight because oft he various fixtures and accessories, but are still a big improvement over the standard diffs and have given me a 13% fuel saving while making driving at 60-70mph comfortable. Swapping the diffs on Rover axles is simple - you just eed to remove the prop shafts, half shafts and the ring of nuts securing the diff housing to the axle case. £.54 diffs will drop straight in, though you must make sure you use the 10-spline diffs from an earlier Discovery or RRC, or from a pre-Defender 90/110. The Salisbury diffs can be swapped too, but it's a complex and difficult job. Either swap will need recalibration of the speedo, which will under-read by 25% (you will be travelling 1/3 faster than indicated). JDO1.com and Speedycables both offer this service, and I just got mine back from JDO (I haven't tested it yet).

What are you on about? I just said it was a LHD wiper spindle position in my first post, regardless of whether it was a LHD vehicle or just an assembly error!

RHD wiper motor tube with a LHD vehicle? The wiper spindle box would be further to the right on a RHD vehicle than a LHD vehicle.

I have my H4s wired through relays, one for both dipped and one for both main and the bullbar spots. The spots help because the headlights lose a lot of light witht he slats in the bullbar. However, I recently fitted the 150% brighter bulbs from Halfords (about £8-9 each, with a blue stripe near the tip of the glass and a very white light), and they are superb. I really don't think I'd need the spots with those bulbs, though more light is not something I intend to remove! My RRC has standard H4 bulbs and Wipac lenses and has very good light projection with the standard wiring setup. I suspect that wiring them to have both filaments burning at the same time on main beam will cause heating problems to the bulbs or connector block, though the switches should have no trouble if relays are used. I also have niggling doubts over the legality of that arrangement, though I can't imaging it being detected, let alone resulting in any penalty.

I can see the point for winch challenges for just the reason you say, James, but for most off-roading use, they limit the steering lock and axle articulation so much that they are a major hindrance. Portal axles would be more beneficial than big tyres because they have few negative effects - no floating on top of the mud, no steering or articulation issues, no gearing problems, but the diffs are lifted out of the mud in the example you gave and breakover, approach and departure angles are all massively increased. OK, they're expensive, but most people doing winch challenges seem to have the means to do such a conversion.

If I'm not mistaken, Wolf rims are welded, not riveted, so air leaks aren't an issue. As long as the rim has the raised hums just inside from the edge that keep the tyre bead in place, then they should be OK for use tubeless. Sometimes tyres and wheels are marked as one thing when in fact they can do both, eg tubed tyres can normally be used tubeless too, though tubeless marked tyres can't be used with tubes as their innards are too rough and puncture tubes...

All of the above is correct. The spring saddles will need to be moved inboard. I think you will be able to use the 88" spring plates to re-use the dampers in their original fashion, but 109 axles have brackets for the dampers to be fitted directly above the spring, mounted on an incline, with the bottom of the damper having a stud rather than an eye. The diff nose is considerably longer on a Salisbury axle than a Rover axle, so the rear prop will indeed have to be shortened. If you have parabolics or any kind of lift, this may cause UJ issues, but don't rotate the diff pinion axis up to point at the transfer box; keep it parallel to the gear box axis or you'll get a lot of vibration and damage the prop, half shafts, diff and transfer box. There is no need to do anything with the front axle itself, but you might have brake balance issues on a pre-1980 88" because the 109 rear brakes are 11". The simplest fix is to remove the 109 brakes, complete with back plate, and fit the brakes from your old rear axle to it. They should be a straight swap. The speedo calibration will not be altered by the axle swap.

Pink Panthers and the later DPVs are for desert use, ie on sand. Like I said, big tyres are useful there, but not in mud.

So, the British Army, Royal Marines and Camel Trophy are just car park runs? You see the big-tyred vehicles make huge mud rooster tails and getting stuck all the time while more moderately shod vehicles chug gently through the mud. Like I said, I can see the need in the desert or places like Iceland in the winter, but it seems to be of no benefit in the bulk of Europe. It seems to the done thing, but not by the pros. Look at the comp safari racers - they don't have enormous wheels...

Fair enough - it can be tricky to interpret someone's intented message from the post sometimes, such is the limitation of text. I've been a bit wound up lately, too, between theis, the same treatment over the house and being screwed around at work: I got a phone call from our rostering staff asking when I'd like to use up my unused leave. I gave them the dates for my daughter's birthday, and they subsequently assigned 20 days of leave but have me working those days, and they have also given me that keave so I have a 22 day period with just one day's work right in the middle so I can't use the leave productively. I seem to be surrounded by idiots and "Persons Resembling a Pink Starfish" of late...

Any Series and Defender steel wheels are interchangeable, though offsets vary. You can use Series wheels on a Defender, as LR did with SIIA 1-ton rims on the Camel Trophy 110s, or Wolf rims on a Series vehicle. After market steel wheels or alloys with open centres (eg Predator or ZU) can be used on either vehicles, but check the studs are long enough.

I wouldn't fit the surf board internally - it'd be a nasty projectile in a crash. I'd make a little trestle for the roof rack so that one end of the board can sit on the RRT and the other on the trestle, all secured with ratchet straps.

All my dealings were within the Nottingham branch, though I had to threaten the service and sales staff with going to the head of the franchise. How much that specific threat, or the threat of going very public or the plain logic that they were in breach of contract and negligent in their lack of vehicle preparation and that my contract was with them alone, making them solely responsible is debateable, but the combined and somewhat frank discussion worked anyway. That said, we still haven't got the car, and though Sturgess have promised it'll be ready by Friday at the very latest, which includes delivery of the new window and the external specialist fitter coming in, who knows what else will go wrong with either the car or service?