Snagger

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?

Thanks. Sorry you had such a bad experience too. Option one, as I explained, wasn't feasible, and no-one should have to waste their time in that manner anyway. That left option two: get stroppy and tough. I'm sure that threatening to write to all the LR magazines and post on many forums had an influence, but I don't feel comfortable with keeping quiet about bad service just because making a threat gets me what I was entitled to - I'm more comfortable sharing the information so that others don't have to go through the same thing and so that hopefully those beligerent staff with reap their comeuppance.

Thanks for the interest and support, folks. For those that suggested taking the kids and sitting in the dealership, you need to understand that taking the kids out of school (illegal as well as irresponsible), and then swallowing the cost and inconvenience of driving for four hours, taking packed lunches and so on, wasting a whole day for three people when we have other things to be doing is not remotely practicable. And what happens when they don't have the parts in stock? Landymanluke, I'm sure you didn't mean to be insulting, but do you think I'd post this thread unless my patience had already been exhausted by trying in vain to be reasonable? I'm not an idiot, so please don't treat me as so. It seems that a decent and politic approach gets yo nowhere these days - I have had the same problem with my new house, with complaints about build quality faults ignored until I started getting angry with them too. The good news is that after more buck passing and procrastination, I have laid down the law and got a result. They were still banging on about whether they would get the rear window replaced in Leicester or get the vehicle back and do it themselves, and then started going on about how the LR Approved warranty didn't cover the vehicle because we hadn't owned it long enough yet (2 week qualifying period). I had to point out that I didn't care who fixed it and whether the LR warranty was valid or not - they had sold me an unchecked, unroadworthy and potentially dangerous vehicle and my contract was with them, not LR. I really don't see why I shoild be interested in whether LR Approved or Stratstone pick up the bill - that's their worry. I gave them a deadline of delivering the car to me at home by the end of business on Friday, and it has done the trick. In the interest of balance and positive feedback, Sturgess in Leicester have been brilliant throughout. The receptinist and service manager stayed open two hours late on new years eve to allow Helena to stay in the warm while I drive up to get her and have done the full vehicle inspection that Stratstone appear not to have done. Most of all, they have returned calls and kept me informed, unlike Stratstone who bounced me around different departments and staff and would be evasive even when I did get to speak to someone. I am posting this thread not for advice; it is to name and shame a woeful dealer and to praise another decent one. It is to share that information with any of you who may be considering using either of these dealers.

Looks like I'll be using their Hatfield branch, then. Thanks, everyone.

Why do you bother with such big tyres and wheels? Land Rover used 7.50s on Camel Trophy and the MoD continue to use them because they give the best off road as well as on road handling and performance. Big tyres reduce steering lock and axle articulation, increase steering loads, absorb more engine power, up the gearing and struggle with grip in mud and in wet or snowy road conditions - they're only useful on sand or deep virgin snow...

Rehaeaters which heat recirculated cabin air are much quicker to warm the cabin up, assuming they have a similar matrix capacity and area, but they do lead to greater fogging than heaters with external sources. The fogging comes from the occupants' breath and can only be avoided by opening windows or vents, defeating the point of using these "fug stirrers" in place of a external source heater. I can make direct comparisons of this on my RRC, which has a button to select external or recirculated air for the heater; with recirc on, the windows initially clear more quickly but start fogging after a couple of minutes. At that point, the engine is half way to warm, so external air is becoming effective. Of course, if you are using a fug stirrer in addition to the standard SIII heater, then you will have the best of both worlds, but you do need to refresh the internal air as well as reciculate it to avoid moisture building up.

Mrs Snagger here. The situation is a little tricky. The car itself is at a different dealership in Leicester as that's as far as I got driving it home from Nottingham before the horn/lights fault started. Stratstones is in Nottingham which is nearly two hours away from us. Snagger's been at work and I have the kids here and I am working too. So paying a personal visit isn't really possible at the moment.

My wife and I test drove a three year old, 27000 mile 90 on the 21st of December. Apart from a blown indicator bulb, it drove seemingly faultlessly, though as it would be sold after inspection and under warranty, we didn't check everything like you would in a private sale. We paid £21k for the car the next day. When driving the car home on the 31st, my wife only managed to get as far as Leicester when the lighting circuit shorted out under the wing sounding the horn continuously. The vehicle as taken to the Leicester dealer for repair with Stratstone's agreement. The Leicester dealer found and repaired the damaged wiring and also replaced a broken horn. They also found that the high level brake light was unserviceable due to a fault in the window. A week later despite chasing up by us, Stratestone has still failed to authorise the repair, conduct the repair themselves or even discuss the issue with the other dealer. We still have no vehicle or information about when or where it is going to be repaired. All enquiries to the Stratestone service and sales departments result in a runaround and the only information being that they still haven't spoken tothe other dealer. At this stage all we know is that Stratestone sold us an apparently unroadworthy, unusable vehicle and a week after we discovered the faults are still evading doing anything about it.

With respect to the fwh issue, I bought and fitted new fwh to my 109 many years ago. While some users report lighter steering, I found no difference there. What I was paying closer attention to was performance and economy, and despite extensive efforts, I was unable to measure even the slightest Improvement in either. They really don't help, but are a contributory factor in swivel pin, Railko bush and propshaft spline wear. I would drive with my hubs engaged at least once a week to make sure enough lubrication was splashed about to minimise the swivel and prop concerns, but after a few years, one of the hubs started to leak. At that point, they were reinstalled in their most appropriate place: the bin.

Just a few points from my personal experience, but not necessarily helpful to the main technical issues here: Series wheel studs should fit a later hub, as long as the Series in question is a later SII or SIII. I don't know if they are any longer than the standard RR/Discovery studs, though. Wolf studs definitely fit and are 1/2" longer, but at a cost of £10 each for Gen Parts studs (I wouldn't trust Britpart), it's an expensive alternative. Brake drums can be turned down to use as spacers. I have done this to fit alloys to my 110 rear axle, where the hub otherwise fould the inside of the wheel centre. The drums are 1/4" (roughly 6mm) thick at that point. There are similarly sized spacers on ebay for less than the cost of an engineering shop's charge for turning the drums, though... Trying to retain FWH is probably a waste of time - they don't save any fuel, performance gains are entirely illusional, they are prone to damage and leaks, and of course will be disengaged when you unexpectedly need 4wd, requiring to you to get filthy to engage them. They're on my snake-oil list.

Well, 4wd works adequately with ujs, but I found that the steering started kicking at half lock. I suppose it all depends on how the steering is adjusted and any slack in the transmission and steering, but it wasn't pleasant driving around those Alpine tracks with the 4wd engaged for long periods - it was one of the principle reasons I converted a pair of coiler axles for my 109. We all have different vehicles with different characteristics, and all have different levels of comfort or tollerance with some of those characteristsics.

Done on a dry dirt road will illustrate the point well without damaging anything. The steering wheel kicks continuously when turning in 4wd with a UJ eqipped axle, and the tighter the turn, the harsher the kicks. It's pretty unpleasant.

The three rotary knobs and the fan switch lateral knob all pull straight off to reveal panel retaining screws for bulb replacement. Your exhaust may have a diesel particulate filter (catalytic converters are for petrol engines only), and you' see this as a bulge in the front section of the exhaust, behind the flexible section. You can replace it with a straight through section. Tdis are very snsitive to small adjustments of timing made by rotating the pump a little on the timing case. Dirty air or fuel filters have severe effects, as will tired tubo chargers or injection pumps. The Tdi RRC is a good plodder, but it will struggle to hold a high speed up steeper hills as it has considerably less power than a V8.

Britpart do stock a lot of RRC panels for the inner shell and outer panels, and also chassis parts, including front and rear inner arches, boot floor sides (flat sections), body rear cross member, head light mountings, sills and floors. They also list front outer wings and front door skins. I don't know where they source them, though. YRM do some panels too.

The bores may be a little rusty or the rings sticky, or the valve stemn seals hardened. I'd recommend running it as is for a couple of hundred miles with a double dose of fuel additive to treat the rings and head, then adding an oil flush additive to clean out any carp on the lower rings before replacing the currently new oil - after standing so long, the engine will have moisture, sedimant and rust that will contaminate the oil, so new running-in is required. I'd then add an oil seal additive to the latest new oil to soften and swell and hardened or worn seals, which often works well.