Snagger

I suspect the squeak is a failing pro shaft UJ.

I have cloth covered Defender seats in my 109. I haven't re-covered them, but I did replace the bottom foams on the front pair (I have a second matching pair of front seats as a second row). Unfortunately I used Britpart cushions, so they have started to sag again. I did fit Exmoor Trim's seat heater kit, though. They're not made by ET, just sold by them. I had already put a set into my RRC, and so fitting them to the 109 wasn't a new job. Both sets have pads for the seat back as well as the base cushion. The newer kits have two heat settings, so have two heating elements per pad (one on for low, both on for high). In the RRC, the wiring loom was already in place. I just needed to add the correct LR switches to the panel on the cubby box and connect the heater pads to the wiring under the seat frame. As the LR plug was a special type, the easiest solution was to cut the plug off and splice the heater pad wiring directly to the vehicle's loom. The wiring and switches from the kit went in the bin. The 109 was a bit trickier, not having any of the wiring in place. The pads were fitted by removing the bottom cushions' cover completely, as above, and the backs' covers being unclipped at the bottom and slipped up as high as the slot in the foam for the three hooks. The kit includes double-sided tape, but you could use spray glue. Once the pads were stuck to the cushions, the covers were refitted. Wiring up the heaters on the Defender (or LR) could be done simply using the kit - everything is there - but I wanted to use direct feeds from the auxiliary battery and use the three position Carling Tech switches on the centre dash rather than the small button-switches in the kit. This also meant I could ditch the kit's relay as the Carling switches are rated to 20A. I just had to run the wiring from the middle switch position to one of the pad circuits and the the output of the other switch position to both circuits, connecting the common cable to earth. The only issue with doing this is that the way the kit is constructed, the common connection on the pads is live, with one or both circuits being earthed by the switch. The only reason I altered the polarity was so that the warning light in the Carling switches would work. The heaters are brilliant, and get really toasty within a couple of minutes. They're definitely worth fitting if you have to put up with cold weather in winter like the UK.

I had to replace the discs on my RRC (vented on the front) as they had rusted around the edges, eroding the pads and thus reducing the braking area to about 75% of normal. I rpelaced the rears first (they were the worst) followed by the front, using the dimpled and grooved EBC discs and Green Stuff pads, followed a month or so later by the front brakes (same, but vented). this had the added benefit of getting around the 200 mile bedding in period by having one set of brakes fully bedded in while the others were new. They seem very effective, especially once bedded-in - they do have a noticeable difference over that time, starting off slighly better than my knackered brakes (which were still good enough to pass the MoT, but never take chances with them) but soon becoming 50% more effective, as a rough estimate. The only trouble I have had with them is the pads rattling in the front callipers - the late Classic has coil springs around the retaining pins, and these do little to prevent rattling pads. I need a set of the early type which are nearly straight wires of spring steel with a king in the middle that hooks around the tang on the edge of the pad.

Three of each (one of each for the track rod, the drag link and longitudinal link). The trick is to make sure the threads are right - most had Imperial threads, but the very late SIIIs have metric.

The standard SIII and Defender castor angle is 3o, if I'm not mistaken, so you should have strong self centring and plenty of directional satbility, but slow speed cornering may be heavy at the steering wheel. Sorry about the sloppy typing on my previous post. I love that link, Hoggy - scary and hilarious at the same time. You can just imagine the red baseball caps, plaid shirts, mirrored sunglasses and scgraggy facial fluff.

It all looks very neat and strong, but you still have the reversed Ackerman angle problem because the cast steering arms that you are usinga re canted inwars, so the track rod is shorter than the distance between the swivel pins.

Your first post reports the front wheel binding, but the later post reports it as a rear brake binding. can you clarify which it is, and what vehicle and brake system you have (88 or 109, 10" brakes or 11", dual circuit or single, etc...). For what it's worth, if it's only happening when the vehicle is carrying a load, it could be a failing flexible hose that is blocking the return flow when the suspension is squatting slightly, or a failing wheel bearing that is seizing under the increased weight.

I think that bwould have to be custom built, as the internal and external systems would share the same mountings. I can't see there being much of a strength advantage in having two cages either - as long as you have a well made cross braced cage, it should take the wight of a roll without the need for a back-up. remember, the more of this tubing you fit, the more likely you are to roll in the first place.

There's your answer. It's not the springs but the tall tyres that are upsetting the handling. As for the polys, I've not tried them and never will - I've seen too many photos of sheared radius arm studs and worn components from rit ingress from the non-bonded, loose fitting bushes. The fact that even Bowler recommend standard bushes tells me all I need to know.

I had a look, and that's truly awful. Apart from the negative Ackerman angles he'll have by putting the track rod on the front using the original steering arms (and that will pose problems with those tyres), going for a 15o castor angle instead of the factory 3o to raise the track rod is going to give such strong self centring that the car will be near-undriveable. The PAS will help, but he'll have no feel at all, and I reckon he'll be shearing rod ends or even snapping the steering arms off the swivels, such will be the combined forces of the big tyres, the bad Ackerman, the excessive straight-line stability and the rock crawling.

There are another couple of points against spacers, other than a general perception (rightly or wrongly) of them being dangerous: 1) they have a habit of the nuts securing them coming loose, so you have to frequently remove the wheel to re-tighten them. Though the inside of the wheel will prevent the nuts undoing far enough that the spacer and wheel could come off, they will allow the spacer and wheel to move and knock on the studs and hub, which could eventually result in the studs shearing, and; 2) it's a pain to service the brakes because you have to remove the spacers from the hubs too, which means twice as many nuts, and undoing the spacer nuts is a bugger because the hub just spins because there is no tyre contacting the ground to keep it still - you need to lock the brake on using the shoe adjusters.

Thanks, fellas, I'll give the 10K a go.

Sorry - it's a 1995 vehicle with about 150,000 miles. You think it might be something on the induction side, rather than fuel, then?

Hi folks. I have a 300Tdi that surges at between 1800 and 2200rpm. Its a bit like a novice drive fouling up the clutch when pulling away in first, kangaroo-ing away. It can happen with gentle throttle acceleration or at steady speed, but is worst on the over-run. I have just replaced the fuel filter and a failed lift pump, and fully bled the system, and while it now starts better and the surging has slightly reduced, it's still very noticeable. Is the injection pump history, or is there another (cheaper) possibility to consider first? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

My 7x16 8spokes have an offset 2" greater than a LR alloy or Discovery steel wheel and about 2.5" more than Wolf rims. You can see why adding spacers was far too much. I did get a small amount of scrubbing on the top surface of the stub axle where the inner race sits, which could well have been down to the loads from having the tyre centre off set from the bearings' central axis, but it only occurred on one out of the eight bearings (pre spacer fitting), so could just be that the bearing was a bit stiff and spun up once. I used steel spacers because I don't trust aluminium with these forces.

I had a set of steel 30mm spacer when I finished my rebuild, in addition to the 7" 8-spokes and 235s/85. It was fine at speed, but below 10mph it was near impossible to turn, and below walking pace it was impossible to turn the steering wheel. I ditched the spacers and just kept the wheels. WIth standard rims, though, they'd be fine.

Does anyone know if a 200Tdi Discovery master cylinder will bolt onto a SIII servo, or if the complete Discovery master and servo assembly will fit a SIII pedal box without alteration?

It sounds possible, but the Series arms will not be at the correct angle to get the full Ackerman angle - they're a bit too close to parallel to eachother, while the wider tracked coiler axle needs them to be canted out slightly more. However, given that LR didn't make different swivels for LWBs and SWBs (or intermediate 100" in the colier instance), then it suggests the exact angle is not critical. I suspect the SII/SIII arms were set at a compromise between the 88 and 109, so using these on a coiler axle on a 109 should give close to ideal angles, but the short wheel base of an 88 in addition to the wider track of the newer axle will give a more significant deviation from the ideal, with the angle of toe-out in a turn being too small. It'd certainly be better than using the cast arms, though.

Mine has police rear springs fitted by the previous owner. He didn't get round to doing the front springs, but did offer to give me the parts as part of the sale. The front is still on standard springs now, and the mixture gives a very slightly tail high poise that looks modest but sporty - it certainly gets rid of the ugly tail sag that RRCs have. The "lift" is much less than 2" - probably closer to 3/4". I have DeCarbons on each corner (again, by the previous owner), and find the handling very taught and precise. That siad, it did get a bit woolly as the old suspension bushes wore out. I'd bet that's where your problem is, not with the stiffer police springs.

Not me - that was RobHiCap. I just used the elbow for the back of the turbine casing on a TD to fit to a Def200 turbo, as it's the same part. But as Phil says, since the 200 and 300 parts are interchangeable, and a 19J manifold system has been fitted to a 200Tdi with a bit of trimming and a few clamping bars, it should go.

It's a very expensive kit, and the PAS pump is very vulnerable unless you can get a an alternator bracket with pump mounting from a 19J or Def 200Tdi. I have never tried one, but I have been told it has a bit more lag than the normal LR power steering systems. It does have the huge advantages of not requiring any significant chassis mods, and retaining the original steering gear, replacing only the drag link, so you don't have to worry about complex work or losing vehicle identity points. It also behaves just like the standard steering if hydraulic power is lost.

I think you'll find that the track rod is longer on a Series axle than the distance between the left and right swivel pins, which is why the Ackerman angles work and the inner wheel pivots much more than the outer. If you were to fit the lower pins/steering arms on the wrong swivels, then you'd get the negative Ackerman angles (as well as needing a shorter track rod). Unfortunately, as the coil sprung axle swivels have cast-in arms, rather than bolt-on ones like the leafers, we can't swap them from side to side to reverse the cant on the arms.

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Hi folks, I have post this question in the Discovery forum because it's more likely to get a useful answer than in the Range Rover side. I have a late (soft dash) 300Tdi RRC, which has similar wiring and mechanicals to the 300 Discovery. I am getting frequent problems with starting - the starter motor cuts in and out, banging away on the ring gear. The starter motor, battery, factory alarm/immobiliser and the foot well starter relay have all been replaced with no effect, so I'm confident that none of them are at fault. The problem seems worst in the cold weather, especially when damp. I have a Microscan immobiliser in addition to the factory unit. In attempting to bypass it, to eliminate it from the list of possible faults, I found some alterations to the dash wiring that have nothing to do with the additional immobiliser. I'd like to remove them, just in case they may be the cause of the trouble, but want to confirm that they are redundant - I think they may have been for the previous owner's car-phone. There is a relay that has a red power feed from the brown wire on the brown plastic connector block next to the steering column (I think that brown wire runs to the ignition switch). The relay appears to be controlled by a brown wire spliced to a brown cable with yellow stripe on a main harness connector block. The relay's earth is fitted, but there seems to be no output. There is a redundant single 27A wire running along the rights side sill which may have been connected to this relay, but is coiled up in the bottom of the foot well. There are also a collection of in-line fuse holders spliced into a connector block with a redundant small connector block for all these fused wires at the end. Again, these appear to be added, not factory, and I'm guessing at them being for the phone system. Can anyone shed any more light before I pull them out, please?

The problem with that idea is still the Ackerman angles - the ends of the arms need to be outboard of the swivel pins if the track rod is in front of the axle, but they're canted inwards for the aft rod position. That means that when you turn, the wheels will toe in sharply, instead of correctly toeing out to reflect the different wheel path radii.