Eightpot

You should find the green/black wires running from the bulkhead, along the side of the heater motor near the inside of the wing. A few inches past the heater there is a two pin plug, and then a short extension cable of the same colour connects this to the washer pump.

hmmm, yeah - ref the horn, you would have had to be pushing the horn button at the same time as connecting the wire the wrong way round otherwise it's not actually live (unless you already had a wiring problem/melted loom somewhere that is causing all of this) I was thinking of my early range rover which has a permanent live to the horn, and the switch controls the earth.

Yeah, I stand corrected on the connecting the horn wires the wrong way round thing - connecting the live wire to earth would of course blow the fuse. The stop/tail lamps and brake switch are on a different circuit to the horn though, so what has probably happened is a wire in the horn circuit has melted and caused the insulation on neighbouring wires in the loom to melt as well causing contact. If you're lucky, the damage has been done in the trailer socket loom which you can disconnect and isolate - though in my experience the damage tends to happen in the tightly wrapped loom wiring behind the dash. If this is the case though, you can bypass the damaged bit and the stop/tail lights are a nice easy circuit to repair. See how you get on disconnecting the trailer wires and hopefully you'll be ok.

It means you have a short circuit somewhere - the brake light switch has acted like a fuse and melted before your loom caught fire. If the trailer plug has melted this could be your problem, though it's more likely in the wires feeding the plug than the plug itself. - it is connected directly to the rear brake lights. If you remove the rear corner cover on the drivers side by the tailgate, you will see a mass of wires - look for a multiplug with red and black wires. One goes to brake lamp, the other goes to the trailer socket. Disconnecting the trailer one may sort your short. Sounds to me like you have some damage in the loom somewhere as connecting a horn the wrong way round doesn't cause any harm. the wiring for the trailer socket all comes up in that rear corner by the way in a single bundle of wires, and each one just connects into one of the spare multi plug sockets on the stop/brake/indicator/fog/reverse lamp wires in the regular loom, so it've very easy to disconnect the whole trailer socket loom.

I've used a socket extension bar pushed through a spark plug hole before now to stop an engine rotating - probably not the safest way with an alloy head and pistons but combined with heating up around the bolt first and a rattle gun might just do it if the bolt isn't mega tight??

I'll be using a rubber discovery 300tdi flexi intake hose and a standard metal TDi canister filter housing. The rubber flexi hose is 3 short sections clipped together normally, but using just the first section which attaches to the turbo intake, the other end of this is just big enough to stretch over the output end of the filter housing. I'll make up a bracket and the canister will sit nice and high up between the engine and the passenger side inner wing, with plenty of room to access the air filter element. Couple of observations so far - a 300TDi Discovery bottom hose is the perfect length to reach the radiator and the expansion tank. The high pressure hose to the power steering pump is too short to reach the front chassis crossmember and crosses the gap between the rails a few inches back, which doesn't look right and makes it difficult to secure them - but if you loosen the union to the power steering pump you cant rotate the curved neck of the pipe towards the front of the car which gives a couple of inches back and puts the pipes back against the crossmember. if you're going to use the n/a backplate, it is a straight swap over and all fits very easily, just make sure to remove the rear crank oil seal from the 300TDi block and then fit a new n/a crank seal into your old backplate before offering it up. Or it will leak. EDIT - just noticed that I've missed a couple of key measurements for the bolt holes of the first sketch - corrected version attached

I've just completed installing a 300tdi into an earlier n/a diesel engined model with LT77 gearbox. I couldn't find any detailed measurements or templates for the chassis mounts, (if using the disco 300tdi mounts that come with the engine) so thought I'd share these in case anyone finds them useful. To make the mounts I used 5mm plate for the vertical legs of the mounts and 3mm box section for the top face - useful as it gives you the correct radius on the leading edge I've used the rear face of the old chassis mounts as a datum point to measure the centreline for the new bolt holes. this is pretty important to get correct, I would suggest moving the engine in to place with the crane, bolting everything up and offering the mounts up to the chassis to double check before welding. However these measurements were spot on for me and the engine dropped in place without a fuss. Note that the mounts are not placed symetricaly on either side and are at different heights. Chop the old mounts off when you're done as the passenger side is in the way of the exhaust and driver side reduces room round the oil filter.

When you're going up, the turbo is whizzing and pulling more air in. On the way down, no boost and a rich mixture due to the reduced oxygen. If you drive a non-turbo diesel up a mountain it smokes way more than a turbo charged one.

Must have been a long wet afternoon when they conjured this monster up - but a RRC/Huey hybrid, now that would be cool, with massive speakers slung underneath playing Wagner.......

I was fortunate enough to be given a tour of a factory in Gloucestershire a while back whilst in there on business (think they could see me drooling a bit and eyes wandering round the place while I was trying to talk business ) - they made very low production runs for Rolls Royce and MOD for little bits of kit like cast rear lamp lenses for low production run cars and bespoke hand controls for Apache gunships. They had a couple of different types of 3D printer, and the client would just send thier CAD drawing over, the model was made on 3D printer and then taken into the foundry room where they would convert the model into a mould, put it in a green sand frame and an hour later there was the finished article. looked like a great place to work

If you mean the foam strips between the footwell and outrigger, then I wouldn't bother replacing it as it's a water/mud trap and helps rot the floor out.

Had this on a really low mileage mini I rebuilt a while back, and was a common thing with them if they didn't get used for long journeys, the cold air through the grill condensing any water vapour on the inside of the rocker cover and making a bit of emulsified oil. If there's definately no oil or bubbles in the coolant and no steam coming from the exhaust, I'd give it a good run to get it good and hot, take the cover off the top of the engine and clean the emulsified oil out and then do a regular oil and filter change.

No reason, but I would use a thinner ply, say 4mm and bolt the folding shelf to the door card while it was off the door, using some large penny washers or thin metal plates behind to give the strength you need. Keeps the weight of the door down and looks a bit neater.

Have the hinges bolted onto the body first, then push a couple of bolts through the door side of the hinges a little way. lift up door, balance on your knee and line up with hinges - push a couple of the bolts through the door. open door, pop a couple of nuts on then do the rest of the bolts. line door up with lock by adjusting the hinge on the body side - loosen bolts a little, put something thin between bottom of closed door and sill till you have the right gap, climb in through a side door and tighten bolts up. I've used hycote paint and found it to be good, but you'll never get the best match with aerosol. Halfords mixed paint can be ok or find a car paint supplier locally as they can usually mix you some up in an aerosol can. You need clearcoat as well. Easy enough to make a door card - use thin ply, if you can find some wafer thin upholstery foam to go between ply and vinyl it gives a good finish. Evostick spray on contact adhesive is good to spray on the ply/vinyl so it holds in place. Make sure you stretch the vinyl over and wrap it round the ply or it will go real baggy, stapling it at the back ideally or plenty of contact adhesive.

ref the LEZ thing - not sure if this applies to you or not, but CSW's should be exempt. I believe the trigger for exemption is having vehicle type 'station wagon' on the V5,(which all CSW's should be registered as) rather than '4x4 utility' which many LR's are classed under.

Better the devil you know. And ex-police is no guarantee of quality or high standard. I used to drive police cars for a living and they all get the hell thrashed out of them. I doubt maintenance standards are a patch on what they used to be either. Why not just get your rust patches attended to and spoodle it up a bit, should last a good while yet before anything drastic needs doing.

All my shiny bits of metal fell out of the transfer box in South Africa. I drove it back through Namibia, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya and back to England, with a very heavy right foot (yeeeeeehaaaaa ) and it's still going strong. Those slivers of cheese like metal are obviously sacrificial and of little use - put the lid back on and drink beer**. **(disclaimer - my opinion is worthless and based upon no actual or factual knowledge of the workings of boxes of cogs and may end with extreme and expensive failure and tears)

If you've got a TDi, you won't need the glow plugs to start, especially in 'summer'. Might want to check you haven't disturbed one of the wiring loom multi plugs while changing your master cylinder - check the cables that run past the cylinder on the engine bay side of the bulkhead,

Just some bits of chewed up shim aint it? I had the same moment of horror when I realised that my diff lock bulb wasn't working and I'd been driving on tarmac for about 4000 miles with the transfer locked Dropped the oil out and similar copper/brass stuff fell out along with some slightly bigger chunks. Two oil changes and 20,000 miles later and everythings still fine and works as it did before. Not saying it will be all be fine, I'm no gearbox expert and hopefully one will be along shortly, but a year on and I'm yet to see any further problems develop so hopefully you'll be ok.

They do a lot of Ok stuff, pattern trim parts, door lockls etc, but get their reputation from poor quality seals/bearings/brake parts/pumps etc which are areas they shouldn't really be skimping in and causes the biggest problem/expense to rectify. They are encouraged to do this by price led competition with other suppliers and the fact they sell a lot of it - mostly down I would say to the big suppliers shipping Britpart stuff out to you without your knowledge or consent. Can't imagine anyone specifies britpart parts out of choice.

"it has a life sized tinplate Airedale terrier in the back"

Wow - slightly O/T as it's not made out of foam rubber and poster paint, or look like a spaceship, but it is on ebay and pretty noteworthy. This chap has built a Defender 130 Ambulance that regularly returns 38mpg at 70mph. He's not giving too much away, but it seems at least part of the secret lies in the special snorkel it has fitted, which actually increases airflow to the intercooler. It actually gets more economical the faster it goes.

A Tdi rad is easily up to the job of handling a tweaked TDi. I have one cooling my very tweaked 2.8 Isuzu and it runs too cool if anything. I had a TD5 rad/intercooler fitted in my Rangie for a while. The rad fits in nicely width wise, but they are a bit taller than a TDi rad - should be ok in a Defender but caught the bonnet on my Rangie. Quite easy to install the rad as you only need to make some simple brackets to hang it on. I had problems fitting an expansion tank and binned it in the end, due to the port layout on the TD5 rad, but I was plumbing it into a different car with Isuzu engine so won't go into it, but check you can plumb a tank in before you do too much work.

completely misread your post sorry - trying to watch England game at same time if you just need to get an oil cooler there are plenty of aftermarket ones available pretty cheaply - presume you have a tdi? cant remember thread size but I'm sure a search on here will pull up the details pretty quickly though.

I've fitted a TDi rad and Td5 intercooler, and it's easy enough. Just modify the mounting frame slightly (drill new holes for the rad mounts) and put the radiator in the middle rather than at the side, and then fit the TD5 intercooler in front with inlet/outlet either side of the rad - you just need to trim a little metal away from the outside edge of the mounting frame so the intercooler pipes don't foul. you'll need to modify the radiator pipes a little, biggest problem is running an intercooler hose back across the engine bay to the nearside.