Jon W

Yer have seen pauls for sale and thats the kind of thing i was looking for or M005's, but don't want an auto. Plus looking at it in more detail i stand to loose more money than I though on the BMW, whereas if i keep it for another year I wont have lost as much over that period of time as its going to be worth only a little less in a years time than it is now if you get what i mean. Then again my mind might change yet again within a few weeks. Decisions decisions Jon

SteveG did this and his was a famrer spec 90 to begin with. So have a look here. http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopic=5096&st=20 "First up was a quick easy mod of fitting a TD5 rev counter in the hole I'd left in the dash from moving the clock over. Easy mod to do as you use some 1mm2 wire to run from pin 19 on black ECU plug up into dash and wire in rev counter.." Will sort out picking those bump stops up one evening this week and have a look at your new truck too. Jon

Fantastic work. Paint work wise I would Jet wash it off and then see what is left, the abused look might suit it or RAT look as they call it on the VW scene. Keep up the good work Jon

Sounds like a keeper that one! Just make everything you want to upgrade effect her in some way and she will be throwing money at it so she can put up with it.

Yer pretty much what I thought, I know Land Rovers well and there is always plenty of help if there is something i don't understand, so maintenance isn't too much of an issue. So as long as I can put up with 30mpg I am fine, well its better than my 90 which used to do 15- 20 until i put the tdi in it. Right now to find one which isn't too rusty haha I could be looking for a while. Jon

Yer there is a 4x4 club. The sensible side of me says no don't do save some money buy a boring car for the year which is cheap to run. But my heart says I will never be happy with a normal car and will want to change it soon after getting it. I could keep the BMW but it isn't the cheapest thing to run and doesn't really fit the agricultural image either hehe, plus it's a little impractical i can't even fit my mountain bike in as the back seats don't fold down. Jon

Repairing it shouldn't be a problem as have done all the maintenance on the Defender, and as most things are the same it shouldn't be too difficult. I can't weld yet, but know a few people who can but obviously don't want to be welding forever as its a bit much of an ask for a mate. I like land rovers but then I got fed up with the defender as i spent an age fixing it, so I didn't use it off road as the more I off roaded it the more it broke. So then thought what is the point of having it if I am not going to use it properly. However I am now yearning to fiddle again. Other idea is get one with a year ticket on it and run it until the next MOT see what needs doing and if its too much break it for parts or an off roader. Hmmmmm tricky or as fridge said get a freelander £3k is approximately what i will get for the BMW I think. So spend a bit less than that and give it a good service up etc. Uni is only for a year to complete a masters, I had my defender at uni for a little while and found it completely impractical but that was in liverpool and all my journeys all seemed to be motorway for many hours. Where as this time it is more rural and journeys like to be more A roads. Jon

I know this question has been asked a million times before and have had a good look through the forum. I have tried various different cars had a defender before, then normal car, then camper van, and currently have a BMW 3 series very comfy but boring. Next year I am hopefully heading to agricultural college to do a masters and fancy a 4x4 again. Now either i buy a sensible boring cheap to run car or something i actually want. So Discoveries. Budget is less than £3K I would love a TD5 but wont get a very good one for this price and is more likely to cost more in repairs plus a few more electrical gremlins. So am thinking 300tdi as should get a fairly decent one for this, I have found one for £1500 its a 1995 had various bits of welding done and undersealing plus a few mods. I have had 2 discoveries before which I brought to break for parts so think I know where most the problems are that will occur. So main things with discoveries: What MPG would you expect with a set of 31" muds on. A few tweaks egr and cat removed etc. I am guessing about 30mpg or do I just buy something which does 50mpg. Other bonus with the disco is if i run it into the ground I can chop it about into a off roader if i find somewhere to store it. Now from this waffeling you can probably tell I have kind of made my mind up to get one, but am checking i'm not a complete idiot. Thanks Jon

Don't go wrecking a good cat, Buy a decat pipe, and then sell your cat to the scrappy, if you shop around your can get good money for them. A vw forum i was part of had people selling them from £40 to £140 depending on where you went. So you could make money from it. Jon

Hi Grant You will find that the anchor slides into place. If the mount was on the front of the truck so the pin was on the drivers side of the truck, then you place the anchor in the mount slide it to the drivers side and then to the passengers side, so it slides onto the pin and then place the safety clip on it. the other end of the anchor remains in place as the devon anchor has a piece of metal that protrudes slightly and so this ends up under the anchor mount and holds it steady. Sorry i cant find any pictures on my laptop of it with hte anchor mounted. Its a case of fitting to the truck then you willsee how its meant to go. Hope that is of some help. Jon

I have a 200tdi from a discovery which i fitted a few years ago and at the time didn't realise that I was meant to use the flywheel backing plate from the original engine to mate up with the gearbox. So at the moment a couple of bolts are missing, which has not caused a problem so far and it got the job done. Now however as the gearbox has blown up it will be coming out, so might as well sort it. So my question is which flywheel housings can i fit. It was originally a 4C 2.5 Petrol so will any 4 pot housing from a defender work?? Thinks Jon Watson (asking for Darth Dicky as he has broken it and naffed off to another counrty for a bit)

I don't know how you manage it! Didn't you have a focus as a company car, so if that was in for repairs how do you end up with a super charged disco. or have you got something with the green oval on now?? Speak to you soon Jon

Thanks to all who put the weekend together, thanks to James and Tim for leading was nice to be able to follow and not having to map read. See you all at the next one. Cheers Jon

I would also say, clamp the battery down securely. As if you have an accident then that will make rather a nasty mess of you or the dog. I certainly wouldn't want my dog around things which could spill acid onto it. Jon

That looks lovely!! What size did you go for in the end?? Will be good to hear how they perform on and off road. Jon

I had this trouble and didnt want it to take up too much room. I initially had a head unit with 2 smallish round speakers up in the headlining. To improve on that I got an amp and a bazooka Bass tube from a range rover. Nice and cheap second hand. This improved things no end as could turn music up without disstortion and got a nice bit of bass. Then i put a couple of 6x9's up in the rear corners to balance the mid range bass etc. The bass tube is really good as it is quite compact and robust so good for the back of a land rover. The 6x9's were cheap abd I made the enclosure for them. Jon

I have been trekking in Norway and it's an amazing place, the people are very friendly and we found it very hard to even attempt to speak any norweigen as everyone we met realised we were English and started to speak english to us, but its nice to make an effort, so language should be a problem. We were near bergen in one of the national parks, i'm not sure about vehicle access in these areas but the hiking you can roam and wild camp where you like (as long as it isn't in someones back garden) and the hiking trails are easy to follow. We went in June i think but this was mid way between the seasons, snow hadn't quite melted enough on the summer trails so it made it hard work and the winter trails had melted to much to risk walking over the frozen lakes etc. When my mate organised this trip for us he used the norweigen tourist board and said how helpful were with information and guidence to the national parks. Sorry it's not much help but it is definately a place i would like to go back to, a maybe in a land rover next time. Jon

Right I have the chance to get my hands on a set of 24 spline axles at a good price, just I need ot extract them from an awkward place. SO would the internals fit in my 10 spline axles ok, or shall I just take the whole lot, plus front radius arms. I have a 1993 front 10 spline axle and a 1987 range rover rear axle with the mushroom headed shafts. Current thinking is take complete front axle and then just the internals from the rear axle if it will fit in my existing casing. Thanks Jon

Work shop is looking good Mark. Is that the start of the Discovery/freelander build? or just your current freelander having a service?? Might catch you at the donnington 4x4 show if your there. Jon

Is the compressor large enough to run airtools well enough?? as am interested in buying one of these but unsure what spec I need. Cheers Jon

Hi This trip sounds amazing and I would like to do something like this but obviously would depend on the cost of things. Having never been to polland I would love to go, but how much do things cost over there food, diesel etc. What are the sort of forest tracks you are thinking of doing? e.g. damaging/non damaging lots of winching etc. Also what sort of dates are you thinking? Thanks Jon

Hi it's great to see someone else my age wanting to do something like this off there own back, but having looked at various things I just can't afford to prep my truck or the cost of fuel to get me that far. So am gonig to travelling at some point. But this is the trip my brother went on recently and has raved all about it and how amazing it was. I have no link to this company but my brother is a very happy customer. http://www.odysseyoverland.co.uk/?gclid=CN...CFRaA3godyX-JdQ Rough idea of cost 6 months from london to darwin australia was £3.5k plus 1.5k for kitty money which covers a lot of food and essential. Obviouslt you then need beer money and other extras that you want to do, but i though 6 months for 5k didnt seem too pricey. Jon

Had some in Liverpool tonight, couple of cm's enough to cover the roads for a while before it started to melt and turn to slush. Didnt have the land rover, but the a rover 45 is so much more fun sideways in the snow playing! I mean of course this was all in a controlled area and purely for the purpose of learning car control in extreme conditions (cough) Jon

Nige you can get a bikini kit from exmoor trim. This gives you the header rail, parts above the doors and a hoop which goes into the tub as you have a cage already. as seen in this photo the kit gives the windscreen rail, silver bits above doors and the silver hoop. Bikini top canvas are cheap about £80 new depending on the colour you want. I did this in the summer and loved it, bit of a tart but who cares! The sound of your V8 will be awesome with the open back too. Only thing is if you do decide to go off road with the roof off this can hurt. I did a few lanes with the canvas off and after being scratched various times by bushes and drawing blood I put the canvas back on. Jon

Ok have just found the pictures that les sent when he had the PTO on his truck. Am hoping he does not mind me posting these up for you.