deep

Police car - the perfect use for a DC100! Go on Land Rover, build it.

When I put a 3.9 in my Stage One and raised the gearing, it hummed along in the fast lane! Fine if you didn't have to take any quick, evasive action....

I look forward to seeing that. I confess I never looked too hard into the options. My 19J motor must be later as it had that connecting pipe. My 18J connects to the inlet manifold after the air cleaner but it's a tiny hole and the filler cap would actually blow off with that setup! The 18J is an oddball engine but essentially the same as a 12J in this regard.

Good points, monkie. My motor is a military 18J. It has no cyclonic breather, just a relatively small pipe from rocker cover to inlet manifold which couldn't cope, in this case (it might now that I have done 5,000+ miles? Must investigate). I have a 19J motor on the floor of the shed and that breathing system looks way better. If Colin's breather can't cope after several hundred miles or running in, he's definitely got a problem. Maybe glazed bores, maybe something else?

They are under the bonnet, jammed between mudguard and footwell. They basically vent into the engine bay. I'm wary of injecting anything oily into the inlet manifold!

I bought my 110 with a rebuilt, un-run 2.5 diesel. I used to be very alarmed at how heavily it breathed, even pushing oil past the dipstick after a long idle (though the o-ring on the dipstick was naff and that no longer happens). It had a straight breather hose from filler cap to inlet manifold. I replaced the rocker cover with one of a 2.5TD, which has a big breather fitting on the back. I have hoses on both outlets, going to catch tanks, and my crankcase pressure issues have faded from my mind. Interestingly, very little oil ends up in those catch tanks and there is no big fog of fumes. Nevertheless, the pressure produced really is surprising and I wonder if I glazed the bores a little when I first had it running (too much idling while I fettled various things)? It has got a little better with use and I guess they are old-school engines which need some running in. I do know that tightening and re-sealing things is avoiding the problem to some extent - reduce pressure first and you will find fewer leaks!

Exactly! What some of us here see as a workhorse isn't needed by most people who are actually laying out the money. One place I work requires a four-wheel drive for access. The main contractor there recently switched from a Ford crew cab pickup to a Toyota equivalent and, within weeks, most of the tracks had been badly chewed up. Yet, if he used a Defender, they'd still be good as gold but he wouldn't even dream of getting one. The whole mindset now is use your Jap ute and carry a quad if you need more. Truth is that those Jap pickups are good enough because it has become easy to send in a digger/grader/dozer if the tracks are more demanding. Sigh.

DC100! Duh, senior moment. Thanks Neil. Ironically, that prototype WAS a model of Range Rover, in that that it was made on a Range Rover Sport chassis. I also doubt they will properly replace the Defender. They promised they would but it won't be the world-conqueror of old. Largely because the world is now either tar-sealed or has a sign telling you to keep out! I suspect it will be an image thing, though no doubt super-competent in an electronic sort of way.

It just struck me that the concept vehicle they actually built and showed a few years back (can't recall the name, DC1 or something like that?) suddenly looks really good if you consider what happened to the Discovery! Oh how the loyal fans screamed at that but maybe they shouldn't have. Meanwhile, I looked across the road at my neighbour's Discovery 3 yesterday and wondered if JLR considered that near enough identical to a 110 wagon that they thought they had their bases covered? Maybe for the slightly myopic...

You could do the reverse of inboard disc brakes if you had independent suspension (I had those on the back of my Jag XJ6 back in the day). A motor for every wheel but the motor bolted to the floor with a driveshaft to the wheel. Best of both worlds. Potentially, you could even put a brake disc at the motor end and have even less unsprung weight.

Of course Land Rover had electric Defenders running round not long ago, which seemed to work well and also promised a modest range. Faaaaarr more appealing!

The law wouldn't give it a chance in New Zealand either, which is a shame because there is lots to like about aspects of the design. The range is limiting but there are plenty of scenarios where it would work out. It will be interesting to see if it goes anywhere (commercially speaking!).

I guess there comes a time when you have to stop worrying and just enjoy then! The ramp-over on that thing is epic, by the way.

I was watching the other video linked from this one. Do you think your front springs are way too stiff? It looks like it cocks a wheel far too easily and that is disadvantaging you considerably. The back looks a little better but, on the descent near the end, it still cocks a wheel way too early, as seen on a 2D screen anyway. Likewise, there doesn't seem much give in the tyres... Not being critical - I am in awe of your progress with this and it looks like enormous fun. Just curious.

Their marketing people must have said the D5 will sell well and they are probably right. After all, there are already a huge number of near-identical looking cars (mostly of oriental origin) on the road. As an owner of multiple Land Rovers over a few decades, I find it a very sad state of affairs to know that they no longer make a car for me to even covet, let alone buy. Maybe it's just a phase?

From strongly following function - and it's starting to really look like a Land Rover!

I would have grabbed that immediately as a potentially collectable item! Really bizarre.

That's really bad news, sorry to hear it. It does strike me how ironic the bit about the rear suspension is, though. Didn't this whole thread start with your ingenious and effective rear suspension on that Land Rover (which did work!)? Going in circles? (Still got that Holden motor on my shed floor...)

From what I've been able to work out, it's closer to a 12J than 19J. Different pulleys (wider belts) and a totally different ancillary layout to accommodate that massive generator. It doesn't have the 19J's breather system but really needs it! I've only found a small range of engine numbers, suggesting they didn't make that many. I've actually mucked around with mine a bit, fitting a 100amp alternator out of a Discovery V8, which allowed me to fit the 19J vacuum pump. While I know turbos have significant advantages on a diesel, this motor suits me so well that I have no inclination to change it. It came un-run after a military rebuild but who really knows what lurks inside! Anyway, I think a sympathetically used 19J would probably be a stellar engine. I hope yours lasts as long as it should.

A great read, thanks. My ex-military 110 actually has a relatively uncommon 18J, which has much in common with the 19J. When the pulley driven vacuum pump died (I re-machined it but couldn't find a diaphragm!), I bought a 19J with a suspected blown head gasket, just for the pump. I don't have the massive generator which precluded fitting that type of pump on the 18J originally. The donor motor sits at the back of my shed and I tentatively plan to strip it and see if it is worth a rebuild, not to replace my 18J but so I have a spare on hand if it ever dies. That makes this thread of particular interest, much appreciated.

I actually "bled" the injection system on an old International tractor recently by giving short bursts of easy start for about a minute. So easy!

I'm no expert in these matters but a good way to test is by substitution. I'm pretty sure I have an ECU for one of these (assuming 3.9 V8?) in my shed. If you pay postage (I'm not a rich man, sorry) I'll send it down for you to try. Send me a private message if you are interested. I'm in the lower North Island.

I'll take this as a compliment, seeing I put the early ones together! They weren't particularly expensive to make, apart from the pole needed to get the panel above the trees - not that that is called for here. Solar power is very common in New Zealand and available setups vary wildly in cost/capability. You can do well if you learn what you need and shop around. The fact the batteries are lasting so well, outside in all conditions (albeit protected in a thin, galvanised steel box), suggests we have done it right. Or at least good enough!

Gosh, that is a long way from my experience! We have a handful of remote installations at work, all running off solar power. None have ever needed a battery replacement and some have been going for well over five years. The only solar chargers that are a waste of time are the type you get out of a cornflakes packet that need a lot of sun to produce anything! To trickle charge a car battery, most solar chargers will cope easily. The key is to get a good regulator and not attach the charger straight to the battery. However, we have established it isn't easy for the caretaker to get a setup like this, so the advice above seems good. Personally, I wouldn't want the drain of a security system on the car's battery for such a long time without a permanently attached and well-regulated charger. That new battery won't stay new for long if the voltage drops too low for too long, or if it stays over-charged. Disconnected, it could easily go a month or two without a charge. The spare battery I carried on my Australian epic adventure in 2004 only got two charges in eight months when it was new but it's actually still going strong in my friend's (cough, cough) non-LR vehicle.

Don's pet peeve (well, one of them!). How can it be a quad (=4 wheels) and a bike (=2 wheels) at the same time???????