Jamie_grieve

When I did mine I took off the bump stops to give me a worst case scenario. I do that on pretty much everything I put an engine in just to know there wont be any mistakes. On articulation the axle can only go down from there. I’d be really interested in your build thread too.

Lol, you may have been closer to the truth than you realised. https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/new-land-rover-defender-interior-leaked-ahead-unveiling?page=1 Of course it could easily be a marketing stunt and nothing like the real thing. If it's real then I suppose it could have been a lot worse, it's hard to make utilitarian not look dated. The centre seat's interesting and I wonder if that's real as I could imagine that being difficult to get through crash testing. No obvious diff lock or low range selection makes me wonder how the manual version will work. I can't imagine how successfully getting in with mud on your hands or soaking wet you would be able to select the low range or other functions without filling the switches up with mud but I'm sure they thought of that. On a separate note, this link from the comments is interesting about JLR in China and reflects much on what many here are saying about quality. https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/jaguar-land-rovers-china-problems-stem-lax-quality-control

I've tried a few different ones of these and have been really impressed by their performance. The first ones I tried a few years ago were the really cheap and nasty Chinese ones which could start a 4.2 diesel land cruiser from dead flat. I would never have believed it if I hadn't seen it. That said, they struggle with glow plugs a bit due to the duty cycle they have but I'm a great believer in them now.

There have been over 7 million land cruisers sold so far, about 10% of which just in Australia. It's also a commercial vehicle, not a car in most regions it's sold in so doesn't appear in the comparisons. The link you posted was for UK car sales and the few land cruisers listed are the 100 and 120 series with a few 200's in there. The heavy duty ones are the 105's, the HZ and VDJ 70 series as was explained in earlier posts which we never got in the uk. You can basically compare the defender to any of the ones with 5 studs in the wheels instead of 6. Their reliability is legendary, they do break, anything does, but just as if you break an anvil, generally you were doing something silly at the time. They have a lot of attributes like a Defender in that they are easy to fix, have a huge aftermarket of shoddy Chinese parts and are generally abused and overpriced on the secondhand market.

Can you back that up with statistics please and not unsubstantiated opinion? That is exactly the market and use that the defender replacement is aimed at and I'd be confident of it doing all that rather well until the warranty runs out. That however isn't what a defender was or did particularly well and there were a thousand other vehicles would do all that better. Go back and actually read the 12 pages and highlight things you don't like or understand so we can have an informed discussion and not reduce it to unsubstantiated opinions. Read the technical reasons in the various posts and come back with what you disagree with.

There must be a great story about how it’s going to have taken 5 years extra on top of whatever development was already underway to replace a very simple and fairly unreliable car. Henry Ford certainly wouldn’t be impressed. if the dc100 was real and they’d called it something other than a defender they would probably have made a fortune out of it by now and could still be working on the current defender replacement.

1:25 is quite interesting

I do on a regular basis as a fleet and workshop management consultant. I’ve previously managed large fleets of off highway vehicles including defenders and land cruiers. Thats the perspective I try to bring. One outfit I was with bought 65 ROW spec defenders just before the end of production. The last of these vehicles was only distributed a few years ago, the replacements were long overdue and will probably be land cruiser shaped. For me without defender availability, it’s been land cruiser all the way with the exception of Ford ranger for light admin, and kamaz for medium heavy. At risk of repetition, look at utility or comercial vehicle purchase statistics to see who actually buys them. It’s not the single vehicle sales from distributors that makes the money although they may make higher margins. It’s company and fleet users that actually buys them. This is the market I’m not entirely convinced has been catered for. Ultimately the length of warranty on the defender replacement will be the biggest factor for me to recommend one to a client as a brand new unproven vehicle with no past performance or provenance compared to others such as Ford and Toyota that actually do cater for the sector.

https://expeditionportal.com/the-new-defender-off-road/?fbclid=IwAR1YkTxduunBQ4aLkFEkNCZSDQN7WfSaR_PFBnAIKo_SLtXV36NXOqwD38Y Maybe there’s a tiny glimmer of hope it’s not going to be a total waste of space. I mean, obviously for fleet users and commercial operations it will be but for a lot of lifestyle people I can see the appeal. As far as keeping interest going, the marketing department are doing a great job. I’m still going to continue to moan about all the testing, even off road, being done on low profile road tyres.

Hmmmm, I dunno, Rover didn't exactly invest in the brand like Tata have. At least a defender replacement is currently on the cards and whether or not we like the thing from a defender perspective, there's a chance for a few UK or Slovakian jobs. I just don't understand why they don't spend more on quality engineering instead of using quality marketing to replace it.How hard is it to convince the bean counters that building in reliability will ultimately be good for the balance sheet? I saw the attached image on social media, it seemed to fact check ok.

Quite a few did that for the new Mercedes pickup and pulled out when it was actually released. It's a good example of parts bin engineering not working out for a premium brand. I think we're all in agreement that based on current prototype evidence that the defender replacement will just be the illusion of a utility vehicle, but we can live in hope that they make something useful until we're actually proved otherwise.

Revisiting the centre bearing idea, as it's an intrinsic part of the whole thing to minimise as much as possible the propshaft angles. Does anybody know if the UJ in a series front axle is compatible with any of the propshaft UJ's? I'm thinking it wouldn't be too hard to make a bearing housing using the back of a pinion flange to hold one of the bearings as with my original design using transfer box bits. I've chucked all my series stuff out in the dim and distant past as I never saw anything useful in a series axle, kinda regretting it now. Alternatively, using a CV joint in a similar way could work as well, and if I could find matching CV joints that would work even better. There are loads of cars listed in various cv joint catalogues as having 24 spline cv's or shafts, does anybody know if any share the same diameter as the landy ones? I have no idea if it's somehow a standard size?

Doh, I just noticed the title, can an admin change it to wide angle please, there's nothing wise about anything I'm doing. Thanks.

It was the ends that were of particular concern as there's nothing to stop it moving to the side. The sections on the side could also use a brace as they're a long way from the one triangle at the very back. It'll probably end up carrying heavier things than you plan on right now so maybe worth adding the belts and braces now. Good plan though.

Thanks for the suggestions but I need 6 shafts so was just going to knock them up myself. We get conned in the land rover world by having especially short travel joints, I don't think I've come across any UJ in any application with less travel. . The actual UJ is the same in a wide angle joint, it's just the yokes that are different. They won't actually see much load at significant angles as when the axle is hanging, it's light, it's more to avoid any binding. CV joints would be better as I've got some compound angles happening and flanges coming out of parallel. Has anybody successfully used a cv joint from something in a propshaft? I hate to bang on the Toyota drum but they have 35º as standard, It would be cheaper to modify Toyota shafts and make Toyota compatible diff flanges than buy 6 props. I need to conjure up some flanged centre bearings too. I made the thing below from bits of old transfer cases but I couldn't weld the halves together as there's so much oil in the aluminium it's like welding an oily sponge, soaking it in acetone achieved nothing at all. Any suggestions for a really short centre bearing? I'm wondering about using a cv joint and hub from something now, are there any useful bits in a free lander or later independent stuff with handy splines you can put a flange on?

Curiously I've already used them to make a shaft in the past, I wonder why I didn't manage to think of that myself!! I went on to break that shaft about two years later and when I called them for a new bit they were very apologetic that it broke despite me telling them I smashed it on a rock. Thanks.

I need to make a bunch of propshafts for my 6x6 build, where can I get these or equivalent wide angled flange yokes in the UK? These are 1310 but there are 1350 and 1410 yokes with the same bolt pattern that would work as well. Any info much appreciated. I just got my time wasted by some guy on ebay for the last two months so would prefer first hand experience of a decent supplier.

Now you have a mobile inspection pit, awesome!! I'd suggest to add a wee bit of triangulation there just to be safe.

I think we all do and hopefully the engineers at JLR have been busy working on it as the memory of utility land rovers fades across multiple sectors. Modern compact engine mounted hydraulic pumps are easily fitted to any of the common pickups out there now so small hydraulic loads like winches and tippers for the likes of arborists can be easily catered for which used to be the sole domain of the defender. I'd love for the pto to be continued for heavy duty applications needing more than 20kw on the defender replacement but I think that really is wishful thinking as I guess the rear prop will be aligned with the mainshaft as on other JLR products and it would be unlikely they would have a pto equipped gearbox just for the tiny proportion of defender replacements that would order it. V8 land cruisers are awesome, especially the diesel ones. They have a sort of industrial charm about them regardless of how high spec you get and you can still get a brand new V8 common rail diesel without any emissions equipment at all for use in certain markets that still use high sulphur diesel.

The picture with the roof tent is worth a thousand words and I fear anything I might say from here on would just be teaching you to suck eggs. Maybe having a packing checklist to go over might be of interest to some and having a contents list for your vehicle might go some ways towards how you fit it out. For example, do you store the high lift jack on the front, back or the inside? I'm sure we could generate some entertainment from that sort of discussion and maybe something useful could come of it? The only totally random comment I may have purely to further the discussion rather than serious intent might be that given you're going for a fairly radical plan for the roof, would you consider also losing the side panels and basing your build on a pickup instead? The side panels aren't really structural and would probably need modification anyway. You could build a demountable camper body that includes your design thus far but could be extended downwards, rearwards, sideways, etc that it unfolds into something larger than what a 90 is. Your landy is still a 'proper' one in that the windscreen folds down which could make for easier location when hooking the camper body on. Not to mention the opportunities to cruise about in Europe in your sporty convertible. You could keep your current roof and side panels safe in storage should you wish to return the vehicle to standard and possibly the only part you might need for aesthetics might be a tailgate. The picture I enclose is to show some really light jack legs which can also come in handy to level you up or lift you up if you're stuck on the beach. Alternatively some arrangement with a high lift could be employed. My jack legs are made from 50mm box section and were sufficient to lift my demount which weighs about a ton. for a light demount based on a 90, some really light aluminium legs would be sufficient.

Firstly I'd say not to get caught up in building the ultimate overlanding vehicle. My friends spent a few months driving to Ireland from Afghanistan in a 1969 VW beetle and their biggest modification was new strings on the guitar. I'd say get your vehicle mechanically fit, just go and see where you end up. You can book the occasional airbnb or check into a hostel for laundry and a shower. Anything you actually need you can pick up en route and probably cheaper than in the UK. I also think you wouldn't waste any time or money by putting on a roofrack with a floor and go try it out in the uk or somewhere with a tent on top. The few extra minutes every day faffing with a tent as proof of concept will be nothing compared to the time and effort of the project you propose. Lessons learned could be incorporated in the proposed build. The proper roof tents have a very good resale value and might be worth reconsidering? You'd be up und running in days instead of months of preparation. Maybe just focus on what kit you're actually going to take with you and how you're going to live, even temporarily. For example, will you use a petrol stove and cook next to the vehicle? gas? Diesel? Dried food and hot water or fridge and perishables? If you do the fridge thing you might want to sort out a solar panel, they're cheap enough now anyway, you don't even need to fit it, just have a stand and set it up when you need it. You might want an awning on the side and a few somethings to sit on, a table really is handy, do you store it on the drivers side outside or carry it inside? You might want some tools and a few spare filters, maybe a belt at the most in Europe. Add a few clothes, boots, any hobby equipment you might have and you're getting full. Don't try to make your overlanding fit round the vehicle you happen to have right now, if you do get the overlanding bug you'll probably change it to something else.

I had to edit the video really short as the 20mb forum limit was at odds with the original 16mb file size which was too big? This is my friend's disco 5 showing the use of traction control cresting a very gentle off camber climb. Like I said earlier, I'm not too familiar with the modern versions of traction control but I'm also not entirely ignorant of it either and try to keep myself up to date although luckily now I've got Fridge Freezer to keep me right on all aspects of land rover traction control (but obviously not differential locks or anything useful like rope tie downs or any other nasty utility type stuff). Sadly this car was written off a few months after this video when an electrical fault caused a fire and we didn't get the chance to play with it any more although a mornings play was enough to have a pretty good idea of its capabilities. I'd be interested in any observations anybody would like to make. IMG_8072.mov

Exactly!! Common sense at last.... Subaru, audi and mitsubishi do some cool stuff too.

I think you're the one who is a bit out of touch with reality but let's not get personal. I spend my entire working life working with fleets (150 vehicles minimum to secure a visit) of light and heavy off road vehicles, remind me what you do again? Your defence of traction control systems is commendable but either you aren't reading my posts or aren't understanding them. Firstly to save you reading back through my posts you didn't bother to read, I think traction control is good. The problem with traction control systems in remote area fleet management is THEY DO NOT HAVE THE DUTY CYCLE OR RELIABILITY to function for the life time of a vehicle and be cost effective in certain circumstances where it's use is required a lot. You've been told how users in the desert are required to turn it off, I was telling you about coal mines, you've been told about the D2's well known issues with tc and open diffs. Remove yourself from the urban environment for a minute and also from the extreme winch challenge two day or one week event type of activity which is almost more irrelevant than the urban one.Imagine now that you're an untrained driver driving an ambulance on unmade roads or a vehicle on a mine site etc, with no additional user input whatsoever compared to a vehicle without the system, now your brakes only last a month and you don't know why but you do know the parts wont be cheap if you can find them. Compare that scenario to either locking diffs or any version of an improved differential, be it ATB, limited slip, unlocking type, roller cam etc perhaps combined with TC and we can have an informed discussion. I mentioned the brabus unimog as it's an ostentatious obnoxious utility vehicle which will never do a days work and there are relevancies there to the new defender. I shouldn't have to spell that out. I am representative of the market, I've bought over 60 vehicles for various organisations, remind us how many did you buy?