Jocklandjohn

Mav - slight thread hijack - where does the transfer box breather exit and go to (typically)? Is there a long length of pipe or is it simply a wee valve thingy somewhere hidden?

I bought 'cheap' rubber bushes. Bought a cheap press to do the job. Press was brilliant. Bushes were carp and collapsed within a matter of months. Replaced them again with PU (Superpro) and all is well. Press is definitely worth getting as I'd have struggled to get the old ones out (and new ones in) without it. A press costs less than half a day of garage time so worth the money. Not a hard job to do just laborious.

You could try to remap your phone so the video aspect matches the majority of people's stereo image field. I hate watching exciting smoking TD5 vids lying on my side. :-)

Thanks Nick - interesting, good price for its capability too.

Ok thank you.

Cheers Si - I did notice a comment from someone saying that prices had dropped recently for some of this stuff, but that quality had improved. Will have a browse through ebay. Thanks.

I'm going to replace my ancient and cheap inverter in the back of the Defender with a new pure sine one. Anyone got any advice on decent makes to consider? I'd prefer the pure sine ones because it's for laptops, cameras, sound recording/playback equipment and numerous other 'sensitive' devices. The one I've got makes anything plugged into it 'buzz' alarmingly. I'm looking at either the Victron or Sterling brands, but am open to suggestions. Anyone got first hand experience and advice?

At a guess......to climb into a roof tent?

Good to know they're that responsive. Mind you if its expensive its no wonder they follow up sharpish!

Thanks for that - MEK sounds good. I wont be using it in the kitchen that's for sure! Do I need a mortgage for it though?

The folks at Strathearn Engineering out at Aberuthven know their stuff, sell s/h and can do anything with a LR you want. Maybe go speak to them?

If they wont provide a service record you've got to wonder why they wont. If they are upfront they should have no problem providing details for you. As V8 said don't be afraid to say no and walk.

"However there are always people who put the frighteners on me and tell me to avoid Landrovers like the plague." The problem is that a lot of people think Land Rover = Tough and that you can forget about looking after them. However that 'toughness' is simply a byproduct of maintenance and care. Abuse it, drive it foolishly and it WILL let you down. Anyone whose experience of driving a 'typical' Land Rover is being in one with clapped out bushes, sloppy steering joints and generally 'worn out' stuff is certainly going to say 'never drive one they're terrible'. However pick any of the well-used but well looked after ones owned by people here and you'll be pleasantly surprised. Just bear in mind that they can look 'clean' but be abused, and look really tatty but be gems that have been well-cared for. I was working on a Scottish island for an environmental agency and they sold off a 10 year old TDi that looked ghastly, every panel bashed, roof bashed, inside layered with deer blood and hair, straw, dirt and grime, but it had been serviced regularly and such is the size of the island (fairly small) and desperate state of its non-existent roads (no roads!) it had only done 30,000 miles in those ten years. It looked rough, but was solid underneath and the eventual owner was getting a bargain.

Mav - is your rep from Aberdeen?

Understood. I'll have to see what I can rig up if I end up using the one-shot tape - what I'm hoping I can do is build a light wooden frame around the alloy subframe so that the final thin alloy roof sheet can drop down into exactly the correct place. Keeping little bits of rubbish from getting stuck underneath will be the challenge!

As my roof panel will be dropped on vertically, 'creep' is not a problem. What is of more concern is a degree of adjustment whilst it is still 'wet' so I can ensure a bit of adjustment to keep the alignment correct before it sets.

I bought an ex-Vodafone 110 2.5TD some years back, it had full service history, had apparently been used to tow an aerial around the country and then offroad a bit. It had a full (unused) toolkit, a set of snow chains (LR original monsters), and 90,000 miles on the clock. I did another 80,000 problem free miles before changing the engine for a 200TDi. I'd seen some real dogs before this one that were more expensive, but this one was clean and worth waiting for. There are good ones out there if you do your homework.

Thanks for all the great replies, some really really useful information here. What a resource you folks are! As my need is primarily to hold a flat panel roughly....well.....roof length x width down onto a rigid sub-frame made of 19mm box which provides flat mating faces, some of the suggestions above will be perfect. PS: When I said my budget was 'serious' I meant seriously modest!

Thanks Mav. I've had a quick squint at this and it looks like the way to go. But the best thing I've seen is a DVD my 4 year old got from granpa - The History of Aston Martin and it shows the later models alloy chassis sections being glue-bonded in the factory. If it's good enough for an Aston chassis it'll be good enough for a Landy roof!

I am currently in the planning stage of adapting my 110 roof to be able to lift. Like this but on a serious budget. I've managed to source various profiled aluminium sections from stock that get around having to do too much bending to obtain the desired shapes, which will keep labour to a minimum, requiring only some accurate cutting and a reasonable amount of welding. However it appears that some of the sections and panels can be bonded - eg the roof surface itself is simply a large flat sheet, and the underlying (welded) frame provides a series of perfectly flat mating faces to join to, and it strikes me that rather than try to weld this with a long seam weld all round, it could be bonded instead using either liquid adhesive for aluminium or perhaps the specialist adhesive tape. Has anyone used these specific bonding materials and can offer advice, guidance and anything I should definitely do or avoid? PS when the ploy is under way, which will be soon as I hope to have this done before the end of autumn, I'll start a build thread and provide all the plans and dimensions, and material stock numbers/sizes so you can follow what I'm up to.

Mine's a 200 but I had the same problems which I chased for over a year: hard acceleration would leave a swirling corkscrew cloud behind me. I went through the lot, changed fuel filter, no use, changed air filter, no, still smoking like mad, serviced injectors, not any better. Finally changed fuel, to the more expensive BP premium type and I now have a clean burning engine with a lot less smoke. It runs a bit hotter though, well certainly warms up faster, but I guess the fiercer burn of the higher quality fuel is giving a more complete combustion of fuel so rather than chucking it out the back as smoke its all converted into energy. Apart from a trial of some more expensive diesel I've no other suggestions! But I'm sure an expert will be along at some point!

You'll be lucky to find the Bilstein Black models - after a load of research and messing around I finally placed my order for them only to get a phone call from Paddocks to say they stopped stocking them, despite their website showing them as in stock. Nobody else could supply them either in the UK as far as I could discover. So don't get your heart set on them until you find out for sure they can supply! I ended up with the Armostrongs all round on LR OE springs.

Thanks for the sage advice, particularly the grade info, and thanks especially to tacr2man - mine's is the pre-shrunk version!

Mike - great build and very inspiring. Its a 'real' build too, with lots of attention to detail and knowledge of what you want, what you need and what will actually work. Will keep an eye on progress. Love these home-builds.

No! Off to do so shortly (after taking dog and small boy for walk!) Thanks!