mickeyw

Mine is very similar to this. Constructed from 20mm angle and covered with 1mm steel. The long hinge was scavenged from something stainless in the scrap bin . It bolts to the body cappings and through the wheel arch. Will do some photos tomorrow. £50 sounds a bargain for a plug n play job.

Yes, a good and timely write up indeed. I just soldered my MJ PCB yesterday, a pretty simple job really. I have to concur on the size of the whole thing, I thought the case was missing when I unpacked it all! My next job is to mount a trigger wheel and the coil packs. I've yet to decide on the positioning of everything, but I think the coil packs will be going beside the plenum. My engine is a serpentine 3.9, so no room above the water pump as has been done by others. Hope tomorrow is a bit warmer than today. I'll be watching this thread for your further updates.

Diffs, assuming factory spec, will be 3.54:1. Defender transfer boxes are all currently 1.4:1 AFAIK

Unlike HFH, I am a lover of Polybushes. I have never had them fitted to the shocks though, most bushes seem to last at least as long as the shocks do. I have all axle to radius arm bushes in red (firm), and all radius arm to chassis in blue (less firm), all genuine PBs. The panhard rod has red bushes too. These have been on my Ninety for more years than I can remember and are still in good shape. I used to get right peed orf constantly changing chassis end bushes, but not since the PB era began I'll have no hesitation using them again when the time comes.

I came across these on fleabay. I've no idea how good they are. Does anyone have any experience of them?

I started off with a 7" touch screen mounted on the dash, I ran it from a car PC. It was pretty good, but had quite a few downsides too. 1. Windows XP is not really suited to touch screen operation, 2. A 7" screen involves a lot of scrolling when trying to plan routes, 3. A car PC is not so easy to just take indoors and play with. There's a few more. I think a laptop is more suited due to its transportability. Current solution for me is a 12" Dell Latitude that sits on top of a home-made holder that is fixed to the centre cubby box. Laptop is held in place by some industrial strength Velcro. This has been quite successful so far, although I need to add a screen steady element. As has been mentioned by others, RAM mounts are very good. Paul Humphreys has a superb setup in his TLC, but it costs quite a few £££. My version above was knocked up in a couple of hours from bits I had lying about and is removable in less than a minute. The table can rotate so can easily be used by driver or passenger.

The headlights, sealed beam or halogen are the same fitment so you should be able to use halogens with the old front grille. Don't forget they did make a 4-door before the grille changed (1986-ish?). Admittedly a 4-door wasn't about in '78. Just a question of how far you want to go with appearances.

I'm guessing you have push-button door handles. My Mum always has this problem on all the Defenders she has owned. Leaving the car unlocked is one option if you live somewhere secure enough, but then we found the button would stick in and the door wouldn't stay shut! WD40 in the lock barrel does help remove the water, but the most effective option seems to be to wrap an old towel around the door handle overnight. My 1986 Ninety with lift up handles has NEVER suffered this problem

The man's a Mini owner, so I'm guessing there may be a British car thing behind all this; hopefully;) Also a LR product would be a good size for carting sub frames etc to the shot blasters I have to agree that a Disco may be a better option here, especially given the budget. We found a G reg Disco 200tdi for my sister for £1200 a while back. It's not exactly gleaming or tidy but is perfectly useable, and probably quite typical of many early Discos that have come right down in price.

Errm, I'm surprised at the support for the Prestolite name . I have known many V8 starter motors of that brand be of equal quality to Britpart. If I had to buy new from those options it would be the Denso. Would also go with the local factor option.

Hi Matt, I have an ex-Discovery serpentine 3.9 in my Ninety. You are right, the fan is in a different position. The fan cowl from a Defender 50th is what you need, it fits perfectly and is still available from Landrover. The parts you need are ERR7307 Cowl, ESR3226 Cowl Upper, ESR4588 Bracket (x2), See pdf here for a picture of the parts Defender50thCowl.pdf You don't say where in the country you are, but I have a spare of said item in my garage as I have changed over to electric fans. I'm near Gatwick airport.

Same here. Main difference with the loom is the Disco one is shorter, as the ECU is in the footwell. RRC loom is under the driver's seat.

Hi All, More things being stolen again I'm afraid. Last night a mate had his 16ft Ifor Williams flat bed stolen from his yard in the West Grinstead (West Sussex) area. Thought to have been taken between 4am and 7am. It was locked onto the back of a Defender at the time, but the thieving scum managed to unbolt the entire towbar from the back of the Landrover. The trailer has a number of 'extras' to distinguish it from standard, description as best as I can think of - 16ft flat deck twin axle Head board Aluminium ramps stowed under deck Drop sides and tail board In deck-lashing eyes Rear prop legs Spare Wheel on head board Winch frame on front but no winch fitted Deck almost certainly covered in oil and mud residue Lighting cable is a curly one but rather chewed up Sussex police have been informed, and it is now registered with Ifor Williams as stolen. It seems a number of trailers have been stolen in this area in the last couple of weeks, so time to step up your security as best you can. We thought this one was safe, but how much can you do??? If anyone is offered anything like this, or sees similar for sale please get in touch via PM or contact Sussex police on 0845 60 70 999. Would really appreciate people keeping their eyes open. Thanks,

I used one of these for my on-board air system. It allows to pipes from the compressor to this switch to be depressurised when not in use. That's the 'pssshh' noise you get when a garage compressor cuts out.

I'm sure I have seen a metric equivalent of a 9.00, something like 255/100x16 sounds familiar.

I think the early type large diameter ones with no lock are vented caps. I'm not sure if there's a ball valve inside that is meant to stop fuel leaking when on an incline. I believe the later type with the lock are not vented and rely on a separate vent hose. If you have replaced a vented with a non-vented type then you will get a vacuum build up.

I have an identical looking set, unbranded, from fleabay, been on for a year or so now. I wouldn't say they're any brighter but the beam pattern is better. I'm hoping the plastic lenses won't crack next time I plunge them with the lights on. However the plastic lenses do get scratched if you're not careful when cleaning them.

I have just recalled a beer fuelled discussion from some months ago. The subject was about the merits, or otherwise, of cooling fans behind the rad working as suckers or blowers. Specifically the application was for low ground speed (so neglibile ram effect involved). The argument (always is when beer is involved) included the fact that some heavy plant/agricultural vehicles have clever cooling fans that can be put into reverse to blow the cr4p out of the rad when the airflow reduces due to blockage. Could this method be applied to our mud soaked radiators? Would need to blow it out before the mud dried obviously. Has anyone looked into this?

We used to have a 2.5 TD Ninety in the family and whilst it returned sub 20MPG when towing I'm sure it did more like 25 on general running around, unless hooning around. I have always thought that this engine was better than its reputation suggests. Granted it didn't have a terribly long life span, but I was always impressed by the amount of grunt it could deliver when required. On the downside it was very noisy at anything above 50MPH, even with CSW carpeting throughout. Also the clutch was hellishly heavy, that would be my biggest negative memory of that truck. I doubt you'll find any TD engined examples around now, many were replaced by the 200tdi when they wore out. The 200 and 300 Tdi as said above go on for many many miles if looked after well. They're a bit quieter, more powerful and more economic, I much prefer them to the Td5.

Your Disco transfer box will be a 1.22:1 ratio unit. The Defender one you have been offered will most likely be 1.4:1. Although it can be fitted to the Disco, you would end up with a lower geared car (about 13% lower), not ideal if you are on standard wheels and tyres. Another small difference is in the hi/lo selector components. They are different between Disco and Defender but quite easy and quick to swap over.

Well I have been using a Killaspray for basic before-drive-home clean ups for years. Good for lights and windows, not amazing for rads but better than nothing, and has got me out of a hot spot many times. However I'm quite sure I wouldn't want to be blasting anywhere near 100PSI at my radiator. The killaspray is far more gentle I have seen folks using the green mesh that is used on scaffolding to very good effect as a radiator screen. When the mud clogs the mesh, just remove it, give it a quick shake and back on it goes.

Ross, have you seen this one? (In the for sale forum) Ooopps, thought I hadn't posted this yet. Looks like I did.

Ross, have you seen this one? (In the for sale forum)

I have the same as Nige. Speedglass 9002D, very pleased with after many years.

From my recent experiences of this subject when fitting a ZF to a Ninety - Agree with comments ^^^ re prop lengths, although this was not an issue in my case. Yes you will need to change hi/lo linkages to accommodate diff lock operation. LT230 will bolt straight onto ZF box in place of the BW with certain provisions - The bolt pattern is the same, and the shaft splines are the same diameter and number of, and should be a compatible length if your LT230 input gear is standard. If you try to fit a cross drilled LT230 input gear with the longer internal splines, and you have the original 'spud' shaft with short splines on the ZF then it no fit. As Bush65 has shown there is a shaft with lengthened splines just for this situation. This is something I still need to change on mine. I believe it's a simple job to swap over.