simonr

Gulp....£350,000 Base Price! The £250k one is obviously a bargain! I'm a bit dubious about the 2.5 Ton weight. A 130 Chassis cab is quoted as 2130kg unlaiden weight. 380kg for the pod on the back seems optimistic to me. Maybe that's the weight of just the shell without the interior? It's a nice bit of craftsmanship - but not the prettiest camper or Defender I've seen! It would look better on a more rounded vehicle. The angular defender jars with the rounded pod - to me anyway! I guess they've done market research on both the pod, vehicle and price point - I wish them well with it.

That sounds like good news!

I have one of these: https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/grease-oil-lubricant-dispensers/0672138?cm_mmc=UK-PLA-DS3A-_-bing-_-PLA_UK_EN_Facilities_Cleaning_%26_Maintenance_Whoop-_-Grease+%26+Oil+%26+Lubricant+Dispensers_Whoop+(2)-_-672138&matchtype=e&pla-4575411489753957&msclkid=69b4f18e52b41788f02d934597b16168&gclid=69b4f18e52b41788f02d934597b16168&gclsrc=3p.ds Which has survived everything, including Acetone, thinners & gun cleaner. It also has a nice, satisfying feel to it! You can imagine yourself oiling a steam engine with it! I tend to use a mixture of one of the above, whatever I have at the time + EP90 as penetrating oil. Maybe only 10% oil though to keep it really low viscosity. Smells bad - but works well.

Your diagnosis sounds very likely. It also sounds an easy thing to test. It may just be that the electrical contacts have burned / corroded and you'll be able to hear it click at the correct temperature. It may even be rebuildable. Most electrical parts from that era can be dismantled & cleaned.

Post a photo, if yours is much different to this - not absolutely sure what different model years look like inside!

Generally, sort of! When the charge gets really low, it limits the acceleration & speed to reduce the current draw per mile - in the hope you'll use those extra miles to find a charger! There has been some talk of breakdown vehicles carrying either a generator or (more likely) a battery. If you were to sit beside the road & fully charge the car from a generator, that would be daft (and take many hours). Providing enough charge to make it to the next services, which is effectively what they do for ICE vehicles, isn't so daft. We will need something like that. In the mean time, recovery to a charge point works too. That's what I like to hear! Go for it!

This: https://www.novunavehiclesolutions.co.uk/news-and-insights/electric-vehicles/how-much-does-it-cost-to-charge-an-ev/ Seems to suggest that current charge pricing in the UK is pretty good. It says the average cost per kWh for home charging in the UK is £0.28, which is roughly what I'm paying. There are still free chargers in the UK - but I doubt they will last long! Prices seem to vary from £0.26 to £0.70 in different locations. I did wonder about charging an EV at one of the free charge points (400m from my house), then running the house off the car in the evening! 😮😈 Here's a map with prices: https://network.bppulse.co.uk/live-map/?_ga=2.124986698.1365219124.1656867531-436549258.1656867531

I would bet on the steering box not being damaged! They can take a lot of punishment. The fact that the steering is off centre says one of your steering rods or panhard rod is bent, probably the panhard rod. The steering boxes are only tight in the middle with increasing play as you move away from centre. You don't normally notice it! The amount of backlash is easily adjustable in the centre position though. If you adjust it when it's off centre, the steering will tighten as you turn in one direction - so I would leave that alone until you've had a look at the rods. If they are straight, have a look at the steering box mounting bolts (I've broken the steering box off the chassis once before), the swan neck which connects the steering box to the panhard rod and the panhard rod itself. P = Panhard Rod T = Track Rod S = Steering Rod Si

My bet is, eventually, we will be taxed per mile. Cars will have to log all the miles driven & send the data to the revenue. This needs to be automated or people will be more likely to cheat. In practice, it's little different in cost from tax on fuel. People always will (and already are) work(ing) around the hardware / software in EV's as they do with ICE vehicles. While you say it's beyond you, how much of the detailed operation of a modern car do most people understand? EV's, if anything, are simpler. Mapping will still exist. Tesla have caught on to that & for many vehicles you can buy & download a power upgrade! There will still be the same groups of 'eccentrics' upgrading & modifying EV's. Just look on YouTube for the people modding Teslas. Lots of people changing motors, controllers & batteries in other EV's and hacking the software to suit. The only difference to the past is now you need spanners AND a computer. I can see that for many of us wrinklies that does not sound appealing - but for younger hardware hackers, it's a dream come true! If anything, it opens up a dying interest to a new generation. At the moment, it's possible but difficult to run an EV only using commercial charge points. Impossible in more rural areas I suspect. I think, eventually, charge points will be built into lamp-posts as the power hardware already exists. These will be slow, overnight chargers though, not Tesla Super-Chargers. Local & National Government will eventually figure it out.

Based on my current conversion, it will cost about £6k + Batteries, based on a Hyper9. I've had good experience buying used LiFePO4 cells, costing around £100 per kWh. New cells at the moment are around £150 per kWh I think a Hyper9 might be a little under-powered in a Defender (I've got one to fit to a Polaris General, 600kg) - but that said, I know people who've used them & think they're good in a Defender! Experiences vary a lot, but people seem to be getting around 2 miles range per kWh in a Land Rover - so for 100mile range, it will cost about £13,500. I agree, that's still a lot of fuel. If you have access to Bio & can use it - that's a better solution. However, it's still cheaper than buying a new EV. Having owned (and built) one EV, I really want another one! It was a very different driving and learning experience. They don't suit everybody - but I like them!

I have! You need to get the surface really clean - I used a jetwash, grit blasting adaptors which took the rusty thing to gleaming, shiny metal. In the real world, they pickle the metal parts in something that really cleans the surface - don't know quite what though. Then I just used a lump of Zinc and battery acid as the electrolyte. I used a variable voltage power supply, negative connected ot the part you want to coat - then crank up the voltage until it starts bubbling! Bubbling is probably over-doing it. It took a long time to get a decent thickness of zinc on the surface - but it worked just fine. I remember just leaving it over night & using a digital micrometer to measure the increase in thickness. The passivate is just a protective coating, dipped. Not having real passivate, I sprayed it with laquer - which served the same prupose pretty well. It stayed shiny for a long time!

I quite like it - it looks almost the way Land Rover would make such a thing.

I really like the wonky butchered dashboard! There's something odd going on with the seat box too.

EGR was still fitted. The valves had sealing caps on the vacuum outlets & looked like they'd never been attached to anything?

My favorite solution - which works a treat - is a Hoselock pump-up sprayer. I removed the plastic nozzle from the hand valve & replaced it with a bit of hose. Pump up occasionally & it will fill at your leasure! I bought a cheapo one from Amazon - and the oil disolved all the seals / O rings. Hoselock one continued to work fine.

My Td5 Defender 110 had two vacuum solenoid valves on the right inner wheel arch. They were connected to the wiring loom & to the brake vacuum, but with the outlet (inlet) capped. I never figured out what they were for - but I wonder, now, if they were for Air Conditioning, if it was fitted. Si

That's a useful link!

You could adjust it - but on some models it's painful. I would just live with it! My Td5 used to stop exactly 12 miled after the fuel light came on. Previous V8 would die just as the needle went into the Orange region. You just learn when you need to fill up. Like many things about Land Rovers - it's a 'Feature' 🤣

From what I understand, the best / optimal option is not to connect it to anything at all. The clock will then be correct twice a day, rather than never 😅 Unfortunately, I found the clock in my Td5 to be every bit as good as the clocks in every other Defender i've had - useless!

Anecdotally, that does seem to be the case. From people I know who 'deal', they're saying the selling price of middle aged vehicles has slumped. Asking prices on eBay may not reflect that (yet) though. In one case £5k for a 2004, Td5 in reasonable condition was all he could achieve, having gradulally dropped the price from £8k & it took months to sell.

For what it's worth....I agree, an engine driven fan is way better (about 10kW of cooling, compared to 1kW) - however, it's not always possible. For an electric fan, the sensor should go on the radiator outlet. Why? Two reasons - it's a no-brainer that the water going in is too hot. If it wasn't, you wouldn't need a radiator! Fitting in the bottom / outlet tells you how good a job the radiator is doing on it's own. If it's not enough, the fan comes on. Second reason is, when you are low on coolant, a sensor at the top of the engine will likely not be in contact with the water - and may stop the fan when it's most needed. On Land Rovers, people started fitting them in the top hose because it's easy, not because it's ideal. It's so common, now people think this is where it ought to go! If you want an adjustable, no-drill solution, get a thermostat from a tea-urn. They have a capillary which you can push inbetween the radiator fins & secure in place (preferably with heat transfer compound). They are usually adjustable from about 30 to 110C - so you can decide how much cooling you want / need. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/223968227395

A 70l accumulator only gives you 35l usable - at 35l, you're down to half pressure. In practice, you probably don't want to go much below about 45l, giving 25l capacity & 75% pressure. So, your 1100l is closer to 400l. I can't remember what pressure we were running - but probably 100-150 Bar. Everything is rated to 250, but we rarely go above 200 - just so you've got some 'in the bag' if needed! Si

Hydraulic Accumulators. We were using 2 x 100kW Hydraulic pumps - but they couldn't deliver fluid anywhere near fast enough for the speed the platform needed to raise. Adding 16 x 70l accumulators just allows a surge of really high flow.

I remember you! You also (I think) made me some beautiful foil 'blister' X-Eng Stickers! I've used something very similar to your 3 Link topology too. I hope you're doing well. I'm a little envious of you moving to Canada!

It's not quite a crane - but it was for lifting (a set) on a movie. Only 25 Ton, 12m lift capacity, but it could lift or lower in 4 seconds. I'm 2m tall (in the picture) which gives an idea of the scale. This was designed by my friend, Pete - and is still my favorite rig I've seen in the industry so far.