gwyn lewis

The reason i have done this kit is because customers keep asking for them, yes they are more for heavy veacules to stop the bounce and boddy roll,but still wanting the articulation, the X-Eng antiroll bar system is one way forward to stop body roll, but wont stop the bouncing around, yes you could fit 1 big shock with firmer damping, but the trouble with this is the bushes distroy themselves as the bush is flexing much more, for high speed comping i thinck a diferent setup is required on the back, the trouble with the Land Rover setup is as the axle is pushed up the less damping you have because the shock is at an angle and gets more horizontal giving less damping, this is ideal for slow challenge events as it allows the axle to go up easier and quicker, for high speed you need the damper upright giving the same damping all the time, thats why you see a lot puting the front shock setup on the back, for high speed you dont want to much drop on the suspension as it could allow your wheel to drop into a large hole, you need more compression for when you land hard. I am taking all your coments in and maybe see you at the show so you can see for yourselves. Must get back to loading up for the show. Gwyn

I thought i had better post this incase no one had heard the bad news, a customer told me today and i have just checked on line and this is what i could find, our thaughts are with his family and friends and many 4x4 friends he had. Breese. - Thomas (Tommy) Cwmderw, Bwlchysarnau, Rhayader passed away on Friday 4th March 2011 aged 69 years. Dearly loved husband of Elizabeth. Funeral Service at Bwlchysarnau Baptist Church on Saturday 19th March at 1pm followed by interment at Bwlchysarnau Cemetery. Family flowers, donations if desired to Wales Air Ambulance or Bwlchysarnau Baptist Church. Enquiries to M.Jones & Son, Funeral Directors, Llanidloes. Gwyn Lewis

The best way to measere your lift is to measure your spring hights with the vehicle parked on level ground,measure from top to botom of the rear of the front spring,and the same for the rear spring,with quality springs you will find that the drivers side is always slightly taller STD 90/110 FRONT SPRING measures 260mm +/- 5 mm The REAR SPRING should be around 300 mm +/- 10mm STD Disco/RRc FRONT SPRING measures 250 mm +/- 5 mm The REAR SPRING should be around 300 mm +/- 10mm These measurments are what i have taken over the years to calculate what lift you have got or havent got From the standard measurments you can calculate what lift you have got Hope this will help what you need GWYN LEWIS

Hi all that are concerned i did notice this this morning,as i could not get on my site either,i have contacted my web man but all was OK on his PC,and is fine on mine as well now. We dont know what the problem is,but if anyone is having trouble please can you let me know as i need to sort it out,it seems fine on mine now ? As for emails i know some dont come through and i dont know why,i know it might seem rude for me not to reply,but if i havent seen them i cant reply to them I had an email a couple of months ago and i replied to it,the ancwer i got back was sorry mate i sent you thet 6 months ago and you did not reply so i got the items elswhere Please let me know if you are having trouble with my site GWYN

Pro Comp pin lower / eye top we should have in stock , get the measurments you need and give me a ring and i will see what i can sort out for you tel 01938 810 298 gwyn

He could not get any air out , as they are foam filled That must have been when we stoped for our lunch Gwyn

It was an excellant event (so glad we entred ) Thanks to Neil and Carol and all the others that never get mentioned, that give up there time for us all to go out and play and put an excellent event together , we must remember that without all the marshalls and helpers there would not be an event to go to Thanks to the David`s for cooking the pig (my plan worked you all eat to much and could not move fast enough on Sunday ) Shame about the weather but we are nearer the clouds up here and cant do nothing about it Nick , how many cans of strongbow did SI have to drink before you had enough alloy shims I must look at the results now , i cant remember where JOHN and ROB finished Thanks once again Gwyn Lewis

Totalwinch (if it is the same thing) was a company selling winches about 5 or 6 ears ago , they are the same winch as the Come-up as he was only re naming them , he dissapeared over night and never seen again ? The winches came from winch solutions in hull as they still sell them DV-9000 and so on , but most see the winches now as superwinch EP 9 and others , as superwinch import them with there name on them They are a very good winch for the price Gwyn Lewis

It Sound like you have to much grease on the outside of the Ring Gear, and in the end housing no 18 and no 1 on a parts diagram if you can see one , this causes to much resistance and makes it hard to pull out, as this must spin frely when in free spool , this is comon on a lot of lowline winches after they have been serviced, as to much grease is put on the outside of the Ring Gear , use a light oil on the outside of the Ring Gear it should help Gwyn Lewis

John I think Nobby just wanted to know if you seen a difference from XPs to Bows as you bave used both. They cant be that bad as you have had a 2nd and 3rd place using them,or is it super fit Rob that does it for you I took my motors off last weekend to clean and check, i could not beleave the moisture in them, and only done 2 events, whatever motor you all use they must be serviced quite often, i thinck a breather in the motors is the next thing to sort out ? Gwyn Lewis

That was a good event Thanks to Neil / Carol and all that put it together, you made full use of all the Welsh hill side again (it might become compulsory to have a incline metre in the cab for some of the slopes) . I am very pleased with 3rd in class as it is our first Howlin Wolf in my own truck . But i cant beleave we let John and Rob beat us, its the last time i give them any help and advice or was it those new doors that helped them (that was nothing to do with me). But i must say it was a good day for all the WEISH teams 2 firsts , 1 third and 1/2 a second place Thanks to all involved and will see you all at round 4 GWYN LEWIS

John Fair 3rd !!!!!! I think you have been watching TV , You have been watching that David Bowyer Off-Road Driving and Winching Techniques DVD i sent you , or was it those highly tuned Bowmotors i did for you that pulled you along to 3rd im shure i wont hear the last of this one 3rd !!!!!!! GWYN LEWIS

Well i thought i had beter put my point forward, i have had a lot to do and haven't had time to reply It all started at Billing last year as Allmakes had a stand by Jimbo`s GIGGLEPIN (so it is all his fault) as my Land Rover was on his stand,Eddie took an interest in my suspension kit and we got talking , he wanted to get a shock produced Terrafirma to go with my kit and i agreed as as it would give me another shock to sell one that would be cheaper than the OME and dearer than the others i do , and i hoped the quality would be somewhere inbetween as well, i got 4 shocks to test for them before xmas and i was impressed with them for the price, we discussed buying my products for Allmakes to sell to all their shops, but it turned out that that all they wanted was the rear shock mount off me, as they do all the other items themselves , what put me off selling to them was i would be only selling rear shock mounts that would be sold to around 100 or 200 shops they supply, and my sale of other items would be nill because once all 4x4 shops start selling the items it would start another price war and the only one to benefit would be the end user, but you also need to be able to give some technical advice on fitting and things that go with the kit, that is where i am always willing to help anyone and advise them on what they are doing to there vehicle , this is what happend on friday as Nobby said i was not amused when i found out it was not my items he had brought, it was not his fault as he was new to the game , but the shop must have mentioned my name or sold them as mine for him to call me As for the items Terrafirma do , i knew that they did not do a rear spring re locator that was sutable for that much travel and i thought they would have modified the dislocater that they do , but they have had made an almost identical copy of mine wich has taken me years to perfect and a couple of hours to copy, the idea i came up with about 10 years ago took a lot of trial and error to get to this stage , and as Simon x-eng keeps telling me he wishes he had thought of it first, i also see things that other companies have developed and wish i had thought of it , it is simple once you have seen something new but it takes a lot of time to get things right before you can sell it (this is something that WILL once put on this forum when someone was complaining that something of mine was expensive and he said you are paying for all the design work as well as the product, and that has always stuck in my mind) maybe i should have tried to push more of my items onto them , but where ever you get your items from you need to be advised properly on what you are fitting, as there is more to suspension than people think, i probably don't always get it right but i am always willing to advise them on what is being fitted even if it is not mine , this is where you don't get this sort of help off big retailers or internet shops as they dont seem to have the time ? Hope this has answered some things for you all , and thanks for all your support on this one I can get back to designing new items now and try to keep in front GWYN LEWIS

you fit them with the shorter part of the propshaft at the transfer box end,as this is the tallest part of the prop and wont let any water in them, the ends are plug welded on ours to help stop the water getting in and it also allows the grease to go down the splines and not out of the cap when you grease them GWYN LEWIS

A Defender 200 tdi front prop is NOT the same as a Disco 200 or 300 tdi it is to long a Defender 300 tdi is the same length as Disco / RRC fronts Defender 200 front W/L 685 mm FRC8390 Disco / RRC 200/300 tdi W/L 637 mm FRC8386 with LT230 Tran Box Defender 300 tdi / TD5 " " GWYN LEWIS

You need to check the colant cap as there is 2 valves in it and sometimes does not hold preasure that is requred, and will cause an airlock in the engine , if they dont seal it will push the water into the expansion tank and posibly out through the cap, and you need to check the 2 small pipes that go to the expansion tank to se if they are blocked up, as these pipes let the air out of the engine and the radiator to stop an airlock one way to check your cap is after been used stop the engine and listen by the cap if you hear a slight hiss it is not sealing and wants replacing i have seen one vehicle that had 2 head gasgets fitted when the 3rd went it came to us and what was causing the gasgets to go was the seals in the valves in the cap had browken up, no preasure in the coling system causing an air lock ,when there is no preasure you think there is no problem, but thats not true hope this will help your problem, and others need to check their caps as well as it is quite comon GWYN LEWIS

If you fit a 300 tdi front prop on the back you could move the transfer box back by 35 mm - 40 mm, if that is not anough they would have to be made to length, on the new pumas they have fitted the shorter prop on the back but the prop does suffer as it is the back suspension that does all the work , this is the transfer box position that the new pumas have used and that is why they had to drop the transfer box to help the problem , i think the 200 tdi position was the best as props are nearly equal length GWYN LEWIS

I always recomend customers to use stock length props if possible as if you brake one you can get a spare to keep you going, if you are going to take 4 inch out of the rear prop it will make it quite short , the new defenders do suffer from this that is why the gearbox is lower to reduce the angle and try to stop vibrations , i would move the engine forward and use 200 tdi props as the front prop is longer than a 300 tdi and is beter for not having front prop vibrations if you want any prop measurments give me a call 01938 810 298 the shorter the rear prop the less suspension drop you can have before it binds up GWYN LEWIS

Yes we do Mail Order As for Terrafirma yes we sell them at the moment, but they dont come with a bush isolation washer which is very important with this much flex on the bush and pin We have to pre assemble the shocks with the washers that we make before we sell tham to make sure everything will work OK and is sutable for our kit, i dont think other suppliers of the shocks are supplying the washers with them, but i dont know what items or mounts they sell with them ? There is nothing on TV tonight JOHN so probably work late GWYN LEWIS

Did you get the kit from me ? All the shocks i supply should come pre assembled with BUSHES/BUSH ISOLATION WASHER and NYLOCK NUTS especially the procomp shocks as there is to much thread on them and no shoulder to tighten the nut down to this is why our procomp shocks are a little more expensive off us as we have to do this to them The nuts you want are 1/2 inch UNF thread a T NUT and you should be using the BUSH ISOLATION WASHER to centralise the bush in the hole , this stops the pin of the shock wearing out on the hole in the mounts The bush also must go the right way as they have 2 diameter locators on them , on a land rover you use the smaller one against the mounting hole To tighten them just don't over tighten them let the bush and shock flex you can always tighten them a little more if they are to loose rather than over tighten and brake the pin off hope this has answered what you want ?

dafydd there is a relay in the fuse compartment a yellow one i thinck it is the one nearest the drivers side it could de a bad conection on it ive had it before or you have lost power to the relay? the headlamps on dim with sidlights on and ig on are dim dip i would look at that relay first gwyn

forgot to mention if you want a lighter clutch pedal you can fit a 1 inch bore slave cyl FTC5071 it will go straight on a 200 tdi not sure about a 300 and if you want to change gear quicker off road you only want about 2 to 3 inch of pedal travel put a block under the pedal to stop it going to the floor it does work(if rob sees this he will agree as i did it to his when i drove for him) gwyn

Just had a quick look through this the valeo clutch you are fitting i thought they where smaller than the AP BB clutches valeo plate 9.25 inch AP BB plate 9.5 inch this is why i always fit AP BB clutches as there is more surface contact/more bite on flywheel and cover i have had many customers fitted there own clutch and they have started slipping after a short time i have put this down to not enough freeplay in the clutch pedal once we adjusted it properly they where ok you have to allow the thrust bearing to float and not put pressure on the cover if it wont self adjust the clutch will start slipping and the thrust bearing will get hot and melt the plastic as it is in contact all the time when you fit the clutch and use it for a day or two check there is no back pressure in the pipes it means all the fluid you are pushing down to the slave cyl is not returning back into the master cyl and holding pressure on the thrust bearing you can do this by loosening one of the pipes if fluid squirts out the fluid is not returning it could be a collapsed flexi hose inside you need to check this after the hose one problem i have had time to time is the one way valve in the master cyl not allowing the fluid back and holding pressure in the pipes once the vehicle gets hot everything expands and makes it a lot worse if it was a manual adjust clutch you would have to shorten the clutch push rod as the clutch wears but LRs dont have the system so it relies on self adjust and you cant see it if you want to check you can drill a hole in the bell housing in line with the slave cyl to push a screwdriver in to see if you can push the piston/rod back in hope that will help a bit Gwyn Lewis

HI A STD DEFENDER FRONT SPRING HIGHT IS 260MM THAT IS THE TOTAL LENGTH OF THE SPRING WHEN THE VEHICLE IS SAT ON LEVEL GROUND, I ALWAYS MEASURE DRIVERS SIDE REAR OF FRONT SPRING, FROM THAT YOU CAN WORK OUT WHAT LIFT OR HOW MUTCH IT HAS SUNK BY. ON THE REAR IT IS AROUND 300MM + OR SO HOPE THAT WILL HELP GWYN

I see you are having problems ive had similar problems whith a couple of td5 defenders have you checked the turbo waste gate incase it is seized and over preasurising at high rpm or eaven under preasure get a turbo boost gauge on it and see what it is doing the one i had was seized we just freed it off and it was ok its worth checking gwyn