pat_pending

Are you sure it's ex MOD? Not all Land Rovers painted NATO green are ex military. Got any pictures or links to the advert?

TBH I think you're overthinking it, The "bar" is just a Land Rover half shaft, it's not been made for this application, just repurposed. There is no extra machining done. The machined surface on the circlip groove end is there for it's original application, in a Land Rover axle. It seems your issue is with the oil seal not sealing against the half shaft, so? does it really need to? If you look at the hand drawn picture at step 9 of the instructions, you'll see there is very little space once assembled for either dirt to get in or the grease packed in the "clutch hub" to escape. It's only during locking/unlocking that anything actually rotates in the hub, so there's no heat or force to push the grease out. If the seal is supposed to keep dirt out, (I don't think it is, as they call it a retainer) the instructions show it fitted the wrong way round anyway. I would imagine that as the position the seal sits in is unmachined, there's probably a wide tolerance of sizes amongst different shafts hence the slight gap on yours. If you still want a tight fit against the shaft, get an oil seal with a smaller ID.

Any fault codes? Crank position sensor is a possibility. You really need a garage that can diagnose the fault, not just guess. No stop solenoid on an 04 diesel freebie.

And they have a driving licence? That's either dementia or there's more to it.

I've always thought the disc hand brake was an expensive solution looking for a problem. I appear to be in a minority because I've never had a problem with a properly set up and maintained standard hand brake! The one on my 110 works perfectly, it really does. I MOT quite a few farm owned Land Rovers and I don't see major issues with them either, so I'm struggling to see what people are doing to cause them not to work.

255/85/16 here as well. Optimum size for a 90 or 110 as far as I'm concerned.

I'm sure they'll realise that, when they wash it and the interior is covered in water. A lesson in "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should" might help as well.

Payen gaskets are ok, the supplied washers are nearly always wrong though (as you've discovered), they also used to supply the old type orange rear main oil seal in the kits, long after it had been superseded by the newer Dowty seal.

Easy enough. the few special tools can be made/adapted. Unless abused, most steering boxes "should" last for years with minimal wear, it's the sector shaft leaking that kills them The only way to properly cure that, is to repair the worn section where the seal runs and regrind to size, that's the specialist job. Any of the other potential leak points are easy to deal with. The supply of good reconditionable boxes is drying up, many will have been weighed in for scrap over the years when it was cheaper to buy another non leaking second hand box. I see some of the better reconditioners will now also only do the box you send them, probably because of the junk they've had back in exchange after sending out a recon box.

There is more charm and character in that vehicle than most of the "Blinged up" Defenders currently selling for ££££££££s. Not only built in a shed... It is a shed!

TBH I wouldn't bother to skim it unless it's badly scored. A good clean up with some emery cloth should sort that surface out. If you do go ahead I can't see .5mm making any difference to the clutch operation.

I also hope I didn't come across as telling people how they should spend their money. I see quite a few late, low mileage Suzuki's (the epitome of reliability) traded in for new similar models, in some cases the same model just a different spec. The tax/depreciation losses are huge. Aside from my Land Rover obsession, I've always just bought cheap trade in cars, all of them have gone on to perform faultlessly for many tens of thousands of miles. Any repair likely to cost more than a few hundred pounds or involves too much effort, sends them to the scrappy and I buy another. Reliability doesn't have to be expensive. There are few truly unreliable cars about anymore (Land Rover).

This one?

I've spent 42 years in the motor trade and I still can't understand why people buy new cars. And to bring the thread drift back on topic... Jimny? I can't stand the things, and the new one is even worse! Sorry, I really want to like them but they're horrendous. Currently working at a Suzuki main dealer, so I have driven a few.

I can see that wood going quite well with a cab built from reclaimed Victorian bricks, then adding a nice inglenook fireplace as a heater,

To those suggesting to the op that the insurance company are obliged to write an open cheque for repairs, I suggest you might want to read up on betterment. "Betterment will apply when, in the course of repairing an accident-damaged vehicle, a new part is used to replace an old part. Betterment is a portion of the cost owners may have to bear when a damaged vehicle part is replaced with a brand new part". In this case a new chassis may significantly add to the value of the vehicle as it was pre accident. It's not often applied, however in this case, if the op pursues his desire to have an uneconomical repair carried out he may find himself with a bill of his own for the added value the repair has given the vehicle. My advice FWIW, would be, keep the vehicle with a settlement figure less salvage value, and get it repaired at a proper independent Land Rover specialists using second hand/non genuine parts. You could probably get this done for far less than the estimate the insurance company would have received, you may even turn a small profit. There would also be no record of the vehicle being "written off".

10 years later... Holy thread revival Batman. lockdown boredom strikes again!

Yes, absolutely, there's no "technically" about it. The failure "Light source and lamp not compatible" does not apply to vehicles first used/ registered prior to 1/4/86 (currently 35 years and older). Vehicles that are MOT exempt would be all over 40 years old. Whether the vehicle requires an MOT or not has no bearing on the way it is tested (subject to the normal age related criteria) or the way the results are recorded. To be completely clear here, we are talking about putting an LED bulb in an existing Halogen HEADLAMP housing. The beam pattern would still have to be correct though or that would be a different failure (not related to the age of the vehicle). Fitting complete purpose designed LED light units of any sort is not an MOT failure on any age vehicle, although headlamps would still be subject to the beam pattern requirements. E marking is not part of the MOT*. *For the purpose of this discussion.

The results of any MOT logged into the system stay there. If your MOT exempt vehicle fails a voluntarily submitted test and you chose not to have it retested your defence to the charge of not having a valid test certificate would be...The vehicle is test exempt. Although I doubt it would ever get to court. Irrelevant as the LED/HID "Light source and lamp not compatible" fail doesn't apply to MOT exempt vehicles anyway.

I'm certain the linkage shown is part of a cold start function, the usual method of achieving that is to advance the timing. I'm aware of how the overall advance works, although I've not stripped a VE pump I'm not sure what else the lever could be doing to aid cold starting. There are several cold start devices that can be fitted to that series of pumps in different locations, they all advance the timing. As an aside, that lever with different linkage is also used as a mechanical fuel cut off on some VE pumps. I've had quick google and I couldn't find a Bosch manual specific to 300tdi. I think I've got a couple of old pumps somewhere, I'll have to dig them out and see what linkage they have.

All this is very interesting. There are lots of variations of the VE pump and the lever in question is where the cold start advance is found on some other pumps. This is normally operated by a separate temperature controlled mechanism, and holds the timing a few degrees advanced up to around 2000rpm whilst cold. This looks like it may well do that, but is not temperature sensitive, although additional low rpm advance may well help throttle response at all temp's anyway. One problem with diesel advance is that it raises NOX emissions, the purpose of the EGR is to reduce NOX, so if this lever is only found in conjunction with EGR, there is a possibility that these engines can take advantage of the low rpm timing advance because the EGR is bringing the NOX levels back down.

Intake air leak, EGR valve not fully closing.

Put a washer over it, then get some weld on it, once the weld blob is big enough you can drop a nut on and weld that. It'll either get the broken bit out or take the nipple with it if you're lucky.

We all know what needs replacing don't we? 😉

Heat is your friend to get things un seized. The seals will be fine, there's an awful lot of heat generated by the brakes anyway. You could always put a wet towel over the calliper to keep the heat local. I'd be wary of drilling in case you hit the V at the bottom of the nipple bore and damage it. I'm almost certain to have a spare nipple here if you need one ASAP, I'm only just up the A1.