Soren Frimodt

Yes that is VERY good entertainment, have been watching it for a year now. But the episodes are too short

I think if you post a pic of it, some grown ups will be able to tell you which model it is. Anyways you could use just a manual valve for the air as suggested, works fine.

Well.. Using a front hockey stick would limit the wrap but not cure it. You ever seen a defender wrapping the frontaxle? I have many times, problem being the bushes' ability to compress. I suppose this could be one of the problems on your setup too, fridge? Your car being the ultimate in axlewrapping capablity with a fair amount of horsepower and portals, I would say, when you find something that works on your car, it would def. work on everybody elses. The simple and not ideal way I did it, worked fine for my setup: 900 tyres, 2,5TD engine and 1450kgs of series 2. And I am confident that it would work sufficiently for Meccano as well. Sure my springs still wrapped a bit, I could see it on them after a year of hard abuse, but they were nowhere nearly as bend as my rear springs were.

Exactly Rob, you hit the nail on its head there! But I think the main reason that multileafs cope better with axlewrap is because of the much higher friction between all the leafs.

Actually it's "Kjeld" Leeds, but yes a very helpful bloke. But I know a couple of people even closer to Esbjerg if the problem is still apparent? How's it going Badger?

But why would your viscous fan take out your waterpump? If it hits something hard so that it breaks of with the waterpump, okay, but then a lot of other stuff can, and will go wrong if something hits that hard inside your engine bay. I personally prefer viscous units myself, they stop rotating when they are submerged, and if you are running, say an electric winch you will be annoyed at how much power it takes from your batteries. Most cars with factory fitted elecy fans actually ups the revs at idle when the fans come on, just to be able to cope with the high amps that are drawn.. I am not trying to diss the elecy fan completely, just saying that for engine cooling I see more problems than advantages.

As far as I know vapourthread is reverse conical. So that it is largest in the beginning end which makes it impossible to ever get in!

Well in a way you just answered your own question there mate Yes it IS a problem with effective brakes and parabolics, as well as big horsepower and parabolics is. So either go standard spring, or make an anti wrap bar. On my new project I'm going to stay standard multileaf spring, should solve a lot of problems, and as always there must be a reason why it's made that way from the factory. Sure there where advantages to the para's, especially better flex and more groundclearance.

Hi Lars. Easy to tell the difference between the two. The 2 liter is, as mentioned, a inlet over exhaust engine. And the inlet manifold is fitted on the opposite side of the exhaust manifold.

Hi Nige. Nice Jig, should make it much easier yes. You're right I mig'ed it, and have used mig before on diff housings with succes. I know it is by no means perfect, but so far it has held up just fine. The funny thing is, that there is actually quite some difference in the shape on defender diff housing and an old series. Having both laying around I compared it, and saw that it is def easier to do on a defender housing. The space with the large CRW is indeed very limited, but it can be done quite nicely. My thought on the quality of the slipper pad is that there must be much difference in how much tolerance people run. If it is slightly in contact all the time, it will of course wear rapidly. I was hoping to be able to fit a roller bearing instead as this could be adjusted to a constant preload. But to have the room for this installment would require serious amounts of fabbing on the diffhousing. Furthermore I am beginning to wonder if one could "peg" the bearing caps aswell, just like ashcroft has done on their new 9"/rover combo. Otherwise you could make a new diffpan that was more rigid, and then feed bolts through that and via guide tubes into the bearing caps. Again preventing deflection.

By trailing arm, I ofcourse meant Drag link

I was thinking.. couldn't one just crank the trailing arm to clear the spring? I know you then wouldn't be able to rotate it when adjusting, but that shouldn't be necessary.

I really like the quality of your fabrication on those axles Richard. But don't you loose a lot of ground clearence that way? I just made my springmounts thinner to avoid hanging on the springs when offroad.

Simon, I dreaded this job aswell.. Very much so infact! As I had never tried it before and my brother has tried about 3 times and every time he cracked them. I was in a hurry and had to get my 110" ready for our Easter meeting so there was no other option than for me to do it myself! And boy was I surprised at how easy it went! I found that you should fit the seal to the windscreen, then feed some wire or string into it. Then I tried with soap, but it wasn't slippy enough for my liking so I used tyre-grease. But the most important thing I did to make it easier was loosen up the front windshield frame, apparently this was twisting a bit when all tightened up, so loosing every bolt on it made so easy. I had a mate put gentle pressure on it from the outside, and swoop, it went in. Easy peacey..

You will have the usual problem of lubrication inside the diff. Normally accommodated by overfilling oil

Suppose it could be? if it is oil getting in somewhere the new plugs would fix it for a short period of time.. But usually it is possible to recognize the two from eachother. If it is oil on the plug it never "dries up" and will have shiney surface, whereas petrol usually vapourises leaving only a mat black color. That is if you take it out and leave it on the table for a while.

Si I thought about nylon aswell, so interesting to hear that somebody has tried it! But the problem, I figured, would be that brass or bronze "lubricates" while in contact with the crownwheel. Where as nylon may not have that ability. But maybe it doesn't matter that much. I just figured that the stress on the bolts holding the nylon would be immense. What are your experience on this Si?

Yes that is what I hope. But I doubt my new 80" will be able to destroy much with it's low weight small tyres and mere 70 bhp. But maybe it'll be more extreme someday.. you never know

I too would suggest keeping the 88". If you refit the petrol and go carpet crazy inside the cab, you will be amazed at how quiet it is! My dad has a series 3 88" 2,25 petrol with a lot of performance bits. cruising at 90km/t it is just as comfortable as my brothers 90" 200tdi even without an overdrive. If you want to go sub-hundred km/t for long periods you will need some sort of gearing, be it RR diffs,ashcroft transfer or overdrive. The thing is with your 88" that it looks like you have put a lot of work into it, and basically have made it as you like. This is really worth something to you that isn't easily replaced. BUT if you are really getting sick and tired of it, and want something completely different, then maybe FF's idea isn't that bad.

Okay Marc, thank you for clarifying this. But my bulkhead is in such a good condition that I don't feel like cutting in it anyways. I just fancied the idea of having pedal assy from a defender/series 3. But I will have to make the clutch hydraulic though, as I am fitting a series 3 gearbox. But figure I can make some sort of bracket on the chassis where the rod from the clutch pedal can activate a mastercylinder

Following this with interest. But as far as I can see there is some difference to series 1 bulkheads? The one on my 80" is flat in the part facing towards the engine, where as the later 86,88,109 series 1s has a footwell that is basically shaped as a series2/3/defender. Which type do you guys have? And yes Marc I would love to see some pictures too.

Looking good, hopefully you won't find any of the dreaded leaks around the bore. It's always nice to bring a spare m6 nut, although that was quite an inaccesible place

Yes but a solid rod is much weaker than a tube, and especially weaker than sleeved twintubes. But with the thickness that it has I don't think corrosion will that much of a problem.

Nice job Tony! Should definitely protect against future tree damage. Just a quick question re your hardtop. I see a lot of Landys in the UK has those closed sides with no windows, isn't annoying in the traffic and when offroading? Or is it really not that bad?

Wise words James, wise words