Mark

There will be a round of the challenger series at coney green farm near stourport - it's still a bit of a trek for you, but it's a good competition to get involved in. Mark

Steve, I find the rear tool post is very much stiffer than the topslide mounted front tool post, so does indeed stop a lot of the chatter. Parting on the myford is fun generally as it is not the stiffest of machines...

Nige, QC tool post gives you the opportunity to have more than 4 tools setup, on centre height, and ready to go. whereas the indexable post you have only allows a maximum of 4 tools. When I had my indexable tool post, I also found that having a lefthand tool mounted for facing stopped another rh tool being mounted for turning work, so effectively only had 3 tools available. The QC posts usually allow the holders to be mounted in one of two orientations to cope with turning and facing operations. The holders also allow for quicker centre height adjustment, without the need for shims etc. They are however, not quite as stiff as the Indexable tool post. Rear mounted tool post: having a tool post at the back of the cross slide allows you add another tool holding capability to the lathe: The tool is mounted upside down, as the work is now travelling in the opposite direction to if you were working on the normal tool post. I use this on my myford for parting off as the tool mounted like this is far stiffer that that mounted on the top slide. Also when parting (or turning) the forces involved when working normally are trying to force the work, and therefore the spindle upwards. The only thing resisting this force is the bearing caps on the spindle. However, with the tool post on the rear, working the other way up, the forces are now attempting to push the work down into the body of the lathe, rather than up. There is an awful lot more lathe underneath the spindle than above it, so to my mind this is a better setup... As ever Nige, you are welcome to come up and have a look... hth Mark

I have a quick change toolpost on my Myford, and sometimes I miss the indexable 4 way (as nige has) so I wouldn't be too quick to get rid. On the other hand, a rear mounted toolpost with a parting tool (mounted upside down) is by far the best way to part off on a smaller lathe.... Got to admit I have a 1HP 3ph motor with running off an inverter on mine, so power is rarely an issue. Cheers Mark

Thing 1: Welcome to the forum. Thing 2: No Need to shout - it is far easier to read mixed case than all upper case. Thing 3: Give Barry a ring at Frank Pickles Insurance - they offer a specialist modified Land Rover scheme that is very good. hth Mark

Another vote for the rustoleum paint. Thier combination primer/topcoat is good stuff too, however, if you choose to use a primer with it, make sure it is very well dried.

Gordon, the OP doesn't say if they are spring spacers or body spacers - my assumption is that they are spring spacers, and hence will indeed affect angles. I would not be happy with the 6 degree radius arms - I would either be looking at 3 degree ones, or standard arms, with the acceptance of a loss of castor. There are a lot of people running 2" lifts and standard arms. Trailing arms - I would be inclined to see how they sit. I have no idea of the angles involved on the double cranked ones you have, but as long as the chassis bushes are not unduely loaded when the vehcile is sitting on flat level ground you should be OK. hth Mark

I hope their 'competition' diffs last better than their 'competition' shafts and CV's.... I am afraid, however, It's not on my shopping list certainly. Mark

Having seen the effect of that gasket not being in the correct position, I would be very much inclined to check - although by the sounds of it, you already have... The engine in question had this gasket in the wrong place, and then proceeded to pump the contents of the sump into the timing case. In this case the wading plug was in, so the issue wasn't picked up till the oil pressure light came on, and the timing chest was half full....

Also the series 2 hinges are different to series 3 and defender hinges, so swapping the screens isn't as easy as it could be.

class 1. Regs are the same for both classes ref cages etc..

You sure you are not thinking of K-series 1.6's james? don't remember the td5 suffering from dowel issues..

As this is a clubman level event, I believe that if you are in a hard top vehicle then a cage is not mandatory. Therefore assuming you have a roof, you are OK, and you have a very elaborate and potentially over-engineered tree deflection bar arrangement.... Mark

Do you happen to have the part no's for the td5 wheel boxes? having not twigged that they were different I have a pair of new ones sitting on the shelf that I acquired... it would be good to know if they are likely to fit... Cheers Mark

As has been said, I don't think you need a split charge, as you are just running the 2 batteries in parrallel, as it it were a single big battery. The batteries will equalise between the two of them naturally. Attaching a high current draw device to one battery is the same as connecting it to both... However, if your maximum load is 32A then I would be inclined to ensure that the link lead between the two batteries is more than capable of running that load, as draining one battery will cause the other battery to attempt to equalise with it, as quickly as possible - ie at the same rate as you are draining the first. If it were me, I would probably put a piece of 16mm^2 cable between the batteries to be on the safe side. hth Mark

Most people cut the floor out because its rotten, not to help with the positional stuff...

Removing the rear seat is pretty easy I - just a ase of undoing the bolts holding the bottom of the hinge to the floor pan. Putting the new ones in should just be the reverse. The only issue you may have is making sure you get the anchorage point for the middle seat when you get the seats too. hth Mark ps. I moved your thread to the freelander forum as it seemed more appropriate...

Actually, it was a factory option - but it is really very rare... There are some pictures somewhere on here of a unit installed in a disco, on a thread asking about a rear load bay cover. I am afraid I don't know if it is linked into the vehicle aircon, although I would have thought a quick look underneath would allow you to see if there are any pipes running up to the compressor and aircon heat exchanger. Mark

The Rear Cross Member on my 2000/Y 110 is rotting far too fast for my liking and is really due to be replaced given the amount of towing I do with the truck. So, I am trying to work out the best way to go about it... If I were to buy a cross member to weld on, what options are out there? I would really like to replace it with one made of something more substantal than the scrunched up kitkat wrappers that my current one was made from, so am wary of buying a genuine one, although I know that will fit. Pattern ones fill me with dread, from an accuracy and general quality point of view, so I wondered if anyone else was producing somehting substantial to fit a td5? My other option is to make my own one, which is tempting, but I have not seen it done with the extra fittings and things that are on a td5 cross member... so, any opinions, suggestions or even better, pictures? Cheers Mark

Thanks Ralph.

Can somebody confirm the part numbers for the factoryr fit springs that my TD5 110 Doublecab would have been fitted with? Being a TD5 it is too late for the load leveller, and being a doublecab, I believe it should have the HD springs on the rear and standard on the front... I would also like to find out the part no's for the HD front springs - sufficient to put a winch and winch bumper on the front without it sagging or being lifted particularly... any help much appreciated. Mark

Another well set out and well attended event Woudl be good to see some results up tho... Unfortunately for us it started going wrong from the moment we arrived when we noticed we had snapped the trailer in half on the way down - Thankfully we managed to find a workshop with some steel and a welder, and stuck it back together before dinner on saturday. Thanks to Cliff and Paul for the tea and use of their mig. Sunday also seemed fated after we broke a tyre valve and stripped the splines on a drive flange within the first hour or so... only to fix them, go back out, and proceed to fold the back axle back underneath the truck, destroying a trailing arm, the rear prop, and ripping the brake pipe off the axle too... so, not a great day for us, which is a shame as we were quite looking forward to the event, and there were some really good punches set out. Anyway, enough of me moaning, there must be more pictures than just those of Mark falling off his trailer.... Cheers to everyone involved - Paul, Lucy, Marshalls et al - very much appreciated as ever! ta Mark

I have the same issues with my 110, only on the rear. Generally, I have found that the chrome surface is what fails, and then allows corrosion to start on the side of the piston. If you are doing a reasonable amount off road, this happens a lot quicker. Stainless doesnt suffer with this as it is the material that is corrosion proof, rather than the thin easily damaged surface layer... I would consider them worth it, and as such I just bought a complete set of stainless pistons from Autopost (via eBlag) and they seem to be very good - they were delivered very quickly certainly! If you do decide to replace the callipers, they were also very good pricewise for OE ones... (I actually bought 2 new rear callipers as well as the pistons, and will be putting the stainless pistons into the new callipers.... ) hth Mark

The TDS is a good winch - We ran one with the air freespool on the rear of our truck for quite some time. The freespool disengages the drive from the gearbox, so the drag is still fairly significant - it is nothing like as free as the drum based freespools available for the 8274. This is nothing to do with the air freespool, just the design of the winch - the addition of air just actuates the standard freespool lever. We run an ep9 in the centre and have no issues with it - this is basically the same winch as the tds. Freespool will be going on it at some point (same unit as the tds one) but it's not that high on our list of priorities. hth Mark

For a very brief second, I did consider offering to throw the milling machine on the trailer.... Field Head Skim anyone???