Loneliness of a long distance Landy

Hi, please excuse me if I sound a bit green as I am new to the marvellous world of owning, maintaining and running Land Rovers, although I did learn to drive in a Defender years ago.

I'm about to set of for Morocco for a six-month stint or longer. I have a budget of about £3k to spend on a vehicle which I need for practicle running around, a bit of driving around sites and up and down the long Highway stretching from the ferry port Tangier to my base in Marrakech (about 400 miles).

I've been looking at 110's. In particular I'm looking at a 110 1989 2.5 TD which has all of the off road trimmings and looks in relatively good condition considering that it has no less than 8 previous owners (the current owner being a winter survival school instructor). It has 106,000 miles on the clock and an asking price of £3,500 with current MOT just about to expire. Please could someone give me some advice on what I should look out for in going over this Landy (will view at the weekend) and any knowledge on what kind of fuel economy I might get off this vintage (I assume 1991 onwards is when Defender model engines where reengineered to run more efficiently?) as this is a factor considering the amount of miles I will be clocking up getting to Morocco and within the country and Africa (I wonder if its worth spending a bit more to get a slightly newer more efficient model)?

Cheers,
Alan
Pembrokeshire, UK

There is loads of info on this on previous threads try looking through them.

I bought my 89' 2.5TD last back end for £1800 with no extras and 160ish thousand on the clock, it's quite tatty but it is solid. It does about 25 to the gallon if I take it steady 20 if I start thrashing it.

From my experience from looking to buy them you should be putting solidity maitenance and the likes before age.

Let us know how you get on.

Are you talking 90 or 110 '89 which you bought for £1,800 (is there significant different in value and chassi weight, including MPG between the two?) I will look back into prev. threads as you have suggested will be helpful. THanks for comments, I'll keep you posted. p.s. I see you are in to motorbikes also, I have a Norton Commando 850 MkII which has a similar torque rider sensation to a Land ROver engine (with slightly more thrill factor!)

Mine's a 90, but if anything I found 90s were priced slightly higher than 110s.

I'll be selling the Bandit this spring, I don't find it as much fun as it used to be what with the amount of speed cameras and what have you.

I may even think of selling the Rocket if I was offered the right price.

Did the MKII have the isolastic suspension, slightly more thrill factor !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Indeed it does have the Isolastic frame, the real rider sensation! I also had a Bandit for four years but it got stolen from London while I was in Morocco last autumn so I haven't bothered replacing it. It was a good work house zipping around town but I've gone off multi's, would look at a Monster or something else instead. I'm probably going to hold of and get an Africa Twin in time for the Dakar next year (provided I can sell the Land Rover to fund it)!