Td5 Defender 90 "Lots of body filler, and no money to fix"

HI all, been a member of the forum for a few years now and have since inherited my families defender 90 for my birthday last year. (I know, spoilt brat)

Me and my dad have been working on this 90 for the last 3/4 years, using just for offroading every month (at best) and some light work pulling trailers, hauling fire wood. etc...

Thought it was about time to make a thread about it, from when we first started to now.

Sep '19 - I convinced my dad to take me to the LRO show, this got us started on the defender bug after we almost bought a cheap disco 2 for sale.

Nov '19 - Landy secured at some point in-between (hard to track) and first outing.

...it broke, what a way to spend my 15th birthday, freezing in a truck with no working alternator.

Jan '20 - A second try at offroading after making a few repairs and upgrade, alternator, steering gaurd, diff protection.

I got it stuck, just 5 mins after being given the wheel. A winch out at the play site and back to getting muddy we went.

March '21 - A while had gone past since anything major, a few offroad outings. Also a complete interior rebuild over the lockdowns, retrimmed seats, cheap Chinese stereo and sound deading. Sadly all these images were lost over time.
So, heres a picture of something being fixed during that time:

And a complete LOF brake upgrade to go along with the stage 1 remap and egr blanking.


Heres where it gets really fun though.
April '21 - new wheels, very sexy, mostly legal


Nov '22 - Not alot has happened. a few offroad outings, simply landrover show and the lro show. Things start to pick up from here.

The day we collected its younger brother? sister? who cares its another defender

Then later in November, it becomes mine and.... I broke it, first drive out in it after spending 2k on insurance (I sometimes hate being young) and handbrake cable snapped.
With that fixed it was onto some more upgrades, its time for the subwoofers

I put in a few upgrades:
Out with the Chinese stereo, nice sony double din instead.
Focal es1300k speakers with an Alpine amplifier

March '23 - Light bar on, not wired up and now creating an awful whine. Back off she goes then.

Light bar whine has been fixed, hopefully, but little chance to put it back on. A new battery when she failed to start during the cold winter days. Also removed the front spot lights due to their shoddy wiring that was spliced into the main headlight wires.

Which brings us to today, light bar still not back on, new centre exhaust pipe ready to be fitted, and college exams coming up soon so not a lot of work is being done.

Hey, nice bit of kit you've got there, colour me very jealous

I'm not an expert on subwoofers but i think you might need to rethink your method of strapping them down

charlie revis said:

we almost bought a cheap disco 2

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also, I don't think you can use those words in that order in the same sentence, sorry. It's just not possible

Tango91 said:

Hey, nice bit of kit you've got there, colour me very jealous

I'm not an expert on subwoofers but i think you might need to rethink your method of strapping them down


also, I don't think you can use those words in that order in the same sentence, sorry. It's just not possible

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thanks, yeh the subwoofer was just a temporary solution. I put grills on them so that the woofers is on the strap, gonna build a new box and go down to just the one sub.

At the time the discovery was only £1250, it was a good deal at the time

charlie revis said:

thanks, yeh the subwoofer was just a temporary solution. I put grills on them so that the woofers is on the strap, gonna build a new box and go down to just the one sub.

At the time the discovery was only £1250, it was a good deal at the time

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Just make sure your box is the right volume for the speaker to get the best performance.
Personally I avoid porting.
Also, make sure it's securely fixed.
Decapitation by sub box isn't much fun.

codfather79 said:

Just make sure your box is the right volume for the speaker to get the best performance.
Personally I avoid porting.
Also, make sure it's securely fixed.
Decapitation by sub box isn't much fun.

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I think I can fit my subwoofer, in the new box, in the space used for a seat on the rear arch. Any suggestions for correct fixing?

charlie revis said:

I think I can fit my subwoofer, in the new box, in the space used for a seat on the rear arch. Any suggestions for correct fixing?

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On a shelf in the garage ?

miktdish said:

On a shelf in the garage ?

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Oh you oldies have no appreciation for quality bass tunes

charlie revis said:

Oh you oldies have no appreciation for quality bass tunes

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Hey ... I resemble that remark ...
I also like to sing along with the engine and rumbles, groans and whines that the transmission and braking system create.
I do have a Bose audio system in the Audi though, mainly to drown out the rumbles, groans and whines that the Mrs makes .

Been a while since the initial post, sadly not alot to mention.
Had a new exhaust centre box from demand engineering so turbo spools alot nicer, just waiting on the lead time and some money then I can put a new 100% legal front section.

Made a new single subwoofer box and it sounds amazing.

She's been put to work a few times towing trailers around:

until one day, anything around 40 mph would create some serious vibrations.

More or less instantly diagnosed it as bad universal joints, but do to going away for university and a lack of money nothing could be done. So into hibernation she went for the winter.

Then come the easter holidays, I spend my day swapping over the rear joints, take it for a spin...
F*ck not fixed it, crawl back under and turns out the rears were mostly fine it was the fronts that were absolutely shagged.

Which brings me to now, procrastinating my exam revision by writing this, with a new drive shaft sat at home for me to fit.

Along with a handful of other fun jobs, such as:
the wiper jets stopped working... again...
it had a new pump not long back so only time will tell for what fun adventure I will have to diagnose and fix that in one week before its mot

move the speaker amplifiers so I can refit a set of 6,5 inch speakers into the centre bulkhead

install another rear seat

and hopefully then all will be fine and I can start driving round in the summer (fingers crossed)

Nice to see it working.
But maybe you should spend money on maintenance items over sounds

J

marjon said:

Nice to see it working.
But maybe you should spend money on maintenance items over sounds

J

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need something to pass the time when it breaks down!!

you did remind of that one of my front spring assemblies is in the wrong way round, must of been from the dodgy garage that rebuilt it after it was written off many years ago.

Thats a job im not really looking forward to, but have been eyeing up some nice new bilestien or fox shock absorbers so its not all bad.