What have you done to your Landie today.

These came today and i am going to fit them later!!

Pulled out the dash and wiring as the last owner was a weeeeee bit scotch lock and three core flex happy, so getting her ready for a rewire at the w/e.

Forsaken1 said:

Pulled out the dash and wiring as the last owner was a weeeeee bit scotch lock and three core flex happy, so getting her ready for a rewire at the w/e.

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Get the soldered bullet connector and a soldering iron if you haven't got one. Also some heatshrink tubing to tidy them up with. It's a bit of a faff soldering but you'll get a much neater job with less chance of loose connections buggering you up and making you strip the dash out again, to find the bugger.

Fitted my tow hitch & wired up the tow sockets.

Painted and fitted my Towhitch.

Waiting for the Primer to dry


1st coat of Satin Black paint.


Bollix the cross member looks ****e now..


All cleaned and painted


wiring the double tow sockets in.
This is the live & switched ignition feed for the pikey vans battery charger. Taped together


Then inside a plastic tube and run thru the tub supports to the battery box & Alternator.




Cables neatly tucked out of the way


All the connection were made with soldered bullets, & plugged into the existing Loom. except the live feed for the battery charger. Which is run via a double relay that's switched from the Alternators live feed.

redhand said:

Get the soldered bullet connector and a soldering iron if you haven't got one. Also some heatshrink tubing to tidy them up with. It's a bit of a faff soldering but you'll get a much neater job with less chance of loose connections buggering you up and making you strip the dash out again, to find the bugger.

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Thanx for the advice, I have a nice litle gas soldering iron, I'll be picking up the parts that I need tomoz.

It's funny what folk will do to fit a stereo and cheap alarm, scotch locks, crimp locks and electrical connectors, no electrical tape anywhere and most of them bare, even found a piece of wire they never needed but kept it in the dash............ obviously for that rainy day! :doh:

Forsaken1 said:

Thanx for the advice, I have a nice litle gas soldering iron, I'll be picking up the parts that I need tomoz.

It's funny what folk will do to fit a stereo and cheap alarm, scotch locks, crimp locks and electrical connectors, no electrical tape anywhere and most of them bare, even found a piece of wire they never needed but kept it in the dash............ obviously for that rainy day! :doh:

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Yep mate has a Disco he fitted a new engine in it and couple of days later burnt out half his wiring harness. Turns out he hadn't fitted the engine to chassis earth strap So the Disco converted the Handbrake Cable into an earth strap took me 1 full days cutting and patching to sort it all out..

Then he had trouble with his Roofbar spots melting wires & blowing fuses. (no Relay) :doh: Fitted a relay and it still carried on melting wires, So undid all the tape that he'd wrapped round the wires & bar and discovered he'd use speaker wire for the earths and fitted blue crimps but hadn't taped or covered the bare metal parts. and then taped em upto the bar??

wax oiled her underbelly

moonie said:

I just wanted to replace the old rusty bolts with new ones in metric so got some at the local tractor depo. I think they might be zinc-coated, not stainless - fecked if I know the difference.

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Stainless would be a very uniform silvery colour, MS BZP bolts (Mild Steel, Bright Zinc Plated) might appear silvery gold and have colour variation, particularly under the head and on the shank.

Should be OK if they're zinc plated, but IIRC I used HT bolts ...

Paul D said:

Stainless would be a very uniform silvery colour, MS BZP bolts (Mild Steel, Bright Zinc Plated) might appear silvery gold and have colour variation, particularly under the head and on the shank.

Should be OK if they're zinc plated, but IIRC I used HT bolts ...

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I've just looked at em closely and they aren't that reflective, presumably zinc coated?

Starting to worry now....!

new air filter, the old one was clogged almost solid with dust and straw now pulls much better..and a new serpentine belt. Howcome they cam make cambelts as easy to change

Topped up the coolant in my freelander again. Everyday. Still like it though.

today I kept striping the back end to get it ready to be repaired... also went through some bits with Kurust and then primer....
the result at the end of the day with the whole back end stripped is this..

This afternoon, I started stripping down to change me cam belt.
I've had the parts for months, but not got round to it.
After seeing a couple of threads about people who have suffered cam belt failure recently, and having no idea whether or when mine was last done, I thought I'd better crack on.
It all came apart very easily - even the crankshaft bolt came undone with the air gun.
The only tricky bit was getting to the 4 bolts that hold the bottom fan-belt pulley on - the pulley was full of hardened mud which had set like concrete and needed a hammer and chisel to get it out!

I followed the step-by-step instructions found here -
LR4x4 - The Land Rover Forum > Defender 200TDI timing belt change

I made my own puller to get the damper off (that's a wheel nut in the centre)



Once I'd got the timing cover off I could see that the belt has never been changed - the factory yellow paint on the tensioner is still intact. The belt is in remarkably good condition for 14 years and 95,000 miles.



New belt goes on in the morning.

Waterpump bearings feel a bit rough as well, so a new one will be going on too.

Looks like you've got the worst of it done then, nowt as satisfying as fitting the new bits and bolting it all back.
And peace of mind as well.
gonna have a go at me brakes tomorrow now

Been to peterborough in a mates disco to collect a moggy minor with 1500 TC Riley engine in it!! he bought it on Fleabay. Attached his homemade Aframe (3 Scaff tubes) and promptly ripped the front bumper mounts out of the moggy. So back to plan B, drive 100 miles home without car and return on Sat with Trailer :doh: The guy had lots of nice old cars inc 2 Rover 100's a mk1 cavalier auto? a ford anglia police car, and a Fordson Pickup truck on a di-****-su 4trak rolling chassis. It was too dark for piccies but will get some on saturday for deffo.

So we leave the village to set off home and he promptly gets flashed by a speed camera doing 35 in a 30 zone :lol: Heading back down the A15 between Bourne & Sleaford we arrive at a major accident involving at least 1 artic and 2 cars, and a very pretty WPC turning everyone around. in a narrow tarmacced UCR. Where does that road go asks I? Oh it's a deadend she says it just leads to a really rutted farmtrack!! So out with the pda & on with the MemoryMap and lo & behold it's an Orpa :clap2:

So 10 minutes later we're back on the A15 on the other side of the police road block and every other fooker is doing a 15mile detour.. Assuming they know they're way round that area or have a road map.

Haven't really done much tonight apart from...

Starting from where ah left of last night...





stuck some more labels on the wirin' loom...





and took note of how things will go back together...











Then removed the steering wheel and wiper/ indicators block thingy then removed the bottom half of the dash....





Stuck the bottom dash on the bulkhead to see where ah had to drill two holes for another couple of rivnuts/nutserts...





And then buggered off to me neighbours for a drill bit so's ah could fit me air vent grilles...





Only managed to do one as ah need smaller longer rivets for fittin' the plastic rain cover to the other one. Need to get some more stainless screws, rivnuts and bolts/sets tomorrow.

done nowt to the disco
but i fooked me laptop up
but think i just sorted it out now, fingers crossed
no i fooked it up completelywas trying to stop the daughter goin on msn coz she's grounded an ended up pasting landyzone in the restricted box, like a twot not i keep being kicked off an have to sign in for every page i look at,computer expert is now needed!HELP i can't live without lz

i have found that living in a country lane in italy with a land rover can be a massive pain. 3 times this week ive had to pull my neighbors our of fields and ditches, Italians drive like mad and then complain when they skid off of the road when it rains

but all is good as they bring me wine and olive oil!

just give her a good clean up after having a play in the farmers field before he sows seed.
and gettin ready for trip back tommorow to england with a fully loaded tailer at 3.4 tonnes its going to be a slow one !!! takes 40 hours of continous driving ZZZ

Just checked me ebay and I've won a set of BFG AT's for £25.

redhand said:

Just checked me ebay and I've won a set of BFG AT's for £25.

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yer but they is in Spain and it's collection only