Landyjd

Landyjd

Active Member
Right... I'm bored :D so:

What is the laziest piece of design on the Defender according to you? By that I mean those things that we call "quirks of the vehicle" but that really make us think: why did Land Rover not put in just a little more effort?


I'll go first to show you how it's done ;)


The inside rear door handle on earlier Defenders is a really crappy piece of design; it's just a piece of metal tube that's been sharply bent and squashed so that it can bolt to the door. On every Defender I see the bends in the metal are loose and the handle is on the point of snapping. How hard could it have been to make a decent door handle???




NOTE This thread is about the Defender, so you're not allowed to complain about the laziest piece of design ever to come out of Solihull - that being the Freelander :D:D:D
 
The rear door lock cut-out complete with the water trap and auto rust enhancer.

One of my biggest bugbears, it either drains very well INTO the vehicle down the frame and helps to rot the door skin out in short order, OR it fills with water then eventually overflows with rusty water.
 
The bent bit of metal that is supposed to be a fulcrum to change the CDL .. a complete abortion, lever to a swivel/sliding joint that doesn't via bent plate to another bent plate to bent wire to the gearbox ...

Why they couldn't use 'proper' levers and rose joint beats me .. they cost pence at those sizes ...
 
Paul D said:
The bent bit of metal that is supposed to be a fulcrum to change the CDL .. a complete abortion, lever to a swivel/sliding joint that doesn't via bent plate to another bent plate to bent wire to the gearbox ...

Why they couldn't use 'proper' levers and rose joint beats me .. they cost pence at those sizes ...
Click to expand...

This really annoys me too!
Stupid prick of a thing!

Diff Locks Last Stand! - YouTube

This lad shares our opinions too :D
 
DaveM-sport said:
This really annoys me too!
Stupid prick of a thing!

Diff Locks Last Stand! - YouTube

This lad shares our opinions too :D
Click to expand...

I have seen this video before. I remember being amazed at how bizarre and flimsy the design of the diff-lock mechanism looks.



I have another niggle to add (it's rather a big one): Why didn't the chassis come galvanised standard? The prototype series ones had galvanised chassis, and if they had set up their factory with the equipment then it would hardly have added to the cost of each vehicle. Think of all the hours of owners time (and all the money and marriages) that would have been saved if Land Rover had not been so tight!
 
bankz5152 said:
Design of the doors. Mixing ali and steel box section should have been all ali!
Click to expand...

Galvanised frame with aluminium would have been good - which is how I rebuilt my door.

Aluminium and zinc in contact will corrode VERY slowly and only if they are in contact with each other and there is water present - so to make it a lift time solution, paint the galv frame first and or seam seal it.
 
Landyjd said:
I have seen this video before. I remember being amazed at how bizarre and flimsy the design of the diff-lock mechanism looks.



I have another niggle to add (it's rather a big one): Why didn't the chassis come galvanised standard? The prototype series ones had galvanised chassis, and if they had set up their factory with the equipment then it would hardly have added to the cost of each vehicle. Think of all the hours of owners time (and all the money and marriages) that would have been saved if Land Rover had not been so tight!
Click to expand...

Im not sure, but I think the first few years production were galv. chassis, but it was decided to go to paint outside/waxoyl inside, as yousay the saving must be small in a production line set up.
Always found it irritating that they didn't galv. chassis and bulkhead, also why they stopped galvanising the body cappings and windscreen surround which had worked well for decades. :confused:
 
Well lets start with the front.and work back.bumper ok steering leaks.engine could be better bulkhead rusts hard tops leak, doors dont shut,gearbox transfer wines noise,chassis rot, electrics brake,axels leak,back door flimsy,so why do i like them so much.
 
saccy said:
Well lets start with the front.and work back.bumper ok steering leaks.engine could be better bulkhead rusts hard tops leak, doors dont shut,gearbox transfer wines noise,chassis rot, electrics brake,axels leak,back door flimsy,so why do i like them so much.
Click to expand...

You forgot to mention that they stopped galvanising the bumpers so now they rot too :):)
 
read something the other day that galvanising the chassis was scrapped due to the problem of the chassis warping/twisting when done at production pace (ie not enough time to let them warm properly first, just dunk n go) which caused fitment issues later in the production line, slowing things down.
was an old issue of LRO, or LRE or similar mag fron 20 years ago (bloke dropped me a few hundred in after seeing me under the fender, as a former landy owner :) )
 
I don't know about the newer ones, but the dashboard on my 92 is a piece of cheap plastic crap. So much of it has cracked I've just bought new steering wheel shrouds, a clock surround off ebay, and one of these:
Defender & S111 Binnacle Mount

...which is how Land Rover should have built them in the first place.

As for galvanising, the body cappings on my S2 are showing no rust whatsoever, while the ones on my Defender have holes in them.
 
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