Swivel pins it is. I could see the housing move on the lift at 6 and 12. 3 and 9 is fine- I'd done end float on the bearings all round and fixed that... Right, park it on the flat ( hard work round here) wheel off, spare jack ready for the housing, and hope it is just loose bolts on the top pin.

The front wheels rock vertically if you lift them off the ground and apply some force, so if that's the diff, I've got bigger problems than I thought!

Fairly sure. They seemed good when I checked end float ( all four wheels) and the rear ones were now impeccable. And I had it up on a lift- test guy used the hydraulic axle lift to load/unload it, and I could see the vertical movement around the swivel housing as they did.

Early 90. I've got far too much play on the CV joints- both sides. The CV joints, swivel housings and bearings were replaced by a specialist 4x4 garage two years ago, and have under 10,000km on them, so I'd really hope they're not dead already. Is there sensible way to reduce play on these...

Parked it next to the village fountain, and pressure washed it and the fountain. Both were filthy. Pressure washed the engine bay, and let it dry in the sun before wading into electrics. Found the water had made the LH indicator repeater start working! Still can't find the oil leak, but...

My wife is out for the evening getting ****ed with girlfriends, so I'm free to do whatever I want. So gin smuggled in from Italy to dodge the duty ( with a token amount of tonic) a curry that probably violates the Geneva covention, and music she doesn't like at proper volumes( i.e. loud enough...

Repeated application of hammer to rear door frame, plus a bit of tweaking of door catch etc, and it's as good as new...well as good as it was before...

If you have a garage you can use, it helps no end with maintenance. I don't, and I think it means almost every job I do on the car takes three times as long, as it is now weather and light dependent

Reversed using side mirrors only, so didn't notice the large tree. The rear mounted spare tyre protected the tree, and transferred the force straight into the rear door, which is now a bit bent in and tough to open....

Agreed with V8250 above. Get a vaccum brake bleeder kit- they're all of 20 quid on Ebay etc- and are really very handy. Much quicker and neater than just pumping the brakes, and can be done by one person. And start by giving it a good wash- it is so much easier to see what is going on if it is...

Right, then it looks like I'm just patching in another bulkhead earth then. Mine is French, so the wiper motor is behind the instrument panel, making finding anythinng that bit harder!

Knocked the earth connection off the wiper motor and can't figure out where it should go back!

Italian plates. We're about 20 minutes drive from Italy if the col isn't snowed in. The Italians don't clear their side rapidly, so that their skiiers don't come to the French stations, and stay at Italian ones instead.

Moved more tonnes of earth than my back wants to know about it. I knew I should have bought a trailer with a tipper mechanism... Saw a nice convoy of British classic cars doing the Grand tour des Alpes- old jags and MGs aplenty. And then blocked a utter hedgehog of a Audi driver all the way...

So I pulled off the instrument panel, bonnet, column shroud and seats, to check every wire I could. Pulled the fuse box, and double checked every pair. Stuck connections back together- and nothing worked. Then I spotted the fuses I'd removed.... Put them back in and success. Various other...

What kind of idiot designed the wiring round a defender fuel tank? What were they drinking, and can I have some?

As opposed to unknown product obsolescence, of the sort Lucas seemed to specialise in? Buy all the spare parts, as you don't know what will break next, or when.... On topic, yes, odd idea this.

No, it was an blue one, swapped for a generic black one....I've still got all the suspected as faulty components that can be swapped back. However the fact I've got lights on even with new or old components removed makes me think it isn't the components....

Worth looking at the air filters- if it is clogged up, it doesn't help throttle response at all.

Agreed. The glass fuses are a pain in the neck. Do it properly, once, and just fit a new blade fuse box, and get rid of the mess that was there before. Just make sure you label every wire really well as they come off. Also a good way to check that you have everything you should have, and don't...