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If you happen to already have a tdi of a known condition and all the bits laying around, then of course it still makes sense to do the conversion. But it's not the obvious go-to fix for a tired 19J that it used to be, as the days of cheap rusty Discos with barely run-in engines are long gone.

There's a lot of advice going around from around 2006 or so, when you could buy a rotten Discovery with a decent enough 200tdi in it for not much money. Park the cars next to each other, lift the engine out and put in your old 90/110 relatively simply. You then weighed in what was left as scrap...

The best solution I've seen involves running them down the side of a raised air intake and in through the wing panel. I would personally do as above and stick two on the front bumper. Four extra lights really is excessive, perma-noon is great until you encounter another vehicle and you have to...

A compression/leakdown test would give you a reasonable indication as to the health of the engine. Fuel injectors can also coke up and lead to bad mixing, hence the smoke from unburnt fuel. My Discovery had sat for some time with little running and was also very smokey. A bottle of injector...

I've been in a couple of Defenders with aftermarket bucket seats and I don't like them. The trouble is you climb up to get into the seat, then drop down into it which just doesn't work for me. The standard seats are absolutely fine when in a good condition, but decades of drivers getting in and...

Yours looks in better condition than mine was- it has basically rusted through so the front of the tank was wedged in by little more than wishful thinking! Always a bit daunting unbolting the old cradle, half expecting a (for once, full) tank of diesel to come crashing down! I used a couple of...

The early switches latch on, and directly switch the lamp relay. Presumably to prevent people leaving the rear fog on accidentally, it was replaced with a momentary switch which then triggers a small ECU to operate the lamp. Push it once to switch the lamp on, push it again to switch it off...

The problem with retrofitting forward-facing seats to an older Defender is always that the seats end up very close together, so that it's difficult or even impossible to get out without folding up one seat. As well the the ergonomics of doing this in general use, this arrangement is quite...

It's a bit of a reach down to the standard handbrake but you soon get used to it though. JE Engineering do an electric handbrake conversion which I think they will sell you as a kit of parts. Uses a linear actuator to pull on the existing cable. Personally I don't like them, especially with a...

I swapped saggy old Dakars on my Disco for a set of Toyo Open Country AT Plus, and it transformed the car. I immediately gained 3mpg, and the car will sit at 70 happily where 65 was the practical limit before. Much quieter too! The tread pattern is very similar to that latterly fitted to Defenders.

But it uses electricity, which is generated by the alternator, which is turned by the engine, which burns extra diesel to compensate for the load on the alternator. An add-on diesel heater, if you need it, is more efficient! Once you're up to temperature the heating is free as you are using...

There is a diaphragm inside the pump which sees the air pressure from the turbo and increases the fuelling in response to boost. If this has perished, the pump can no longer react to the boost pressure and so won't up the fuelling. It's a simple enough fix.

Originally the transfer box would most likely be a 1.4 ratio. It's possible that whoever did the auto conversion fitted a 1.2 box from a Discovery (along with the engine and transmission) which will raise the overall gearing. Bigger tyres than the original Discovery will further increase the...

Not a very good remap or a sticking injector if you have actual flames from the exhaust. Fuel should be burning in the cylinder not down the exhaust pipe. For it to be running that rich, with enough unburnt fuel that you have combustion at the tailpipe is not good. Petrols are different as they...

They do tend to breathe quite heavily when worn. One option is to fit a centrifugal oil separator to catch the oil carryover and send it back to the sump. But it's likely a sign of the age of the engine. Budget for a rebuild!

The blue-tinted bulbs appear brighter in that they dazzle more, but the blue light is worse on your eyes than white and is harder to focus on, making it more difficult to actually see. And by filtering the light, you're reducing the useful output as well! I run a selective yellow bulb on my...

I have the Toyo tyre on my Disco, and they are civilised on road. I fitted them in place of some rather tired old Insa Turbo Dakar tyres and immediately gained 3mpg! Faster and much quieter on the road too. They're not a dedicated winter tyre but look to have enough siping/flexibility to be...

The bulbs are the same as used in a lot of other vehicles, and the headlamps themselves are the fairly-standard 7-inch bowl. They should be more than good enough if everything is in good order. Rather than fitting more powerful bulbs, check that you are indeed getting full voltage at the...

Land Rover themselves put the M52 petrol engine in the Defender for the SA market. Presumably they used the P38 bellhousing to make it match up. But you'd also need the ECU, wiring and quite a few other bits to make a donor engine start up and work in an alien vehicle.

Some later models (including, for example, my 1998 discovery) didn't use a normal switch for the rear fog. Instead it's a momentary switch that signals a small ECU to activate the rear fog. The idea is that it resets when you turn the ignition off and prevents you from leaving the fog lamp on...