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Tanuki last won the day on June 2

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About Tanuki

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    Wolves, Land-Rovers, Military radio, home-made wine, forestry, amateur radio.

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  1. A 'clunk' on my 90TD5 turned out to be the nuts holding the rear prop to the transfer-box/brake-drum flange had de-torqued themselves a bit. One thing to try - with the handbrake applied, have someone 'rock' the car back and forth by pushing repeatedly from behind - if they time the pushes right you can get quite a bit of oscuillation set up (like pushing a child on a swing) by way of the transmission-slack and suspension. Then while they're doing this, crawl around underneath and listen! In my case the drive-flange revealed itself by creaking when subjected to this rocking treatment.
  2. I'd definitely check the damper - not only for the rubber-boding delaminating but also for the tightness of the bolt that holds it to the crank. I've seen a couple of cases where the bolt has come loose [it's supposed to be Loctited and torqued-up to something quite ridiculous] and the result was the groove in the crank-nose for the woodruff-key for the damper and the bottom timing-belt sprocket got mashed up to the point where a new crank was needed.
  3. I doubt they'd be buying them outright, more likely leasing them via one of the big "White Fleet" leasecos in the same way that airlines do with their planes.
  4. Old-style analog voltmeters use either a 'hot wire' gauge or a two-coil balanced-armature. They do get warm but they also include temperature-compensation so this is not a problem. Generally, capillary-gauges are more-consistent in their readings than electric ones - the electric ones, even with voltage-regulators [the old Smiths/Lucas bimetal ones are horrid!] can be affected by battery voltage variations whereas a capillary one won't be. As regards oil-pressure gauges the important thing is not the actual numbers-on-the-dial (they're only generally accurate to +/- 10%) but to learn what is 'normal' and watch for any departures which will indicate that there's a possible problem. A while back the oil-pressure gauge on my 90TD5 warned me that a Chinese "Blue-Box" oil-filter I'd fitted was really restricting the oil-flow - replacing it with a genuine JLR filter [made in France] probably saved me an engine. See https://forums.lr4x4.com/topic/103319-blue-box-oil-filters/
  5. 3.2Amps @12V means something like 40 Watts of power is going somewhere! That will be making something somewhere rather warm. Try feeling the alternator-casing some hours after the engine's been run to see if it's still noticeably hot - in the past I've seen failed diodes/regulators continue to energise the alternator rotor when the engine's stopped.
  6. No Defender's going to be comparable to a post-1970s car for handling, quietness, comfort. That's life. I've driven pretty much everything - from 1960s 2.25 petrol SIIAs and 2.6 straight-sixes (which sound lovely under load) through desperately-numb "Stage One" V8s, the horrid TDs, 200/300TDis, TD5s and TDCIs - none of them compare to a 'car' for everyday driving. Of the post-1980s stuff I prefer the TD5 - it really shows that it got 'worked-over' by BMW - it's free-revving and sounds great when you give it some serious welly in the intermediate gears [flick down to 3rd at 50MPH for overtaking, the rev-limiter is there to tell you when to change up]. 200/300TDis are lethargic - and are starting to pose problems regarding spares-availability (important if your vehicle's a daily-driver and downtime costs you). I never got on with the TDCi ones either - the gearing is odd [first's far too low, I always started off in 2nd] and 6th is too high (I was happier cruising at 75MPH on dual-carriageways in 5th). If you want to keep the wife, get her a Toyota Landcruiser on a 3-year PCP lease... and keep the 110 for yourself!
  7. This is all very well, but it's taking its time and losing potential customers in the process. In the last week I've been test-driving a LWB Landcruiser 'commercial', which is sorta the same market-segment Defender 2.0 is targeting. It passes my "Dogs and Logs" test with flying colours and will cruise at 85/touch 100MPH, but alas only comes with a nasty 4-pot Diesel and manual transmission. If Toyota did a V8 petrol automatic LC Commercial, I'd be waving a £50,000 cheque in their face right now rather than waiting for whatever JLR come up with.
  8. £30? That's seriously good-value. I've never been a fan of the standard Sankey: it's stupid-heavy for its designated payload, and has a nastily high centre-of-gravity. Someone I knew had one where they rebuilt the tub using aluminium sheet and angle (which sliced 175 pounds off the unladen weight) and fitted it with 15-inch wheels/245-50 tyres to get the centre-of-gravity down. The result was much more Autobahn-towing-friendly.
  9. Check your tyre pressures - being a few pounds down on one corner can cause all sorts of strange issues. Then check the discs/pads/pistons. I once had a strange 'pulling' issue on a Series LR which turned out to be most of the oil in one of the front dampers having gone-missing.
  10. That may be the case with the likes of first-generation Toyota Aurises etc, but current-generation PHEVs generally come with 150BHP-or-so of combustion-engine assist - which can be run at full-power to recharge the batteries while you're sitting at the lights, so you've got full electric launch-power when the lights turn green. A friend in Japan who has a Mitsubishi PHEV because of local tax/on-road-parking-space-restrictions says that at first it's odd to park-up, lock her car and walk away with the engine still running (because it's recharging the battery after a climb up some twisty gradients before she parked which drained the battery). She's happy because that wimpy 2-litre petrol engine will mean her battery's fully-charged when she comes back an hour later. This is the future. Get used to it.
  11. Perfectly feasible if it's the electrically-assisted version. A 'stateside friend has a Lexus LS hybrid: the petrol-part is a 3.5-litre V6. Overall it produces 415BHP/600NM of torque. The electric motor gives murderous levels of torque-on-tap-in-a-millisecond; for a luxury car that weighs over 5000 pounds it has truly indecent acceleration (0-60 in a gnat's whisker more than 5 seconds - and in supreme silence!)
  12. I'd also suggest: do it under cover! Nothing good has ever been reported about having squadrons of Greenfly or Wasps circulating while you're trying to spray a panel out-of-doors. [But equally, if you're spraying in an enclosed space remember to use a proper air-feed mask so you don't start to get solvent-hallucinations after a few minutes] I've always self-prepared but got the actual spraying done by professionals with a heated/airconditioned booth.
  13. I've never understood the antipathy towards SVA/IVA: having done a couple of kit-car builds myself and helped-out friends with another half-dozen I see a SVA/IVA-pass as a rather basic seal-of-approval that the workmanship is of acceptable quality and all the paperwork seems to be in-order. Sure beats the likes of a friend being stopped inbound at Hull ferryport at 23:00 on a Sunday-evening by an officious customs-officer who thinks you're up to something-dodgy because you're driving a 1980s 6x4 LHD Range-Rover conversion that was exported to Saudi at first-build and so doesn't have a 'sensible' chassis-plate/VIN. It took him three days to get de-impounded.
  14. Yes, mea culpa - it was indeed Ferrari who commented about the aerodynamics. Chapman was better known for telling his designers - when they presented him with their latest creation - to "now add lightness". Lightness is one of the reasons I'm hoping the new Defender will make plentiful use of alloy- and composite-construction rather than the old heavy welded steel-chassis of yesteryear.
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