Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2017 i Land Rover Monthly

FROM: £299 GREEN CONE TIPI Since the early days of camping and exploration conical tents have been known for their incredible wind-shielding capabilities. The Green Cone from Robens is no different. This four-person tent is made from HydroTex HD – a light, strong and durable 75D polyester fly sheet fabric with a polyurethane coating providing a 5000mm hydrostatic head. Incredibly, it only uses a single strong, yet light, aluminium alloy pole, so pitching it is a rather quick affair. Useful if done in bad weather. The tent weighs only 5 kg and if used without the inner, that weight is almost halved. robens.co.uk PRICE: £39.95 LED INSPECTION LAMP A very bright LED inspection lamp with full 360° rotation. Cordless and rechargeable. Thanks to the new COB LED technology, it produces…

While I was fiddling around with injection pumps, James was checking the fluid levels on a Defender 300Tdi Station Wagon, in for a minor service and MoT. “It’s really messy under here,” he told me. “There’s almost no oil in the gearbox and sticky stuff all over the outside.” The sticky stuff turned out to be silicone sealant, plastered over the gearbox casing below the filler plug in a layer about an inch thick. I peeled it off to reveal a crack in the casing running downwards from the filler plug to the strengthening rib a couple of inches below it. R380 gearboxes have a female Torx-headed drain plug with a tapered thread. Someone in this vehicle’s past life had managed to overtighten the plug to the point where it…

John Brooks from Cult 4x4 in Suffolk is fast developing a reputation as a top transformer of Land Rovers. In the summer you will see his stand at the big Land Rover shows. It’s nothing flashy, as his Land Rovers (or his wife Sam) tend to do the talking for him. Normally these machines attract the punters in their droves. Our respected columnist Frank Elson had the following to say about one of John’s creations, a Td5 Defender 110, at the 2016 Billing show: “Martin [who had purchased the Defender from John] joked about John being a perfectionist but, well, if you saw the vehicle you would agree with me that it was not simply as good as when it came out of the factory, but a whole lot better!…

Natural and humanitarian disasters can be terrifying, costly and deadly affairs. Just ask anyone who has lost a loved one during an earthquake, flood, avalanche or civil war. Lifesaving interventions need to happen quickly; often within the first 24 hours, so time and effective communication are absolutely critical. Enter Project Hero, an advanced communications vehicle like no other, built by SVO for the Austrian Red Cross. The Project Hero fifth generation Discovery unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show, is only a prototype, the real deal will be delivered to the Austrian Red Cross in June at their training centre in Erzberg. The unique Discovery and drone will then be put through 12 months of tough testing through simulated disasters in the inhospitable Eisenerz mountainous mining district. Land Rover and Red…

If you’ve got the Land Rover bug, you’ve probably got it for life. Indeed, if the experience of Jacqui Whinnett is anything to go by, perhaps beyond life. Jacqui is the woman at the helm of Alpha 4x4 Funerals – a company which recognises the fact that someone, somewhere, must be saying to their loved ones: “I love this Land Rover so much, I’d like to be buried in it.” And while the authorities may have something to say about digging a Defender-sized hole in the graveyard, Jacqui can offer the next best thing. Although both Land Rovers and the funeral business were already in Jacqui’s blood back in 2003, it was her personal situation that made her take a body swerve and combine both her passions. For, in 2003,…

It’s September 1997, the Frankfurt Motor Show is in full swing and Land Rover unveils their first small SUV, the Freelander. Jump forward to 2017 and the Freelander is no more – yet its legacy still lives on in the Discovery Sport. But to see how the smallest member of the Land Rover family made such a big impact on the future of the marque, we need to go back to the end of the 1980s, when the Rover Group realised they needed a compact utility vehicle to enter the growing lifestyle SUV market. At this stage, it was not known if this would be a Rover or Land Rover-badged vehicle, so development was started on concepts for both brands under the respective code names of Oden and Pathfinder; the…

PATRICK CRUYWAGEN EDITOR DEFENDER 110 YEAR: 1999 MILEAGE: 360,000 ENGINE: 2.8i POWER: 193 bhp TORQUE: 206 lb-ft MPG: TBA Selling a Freelander in this country has to be one of the most frustrating (and humorous) experiences. Even more so if you are operating at the bottom feeder end of the market. For those in the dark that means selling it for less than £1000 as I only paid £950 for it a couple of months ago. Luckily I have not had to spend any money on it to keep it on the road, except for the diesel, of course. As most of you know, it was used on our recent Grand Rover feature, where four of us purchased vehicles for less than a £1000 before embarking on one of the…

TREVOR CUTHBERT • General workshop tools, Allen keys, locking pliers set TIME 1 DAY COST £300 DIFFICULTY RATING When the Discovery Series 2 was launched in 1999 it featured a huge number of improvements and upgrades over the previous model. In fact, although there was a strong family resemblance between the two models, very few parts were common between them. For example, the only body panel that is interchangeable is the rear door, such was the ground up redesign of the vehicle. For the first time, Discovery featured self-levelling air suspension and Land Rover introduced a flagship system on Discovery 2 – Active Cornering Enhancement (ACE) ACE helps reduce body roll when cornering. When travelling around a bend, all vehicles exhibit a degree of lean, or body roll. Taller and…

Why do you love Land Rovers? My love of Land Rovers comes from years and years of admiring my dad’s Defender. I decided a long time ago that my first car had to be a Land Rover. How did you find your Series III? A friend of my dad’s was looking for a Series III for himself, and he told us about a rather sorry-looking and seriously lopsided Series III in a field in Armagh. I can honestly say I’ve never seen a sadder-looking Series III in my life. However, it had one huge redeeming feature: a galvanised chassis. So, how long have you owned it? We picked it up in late December 2016, so I am still pretty new to this Land Rover ownership thing. What sort of condition…

To celebrate the arrival of the new Discovery the Discovery Owners Club is offering free membership for 12 months to the first ten new owners to join. There are currently 900 members and that number is growing all the time, with around 30 new recruits signing up every month. The club produces a magazine six times a year, which is packed full of useful information, classifieds and, of course, Discovery-related articles, they have an active forum and many of the local sections meet each month. In addition, there is an online club shop and discounts are available for parts and services from major suppliers and insurance companies. Application forms can be obtained from the membership secretary Roy Preston, who can be contacted via email at memsec@discoveryownersclub.org or by text to…

A mapping company which has worked out a way to identify each three-metre square of the entire earth’s surface with just three words has got its first countries to use the system; Tonga Djibouti, Mongolia and the Ivory Coast. using online mapping, What3Words has named every point on the globe with an astonishing 17 trillion tiny squares. The system is so accurate that the front door of LrM’s offices is bedspread.tangent. devotion. It eliminates the need for complex addresses and confusion between streets and, integrated into sat nav systems, will allow users to be directed to even a parking space. What’s more the system could have important application for rescue workers in remote areas, as the free of charge What3Words phone app is gPs-based and requires no data connection. Is…

ACE IS A WINNER EVERy TIME I pick up my latest copy of LRM, I usually go straight to page 144 to see how Trevor Cuthbert has progressed with his discovery 2 Td5 body-off chassis repair. I find this a very well put-together article – a very interesting read, with plenty of photographs and tips. I intend to tackle a similar project soon myself. however, I thought the main idea was to preserve all things Land Rover, so I was very disappointed when reading the april issue to see that Trevor intends to do away with aCE (active Cornering Enhancement), one of the best features that his disco has fitted. he had an ideal opportunity with the body off to sort out the aCE pipes for once and all. I…

another vehicle I have mentioned before is the rusty Discovery 300Tdi which I bought as an engine donor. When it arrived (on a transporter) I thought it was out of fuel, as it kept surging and cutting out. The fuel gauge was well into the red and the low level light was on, so it was a reasonable assumption. The other day I had to move it, so I tipped a gallon of diesel into it and fired it up, at which point I realised that whatever was causing the rough running, it wasn’t lack of fuel. The symptoms were odd: the engine would start easily, rev to around 3000 rpm, then drop back to a rough idle for a couple of seconds before cutting out. If I held it…

Although the Series I is the acknowledged Godfather of Land Rovers, running one can be an acquired taste – especially for the uninitiated. Unlike many owners who have spent most of their adult lives steeped in Solihull folklore, this was Grant Simpson’s first experience of the marque. It was certainly a brave move. “Before I bought the Land Rover, I had spent many years buying and restoring old Minis,” he explained. “Then one day I decided it was time for a change.” Grant has lived in the Dundee area all his life, and is a printer by trade. He said: “I started playing around with classic cars from a very young age. My son, who is also called Grant, is like-minded, and helps me out with a lot of my…

Exploration has been a fundamental part of my work as a documentary photographer for the past 15 years. And the best way of exploring, of course, is overlanding, which means covering long distances by land. And if you can do so in a Land Rover, then all the better. The Baja California peninsula of north-western Mexico is a little-known destination whose remoteness has stirred the imagination of explorers for more than five centuries. It is one of the last places on earth where the all-terrain experience can bring back the spirit of early adventurers like Colonel Le Blanc, who in 1949 drove his Series I from Britain to Ethiopia. I was recently invited to join a venture called the Baja Expedition 2016, organised by all-terrain enthusiasts. Forty-eight participants in 18…

MARCH 31 – APRIL 2 Australia - National 4x4 & Outdoor Show Brisbane, Queensland www.4x4show.com.au MARCH 31 – APRIL 2 Classic Car & Restoration Show NEC, Birmingham www.necrestorationshow.com APRIL 1 4x4 In the Forest 4x4 Forest Drive Birches Valley Forest Centre, Cannock Chase www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/ beeh-a47dxg APRIL 1 Protrax Overland Adventure Winch and recovery course Corby, Northamptonshire www.protraxoverlandadventures.co.uk APRIL 1 Heritage Transport Show Kent Country Showground www.kentshowground.co.uk APRIL 1 Rufforth Autojumble Rufforth, York www.rufforthautojumble.com APRIL 1 – 2 Peak & Dukeries LRC RTV & CCV Trial Middleton Top, Matlock www.panddlrc.co.uk APRIL 1 – 2 Netherlands - Euro Offroad Racing Havelte, Holland www.facebook.com/eurooffroadracing/ APRIL 2 Land Rover Defender Day Pentille Castle & Estate, Saltash, Cornwall www.pentillie.co.uk/eventsat-pentillie-castle/land-roverdefender-day-2nd-april-2017 APRIL 2 Cornwall & Devon Land Rover Club Club Event www.cdlrc.com APRIL 2 Isle of Wight…

TREVOR CUTHBERT CONTRIBUTOR DISCOVERY TD5 GS YEAR: 2001 MILEAGE: 137,000 ENGINE: Td5 POWER: 136 bhp TORQUE: 221 lb-ft The first quarter of this workshop year is shaping up to be mostly about Discovery 2, my own – which has been featuring in the technical section of this magazine lately – and the other one that came into my hands from LRM editor, Patrick Cruywagen. The well-cared-for 2001 GS model came over to my workshop to be fitted with a new heavy-duty galvanised chassis. Richards Chassis Ltd had the foresight and courage to develop a replacement chassis for Discovery 2, as they could see that there would be a market for one, but perhaps only for two to three years. However, five years after we fitted the very first one at…

DAVE PHILLIPS CONTRIBUTOR NINETY YEAR: 1984 MILEAGE: 166,000 ENGINE: 300Tdi diesel POWER: 111 bhp TORQUE 195 lb-ft MPG: 30 Well, the 300Tdi engine is now safely installed in the engine bay of the Ninety. If you recall, I made the decision to upgrade my 1984 Land Rover after a gearbox output shaft failed. As the gearbox would need replacing, it made sense to replace both engine and box with a 300Tdi/R380 from a scrap Discovery Commercial that my mate Nigel Hammond had sourced. Nigel in fact did the whole conversion, which included making it all fit under the bonnet of the Ninety. It involved removing the old engine mounts which, once out, revealed some pretty nasty rust areas in the chassis. Nigel cut out the rusted bits and expertly welded…

“The problem with these parts is rarely the cylinder itself but more often the seals inside” Our aftermarket parts concerns are still ongoing. A reader contacted me recently about problems with his Defender 300Tdi following a brakes overhaul by his garage. The mechanic reckoned the new master cylinder was at fault, took it apart and found the seals were unsuitable. Another cylinder was ordered, but that was the same. Finally, the mechanic ordered a seals kit and fitted this to the first new cylinder, which then worked fine. This seems a common experience. I’ve fitted new brake cylinders to my Series III, only to find after a couple of weeks the fluid has drained out past the seals into the brake drum, and that’s without even using the vehicle. The…

Regular and prolonged work on a Land Rover involves plenty of nuts and bolts and can be made a whole lot easier with a cordless impact wrench. Add a few years of rust or simply never being touched and many fittings will fight back. An impact wrench isn’t just a fast tool for while-you-wait tyre emporiums; they also help take the strain when dismantling awkward or heavy components. Rechargeable batteries allow the use of cordless impact wrenches away from home and will help make essential tasks such as wheel changes easier and safer. For our test I’ve chosen four popular brands wielding 18v or 24v power and plenty of torque for most tasks you’re likely to encounter. All are reversible action, and 1/2 inch drive, too. For tasks beyond their…

ED EVANS • General workshop tools, vehicle lift, pit or secure ramps, transmission jack and lifting jig. TIME 6 HOURS COST SEE PANEL DIFFICULTY RATING This 1989 Ninety, and most early Defenders, have a 1.4:1 ratio transfer box, which is fine for general and off-road use and towing. But at speeds above 55-60 mph the high revving engine makes noise levels uncomfortable for long journeys, and it isn’t good for the engine. This can be sorted by increasing the vehicle’s overall gearing so that, for a given speed, the engine revs will be lower, producing less noise and vibration and a more relaxing drive. In theory, fuel consumption should drop when cruising at normal speeds but, in practice, if the higher gearing is used to drive faster, the fuel will…

In light of International Women’s Day, Jaguar Land Rover joined forces with Getty Images in a project to change the perceptions on women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) careers. The number of people searching online for images of women in STEM careers has increased by 526 per cent over the past year, yet results are often outdated and don’t reflect today’s varied roles. This partnership aims to change that. Pictures released by the car manufacturer and stock photo agency, show women in a variety of STEM roles from aerodynamics to cyber and audio engineering. They are intended to encourage more women to apply for these jobs in the modern workplace. Fiona Pargeter, JLR Global PR Communications Director, said: “We are committed to inspiring more women to consider careers…

1. Paul Daniell and mates having summer fun on New Zealand’s South Island. 2. Tim Dickinson encounters some tricky conditions while on a 14-day, 2000-mile trip to Nordkapp. 3. While taking a sandy coastal track in Mozambique, Pedro Machado came across a few deep, muddy pools. 4. Roger Crathorne uses his very special Defender 90, which was built on the final day of production, to do the wood-collection run. 5. Ashley Morgan’s 1990 ex-MoD Defender 90 takes a well-deserved break near Imber village on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire. 6. Alan Ward has just done a rebuild on his mate’s Defender. This begs the question: Is orange the new green? 7. The best toasted sarnies in New Zealand are served out of the back of a Series III. 8. Jo Pritchard taking…

I have had a Defender 90 cluttering up my workshop for a little while now. I wrote about it a couple of months back: it was the one that came in with a suspected head gasket failure and turned out to have valve-shaped dents in three pistons, and the fourth piston a different size from the other three. Stripping the engine to a bare block revealed a couple more nasties on number four cylinder. The oil spray jet at the bottom of the bore was bent out of shape and the banjo bolt attaching the block had come loose. I had already guessed that the cylinder had been rebored in situ as a cheap repair, and suspected that the boring bar must have caught the spray jet in the process.…

THE TAN HILL INN Many thanks to the Tan Hill Inn for hosting the third LRM Pub Meet. This unique inn was the perfect location due to its remoteness, great food, affordable accommodation and friendly hosts. Definitely worthy of a stop for those visiting the Yorkshire Dales. For more details, see tanhillinn.com.…

I was lucky enough to attend the World Premiere of the Range Rover Velar on March 1 at the spectacular London Design Museum. It was a swanky affair. It had to be, as this summer the Velar will go on sale at £44,830. Never in my life have I seen so many famous people. At one stage I spotted Damian Lewis to the left of me and Piers Morgan to the right. Unfortunately I missed the big unveil at 8.15 pm as I was standing behind Piers and could not see past his big head. I was not alone. Fast forward a week to the Geneva Motor Show, where the Velar made its show debut. There I had the time to take a prod and poke around the Velar and…

“The Chinese drivers are some of the worst we have seen on our trip so far” There are some big changes on the horizon. We are leaving Mongolia, the most sparsely populated country in the world, for China, a country with a population of 1.4 billion people. We are travelling as part of a three car multi-national convoy. We have a fixed 50-day itinerary which was signed off by the Chinese government. We also have the mandatory Chinese guide in our car; all of this is somewhat different to our normal style of travel. We meet our travel companions in Mongolia, and are immediately happy with the different vehicle types found in our little convoy. The Germans are in a 30-year-old G-Wagen, of course, while the more sensible Swiss have…

For many – myself included – the Barrie Murdoch Memorial Trial is the start of the trialing year, and an event not be missed. Having competed in the past two, this year found me with a trials vehicle still not back together. Not wanting to be left out, I hoped to find a navigator’s seat; if not, I would marshal. Weather permitting, Team Blacksheep were planning on making the trip up to Lincolnshire from the south of England – bringing a navigator’s seat with them, I hoped. Many make a two-hour-plus journey to this event, but Team Blacksheep were always going to take the longest-travelled award, with 208 miles each way. Setting off at 3am they were the first competitors to arrive on Sunday morning, although not first on site…

mark WIllIams contributor freelander 1 YEAR: 2001 MilEAgE: 94,000 ENgiNE: Td4 PowER: 112 bhp ToRquE 260 Nm max MPg: 37 i t’s been a while, I thought, as I stared at the green oval again. You were supposed to be a Mondeo or an Insignia, damn it. The demise of my beloved Rover 75 – written off ironically by a reversing 4x4 – had sent me car shopping for the family ride, and I’d decided to buy something sensible. While my insurance was being settled, I’d been handed an Insignia hire car, and the Vauxhall wrote itself out of the story. It had the weirdest ride ever – a jelly-like bounciness that I hated. Then a Mondeo, which strode along like a king but was not only vast, it had…

ALISDAIR CUSICK • Tools needed – torch, spark plug socket and socket set. TIME 3 HOURS COST TIME ONLY DIFFICULTY RATING I can’t actually remember quite how it all happened now. I think it was my friend casually saying early last year he was thinking about selling some of his cars, and that one might possibly go to Land Rover for the Reborn programme, in which old Series Is are totally rebuilt until they resemble brand new vehicles. Knowing what this particular Land Rover was, and also very aware of current views on originality in Land Rovers, I suddenly heard myself saying, “You can’t let that one be restored with new paint and new straight panels, why don’t I buy it instead?” Famous last words but, after numerous calls picking…

DAVE BARKER • General workshop tools. TIME 1 HOUR COST PRICE £120+ DIFFICULTY RATING The owner of this 2005 Discovery 3 suddenly found his vehicle was suffering a lack of power, and when he looked in his mirror he saw a big cloud of black smoke every time he accelerated. Under the bonnet, he found a large quantity of fresh oil around the pipes near the bottom of the air filter. The local Land Rover specialist confirmed what he already thought – a turbo fault. Closer inspection revealed nothing more expensive than a split turbo hose, which had caused the oil leak, the black smoke and the lack of power. The hose runs up the right side of the engine bay from the intercooler to the throttle body. It appeared…

Funny thing the English language: there’s an infinite combination of letters to make as many new words as you want, yet so many words share the same meaning. Take the word nail: it can be either a metal fixing used in woodwork, the hard bit that stops the end of your finger from fraying, or a battered old car. And into the latter category fall the tired old Defenders that so many optimistic owners believe are worth a small fortune. Yesterday a neighbour dropped round. "Does LRM still do free classified ads?" he asked. "My mate’s got an old Defender he wants to sell – I’ve told him he should get £10,000 for it." Now I know the Defender in question. For starters, it isn’t technically a Defender. It’s a…