Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2015 i Land Rover Monthly

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This is the first chance I have had to write a column about Billing 2015, so here goes. Since the beloved Marjorie and I sold our caravan we have been staying at a nearby hotel during the period of the show. Nearby, but not near enough. This year we managed to get into the Premier Inn situated at the entrance to the Aquadrome – and we found that this was a lot better for us to enjoy the longer days after the show is officially closed. Of course Billing is all about Land Rovers, but as well as walking around looking at these wonderful automotive creations, it’s also about the people. So, with apologies to anyone missed out... We arrived, in BiBA, my extremely comfortable Range Rover P38 on Thursday…

There are some jobs that I seem to do virtually every week, but rebuilding a 2.25 diesel engine isn’t one of them. It must be seven or eight years since I last built up one of these engines from a bare block – nowadays people usually replace them with either a 2.25 petrol or a 200Tdi. But I had a customer who wanted to keep his old diesel Series IIA 109 more or less original, so I set about building him an engine. The one in the vehicle had what looked like a hairline crack in the water gallery above the core plugs: this is a weak spot on the 2.25 and can crack in very cold weather if the antifreeze in the cooling system is not up to strength.…

The majority of Series Is led a hard life, and passed through the hands of several owners. MRR 40 has been in the same family since new, and is believed to be the first Series I in Scotland to be equipped with a 2.0-litre engine “The Land Rover was bought for my mother Miss Ruth Reid, by a family friend Mr Percy Plum, a car salesman based in Derby,” elucidated Grant Davidson. “This explains why the vehicle has a Derby number plate. Apparently he delivered the Series himself all the way up to my mother’s home at Gleneffock Farm, Glenesk in Angus, a distance of around 400 miles. Back in those days, of course, there were no motorways, so that would have been quite a trek.” Grant lives in Portlethen…

If you live in London, then I should imagine you’re all too aware that keyless Land Rovers and in particular Range Rovers are at a heightened risk of being stolen. In fact, last year half of the 89,000 car thefts in London used a cloned key. Worse still, owners who park their vehicles on the street are struggling to get insurance following the spate of thefts across the capital. Now without casting aspersions I can probably assume that most people reading this live far from the hustle and bustle of the city. That’s not to say that this doesn’t affect you however. If you own a vehicle that is started with the push of button rather than by putting a key into the ignition, then you are at risk. Put…

“It has to be close!” I shouted to my son Beren as we raced across the flat desert plain, glancing between our big Silva compass mounted on the centre console and out across the open front of our Land Rover One Ten. We were leading our group of four vehicles across the wide, flat plain of the Rekkam plateau in Eastern Morocco and heading for a massive gorge that crossed our path somewhere ahead of us. This was our second trip to this remote and little visited region of Morocco. After a first exploration in 2013, our group of four overland friends decided there was more to see and planned a return in the spring of 2015. The first trip came about after I had recently moved from Canada to…

STEVE MILLER AD EXEC 300Tdi DISCOVERY YEAR: 1997 MILEAGE: 188,700 ENGINE: 300Tdi POWER: 111 BHP TORQUE: 195 lb-ft MPG: 30 STAGE ONE V8 YEAR: 1982 MILEAGE: 89,000 ENGINE: 3.5 V8 POWER: 125 BHP MPG: Don’t make me cry LIGHTWEIGHT YEAR: 1983MILEAGE: 49,000ENGINE: 2.25POWER: 77 BHPMPG: 14.8 It’s been a busy old time of late with my fleet. As you’ll have noticed from the front cover of this issue, my long-standing V8 110 project is finally finished. Well, sort of – it’s a Land Rover after all, so they’re never really finished, are they? Now that it’s finally on the road, I can spend the next few weeks ironing out any potential problems that may arise. Hopefully there won’t be any, but there are still a few little jobs to complete…

DAVE BARKER CONTRIBUTOR FREELANDER 2 - XS YEAR: 2013 ENGINE: Td4 POWER: 148 bhp MPG: around 42 and 32-ish when towing DEFENDER - 90 YEAR: 2004 (ish) ENGINE: 300Tdi POWER: 111 bhp MPG: 30+ on a good day SERIES I YEAR: 1958 ENGINE: Rover V8 3.5 POWER: should be 156 bhp MPG: not a lot I’ve been waiting for something to write about on our Freelander 1 since we bought it almost two years ago. Now it has just been for its annual service I have something to say about it. This is my third Freelander, the first was a Freelander 1 that we had for seven years and did 110,000 miles in it. Except for the window regulator it did not give us any problems. The second was a…

In our May and June issues this year we featured the CoolAir Logan air conditioning system being fitted to our Td5 Defender 110 station wagon. This is a unique system because it features a separate unit for the rear passengers, housed in a bespoke centre console. The front system is similar to the standard Land Rover unit. After five months of testing, it’s time to pass on my own, and others’, opinions of the system. ENGINE BAY The air conditioning system takes up minimal under-bonnet space, using similar components to those of the standard factory installation. The exception is Coolair Logan’s slim-line condenser matrix mounted in its own frame ahead of the engine radiator. Its narrow section eliminates the need for the forward-extending front panel seen on Defenders with factory-fitted…

There’s never been a better time to buy a Discovery 3 – and the earlier the model the better, to take advantage of a loophole in road tax rules. Discovery TDv6s built before March 23 2006 pay £290 per year in veD (vehicle excise duty) compared to the whopping £490 a year that owners of the same cars built after that date have to cough up. It’s all part of the complicated – and at times bewildering – rules on road tax drawn up the Government. But it means that early Discovery 3s are an ever better bet when it comes to running costs. We’ve trawled through the usual car adverts, online and in printed media, and found a tempting selection of private ads for early secondhand Discoverys for less…

LAND ROVER has delivered a fleet of 450 vehicles in preparation for the 2015 Rugby World Cup, this autumn. The hundreds of Solihull-born cars will provide transport for match officials, support staff and VIPs during the 44-day competition, covering an expected total of 650,000 miles – enough to drive around the world 26 times. The Discovery Sport will account for 80% of the fleet, with the remaining 20% comprising of the standard Disco, Range Rover and Range Rover Sport models. To mark the handover of the final vehicle and celebrate its support of the event, Land Rover created a unique installation using 450 Land Rover keys – one for every vehicle on the fleet – suspended in the shape of a rugby ball. Land Rover, Fleet and Business General Manager,…

JaguaR LanD Rover has announced its plans to build a new manufacturing plant in Slovakia. The announcement comes after JLR announced they have signed a letter of intent with the Government of the Slovak Republic, stating the new NEWS plant will • VIEWS be based • PRODUCTS in the city of • Nitra, western Slovakia. The factory is rumoured to be the new home of the next generation Defender, due to enter production in 2016. In a press release, JLR claimed: “The move marks the next step in the company’s strategy to become a more competitive global business by expanding its manufacturing operations into new international locations in the future. “With its established premium automotive industry, Slovakia is an attractive possible development opportunity.” Despite the announcement, JLR reiterated its commitment…

TIMELESS DEFENDER OPEN ARMS Infant Homes is a UKregistered charity that has been operating in Malawi for nearly 20 years. We specialise in taking newborn infants, nurturing them for the first two years of their lives before replacing them within the extended family where they are subsequently monitored and supported. In your excellent magazine of June 2014 you featured a story on factory-fresh 1998 Defenders. At that time, our faithful workhorse in Malawi was a 1994 Defender registering 440,000 km on the clock. She had been donated as an eight-year-old in 2002. I had always wanted to replace her with a more recent 300Tdi. There is very little support for more advanced engines management systems here so I had ruled out a new Defender for the home. I mentioned this…

HEAD BOLT SET PHICE: £LK.00 It’s not a nice job, but sadly from time to time ripping an engine apart is required. Britpart can help put your engine back together again with confidence however thanks to their latest head bolt set. The bolts fit the Freelander 2, Range Rover Evoque and Discovery Sport. www.britpart.com KLEAN KANTEEN GROWLER PHICE FHFM: £2M.MK As the cold months approach, nothing is more important than having a hot brew to hand. Klean Kanteen are at your service with their latest 1182 ml flasks, guaranteed to warm your cockles in either Dark Amber or Stainless Steel form. www.heinnie.com DEFENDER X-LANDER FRONT GRILLE PHICE: £3MM.00 Manufactured in ABS material, this front grille and the accompanying headlight surrounds are sure to give your Defender a facelift. Ready to…

A few weeks back, I overheard a conversation between a dad and his lad. They were at the Billing Show, watching a procession of Series Land Rovers parading around the arena when the boy, aged about ten, piped up: “Why are they all green, Dad?” Dad scratched his head and though about it, then admitted: “I don’t know, son.” I wonder if he Googled it when he got back home? I did. “Why are Land Rovers green?” I typed – and got a lot of entries for companies selling green paint for Land Rovers and even more for traders selling green Land Rovers. There were several adverts for greenlaning holidays in your Land Rover and several more for the green credentials of Land Rover’s latest CO2-frugal creations. But I could…

Most weekends I’ll be busy with something to do with the Dunsfold Collection and at the moment the team and I are getting ready for the Goodwood Revival, which is featuring a special parade to mark 67 years of Land Rover production. I’ll be part of the parade in our 1950 Bertam Mills Circus 80in – the bright yellow one that’s rigged up to look as though an elephant is driving it! – and I’m thinking that I had better fit a larger fuel tank for those two-and-a-half mile laps of the Goodwood Motor Circuit… Occasionally, though, I like to go off and do something for myself. As I write, I’m not long back from ten days at the fabulous War and Peace Revival show, which is held every year…

Global sporting events cannot happen without suitable big-spending sponsors. For those that don’t know, Land Rover is a Worldwide Partner of the Rugby World Cup 2015 and also the Official Vehicle Partner for the tournament that kicks off on September 19, when England takes on Fiji at fortress Twickenham. It’s one of the most keenly anticipated tournaments ever, with New Zealand and South Africa tipped as favourites to lift the Webb Ellis Cup. But before that happens there is the little matter of the 100-day Rugby World Cup Trophy Tour around the UK and Ireland, which is where I come in. It’s day 54 of the tour and I’ve been invited to drive the bespoke Rugby World Cup 2105 Defender that has been tasked with carrying the most recognisable trophy…

SEPTEMBER 17 – 19 Romania – 100 Tracks Extreme driving & navigation event, Campulung Muscel, Arges, Romania www.100tracks.net SEPTEMBER 18 - 27 Portugal – Atlas Overland Classic Tour Tel: 07834 637355 www.atlasoverland.com SEPTEMBER 18 – 20 Leicester & Rutland LRC Camping, RTV & Tyro Trial Eaton Grange, Eaton, Melton Mowbray www.lrlrc.co.uk SEPTEMBER 18 – 20 FJ Manchester Classic Car show EventCity, Manchester www.manchesterclassiccarshow. com SEPTEMBER 18 – 20 Italy – 6th Apulia Landy Meeting Castle del Monte, Apulia www.registrostoricolandrover.eu SEPTEMBER 19 – 26 Bulgaria – Balkan Off-road West Bulgaria www.rallye-breslau.com SEPTEMBER 19 – 20 LRO Land Rover Show East of England Showground, Peterborough www.lroshow.com SEPTEMBER 19 – 20 BAMA – Autumn Leaves Off- & on-road navigation event Lyneham www.armymotorsports.co.uk/ Disciplines/4x4-Navigation SEPTEMBER 19 – 20 Essex Land Rover Club Tyro, RTC…

Land Rovers do water very well. In fact, apart from military amphibious craft, no vehicles do it better. So it's no wonder that one of the first things many new owners do is get that green oval badge wet by driving through water. Not everybody wants to get their pride and joy covered in mud at the off-road course; many fear greenlaning may result in scratched paintwork from encroaching undergrowth. But water seems to hold no fears for newcomers, who will readily drive straight in – which is worrying, as water is likely to do much more harm to you and your vehicle than any other off-roading activity. Driving through deep water sounds fun and looks impressive, but if a small amount gets into your engine you will probably write…

DAVE PHILLIPS EDITOR DISCOVERY 1 YEAR: 1996 MILEAGE: 144,000 POWER: 111 bhp TORQUE 195 lb-ft MPG: 25 I first got into Land Rover ownership more than 20 years ago via my other great love of fishing. Getting my car stuck in a remote and very muddy farm gateway on a wet and windy night in March turned out to be a great way of getting to appreciate the benefits of a 4x4. And since that fateful night, a variety of Land Rovers have taken me and my fishing tackle to rivers, lakes and loughs inaccessible to ordinary cars. The most memorable include a very bumpy off-road trek in a Series I to a lonely rock-strewn stream in the mountains of Lesotho, where I caught a small brown trout that was…

TREVOR CUTHBERT CONTRIBUTOR DISCOVERY TD5 YEAR: 2002 MILEAGE: 94,500 POWER: 136 bhp TORQUE 221 lb-ft MPG: 30 It has been a very busy few weeks for the Adventurer – my 2002 Discovery 2 Td5 with the aforementioned special edition name. The main duties have been towing, as well as one or two worrying incidents, but there was also a very special job on a very special day. The first of a few towing jobs was the collection of an early Land Rover 127 Double Cab HCPU, which my new American friend, Matthew Hendrick, had bought for me to restore and ship out to Boston. The poor old thing has a brilliant chassis and great cab, but needs a lot of TLC in almost every other area. It had to be…

SWAPPING A V8 FOR A TDI  Q I have a 1994 Discovery with a 200Tdi engine that’s an MoT failure due to a rotten chassis, as well as a 1990 Range Rover 3.9-litre V8 in very good condition. I should mention also that the Range Rover is an automatic. Would it be possible for me to fit the 200Tdi engine into my Range Rover? Is this idea realistic? The Tdi engine from my Discovery has been, and still is, very reliable and smooth running, and it is too good to waste just because the vehicle itself is past its best. William Jarrett A The conversion from V8 to Tdi is relatively straightforward. Your only difficulty will come if you want to keep the automatic gearbox. I would suggest fitting both…

How did you find your project vehicle? I saw it in the local scrapyard looking all dejected with a tear in its eye. What issues did you find when you were stripping the chassis? The cross members were rotten and had to be replaced. Both front outriggers were, too. The chassis was sandblasted then painted, and then all the inside channels were sprayed with fish oil. Why a Series III? Because there are not many Series III V8s in New Zealand so it seemed a bit more unusual. I’ve had Series III and early Range Rovers in the past so I get the best of both worlds: the Series III feel with all the Range Rover powertrain. The early Range Rover four-speed gearbox coupled with the 3.5 V8 makes for…

LAND ROVER is developing a see-through trailer concept to remove the blind spot created when towing a caravan or trailer. Codenamed the Transparent Trailer system, it combines the video feed from the vehicle’s existing surround camera system with a video from a camera on the rear of the trailer or caravan. The video feeds are then combined to create the live video images that make the trailer behind appear see-through – and which appear live, in the rear view mirror. Land Rover has also announced the development of the Cargo Sense smart phone app. The application allows drivers to monitor movement or load changes from within trailers via weight sensors. This system sends a warning to the dashboard to alert the driver to an issue with the cargo, or a…

IF YOU are happy with your GPS and you have used it to navigate across Botswana’s Makgadikgadi Pans and greenlanes all around the UK, then why try something new? That’s how I felt when the Satmap Active 12 sports mapping GPS landed on my desk. I took a week just to open the box and now after using it for a month I cannot ever imagine using anything else. I lead a pretty outdoorsy lifestyle and am at my happiest when biking, running, hiking or Land Rovering in the countryside. I need a GPS unit that suits my lifestyle and that is exactly what the Satmap Active 12 does. When mountain biking along some new routes in Wales I just used the provided bike bracket and off I went. I…

Idon’t know what it’s like where you live, but round my way on the motorways I’ve noticed just lately that foreign lorries seem to be going really fast here in the UK on our roads. Where I’m based in Kent, especially where they have Operation Stack on the M20 (when our French friends decide they want to take a break and barricade the terminal at Calais), some of these trucks are clearly breaking the law as they leave Kent and head up country. A few years ago the Eurocrats (some refer to them as Eurocraps) ordered a Euro-wide speed limit for HGVs set at 90 kph (about 56 mph). All of the haulage companies had to have speed limiters installed in their trucks. Having held an HGV licence for a…

It was a Sunday afternoon in 2008 and I was bored. Idly, I took a look on eBay and found myself typing in Land Rover. I found a battered-looking One Ten that was only going for a few hundred pounds, so I half-heartedly put in a bid for £750 and forgot about it for a few hours. To this day, I don’t know why. I guess it’s because I’d always loved Land Rovers. I grew up with them and, as soon as I learned to drive as a teenager, that’s what I bought. But by 2008 I had other possibilities. I was living with my partner and my two-year-old son and working as an estate agent. My company car was a Vauxhall Vectra. I hadn’t driven a Land Rover for…

The time had come for the 2016 Discovery Sport, with its new much-anticipated 2.0-litre TD4 Ingenium engine, available in a 178 bhp and 148 bhp output, to show me just how good it actually is. This is the same engine that powers the new Jaguar XE and I'm excited to see how it performs. Ahead of us lay some pretty deep muddy ruts followed by a rather long and deep-looking water crossing. Bring it on I say, as the recommended wading depth of the Discovery Sport is 600 mm, which is more than that of a Defender of course. I’m in a bright Phoenix Orange HSE Luxury model with a starting price of £43,000. Don’t fall off your chair, the entry level SE spec is only £30,695, this is £1670…

My name is Vincent Porter and today is going to be the best day of my life as I’m going to drive a Defender for the first time, taking it around the North Yorkshire Off-road Centre. Most of you reading this have probably already seen loads of off-road action in your Land Rovers, but I’m only 11 years old. For my last birthday Mum took me to a small track at Loughborough where I was able to drive a bright yellow Lamborghini Gallardo. I managed to get it up 53 mph, but that is about as fast as they will allow kids to drive there. My Dad used to be an off-road instructor in Africa and I’ve done many trips with him so I have a pretty good idea of…

Chris Wood is not your average Defender nut. He has owned and sold more than 40 of them and has no plans of ever stopping. This includes two priceless 50th Anniversary Defenders, a 5.7 Overfinch Defender, and an impressive JE Engineering 4.4 Defender V8. Talking of which, this man is mad about V8s, and that's where the thinking behind this Ninety came from. You see, during his early days with Land Rover, Chris fell in love with the Range Rover Classic, especially the engine. “I was frustrated and thought that Land Rover did not do enough with the Defender brand.” The customers at the urban dealership where he worked were not interested in the commercial Defenders on sale. So Chris started playing with engine conversions and body mods back in…

It had been six long years since Buxton and District Land Rover Club held a public 4 x4 driving day at Biggin Quarry in the picturesque Derbyshire countryside. Due to a change in the site layout at the quarry some years ago the club’s popular bi-annual bank holiday 4x4 driving days were idefinitely suspended. But this year the site changed ownership and some modifications were made to some parts of the venue. It was then decided that the club should hold a one-day driving day event to see if there was still a demand for such an event. This would also determine if the site was still big enough to accommodate club members, visiting drivers and spectators. The trial event took place on a dull, wet, rainy Sunday and with…

PATRICK CRUYWAGEN DEPUTY EDITOR DISCOVERY 2 GS YEAR: 2001 MILEAGE: 120 000 ENGINE: Td5 POWER: 136 bhp TORQUE: 232 lb-ft MPG: 28 Last week I did a fair bit of traveling in my Discovery 2, close to a thousand miles in total. All worth it though, I was seeing the countryside and driving great Land Rovers once I reached my destinations. These include the 2015 Rugby World Cup Defender (page 70) and the 2016 Discovery Sport (page 54). While returning from the 2016 Discovery Sport event at Eastnor Castle, I heard an irritating noise coming from my rear brakes. It only happened when cruising at low speeds. During my last service it was noted that the brake pads would need replacing by the time the next service came about. By…

ALISDAIR CUSICK • Tools: MIG welder, welding gauntlets, cap, correct mask, overalls. Metalwork tools for cutting and shaping, cleaning joints and preparing bodywork for welding, new panel, weld-through primer, zinc-rich primer TIME 4-5 HOURS COST £200 PLUS DIFFICULTY RATING This month in the Welding mini series we move on a pace. So far, we’ve practiced welding test pieces on the bench, and we’ve looked at welding a small repair to a flat wheel arch. This month we scale things up by replacing a whole panel. Whilst smaller repair sections are an important skill to master, panel or component replacement is the major stepping stone to performing senior repairs on a vehicle body. While fitting repair sections, the vehicle remains square and supported on the chassis and – in the main…