Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2017 i Land Rover Monthly

FOR THE fourth year running Land Rover has partnered with The Prince’s Countryside Fund to award five entrepreneurial young people with a year’s loan of a Land Rover Discovery. The winners, selected for their stand-out business plans, passion and dedication to making a difference in their local community, include Jenny Dunstan, founder of Jenny’s Beef Ltd, which specialises in high quality Piemontese beef; and Lucy and Chris Williams, who are setting up a tea company and creating a range of tea-infused beauty products. Other recipients for 2017 are organic dairy farmer, Claire Howlett; suckler cow farmer James Speers; and David and Bekka Corrie-Close who recently established the Horned Beef Company.…

The LT230 transfer box is one of the unsung heroes of Land Rover mechanical design. It first appeared in 1983 with the launch of the One Ten, found its way into Range Rover and Discovery models, and continued with only minor design changes until the final Defender rolled off the Solihull production line last year. It was simple, robust, easy to use and played a big part in giving the Defender 90 and 110 their astonishing off-road capability. However, it does have a couple of weaknesses (which also crop up fairly often in older LT230-equipped Land Rovers). The first – unsurprisingly for an old-school Solihull product – is a tendency to leak oil, usually from the same couple of places. The intermediate gear shaft locates in a hole machined right…

REGULAR READERS will know that I have a massive soft spot for ex-military vehicles of all kinds, not just Land Rovers. It’s a passion I inherited from my father Brian, who started collecting them in the 1960s. In fact, the Dunsfold Collection itself came about as a direct result of my father’s hobby. One of my favourite events of the year, therefore, is the massive War and Peace Revival show that’s been held in Kent for over 30 years. It’s the biggest gathering of ex-military vehicles in the world, and because of its easy access from the Channel it draws a huge number of visitors from the continent. It’s one of the very few shows where you can see tanks rumbling around, there are air displays, and it attracts the…

The United States of America may well be the Land of the Free, but when it comes to the import of Defenders, they are anything but free. When Land Rover still produced Defenders you could not buy them in the USA as they did not comply with the local safety standards. But ironically you could buy an automatic assault rifle! One of their major gripes is the fact that Defenders don’t have airbags. That aside, to prevent locals from importing modern Defenders (is there such a thing?), the US Custom and Border Protection Excise implemented some pretty strict compliance laws. For starters, they have to be over 25 years old, and they also need to have the original chassis and engine that they left the factory with – and that’s…

“The end result is a very versatile vehicle” Once upon a time, if you wanted a go-anywhere 4x4 workhorse the choice was simple: it had to be a Land Rover. In its standard form, be it an early Series or a later Ninety, One Ten, 127 or a Defender, it would do most jobs. But if you needed that Land Rover to do a specific task then the men down at Solihull had a solution – Special Vehicles. With their slogan ‘The Possibilities are Endless’ the men at Special Vehicles would take a new Land Rover off the Solihull production line and into a shed at the back of the factory. They would then convert it into one of many specialist options available, or make something bespoke to meet…

AFTER MORE than 30 years of commentating at Land Rover shows, Diana Tigwell has decided to lay down her microphone for good. If you’ve ever been to a Land Rover or a 4x4 show or if you’ve found yourself at the off-road section of the recent Goodwood Festival of Speed then you will know who we are talking about and also what her voice sounds like. But Diana is not only a commentator, she is an off-road enthusiast and competitor, too. Diana’s off-road adventures began in the 1980s and her first car was a Series I 86 inch. She then joined the Scottish Land Rover Club and started taking part in various events including trials, her favourite being the Team Recovery. A few years later she moved to South Devon…

“A real off-road treat is a couple of miles north-west of Clifden – Omey Island” Connemara National Park is one of six Irish National Parks and offers greenlaning and wild(ish) camping along its unique coastline. Remote Connemara is situated in the West of Ireland in Co Galway and covers 2957 hectares of scenic coastal areas, mountain ranges, bogs, heaths, grasslands and woods – all connected with plenty of rough tracks. There’s even an island you can drive out to in your Land Rover when the tide is out. The Connemara skyline is dominated by the spectacular Twelve Bens mountain range and the Maumturks that bring this unique landscape to life. The National Park was established and opened to the public in 1980 and boasts activities that include hill climbing, mountain…

I’VE ALWAYS had a soft spot for Series Land Rovers. My earliest Land Rover memory is of being given a lift to school on a very rainy day by a local farmer. It would have been either a Series I or a Series II – I was only six or seven-years old at the time and I didn’t count rivets back then. I probably wouldn’t have been able to find them, anyway, as the whole vehicle was covered with a veneer of mud, oil and dust (which smelled exquisite, by the way). A Series has been on my wish-list ever since. I love them, but I have so far managed to let my head rule my heart. They are pretty impractical for modern motoring and I haven’t got room for…

The annual drive down to the Land Rover show in July is always special for me. Not just because I’m going to the original, biggest and most famous Land Rover event of them all, and the one I was involved with at the very start, but it also marks my Defenders’ birthday. Well, sort off. Back in 2004 the first real journey my Defender ever made of any distance was down to Billing. It had been on the road for about two weeks before I hitched the caravan on the back and headed off to Billing. I remember it had something like 200 miles on the clock, so by the time I arrived at Billing Aquadrome that had almost doubled. I also remember when I arrived the engine wouldn’t stop…

My Discovery 2 has been having some upgrades to the engine to improve the power and torque delivery for modern 21st century motoring as part of an overall rebuild program. The upgrades include a free-flow exhaust manifold, an upgraded turbocharger and a stainless steel exhaust system. Other upgrades, not yet reported on, include an improved intercooler, silicon hoses and probably an ECU remap. The braking system of any Land Rover should be regularly checked, and maintained in optimum condition. As the standard power output of this Td5 Discovery 2 (135 bhp) is increased to around 190 bph it is clearly vitally important that the brakes are in perfect condition. When this Disco was last on the road, the brakes were working well, but now it is time to inspect everything…

This 2009 Discovery 4, 3.0-litre TDV6 had only recently been bought from a private seller, and the vehicle’s service history was not fully documented. Despite it having a recorded mileage of only 64,000, the Discovery was seven years old and, as such, timing belt replacement was due. The Land Rover service schedule states the Discovery 4’s 3.0-litre TDV6 requires the timing belt to be replaced at 112,000 miles or every seven years, whichever comes first. The 2.7-litre TDV6 needs it replaced slightly sooner at every 105,000 miles or seven years. Replacing the timing belt on the Discovery 4 is not a straightforward job. It is similar to replacing the timing belt on the Discovery 3, but a little more difficult due to the later emission control system that has been…

Where are you from? I am originally from Slovakia but I have been living in Keady for 12 years now. Tell us about your Discovery I bought my Discovery over two years ago. It was not a planned thing. My friend Richard Myers had tagged me in a Facebook ad for it. It was looking a little tired and I always wanted a Discovery so I decided to take the risk and save it. How is the engine running? The engine is running very well considering that it has already done 165,000 miles. I have not had any problems with it since I fixed the warped exhaust manifold. Regular servicing keeps it running sweetly. What are your plans with it? Eventually I want to restore it to the best possible…

Jaguar Land Rover kick-started the UK’s Invictus Games preparations with a special full-day training session and selection event for the Games’ opening event. The Driving Challenge saw seven members of the UK team head to the Land Rover Experience Centre at Eastnor Castle, together with brand ambassadors Zara Tindall and Lewis Moody to hone their skills on the legendary off-road tracks. Only two of the UK team will be competing in the Driving Challenge in Toronto, so everyone was out to impress at Eastnor. Splitting into navigator and driver pairings the UK team headed out in a fleet in Discoverys to test their communication, teamwork and planning skills on the swampy steep and narrow off-road route. Zara Tindall said: “The Invictus Games is a very special event, and I’ve loved…

PRICE: FROM £540 BOWLER SIDE SILLS These are the same lightweight protective aluminium sills that they use in the Defender Challenge. No welding required. Includes fitting kit and available in black and graphite for both 90 and 110 Defenders. johncraddockltd.co.uk PRICE: FROM £10.99 CUSTOM PLATES Choose Plates offers the Land Rover owner the chance to customise and design their own number plates from over a million different road-legal and durable choices. All this can be done via the easy-to-use online editor system on Choose Plates’ website. chooseplates.co.uk PRICE: £8.99 (FOR 1 LITRE) RUST AWAY Looking for something to rustproof the underbody of your Land Rover? Or do you just want something to tackle a rust-sensitive area of your pride and joy? Techline is the solution. Available in 500 ml aerosols,…

About 12 years ago I bought a small portable compressor on wheels from a well-known chain of DIY stores. I seem to recall it cost me £189. Made in Italy (the main source of cheap power tools back then), three-horsepower motor, belt drive, 50-litre tank. After a few months the wheels disintegrated, so I bodged up some replacements. And since then it has been used just about every working day, and absolutely nothing has gone wrong with it. It is still on its original drive belt, and I have never changed the lubricating oil in the pump, because I wasn’t expecting the thing to last more than a couple of years anyway. (I take the same hands-off approach to maintaining cheap rotary lawn mowers.) Sadly, last week the pipe between…

IT IS hard to believe that until late 1989 there were only two Land Rovers available: the utility Ninety/ One Ten and the Range Rover. But that was about to change with the introduction of the all-new Discovery. And we can all be thankful for that. Why? Because Discovery 1 is the car that saved Land Rover. It defined the versatile family SUV and was Europe’s best-selling 4x4. For more than 25 years the first-generation Discovery was commonplace on our roads, but have you noticed how recently there are suddenly fewer of them around? No, you’re not imagining things. There are indeed fewer because they are disappearing fast. Latest government figures show that Tdi Discoverys are the most SORNed Land Rovers. In fact, they are the 20th most numerous vehicles…

“Before we know it we are at the summit” “Sorry mate, your room has been taken,” says the sleepy guy at the reception of the Glen Nevis Youth Hostel, the closest available accommodation option to the imposing Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the UK. I had called to say we would be late, held up in the gridlock caused by an accident on the M6 near Manchester. It’s nearly midnight and in six hours time we will be starting the Three Peaks Challenge, which involves climbing the highest peaks in Scotland, England and Wales – all within 24 hours. I’m in a group of four. Brothers Andrew and Matthew Blake are tough buggers. Andrew has just completed the London Marathon in under three hours while Matthew thinks nothing of…

Ian McPhee was born at Lesmahagow in Lanarkshire, a farming community to the south of Glasgow. He is a retired squaddie and served with the Royal Scots for many years. “I joined the regiment when I was 15 and left at the end of my 25-year enlistment,” he explained. “I took part in many campaigns, including several tours of Northern Ireland. The regiment was also part of Allied Command Europe (ACE), which was part of NATO. This involved winter warfare training in Norway, and summer exercises in places like Greece. I was also stationed in Cyprus when the Turkish Army invaded in 1974. I remember we had to be airlifted by a Hercules transport to avoid being compromised. My last posting was home duty at Glencorse barracks. The barracks has…

“Importing parts to East Africa is prohibitively expensive so most cars are standard and any mods are likely to be made” A few weeks ago I was in Tanzania and had the opportunity to spend the day with the recently-formed Arusha Land Rover club. Not wishing to pass the opportunity up, I’m glad I accepted as it turned out to be one of the most extraordinary off-road drives of my life. Yussuf Khatry founded the club for local Land Rover enthusiasts and tour guides to get together and explore some remote parts of the stunning countryside around Arusha and the foothills of nearby Mount Kilimanjaro. Just over six months later there are 26 members, and I was to meet four of them, including the club’s main man. Yussuf’s 1998 Defender…

AUGUST 16 Yorkshire 4x4 Treks Yorkshire Dales Trek North Yorkshire yorkshire4x4treks.co.uk AUGUST 16 – 20 Wilderness Gathering Bushcraft Event West Knoyle, Wiltshire wildernessgathering.co.uk. AUGUST 17 Yorkshire 4x4 Treks Yorkshire Moors Trek North Yorkshire yorkshire4x4treks.co.uk AUGUST 18 – 20 Australian - Melbourne 4x4 & Outdoor Show Melbourne Showground 4x4show.com.au AUGUST 18 – 20 France – Le temps-Des-Series, Le bal des Series The Ball of the Series Creon d’Armagnac, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France le-temps-des-series.com AUGUST 18 – 20 Leicestershire & Rutland Land Rover Club CCV Trial Uppingham, Rutland lrlrc.co.uk AUGUST 19 Northern Ireland Land Rover Club Skills Assessment Event Catcairm landrover-club.com AUGUST 19 – 20 Beds, Herts & Cambs LRC Taster Trial Weekend Peterborough bhclrc.org.uk AUGUST 19 – 20 Buxton & District Land Rover Club Tyro & RTV Trial Mosey, Derbyshire badlrc.co.uk AUGUST 19…

Based on our plan to deal with the car in three sections (front, centre and rear), the chassis is now solid from the bulkhead outriggers backwards. Now, we’re back to spanner work, and we’re sorting the final part of the rear section – the rear axle. In short time, the rear axle is easily removed from the chassis and is now on trestles where it’s more convenient to work on. Our inspections showed the axle to be in decent overall health. The differential gears demonstrated only minimal wear – further backing up the mileage of 25,000 – as did the original bearings. For ease, we decided to leave those in place. Modern bearings can vary in quality, and the factory originals would at least be a known quantity, and they…

I’ve been worried that I’m trading the patina, age and character of my Ninety for a shiny new, unmarked paint job that I won’t dare drive off-road. I rather liked the dings in the body, the faded blue paintwork and the token tad of rust that suggested the vehicle had been around a while. But I wasn’t so keen on the aluminium corrosion on the doors and wings, the mismatched colour repairs, nor the numerous leaking body seals. And I was still questioning my decision to have the Ninety painted in its original colour. I liked its old powder blue appearance, but that was really Shire Blue with 28 years of fading, so it was difficult to know just how the Ninety would look in the original colour. Print or…

REGARDING THE “Stop Knocking Land Cruisers” letter in the September edition, it reminded me of an advert I saw in Australia a few years ago. It was on a huge roadside billboard in the Sydney region. It read: “If you want to go in to the Outback, drive a Land Rover. If you want to come back out again, drive a Toyota”. It still makes me smile, ten years later. Michael Evans Last year I drove a 300Tdi Defender 110 across Australia’s Simpson Desert. We had to tow a Toyota Land Cruiser for some of the way as it was having coil problems. So they might want to change that billboard – Ed.…

While I was waiting for a new LT77 gearbox to arrive I turned my attention to the next job, which was another vehicle that had come in for a 200Tdi conversion and ended up with the transmission sitting on the floor. It was however a different vehicle with a rather different transmission, being a 1973 Series III with the four speed gearbox with part-time four-wheel drive. The owner had mentioned that the gearbox seemed a little noisy, and asked me to check it out. In the lower gears, drive is transmitted via the layshaft: in fourth gear the input shaft and mainshaft are locked together, with no load on the layshaft. So if a gearbox is noisy in every gear except fourth, it does not take Sherlock Holmes to deduce…

With your sensible hat on, a V8 petrol Range Rover is unlikely to be your first choice as a daily driver, particularly if it is 16 years old. To be able to afford to go anywhere in it you will most likely have to forego most of life’s luxuries – and probably some of its necessities too. A car whose mpg only occasionally ventures into double figures is certainly not at the top of anyone’s ‘Rational Buys’ list. Yet for Doug Topott the temptation proved all too much and he took the plunge, buying a 4.6-litre P38 Vogue as his daily runabout. As we cruise through the beautiful Yorkshire countryside around his home, Doug reveals that he stumbled upon his beloved P38, which he fondly refers to as Pippa, almost…

WHILE THE Three Peaks Challenge might be a physical endurance for the climbers it represents a challenge of a different kind for the support driver. I encountered pretty much every type of UK driving environment imaginable, from twisty Scottish Highland roads through to narrow Lakeland single-track passes with long motorway jaunts in between. While driving through this I also had to try and keep the team comfortable, safe and on time. Throw the Great British weather into the 24-hour mix and you will have faced every conceivable combination attempt to derail your efforts. The range-topping Range Rover SVAutobiography TDV8 didn’t even murmur, taking all conditions in its classy stride. It proved to be the ultimate driver’s companion during the quest. There’s no denying the SVA is big; in fact it’s…

What makes a Land Rover Show great? Seeing and experiencing new things? Hanging out with like-minded Landy lovers from around the world? Buying new bits for your old Land Rover? Snuggling into your sleeping bag while listening to the gentle patter of rain on canvas? Dodgy German sausages washed down with the finest local ale? Well the first-ever Kelmarsh Land Rover show had it all in abundance. Last year when the Billing Aquadrome announced that they would no longer be hosting any more Land Rover (or automotive) shows, they effectively ended something that had become san institution among Land Rover fans all over the world. Billing as we knew it was dead. Event Director Tom Siddall and his team from Live Promotions decided to move it to Kelmarsh Hall…

The 30,000 miles that we have clocked up on this trip have been hard to say the least, especially as we have had to put the Defender on most off-road surfaces imaginable from washboard roads and sand tracks in Mongolia to muddy jungle tracks in Laos. And while the car is running well, the strain is starting to show; maintaining the Defender so that it is in tip top condition is now, more than ever, at the forefront of our minds. In order to keep the Defender going as smoothly as possible for the rest of our around-the-world trip, we feel that it is important to use the best-quality products available to maintain the car or fix any issues that have arisen. As the saying goes, prevention is better than…

Over the years some off-road venues become a tradition, and for a number of northern clubs “t’ site above Helmsley” is one of them. Originally used by now long-gone North Yorkshire & South Durham Rover Owners Club, today other Land Rover and 4x4 clubs frequent the venue, including the Yorkshire Off Road Club (YORC). It’s also a personal favourite site of mine. In fact, this visit to the YORC trial for RTVs (Road Taxed Vehicles) marked 30 years to the month that I first went to a trial there. It’s a great site – not the most extreme or largest – but has lots of lumps and bumps and some water and mud. It’s enough to test the driving ability of any driver without damaging their vehicles. It’s also very…

The Ninety project has picked up momentum in the last couple of weeks, but the poor old girl sat redundant for a few months prior to that. We recently moved into a house after spending nearly four years living on a narrowboat. Living on a boat was fantastic – I would recommended it to anyone – but if your main interest is cars and bikes, living without your own driveway or garage can be restrictive. My commute has increased significantly now though from a round trip of just 28 miles a day to 108. Yes, it’s a long way to travel each day but luckily I love my job! The Ninety, fitted with its naturally-aspirated engine, isn’t my first choice in transport. Once I leave my village, the commute is…

Before lithium battery technology found its way into jump starter packs such as these, booster packs were typically bulky, heavy and best suited to keeping at home in case of emergencies on a cold morning or after extended periods of a vehicle laying dormant resulted in a flat battery... But all that has changed. Compact booster packs can be kept in a glovebox or under a seat. They hold their optimum charge for months on end, providing an almost store-and-forget solution to drained batteries and those times when helping out a fellow motorist becomes an act of friendship that is always appreciated. But that’s not all. Our modern lives and the gadgets we fill them with rely on almost daily charging of mobile phones, tablets, sat-navs, dash cams and so…

JUST WHEN you thought Defender prices couldn’t get any sillier, along comes an SVX Concept that appeared in the 2015 James Bond movie Spectre – and is expected to fetch £150,000. The double cab 110 – one of ten ordered by the movie’s producers from Land Rover’s Special Vehicles and further pumped up by off-road tuning specialists Bowler – goes under the hammer at top auction house Sotherby’s in London on September 6. When shooting the 24th 007 film, Spectre, Sony Pictures needed a menacing vehicle to be used by members of the Spectre criminal organisation in the Austrian Alps. They turned to JLR’s Special Vehicle Operations to supply ten cars, which were then sent to famed tuner Bowler, who transformed them from regular Santorini Black crew-cab 110s to something…