Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2021 i Land Rover Monthly

HOW much of a difference does sunshine make to our general level of happiness and wellbeing? Loads I like to think. I hope that those reading this have managed to see loved ones or done things to and in your Land Rovers that were not allowed during previous lockdowns. Some of you might be reading this in the sunshine at the Billing Off Road Show. Something that until very recently seemed a lifetime away. Please do come to the LRM stand and say hello. Then if you head over to the Douglas Motors stand you will see Sam Bates’ bright red Defender 90 that features on our cover. I love Sam’s story and he is our stereotypical reader and follower. He has a dog called Arnie (and a fiancé called…

Enthusiasts buy new Land rovers too ENTHUSIASTS buy new Land Rovers too! IT WAS interesting to read the contribution in the June issue of LRM from Dave Phillips, with his nostalgic reflection on the attraction of older vehicles and their simplicity, and Gary Pusey’s analysis of JLR’s strategy, aimed firmly at the luxury market with ever more elaborate and expensive vehicles. It made me wonder if it is now appropriate and timely for LRM to cater purely for the enthusiast and Land Rovers up to about 2015, leaving JLR’s esoteric and increasingly unaffordable models, with six-figure price tags, to the mainstream motor magazines. After all, it could be argued that there may be little to differentiate the ownership ethos of a Mercedes S class or an Audi e-tron GT quattro…

I enter Wales via the old Roman road which is now known as the A5. It feels great to be out again on a laning trip with my friends after the long winter lockdown. I’m driving a new Discovery HSE R-Dynamic which has a starting price of £67,290. Chuck in some extras such as a heated third row of electric seats, electric deployable tow bar and an active rear locking diff, and the price climbs up to the £75k mark. With me is Stu Pickering, the GLASS rep for Shropshire and he recommends we take a quick detour to the easily navigable and impressive Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. Built over 200 years ago, it’s the longest and highest in the UK, and boats on the Llangollen canal use it to get over…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR  Greg King is Mr Defender. He started at Solihull in 1993 as a 16-year-old Land Rover-mad apprentice and went on to work on the 50th anniversary 90, Storm Defender, Tempest (Discovery 2), second-gen Range Rover Sport, the Paul Smith Defender, 2 millionth Defender and Defender Autobiography. He then moved to start with JLR Classic on Land Rover Reborn and Defender Works V8. OVER the last three issues of LRM we have taken you from the very beginning of Ninety and One Ten production, through to the introduction of the Defender name in 1990, and on to the last day of Defender production on January 29, 2016. I cannot think of another vehicle having been produced in one location continually for such a long period of time. Land…

I’ve neglected SXF733 in recent years, especially during the past 12 months, with its last outing being to the Patina National last September. With restrictions eased and news that the annual Series One Club meet at the Bolton Abbey railway station was on however, this was an opportunity to put some miles under SXF’s belt, especially as it was on the day of its birthday. It’s the longest I’ve ever owned a vehicle (over half of its lifetime, having been registered in May 1958) and I’m only its fourth owner (the first being the Civil Defence as all SXF models were) and it deserved a treat. First however it would need a good check over. It was washed down, fluids, nuts, bolts and bearings all checked, and a splash of…

THIS Discovery 4 TDV6 (with stop/start system) had covered 96,000 miles and was suffering from heavy steering to the extent that it was becoming difficult to turn the steering wheel, and would often not automatically return to its centre position. The Discovery’s steering system comprises two main parts – the steering wheel column assembly and the hydraulic-assisted steering rack. The column assembly is basically three sections: the upper column unit which carries the steering wheel and, below that, an intermediate shaft and a lower collapsible shaft connecting to the steering rack. The steering on this Discovery 4 was checked over and a partially seized lower steering shaft universal joint at the bottom of this shaft, which connects it to the power steering rack, was suspected as the cause of the…

Fri 25 June - Mon 28 June THE BIG ANNUAL WEEKEND Northbrook, Winchester http://www.p38southcoast.co.uk/ Fri 25 June - Sun 27 June  YORKSHIRE MOTORSPORT FESTIVAL Holmfirth, Yorkshire https://ymsf.net/ COMEBACK NATIONAL RALLY Penrith, Cumbria http://www.p38southcoast.co.uk/ THE LONDON CLASSIC CAR SHOW London https://www.theclassiccarshowuk.com/ S&S FAMILY GAMES WEEKEND Cheadle, Shropshire https://saslrc.co.uk/ Sat 26 June - Sun 27 June  2-DAY CCV TRIAL South Elkington, Lincolnshire http://www.llrc.co.uk/ NORC 2-DAY COMP SAFARI Stainby, Grantham https://www.norc.org.uk/ WILTSHIRE SAFARI WEEKEND Marlborough, Wiltshire https://www.protrax.co.uk/ TIMED TRIAL TBC, Scotland http://www.slroc.co.uk/ BILLING OFF-ROAD SHOW Grange Farm Little Houghton. www.thebillingoffroadexperience.co.uk Saturday 26 June SAE EVENT Pomeroy, Dungannon http://www.landrover-club.com/ Fri 25 June - Mon 28 June  CCV & RTV TRIAL Cowbeech, Hailsham https://sroc.co.uk/ Sunday 27 June COMP SAFARI Badell, Hollywell https://saslrc.co.uk/ RTV TRIAL Uppingham, Leicestershire https://www.lrlrc.co.uk/ LANING DAY TBC, Essex https://www.elrc.info/ AWDC COMP SAFARI…

Enjoy access to a fully searchable digital library of every issue of Land Rover Monthly since May 2015, plus enjoy the latest issue and future issues before they go on sale in the shops for as long as your subscription remains active. Read any feature from LRM during this time – buying guides, tests, reviews, tech advice or something else for just £9.99 a quarter by direct debit or a full year for only £39.99 SUBSCRIBE TODAY: Landrovermonthly.co.uk/store/digital-archive/land-rover-monthly…

Front Runner Vehicle Outfitters – a provider of roof racks, load bars, storage solutions and off-road accessories, has been acquired by Dometic. The global market leader in branded solutions for mobile living has identified the vehicle-based outdoor market as a strong opportunity for growth and Front Runner is a perfect fit to its existing outdoor offering of tents, cooler boxes and mobile power solutions. The transaction is expected to be effective during the third quarter of 2021.…

Enjoy access to a fully searchable digital library of every issue of Land Rover Monthly since May 2015, plus enjoy the latest issue and future issues before they go on sale in the shops for as long as your subscription remains active. Read any feature from LRM during this time – buying guides, tests, reviews, tech advice or something else - for just £9.99 a quarter by direct debit or a full year for only £39.99 SUBSCRIBE TODAY: Landrovermonthly.co.uk/store/digital-archive/land-rover-monthly…

OLD Defenders have become the new must-have lifestyle accessory. Lockdown has done nothing to dent that popularity; in fact the reverse is true. There has never been a time when so many people have wanted to escape into the wilderness for their adventures – and guess which vehicle is top of the list to take them there? Yep, you guessed it. The best thing about old Defenders is their sheer presence. They are the most purposeful vehicles on the planet – and they look it, too. Take the bright red 90 that’s bursting out of these pages. Any second now it’s going to rip through the paper, splash mud in your face and deafen you with its straight-through exhaust. Until two years ago this was just another 1990s 300Tdi Defender,…

WE ended Part One of the story of my 1990 Range Rover, SYD, as I shut the outbuilding door on a battle-scarred and tired old friend that had just suffered one MoT failure too many. I had neither the money nor the time to patch it up yet again, but I knew that SYD was a vehicle that I could not bring myself to scrap. It was a keeper, and one day it would be back on the road. Four years went by and I don’t think I ventured into the outbuilding more than half a dozen times. It was just too depressing. Better that it was out of sight and out of mind. An ever-thickening layer of dust settled over the car, the tyres leaked their air at different…

HAVING had a long hard winter in lockdown Staffordshire & Shropshire (S&S) Land Rover Club were relieved to hear of the restrictions for motorsport events were being lifted at the end of March. And it wasn’t long before the club decided to organise an event for the Easter Saturday. As overnight camping was still not allowed, they chose to run a single day Tyro (Try Your Rover Offroad) Trial. One of the club’s favourite sites is at Stone, as someone local is able to set up on the day and it is central and accessible to many of the members. After the long lockdown lay off from trialling, a Tyro Trial aimed mostly at novice or beginner drivers (Tyro is actually Latin for learner) seemed an appropriate event to run,…

THE rear side windows on a Defender can develop a number of issues as they age, from rattling glass to water leaking into the car. Failed individual components can be replaced within the window unit itself. But be warned, those fixes often involve removing the window from the vehicle and sometimes having to split the frame apart. There’s a balance to be struck between the amount of work involved in stripping and repairing the existing window, against simply fitting an aftermarket replacement window unit. It can make sense to simply replace the whole thing with a new part and be done with it. If your truck is historically significant, then you’ll want to try and chase down replacement parts, fastidiously getting everything just right in the existing unit. For the…

THERE was a time not so long ago when the big-bucks Land Rover restorations were all oh-so-perfect and shinier than they’d been when they left the factory. They were the ones that got the Best in Show awards at all the big Landy events – not to mention the record-breaking bids at auction. But all that’s changed. Today, less is more when it comes to the desirability of classic cars. Aficionados are shunning the as-new in favour of maximum patina and models that at first glance look, well, scruffy. A good example is the 1971 Range Rover featured here. It looks like the sort of wreck you’d once find lurking at the back of a forecourt with no price on the window, but it attracted 84 bids on a recent…

THE massive Malvern show grounds were the venue for the first Land Rover event of the show season, the Malvern 4x4, Land Rover & Vintage Spares. For only £30 anyone and everyone could get a stand to sell anything they wanted to. Some traders who were coming from far away arrived on the Saturday evening before the event while most came early on the Sunday before the 09.30 am opening of the gates. I am happy to report that there was a very long line of eager people waiting to get into the gates. Those that registered for the special Land Rover VIP parking were able to sneak in a few minutes earlier. Definitely worth keeping in mind for future similar events. There was a great turnout of stalls with…

35 INCH BFG KM3 TYRES (35/12.50/R15) ON MODULAR STEEL WHEELS: The wheels were important to raise the lowest point of the car (the differentials). Having good clearance on these is important and fitting big wheels is the only way to achieve this. They also play a big factor in the way my truck looks, of course! 2" LIFTED ARB OLD MAN EMU SHOCKS AND SPRINGS; GWYN LEWIS 4X4 SUSPENSION MOUNTING HARDWARE, FRONT DOUBLE CARDAN PROP, EXTENDED BRAKE LINES AND HEADER TANK KIT: Gwyn Lewis 4x4 was recommended to me by a friend. He makes and supplies top quality components that he uses on his competition trucks as well as selling suspension components from my favourite 4x4 accessories brand, ARB. FULL WADING DIFF BREATHER KIT AND SNORKEL:Very important kit for adventures! Wading…

PERHAPS I should apologise for borrowing what has become a rather irritating political catchphrase during the pandemic, but ‘following the data’ is really what this article is all about, although in this case it is data to do with the values of classic Land Rovers rather than our journey out of lockdown! A few months ago I wrote about my personal ‘lessons learned’ when it comes to buying old Land Rovers, not just with the primary purpose of enjoying them in mind but also with an eye on whether I might make a profit when the time comes to sell. Part of the problem is the lack of real evidence that shows where values have been going over recent years that might provide some perspectives on where they might go…

Then Land Rover Monthly is the magazine for you! It’s Britain’s fastest-growing Land Rover magazine packed full of essentials on driving, modifying, maintaining, exploring and buying information for Land Rover enthusiasts everywhere ENJOY THE NEXT 3 ISSUES OF LAND ROVER MONTHLY FOR JUST £5 And if you wish to continue after your first 3 issues, you’ll pay just £10.99 a quarter Get all of these great subscriber benefits: • No minimum term, cancel at any time• Save on the shop price• Free delivery direct to your door• Get every issue before it’s on-sale in the shops DON’T MISS OUT – SUBSCRIBE NOW! VISIT: LANDROVERMONTHLY.CO.UK/SUBand enter LRM/AUG21 in the promotion code box or call 01778 392033 quoting LRM/AUG21 Offer is open to UK residents and closes on 31 July 2021 SUBSCRIPTION…

WHEN it comes to lowering a Defender body down on to a freshly built up rolling chassis, a play on the expression, ‘when less is more’, comes to mind – when slow is more. The object is to re-fit the body shell to the rolling chassis without causing damage, without trapping something in the wrong place – perhaps a hose or a wiring harness – and landing the body in the right position. By position, I mean front-to-back alignment and left-to-right alignment. Seeing your Defender body come down on the rolling chassis is an exciting phase of the rebuild and it can be tempting to make it happen too quickly – it is much better to make it a very slow and painstaking process. The key is to lower the…

THIS 2001 model year V8 had become difficult to start especially, when left overnight, but once started, it would run without problem. A faulty fuel pump was diagnosed. The P38A has an in-tank fuel pump but, unlike the earlier model of Range Rover, there is no access hole to get to the fuel tank through the rear floor. So it’s necessary to drop the complete fuel tank from the vehicle before replacing the fuel pump. This needs to be done with the vehicle raised, and needs some form of jack to support the weight of the tank as it’s released and lowered from the underside of the chassis. It’s also best done when the fuel tank is as empty as possible to reduce the weight and the risk of petrol…

How did you find this Land Rover? I saved some pennies during the first lockdown before deciding it was time to find an off-roader for travel abroad. I found this one on eBay, drove down to Christchurch and fell in love with it, despite wanting to change every aspect of its appearance. What’s the story so far? I’ve had it for 11 months and Land Rover ownership is anything but simple. As with any 33-year-old vehicle, it’s got its flaws, which I am sorting bit by bit. I plan on fitting such items as a 3mm galvanised rear crossmember. How is the engine running? Currently not running. All of its oil came out via the turbo oil return pipe after a day of off-roading. This was caused by excessive crank…