Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2022 i Land Rover Monthly

@busheditor NEXT year we celebrate 25 years of LRM and 75 years of Land Rover, while this issue is our 300th. Can you believe it? Some of you reading this have been with us from issue number 1. I have to say a massive thank you for that. Without your continued and loyal support, we would not still be here. Over the past 300 issues you have seen three editors steering the LRM ship in their unique ways. First there was the founder and now US-based Richard Howell-Thomas, who is writing a guest column for us this month on page 19. Please do give it a read as it is thanks to Richard that you have something to read and I have a job. Then came the journeyman and dog-loving…

WITH Defender (and Range Rover) offering three-row seating, is there room for the Discovery anymore? It’s a question many of you have been mulling over, and it’s one that Auto Express put to Jaguar Land Rover’s CEO, Thierry Bolloré, recently who reassured readers that the Disco is here to stay, but the formula will be changed to separate the SUV from its seven-and eight-seater cousins: “We are completely reinventing the Discovery. We believe there is space for it, but we have to be creative.” Thierry went on to admit that the Defender has destroyed sales of the Discovery, but argues that turning it into a “real family car for the most discerning families,” will justify its continued existence. Pitching the Discovery within the luxury segment would certainly go hand-in-hand with…

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IF YOU’RE like me, you’ll have looked at the brown envelopes arriving in the post with increasing dread. The biggest bills are getting even bigger, with mortgage rates, council tax and the grocery receipts containing some big scary numbers, and constantly rising. Only the slowly-shrinking fuel cost is giving a glimmer of respite. Without wishing to be too doom-laden, if the experts are correct it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Some of us will have to make some hard decisions about our Land Rovers. Dealers I’ve spoken to say there have been a number of customers ‘cashing in’ their Discovery 3s and 4s, with the most common replacement being the Skoda Yeti. One trader said the Skoda is like a ‘Discovery Lite’, with a lot of the…

PAUL Jones is definitely not your average LRM reader. He doesn’t own a D2 with big tyres and his wife doesn’t drive a Freelander 1 or old Defender. In fact, this Shropshire-based friendly fellow owns a window and conservatory company, and it was only a few years ago that he purchased his first ever Land Rover. It was for the business, a then six-month old 2018 Discovery with the 3.0-litre V6 diesel engine plus all the bells and whistles. It was meant for family holidays and towing work trailers and diggers. “When I bought it,” Paul reveals, “it was my pride and joy. I like things to be perfect and spotless, so I even washed it every week. Then the two kids (now six and two and half-years old) came…

AFTER serving with 1 Para Bn Group in Bahrain and Aden in 1965 and 1966, Alex Harley and four of his fellow paratroopers were granted a month’s leave for some adventure training. What did they decide to do? Drive back to the UK in a Land Rover, of course. Patrick Cruywagen: What was the deployment life like for a young officer during the sixties? Alex Harley: In those days Bahrain was nothing but sand and rocks with a little poverty-stricken capital town and a sheik. We would also go down to Aden from time to time to fight, as there was a communist subversion going on. It was a one-year posting. How did you come to acquire the Land Rover? The communist influence spilled over into Oman with some of…

I’M pretty certain I’ve mentioned before that my Land Rover 130 – with the Mazda 3.5-litre Tdi (SL35Ti) engine and automatic transmission – was built during the first lockdown. The intention was to build a chassiscab onto which a drop-side tipping body would be built. You may also know that I fitted a High Capacity Pick Up body to the Defender (with a toolbox filling the 17 inch gap between the cab and the HCPU tub) as a temporary measure, because the coachworks shut down through lockdown. ‘Temporary’ can be a vague term in my world and has extended to some two and a half years in this instance. During this time I’ve found the extended HCPU to be a very useful tool – to the extent that I am…

BEFORE fitting the new battery isolator switch, plus the battery itself and the necessary earth leads, I needed to repair the battery compartment inside the seatbox assembly, and then fit the seatbox to the rolling chassis. The original battery compartment from the 110 was rusted and a few holes had formed, so this was repaired in much the same way as the bulkhead which was detailed in part six of this series in the August issue. I then had it galvanised at the same time as the bulkhead. Repairs to the battery compartment The battery compartment was removed from the seatbox assembly by drilling out the securing rivets so that the rust areas could be cut out on the bench and new metal welded in (as with the bulkhead). Saved…

JUST how much would you pay for an ex-Camel Trophy 1991 Defender 110 200Tdi? How about just over £108,000? That’s exactly what one off-roading fan paid for on the Bring a Trailer auction site. A right-hand drive model, the Land Rover was originally used as a communications vehicle during the 1991 Tanzania-Burundi Camel Trophy tour. After it toured various other off-roading events around Europe, as well as becoming part of an off-road fleet, it was imported to the United States last year. The paintwork is said to be untouched, but the axles were recently overhauled, the braking and suspension systems refreshed and the timing belt replaced. As you’d expect, it also came with a whole bunch of aftermarket goodies including: a Garrett turbocharger, Jetlock handbrake system, roof basket, snorkel, brush-guard,…

JAGUAR Land Rover has taken another step towards a new era of electrification and connectivity by opening a facility to test the next generation of vehicles for electrical and radio interference. The Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) laboratory at Gaydon will ensure next gen Green Oval products meet current and future legislation and quality standards for connectivity and electronics. JLR’s new lab features two anechoic chambers: an electrically quiet rolling road that enables engineers to test vehicles at speed, as well as assess the performance of individual components, such as batteries and electric motors. Bluetooth, GPS, WiFi, 4G, 5G, adaptive cruise control, wireless charging and blind-spot monitoring are all examples of vehicle services and features that are part of the testing programme. With electric powertrains, digital and cloud-based services (from over-the-air software…

FOLLOWING the Fella in a two-vehicle convoy is really no joke, and it is interfering with what should be my total delight in driving the Lightweight for the first time in two months. After being in ‘hospital’ (a garage up in Hemel Hempstead) for an elongated in-patient stay, it was finally discharged five minutes ago. Mechanic (and Land Rover owner) Steve had been out when we first arrived so we killed some time in Hemel Hempstead (including several trips around its famous ‘magic roundabout’) and, when we returned, he was very generous with his time, explaining all the works that had been carried out. Although I had left the Lightweight with a considerable list of jobs that needed doing, once Steve and fellow mechanic Robin (who undertook much of the…

I don’t often find myself changing transfer’boxes on Defenders, but this month I’ve had five to do in quick succession for various reasons, and have become thoroughly acquainted with the internal workings of the LT230 in its various forms. This design is one of Land Rover’s unsung heroes: introduced in 1983 for the then-new One Ten, it remained in production through to the last Defender Puma, as well as providing awesome off-road capability to the first and second generation Discovery. The LT230 is a strong and simple beast, combining a two-speed gearbox with a lockable centre differential, all controlled with nice simple levers and no electronics. As people have found, it will handle a good deal of abuse and far more power than any standard Land Rover engine: people are…

“NOW that looks fun,” was my response to receiving a newspaper cutting from a chum, extolling the virtues of driving 10,000km around the Baltic Sea with the Superlative Adventure Club. The SAC is a German-based club that organises a number of rallies each year, usually with a few quirks such as the vehicle must be 20 years or older, no motorways, no GPS… you get the picture. With zero hesitation I rose to the inadvertent challenge set by my mate, Lt Col Chris Sargent, whom I have known since I was eight-years old, confident that we could put up with each other in the same vehicle driving ten countries in 16 days without leaving one another at the side of the road. We paid our €1000 entry fee and registered…

HAVE you ever noticed that the Land Rover movement is constantly in flux? Far from a constant, there is instead a perpetual evolution, an ebb and flow as to what the market finds hot and what is definitely not. From tyres to touring, as time passes, so do market trends. Contemporary big ticket Series I and Range Rover restorations may currently be hot property on the motoring scene, but not that long ago they were so plentiful and cheap many ended their lives as off-road hacks. Historically, there is perhaps one model that has always been overlooked: the Series III. Produced from 1971 to 1985 through the turbulent days of British Leyland’s era of Land Rover, they were bought new as workhorses and lived that working life, partly because of…

WE could be forgiven for thinking of the Puma Defender engines as modern diesels. The reality now is they were simply the latest technology back in 2007; a long time ago now, and all Puma Defenders will now have seen many operating hours. They are, on the whole, a reliable and well-suited engine for the Defender. As you would expect after more than a decade’s use, some are at the point where they’re starting to have issues in areas such as injectors, turbocharger and Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR), all of which are repairable by swapping the parts for fully-functioning units so the engine can operate to spec again. Any engine has an intended operating zone where it is designed to cope with normal temperatures and pressures. But anything that prevents…

ACCORDING to Carscoops.com, a notice issued with the American National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), revealed that certain Range Rover Velar (and Jaguar F-Pace) models were produced at the Solihull Vehicle Assembly Plant without an Audio Amplifier Module (AAM) installed. Vehicles built without the AAM are not able to provide audio output, or operational audible warnings, such as indicator sounds, seatbelt reminder, or have critical events flagged up by the Advanced Driver Assistance Systems. Jaguar Land Rover says it made the decision to ship certain vehicles built at Solihull to the US without the AAM installed because of the ongoing semiconductor shortage and install them with the AAM in the ports of entry Stateside. However, JLR started to receive reports that some vehicles had reached dealerships without the AAM –…

Not Rescue 911… AS an avid Land Rover fan and a member of the Scottish Ambulance Service, I really enjoyed the article on the oldest Land Rover in Mountain Rescue Team service and will try to find the TV programme to watch as I missed that. However, in your ‘Did you know?’ section on page 38 you have informed readers they can contact MRT through the police on 911: that is not the case in the UK, I’m afraid. Maybe an adjustment to correct it to 999 would help. Keep up the good work. Derek Page PATRICK REPLIES: I am a child of the ’80s and used to watch the American TV programme Rescue 911 which was presented by William Shatner (Capt Kirk on Star Trek). He is to blame…

WELL, time flies. It seems only yesterday that I was asked to write a piece just like this for Land Rover Monthly’s 200th issue. In that article I recalled many of the wonderful people who helped create LRM back in 1998 and many of the unique stories and events that gave the magazine its special place in Land Rover history. History, of course, is now the only way to describe the memories and events of those early days. Just think, in 1998 the Series III had not long evolved into the coil sprung 90 and 110 but had, admittedly, been renamed the Defender; the Discovery – based on the Range Rover chassis – was bringing a Land Rover into affordable family ownership; the dear old Range Rover – born in…

IT was sad to hear of the passing of Arthur Goddard, aged 101, who was the leader of the team that developed the very first Land Rover. When I interviewed him back on his 100th birthday (praying I wouldn’t grate the gears in the Series I I’d borrowed for the occasion), it was an absolute honour and I felt very privileged. As I said back then, a true legend. RIP. On a completely different subject, the Aussie surf boat rowing season has started again. I’ve had a year out thanks to rupturing my Achilles’ tendon last year (yes, from trying to push a Land Rover with flat tyres and locked brakes), so getting back into the boat was a big deal for me. For those unfamiliar with surf boats, they…

I’ve had a couple of slightly unusual 200Tdi conversions this month, both in ex-military vehicles with 24-volt electrics. Military radio systems have long run on 24 volts, and since the 1960s Land Rover have been building vehicles to transport and power portable battlefield radio systems. The first Fitted for Radio (FFR) Land Rovers had 24v electric throughout (lights, wipers, ignition system etc) with a large, engine-driven generator powering the vehicle and radio systems. In the 1980s these were replaced with 90/110 diesels which had the radio electrics completely separate from the vehicle electrics. They still had a huge belt-driven 24-volt generator, but the vehicle electrics were 12-volt and differed little from civilian models. The final military Land Rover, the Wolf 300Tdi, reverted to 24-volt electrics throughout. One of the vehicles…

EVERY shake, sound and smell of my old car felt like it was giving me hypervigilance as I rolled out of my neighbourhood in my 1976 Series III about to cross the Nullarbor Plain – a flat, almost treeless, arid part of southern Australia, as part of my plan to cross the entire country. Already visualising the car on the back of a flatbed, I wondered whether the months of planning and years of dreaming, would all be shattered by one of my classic rushed oversights. I wasn’t the only mad one – a term used regularly by the doubters when I made mention of my trip – friend Brook James was joining me in a Land Rover of the same vintage. I found my perfect steed in early 2021…

FOR many years the Yorkshire Off Road Club’s first Road Taxed Vehicle (RTV) trial of the year has been at Crosshills near Skipton. Set on an open Yorkshire moor, it’s a windswept site, known for horizontal rain, mist and even snow. This year was bright and sunny, but the howling wind presented marshals with the problem of knowing if it was a car or the gale that had knocked a cane over. For the first time YORC had invited the Yorkshire Land Rover Owners Club (YLROC) to join them for the trial. First section of the day was a gentle opener with the majority of competitors clearing the section. YORC regular, Adam Ogden, in a standard Defender 90 Truck Cab, and YLROC Garry Docherty and Andy Cope, both driving ALRC-spec…

IN owning or restoring a Land Rover, we all have a need to clean parts or areas of the vehicle sooner or later, removing oil, wax, ingrained dirt and other contaminants. There are a number of processes to achieve that, either chemically or physically. But what are the different processes, and what are the strengths of each? In this occasional series, LRM looks at various methods to clean components, to help you choose what technique is right for which parts restoration. In this first feature, we look at dry ice blasting. Blast-cleaning involves a blast media being fired, using compressed air, at the surface of the part, physically shocking off contaminants, loose paint or corrosion to produce a clean surface. Dry ice blasting uses frozen carbon dioxide (CO²) pellets at-78.5°C…

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