Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2023 i Land Rover Monthly

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‘‘I’VE got a serious thing for these early coilers. My dad used to take me to school in a Trident Green Ninety, so I’ve been around them a long time and I absolutely love them. In fact, since taking on this Ninety, I’ve gone and bought my own C-reg station wagon in the same colour as a project,’’ laughs Ed Harvey, Service Manager at Jaguar Land Rover Classic, his enthusiasm infectious. Walking around Jaguar Land Rover Classic’s immaculate Ryton showroom, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the workshop side of the business only deals with massive budget full restorations of 80in Series Is and Jaguar E-Types. But that’s not the case, as Ed is keen to explain. He leads me into a room with a single four-post ramp in it.…

• PROTOTYPE (built 1978): Based on a second-hand Series III 2.25-litre diesel. Later re-engined with a V8. Exhibited at BAEE June 1978, then participated in a three-month MoD overseas sales tour. Believed scrapped. • P1 (1979): LBCAV1AA 100058 Delivered February 1979. Limestone. RHD. Testing at MIRA. Cold weather testing in Norway. Hot weather testing in Libya and Tunisia. Mine-layer and cannon trials. Fate unknown, but possibly remained in Libya after a sales tour. • P2 (1979): LBCAV1AA 100057 Delivered February 1979. Limestone. RHD. Sales tours of Kenya and Nigeria. Land Rover assessment and demonstration vehicle. Loaned to the Dunsfold Collection in 1988. Acquired from Laird in 1989 by P A Blanchard & Co Ltd. Peter Blanchard secured its registration with the DVLA as RKH 493T 06.1991. Owned by Peter Blanchard,…

1987 RANGE ROVER CLASSIC Mileage: 102,597 Power: 165bhp Torque: 206lb ft MPG: 16 AMONGST my fleet of Range Rover Classics, I have a 1987 D-reg 3.5 EFI auto; I have written about this vehicle before so I will try not to repeat myself on the back story. To refresh your memories, I used to get taken to school in a silver D-reg Range Rover, and to cut a long story short, I found it again in 2017. I bought it and was driving it for the rest of that year, until I started to assess what needed doing for its next MoT. I had paid quite a lot for it at the time, and before making the purchase I was told on the phone it was solid throughout. It was…

NEED TO KNOW TIME: 4 hours (to fit both sides) COST: £1380.98 (see below) DIFFICULTY: MODELS: Defender 110 station wagon, 110 double cab, 130 double cab. TOOLS NEEDED: General workshop tools, trolley jack, drill, impact wrench, riveting tool. PARTS & COSTS: Left-hand sill, B-post and C-post assembly, galvanised, £660.66; right-hand sill, B-post and C-post assembly, galvanised, £660.66; set of four door latch striker plates, stainless steel, £24.86; two sets fixing kit, stainless steel, £34.80 .WORK SAFELY: Disconnect the battery before work begins (earth lead first). Wear eye protection when drilling and working with flaking metal components. Wear tough gloves and eye and face protection when using an angle grinder. Be aware of how aggressively the grinder can twist and kick back in your hands. Wear safety boots and gloves. CONTACTS:…

NEED TO KNOW TIME: Variable COST: See below DIFFICULTY: MODELS: All Land Rovers. TOOLS: Basic workshop tools. PARTS AND COSTS: Much of this work costs very little, but shop around for materials and professional help. WORK SAFELY: See our safety tips on LRM Technical intro page. WE’RE currently in a cost of living crisis affecting the majority of the UK and beyond. Land Rovers have never been a cheap car to run, but against a background of a financial squeeze, 10 per cent inflation and record fuel prices, it isn’t an easy time to own an example of Solihull’s finest. Four factors affect our running costs and fuel bills: usage, maintenance, the vehicle’s rolling resistance and aerodynamics. Let’s work through what we can do about these and, as an example,…

THE British Motor Museum is inviting visitors to take a journey down memory lane when it hosts the Classic and Vintage Commercial Show on 10-11 June. The event offers visitors a fascinating insight into automotive history and a rare opportunity to reminisce and relive the vintage era by seeing hundreds of pre-2003 commercial vehicles. As one of the largest shows of its kind in Europe, it features a varied display of trucks, vans and pick-ups, and we’re pretty confident there will be a fair representation from the green oval. There is also an indoor model show with over 160 tables of models on display, plus a large commercial autojumble selling spares, photos, brochures, models, and many other items associated with vintage commercial vehicles – perfect for any restorers looking to…

MIDLANDS-based independent 4x4 specialist and expedition equipment supplier, APB Trading Ltd, is opening for its first and only Saturday of the year, allowing customers to view its extensive range of vehicle accessories. APB Trading is the sole UK importer for several South African companies and the idea of the open day is to demonstrate what makes their products so suitable for anyone planning an overland adventure. Brands on display include Bushwakka (off-road camper trailers), Eezi-Awn K9 (pioneer of the roof tent), National Luna (travel refrigeration expert), as well as Escape Gear (canvas seat covers), Bushtech (heavy load canopy tops), Campmor (canvas ground tents) and Gstove (camping stoves and other outdoor living accessories). Display and customer vehicles will be on show to allow potential customers a hands-on practical demonstration of the…

SUB-ASSEMBLED TUBS PRICE: From £3552 CONTACT: defenderreartubsltd.com DEFENDER Rear Tubs is now offering its brand-new tubs in semi-assembled form, for easier transportation and at a lower price point than the fully-built units. Supplied flat-packed in nine main parts and seven stiffening braces, the tubs come complete with clear instructions and markings to help the home builder put them together easily and accurately. BILLET TAIL DOOR HINGES PRICE: £336 CONTACT: exmoortrim.co.uk NEW from Exmoor’s billet aluminium range are these Defender tail door hinges. The set of three hinges features 10mm stainless steel pivot pins that move inside self-lubricating bushings for smoothness and longevity, and the hinge kit comes with new rubber gaskets, high quality security fixings and a fitting tool. DEFENDER BULKHEADS PRICE: £1920 CONTACT: richardschassis.co.uk AVAILABLE in either E-coat or…

When Brit Jack Dobson emigrated to Australia in 2010 he took his passion for Land Rovers along with him IT has been blisteringly hot this couple of weeks, with temperatures in my workshop in excess of 40 degrees Celsius. So, to those of you in the UK wishing you didn’t have to break through the permafrost to work on your Land Rovers (as I also did once upon a time ago), do be careful what you wish for. I would honestly rather be cold than sweltering. Still, it’s not all bad. Paint dries quickly, though in some cases mid-flight, before it even reaches the intended target. There’s lots of talk about Cooma over here (the Land Rover 75th event) and recently someone, comparatively new to Land Rover ownership, asked Facebook,…

CAMPING is brilliant, isn’t it? There are few things better than getting away from the daily grind and into the great outdoors, be it for a night, long weekend or, if you’re really lucky, longer. Fresh air, freedom, good food and a phone that’s either got no signal or is switched off completely all add up to help us reset. And fewer vehicles lend themselves better to outdoor living than Land Rovers, right? Well, yes and no. Like most things, going camping with a vehicle has good and bad points, and you often have to make choices that end up with the solution that works as best as possible for you, but is still far from ideal. A good example of this is the roof tent. Rooftop tents have exploded…

WITH a milestone birthday fast approaching, Philip James Russell suddenly found himself pondering not just the past, but also the future: was 79 the right age to start planning an overlanding rematch, some 50 years after his last adventure? More on that later; for now let’s start at the beginning. Born in September 1943, Philip Russell had an unusual ambition as a child – he didn’t dream of becoming a firefighter, astronaut or stunt man, instead he was dead set on being a maths teacher and duly ended up studying for a mathematics and physics degree. It was whilst at university in Liverpool that Philip was introduced to Land Rover ownership with the keys to an 88in Series II fitted with a hard top. For reasons he could never fathom,…

BACK THEN Land Rovers with independent suspension were new – the Freelander had only been surging into dealerships for a few months – air suspension was still scary, and the Td5, Land Rover’s best engine ever(?), was yet to be seen in a production vehicle. And although a lot has changed since 1998, some things are reassuringly the same. Our first issue included a report about the ARC International, held at Eastnor Castle, Land Rover’s proving ground, and some events were organised by the Wye and Welsh Land Rover Club – who are organising this year’s ALRC National Rally in Ebbw Vale at the end of May. And we had a real variety of content – something for everyone, which is what we still aim to do today. Looking back,…

WELL, the time has come to reduce the fleet of Land Rovers and sadly it’s the Freelander that’s been moved on. So, for the first time in 20 years we are without a Freelander, and the number of Land Rovers in the family is now down to three. Our first Freelander was a 2002 GS Td4, and apart from a few problems with window regulator cables rotting through and a faulty fuel pump, it really didn’t have any problems in the almost 100,000 miles we owned it for. The second Freelander was a 2007 Freelander 2 XS Td4 – again, it was without any major problems during the time and 85,000 miles we owned and enjoyed it for. The Freelander I’m now waving goodbye to, our third, is a 2013…

SEND YOUR LETTERS TO MARTIN@LRM.CO.UK A missing mule Do you think your readers could help me track down our old family Lightweight? The photo shows how it was back in the ’90s. It was known as Muffin the Mule and was even signwritten as this on the bonnet. Might anyone know where Muffin is now? Alistair Sommerville MARTIN REPLIES: Does anyone know where Muffin might have ended up? If you do, let me know and I’ll put Alistair in touch. Is 3D printing the answer? I read with interest David Smith’s letter regarding tracking down some light guards for his Freelander 2. Is this not a good opportunity for 3D laser printing? I had a small plastic item quoted at £10 recently and I have found a company in Colchester,…

Tom Barnard is an author, veteran motoring journalist and LRM’s market guru WHEN most people have a spare moment they will reach for their phone and play Kandy Birds or some other time-wasting game. I look at the auction websites and peer at old Land Rovers. Recently the BCA ‘Budget’ sales have been awash with so much interesting fodder that I’ve struggled to keep up. It seems that the expansion of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) in London is really starting to bite and owners are being forced into selling cars which have been cherished for the past two decades. They’ve traded them in for something compliant and the dealers have been off-loading transporter loads of 1990s and 2000s cars into the auction halls surrounding London. To make the…

LAST month, we described the Land Rover Centaur that was developed in the late 1970s by Laird (Anglesey) Limited as a speculative private venture. Laird thought it had identified a gap in the market and was prepared to invest heavily to create a concept vehicle and at least six pre-production vehicles, as well as fund a series of overseas sales tours and demonstrations to potential purchasers. The example we introduced last month is now in the care of the Dunsfold Collection, on loan from the Tank Museum at Bovington. It is a unique example because its Land Rover front end comes from a One Ten. As related last month, all six pre-production examples were built using Stage I V8 front ends. Whether Dunsfold’s One Ten Centaur was a seventh pre-pro…

UNLESS you live on the Isle of Wight, you’ve probably never heard of Zig Zag Road in Ventnor. As the name suggests it’s a series of S-bends – roughly 1.2 miles long with an average gradient of 9.1 per cent. Admittedly not the steepest, but when you’re an eight-year-old in the back of a car which starts to lose grip and slides backwards on black ice, it feels more than steep enough – especially with a sheer drop on one side. That lived with me until I started driving aged 20 – I was, to say the least, not keen on hills. A few years on, having climbed the ranks of motoring journalism, I was invited to a female-only off-road experience using a variety of 4x4s – including the then…

WHETHER you like pointing your Land Rover at far-flung horizons as regularly as possible or enjoy the simple pleasure of a Sunday tip run, there’s a lot to be said for adding a roof rack. In the instance of the former, it gives a sturdy base to mount a rooftop tent and awning as well as things like an extra spare wheel, jerrycans, jack and any other pieces of expedition kit there may not be space for inside the Land Rover. In the case of the latter, it means you can strap bulky, messy objects to the roof without getting the interior all mucky and smelly. Once upon a time a roof rack would knock 20 per cent off your fuel economy and whistle like a boiling kettle at anything…

NEED TO KNOW TIME: 1 hour DIFFICULTY:  MODELS: Plug and play kit for TDCi-engined Defenders, but the basic principle is the same for any Land Rover model with a cigar lighter – Range Rover EFI, Discovery 1, 2, 3 and 4, Range Rover Sport, Freelander 1 and 2, Range Rover L322. TOOLS NEEDED: Screwdrivers, trim tool, drill for secondary USB. PARTS USED: From Mobile Centre: USB standalone plug and play USB A & C socket (as fitted, with plug and play connectors for Defender fitment), 407DUSB4, £33.60. Conversion kit with bare ends, for adapting to almost any vehicle, 68USBPANL301, £33.60. Splitter/Y adaptor, 407DCIG1, £14.40. Two-way cigar extension lead 500mm long, 407DGIG2, £12.96. WORK SAFELY: Use the right tool for the right job. Always be fire safe in the workshop. Never…

When did you start the project? I started the project in April 2021, but this was a false start due to health reasons. Essentially, I was given 12 hours to live due to sepsis, so once I was thankfully over that, I started the build in earnest in October 2022. What made you want to build the Land Rover? I am a self-confessed Land Rover nerd. I have three Land Rovers at present; a 2013 Defender XS called Peter, a 1971 series IIA called Henry, and a Land Rover camper trailer project called Baby Henry. I wanted to finish the Henry set, so the idea of a half-sized Land Rover was hatched, and Henry Junior was born. Did you build it from plans? Originally I was going to build a bespoke Toylander,…