LandRover

Had a fantastic time “off-roading” in the Lake District at the start of December (weekend of the 6th and 7th), on an organised tour with Yorkshire 4x4 Specialists, led by Russell. It was quite a long drive up from Southampton, but took turns driving with my Dad who accompanied me to share the burden. The day kicked off by throwing us in the ‘deep end’, with a very steep rocky technical road up into the mountains. The group consisted of 5 vehicles, 4 Defenders and one Discovery. There were plenty of axle twisters to leave us stranded finely balanced: ...

The lights fitted to my Land Rover were not exactly the latest word in high luminosity. In fact they probably go someway to explaining why the Lumen value of headlights is usually measured in the thousands - a scale which is perfectly suited to recording the light value of my lights in the lower numbers. To make matters worse, mine had ‘fogged’ up in a stripe pattern on the inside of their lenses: ...

Using one of the MudUK “Mud Pods” I wanted to fit a number of dials to monitor the engine. I might have gone down the road of one of the South African MadMan Monitors if I had known about its full potential, but went with a full set of Croytek VDO gauges, which comprised of: Voltmeter Boost pressure Oil Temperature Oil Pressure td5 rev counter The rev counter was fitted into the main instrument panel for ease of viewing, the other gauges shuffled along one slot and the clock moved to the Mud Pod. ...

An “Alive” Intercooler had arrived which needed to be fitted. How hard could it possible be I asked myself? On the models with air conditioning, the intercooler is sandwiched between the main engine radiator and the air conditioning radiator at the front, behind the grill. You can se it here sandwiched inbetween: Getting the old one out isn’t too hard. Undo the top slam panel… ...

Defenders are never going to offer Bentley levels of noise insulation. However since by default the td5 is somewhat close to the maximum allowable noise levels for a work place without ear protection, there is room for improvement! The kit I chose was the Exmoor Trim R380 Moulded Matting System (black) which is not exactly cheap - but had several positive reviews. The kit comprises of a thick rubbery moulded pieces for both the seat box and cabin floor section which runs over the gearbox tunnel. ...

Shortly before selling it, I painted my little Lightweight back into a millitary paint scheme, a matt Nato green.