OV9

The one I acknowledged at the very outset of my previous answer?

It’s simple shit like making the the wires for the door locks long enough so they don’t snap, the wires for all the lights in the rear are exposed to all the crap coming off the wheels and could be protected in some thicker conduit. Beefing up the clutch fork and thrust bearing from the factory. Use stronger steel pins in the door hinges to stop them falling apart. Decent quality gaskets not made of cheese so it doesn’t drip oil. A galvanised chassis.

What would all of that have cost extra if done at the factory? Probably a few hundred quid and the car would have been much much better.

It's the fact that Land Rover have lost truly massive market sectors through their shitty reliability that really highlights they don't give a crap. Australia for example - they wouldn't be seen dead in Land Rover, probably predicated on the fact that at one point, a lot of them WERE seen dead in a Land Rover. It's just unfathomable to me - everyone (well, a lot of people) love Defenders - make them work properly!

Yes, blah blah if they sell who cares. See the words in this actual post for a response. They could have sold a lot more.

The new Land Rover products aren’t much better in terms of reliability are they? You buy a Range Rover because it’s plush and luxurious, not because it’s reliable

I've never understood the love for Defenders. They just seem to be useless at everything they do. You look at it and think it's a relatively spacious, utilitarian off road vehicle. But what it actually is, it's a cramped, useless rattlely box, that's held together by "fuck it, that'll do" and rust.

A 70 series Land Cruiser is far, far better. There's a reason that they're still in production - they work.

Eggfuckinzachary

Defenders are unreliable and pretty horrible to drive, that's why everyone should do it properly and get a Series land Rover. Properly horrible to drive but still somehow charming .

Spent another half day on the mk2. Often have that feeling I’ve bitten off far more than I can chew. Today I managed to lay the light loom in to place in the GTi, indicators through the wings, swapped the windscreen wipers over and started fitting up the washer fluid system. Got frustrated with the engine loom as from what I can tell most of it is redundant for me as it’s for a carb engine donor but it includes all the wiper wiring. I’m hoping that when I pick up the GTi loom that it will include the wiper wiring too.

At the rear I swapped over the central locking actuator, plastic clip broke as obviously everything is old and brittle but I reckon I’ll be able to get away with it with a bit of superglue and some fibre glassing. Also got a bit frustrated with the rear wiring harness in the boot, I couldn’t figure out how to get the heated rear screen plugs through the hatch, plug is too big for the hole and if I do squeeze it through I’m wondering how I will be able to get it back through when I transfer it over.

Started on removing the notoriously brittle headlining, I’ve undone everything that I can see but it appears that the seals on the rear side windows fit over the headlining so I’m unsure if I need to remove the rear windows to get it out. Frustration set in so I’ve left it for tonight.

ZedLeg wrote: Wed Oct 10, 2018 3:57 pm Defenders are unreliable and pretty horrible to drive, that's why everyone should do it properly and get a Series land Rover. Properly horrible to drive but still somehow charming .

This is what I find odd, you can make them pretty nice to drive - mine doesn’t tramline, rattle or have a bumpy ride and actually corners pretty well now and has adequate power. With the sound insulation, new ICE and smaller wheel it’s a nice place to be in for longer journeys and doesn’t feel cramped. But owners prefer to stick with them being compromised because character innit.
Yes mine isn’t as capable as a standard Defender off road, it will wade a whole 5cm less, and I’ve probably lost a few degrees of approach/departure angles but who gives a toss when it’s still more than capable for whatever the British countryside will throw at it.

Pretty sure the plastic cover comes off the spade connector, I tend to have a jewlers screwdriver set and use a thin flat one. If you look directly at the end of the connector there's usually a small rectangular section. Slide the screwdriver down there and it'll press a tab allowing the connector to pull out of the housing.

Are you swapping the loom out of the car or putting a new boot lid on?

If you're doing a loom swap into this boot, tie a decent length piece of string to the heated screen connector, tape the other to the inside of the bootlid near the hole. Do the same for the other side and for the main bunch of wires. Pull the wires out of the boot, untie the strings and tape them to the boot lid.

Then when you want to feed the new loom in just tie the bits to the strings and pull them back through to where they're supposed to be.

Works the same if you're swapping a donor boot on which still has a chopped off loom inside it.

I've now had the M140i for a month and managed to put on 4000 miles and loved everyone of them! It's averaged 31.6mpg so far, mainly thanks to the amount of motorway miles I do. Still loving accessibility of the performance right across the rev range and am struggling to control the urge to gun it everywhere. Had a great 2nd gear full bore start out of the barriers on the Humber bridge this week. The car just hooked up and shot me down the road. Incredibly childish but great fun! I've also had a few good x-country blasts too.

Not sure how long the MPSS's will last but hopefully the motorway miles will stretch it out a bit but at this rate new rears will be on at 3 months old With the adaptive dampers it really is a nice car to do lots of mile in being comfy and quiet but for a B road bit of fun it tightens things up nicely.

Over all I'm very, very happy with it!

Compaq got a wash. Still think it's a pretty decent looking spam charriot

Deposit placed on a new car for collection next week. Correctly configured mid-engine and RWD.

Although for some reason the insurance is unreal. I'm an old man, it's only 5k miles a year: My Elise was £300, my AMG was £400, yet my specialists are struggling to get prices below £1000

Matty wrote: Thu Oct 11, 2018 9:08 pm Deposit placed on a new car for collection next week. Correctly configured mid-engine and RWD.

Although for some reason the insurance is unreal. I'm an old man, it's only 5k miles a year: My Elise was £300, my AMG was £400, yet my specialists are struggling to get prices below £1000

Ooooooh. Is it an Evora?

New NSX (just because I saw one today)?

Matty wrote: Thu Oct 11, 2018 9:08 pm Deposit placed on a new car for collection next week. Correctly configured mid-engine and RWD.

Although for some reason the insurance is unreal. I'm an old man, it's only 5k miles a year: My Elise was £300, my AMG was £400, yet my specialists are struggling to get prices below £1000

Nice!

Based on the pic from the Forza Horizon thread, my guess is a 981 Cayman.

integrale_evo wrote: Thu Oct 11, 2018 12:53 am Compaq got a wash. Still think it's a pretty decent looking spam charriot

Agreed

What did you do to get the rear ride height down ? IIRC you've got the same coilovers that I do, and mine sits really high even at their lowest position.

My Compact update - reassembled the front and bled the brakes. I think I need to chuck it in for an MOT and see how much it fails on. If I carry on working through doing the things I want at my own pace I'll never get it on the road.

Yeah, mine looked like a hotrod at first

In the end I just took the adjusters out completely and put the rubber spring pads back ( I had removed them and modified the insides of the adjusters to sit flat on the arms ) and it sits about right.

speedingfine wrote: Thu Oct 11, 2018 9:18 pm
Ooooooh. Is it an Evora?

I shouldn't play the guessing game when I've been so vocal about my choices earlier but yes. I've just got a 600 mile round trip to collect

I did look a Caymans, quite a bit. And FTypes. But while the 981's look fantastic, I'm not convinced it's really "me". As for the FType....it'll be the V8 or nothing. And I can't afford a V8.

Twice I nearly bought an Alfa 4C. I missed out, and the prices are now +£5k on what they were 3-4 months back

The discerning gentleman's choice Matt.

(Ignoring the fact Mudge had one of course )