What have you done to your DEFENDER today?

dkemm

Well-known member
replaced my rear brake drums / shoes and brake springs....twice!
Lesson learned....
1st install was great - took about 40min total....a few days later I took it out for a drive.....only to have the pedal go tot he floor.
I couldnt figure out how I could have gotten air in the lines as I only replaced shoes, but I bled them anyway - there was some air in there....but still, the pedal went to the floor.
I did some research (I should have started with that) - the top spring does NOT attach shoe to shoe, but rather pin on the she to pin on the backing plate.
So, I opened them up, attached the spring correctly - amazing how much better the brake work now!
 

Napalm00

Technical Excellence Contributor
Replaced all my vac and boost reference lines with silicone and replaced the crankcase vent hose with a new one. I blew two vac lines Ina week here in Vegas due to the heat and cheap line. The brand new Britpart vent hose expanded like a balloon. They havent returned my emails yet
 

hillstrubl

Founding Member
Replaced all my vac and boost reference lines with silicone and replaced the crankcase vent hose with a new one. I blew two vac lines Ina week here in Vegas due to the heat and cheap line. The brand new Britpart vent hose expanded like a balloon. They havent returned my emails yet
Wow, what's the ambient temp in Vegas in August? Is the rest of the cooling system keeping up? I saw your radiator post above.
 

Napalm00

Technical Excellence Contributor
Lol no it wasn't keeping up. In Any of my cars. Ambient today will be 103. It's over 100 every day for about three months.

I am doing a radiator in my Miata today and just ordered one for my 64 dart. They were all either borderline or not setup correctly.

On the defender I had the copper three row radiator, I bought it because it was heavy duty and essentially they last forever. Unfortunately with my front mount intercooler, custom grill, and RevoTech fan it just wasn't getting the job done.

Ended up repositioning my intercooler, adding foam to the RevoTech fan to seal it directly to the radiator core, replacing the copper radiator with a Chinese aluminum one, and removing my front grill. Now I can drive when it's over a hundred at highway speed at full boost without the temp gauge creeping up to 220.

My real issue in the defender is that I'm anywhere between 25 and 30 lb of boost at highway speed. This creates a ton of heat in the intercooler and I'm preheating the air above ambient by the time it actually gets to the radiator. The other downside to my setup is that I have a liquid cooled turbo and this dumps a ton of heat into the coolant path.

The Miata the car has some body damage on the front hood so we run a bra to cover it up. The bra also blocks air coming into the radiator. The stock radiator in the '99 Miata is a single core and is only about 3/4 of an inch wide. So I'm moving that to a three-row aluminum thankfully they're very inexpensive. I'll probably be removing the bra as well.

The 64 darts radiator is original and just got us by when we lived in California. I've patched it a few times and the car runs cool even without a fan shroud (factory) but I know that it'll blow up if we take it on a long trip. When I drove it here from San Jose I drove overnight to avoid daytime temperatures and it made it here without an issue. That again will probably get a new radiator and I'll build a fan shroud for it.

We also tinted the 99 Miata so the air conditioning can keep up in such a small car. I didn't expect to have to do all this work thank goodness that I can do the work myself and that the parts aren't exceedingly expensive. Thank you china.
 

LiquidMoose

Well-known member
Speaking of heat...
Driving from Blyth to Needles California last week saw 120°.
Two 7" fans on condenser and a 16" on the stock radiator; A/C did the best it could on the flats, better than nothing, on any long grade had to turn A/C off, oh well. I was amazed with a sense of relief when the temp dropped to 110°, whew!
 

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Napalm00

Technical Excellence Contributor
Speaking of heat...
Driving from Blyth to Needles California last week saw 120°.
Two 7" fans on condenser and a 16" on the stock radiator; A/C did the best it could on the flats, better than nothing, on any long grade had to turn A/C off, oh well. I was amazed with a sense of relief when the temp dropped to 110°, whew!
fuuuuuck that lol.
 

dkemm

Well-known member
replaced my rear brake drums / shoes and brake springs....twice!
Lesson learned....
1st install was great - took about 40min total....a few days later I took it out for a drive.....only to have the pedal go tot he floor.
I couldnt figure out how I could have gotten air in the lines as I only replaced shoes, but I bled them anyway - there was some air in there....but still, the pedal went to the floor.
I did some research (I should have started with that) - the top spring does NOT attach shoe to shoe, but rather pin on the she to pin on the backing plate.
So, I opened them up, attached the spring correctly - amazing how much better the brake work now!
1628782165796.png
photo borrowed from Indio22 on another forum...but this clearly shows the proper drum brake spring and trailing shoe retainer positions. I wish I had seen this when I did it the first time.
 

Frenglish

Well-known member
Today I went to the mythical (but real!) Brownchurch and picked up some roof rack goodies! Some new old stock camel style light buckets, roof rack clamps and a ladder. I’ll post more later about this experience and the wonderful chats we had about camels, defenders and brush guards. History of the company and what they do now. (They still make it all, just in batches)
BB490C39-8F14-4BCA-BEFE-A96DE0FCF473.jpeg

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Z.G

Well-known member
Today I went to the mythical (but real!) Brownchurch and picked up some roof rack goodies! Some new old stock camel style light buckets, roof rack clamps and a ladder. I’ll post more later about this experience and the wonderful chats we had about camels, defenders and brush guards. History of the company and what they do now. (They still make it all, just in batches)
View attachment 20626
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"they still make it all" is a bit of a stretch
 

Frenglish

Well-known member
"they still make it all" is a bit of a stretch
How is it a stretch? its a company thats gone from 500+ located in central London, to steve and his wife in their driveway. I was there, I talked with him. they still do it all, just not with the speed or capacitiy of years before.

I'll follow up more in the CT brushguard thread as not to clutter this thread up.
 

Angus

Well-known member
I decided that the wiring on my battery was so dodgy that I was afraid that it would become "ol' sparky" at some point. I have a winch power cable, accessory fusebox cable, and a battery charger all glommed on the terminal. All I needed was a short to turn the truck into a thermite bomb. I found a slick terminal from a company called KnuKoncepts called "Ultimate Battery Terminal" that would allow me to attach all of the required cables neatly, and provide insulation. Here is what they look like.
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The wires secure via set screws (I tinned the wires before installation). There is a side post for the original battery cable. So I went from this:
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to this for about $20 bucks.

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Here is the link to their web site: http://www.knukonceptz.com/sp/ultimate-positive-battery-terminal/
 

John Z

Well-known member
I decided that the wiring on my battery was so dodgy that I was afraid that it would become "ol' sparky" at some point. I have a winch power cable, accessory fusebox cable, and a battery charger all glommed on the terminal. All I needed was a short to turn the truck into a thermite bomb. I found a slick terminal from a company called KnuKoncepts called "Ultimate Battery Terminal" that would allow me to attach all of the required cables neatly, and provide insulation. Here is what they look like.
View attachment 20685
View attachment 20684
The wires secure via set screws (I tinned the wires before installation). There is a side post for the original battery cable. So I went from this:
View attachment 20686
to this for about $20 bucks.

View attachment 20687

Here is the link to their web site: http://www.knukonceptz.com/sp/ultimate-positive-battery-terminal/
Going to get one of these too.

Was thinking 2 positive/negative. Did you have to specify color cover? Also saw you have to add in the terminal adapter
 

Angus

Well-known member
Going to get one of these too.

Was thinking 2 positive/negative. Did you have to specify color cover? Also saw you have to add in the terminal adapter
You can order a positive or negative terminal with the correct color to match. I did add the terminal adapter to allow me to use the original battery cables. There is only 1 AWG 0 connector, so the winch went there. If you are not running a winch, then you could put the battery cable there and delete the post.
 

Ephry73

Well-known member
Removed a bad slave cylinder on a friend's 200tdi 110, couldn't get the hardline section off, couldn't source something locally, so job will continue once he acquires one.

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I also helped swap over to a set of Boosts and all-terrains. The old ones will be up for sale if anybody is interested. 4 x Disco spares steelies, 1 defender non-matching steel (I don't have the part number handy) on 5 x 265/75R16 BFG MT KM3s - not sure what he wants for them yet. Located in Philly 'burbs

View attachment 18304
I may be interested in the tires for sure. The diameter is close to the current setup I have(235/85/16) and I can keep the skinny spare on the bonnet.
 
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