1996 Defender 110 "Bender"

[Corbs]

So, with the pulsar off the road for the winter, I've bought this workhorse from my father, who has had it for the last 11 or so years, so I grew up riding around in this.

It's a 110 300TDi defender.
It's an ex-special vehicles machine, was used for towing around the display trailer I am told.

It currently has (Among other things):

Allard front mount intercooler along with boost tweak and adjusted fuel pump (Drives like a completely different car)
A-Bar with spots
Light guards
Big wheels and A/T tyres
Wheel moved to bonnet
Truck cubby boxes installed in the sides
Ply lined interior
Smaller steering wheel
More things, I forget....




A few pics from the trip:
Red and green should never be seen




Northbound


Bark


Away for the winter


Hand over


Southbound

[Corbs]

One of the first jobs was to remove the completely rotten drivers side step, you can see the state of it in this photo of zombies attacking.


Blah blah blah. Update blah blah.

Changing rocker cover gasket, also changed a jubilee clip as it was a bit rank.






Gave most things a wipe down to ease the grime build up


Then I thought I'd get some practice taking things apart and investigate the bulkhead rust


Looks fixable





Replacement panel ready to go on


Then as the doors are going to have to come off, I made sure all the bolts would come undone, then gave them a wire brushing and a dab of copper grease - the welding is being done by a friend of mine, so I thought anything I can do now to make the disassembly process quicker would be good.



Other than that, still smoking from cold, but not really getting any better or worse so hey ho. Pulls like a train.
I've sealed the roof up with some blobby stuff - it no longer leaks on the drivers side but I ran out of light before I could finish the passenger, so SWMBO got a bit wet this morning - whoops!

[ianfearn]

Nice rig mate.

Been thinking about an intercooler upgrade for my 300Tdi, you reckon its worth it then???

[Corbs]

Thanks!
I am told it is a night and day difference (Having never driven a standard 300tdi) - Went for a ride with a friend whose parents have a TD5 discovery today and he was impressed with the way it picks up.
Allard fitted the intercooler, tweaked the pump and upped the boost all in one go. It was a fair few years ago, but Dad said it especially made motorway driving and overtaking easier.

[darrenh]

cool

glad the hinge bolts came out! mine snapped captive thread off the J nuts inside the bulkhead cavity, so then I had 8 loose bolts I couldnt undo and doors that wouldnt shut lol. had to use a cutting disk through the hinges in the end.

[Corbs]

Blimey that's a ballache! I am dreading the time when I have to do something like that and can't secure the car at night.

Today's fun and games...

In between fixing my girlfriend's bike, I managed to get the pesky chequerplate off the back door to investigate.


Yup, that's a big hole



I think the self tappers that held the plate in were unsealed, they were all rusty and seem to have been letting moisture in (Along with the broken down seals from the rear window) - all the steel is splitting apart from rot.
Would rather get a new door for £100 or so and swap my bits over than faff about trying to save this one, so that's something to add to the list!



It still does the job of sealing the back of the car though, so I'm in no rush.

[darrenh]

not terrible though, looks like most of it started in the handle recess. window is fairly easy, unscrew those alloy strips one at a time, scrape the dum dum off, replace with buytl roll, screw back on or if you fancy it you can ball all the dum dum up and knead it with a bit of warmth like blu-tac, roll it back into beads and reuse

[markske67]

Great looking Defender you have, the best 4x4 by far !!! Or is it me being nostalgic of my days working at a Land Rover dealer ?

[Corbs]

Cheers guys!

As always, someone has already done the thing I was thinking of, and taken pics of it, fantastic.

I want a split tailgate like this:









[/QUOTE]


As the top half is probably salvageable - most of the rust is in the bottom half. I've always wanted a split tailgate anyhow.

[Corbs]

Picked up a drop-down rear tailgate for about £40 last sunday (Thanks to Sam for riding along). Not much corrosion on it, couple of dents but looks good. Hopefully taking it down to Area 52 tonight to get the front bulkhead fixed up.

[primerapowa]

Who was the friend whose parents have a td5? :-P I was really surprised by this, had a nice pick up from low revs and did go quite well!

[Corbs]

haha! One primera owning Gloucestershire boy.

This weekend's findings:

Good: You can leave the lights on by accident all day, and it'll still start first turn of the key.

Bad: You can't do it two days in a row.

Massive thanks to James who came and bailed me out with some jump leads

[Copey]

awesome! i want one of these one day!

[Corbs]

Thanks!
Over the last month, a horrible chirping has developed when driving. Goes away with the clutch pressed in and research points towards worn UJs, so I've ordered up a pair and planning to take it to my garage this weekend to get them done as leaving them would be rather foolish. Will be a good chance to try and plan a route for budget side exit exhaust to replace the current 2 part one as well.

[mdh]

Get rid of that bloody jockanese sticker will ya?! ;-)

Have you blanked the egr yet? And tweaked the boost?

[Corbs]

I believe the EGR has been done away with, boost and fuel pump were tweaked by Allard when they installed the bigger FMIC

[Corbs]

So... took the car down to the magicians at Area 52 this weekend for some love.

Turns out the UJ was pretty foxed. Well, REALLY foxed. About half an inch of movement side to side, and had been twisting so much that it had worn down the nuts and bolts on the flange to the centre diff. I didn't have any replacements so front prop (With new UJs) is out and currently running 2WD to get about.

Investigation of the bulkhead on both sides reveals more rust than thought, so rather than waste the repair panels, the rust was ground back to metal, then the holes plated over. Should last about a year, in the meantime I can source a replacement bulkhead and get that tarted up, then swap the whole lot over. The good news is it's no longer got a big hole!

Also, the broken exhaust has had a beating with the welding stick. Centre and rear boxes have been removed and it now curls up and over the chassis leg and exits in front of the rear wheel. Sounds great! Really throaty with mmmmm turbo whistle. Rich also made me up a heatshield to protect the bottom of the plastic boxes.

Massive thanks to Bruce and Rich for their hard work in getting it into shape!

[mdh]

Hey I helped too....

[Corbs]

So, recently we dismantled the front a bit to get at the bulkhead. As usual, the rust was worse than we thought, and the decision was made to instead patch the current one up for now, and acquire, then restore a replacement bulkhead out of the car where we can get at it all much more easily. Bruce made me up some repair patches, seen here:



The top edge was gone on the passenger side, 'sealed up vent mod' was done by my father who owned the car before me.



This has gotten rid of the nasty draught inside, and looks a bit less ungainly!

Rich also made me a new exhaust using nearly all of the parts from the old one to get it up and over the chassis. Straight through side exit with no boxes, sounds great!




MoT is booked for tomorrow morning. In other news, I now have transmission oil, new front prop seal for the transfer box, new nuts and bolts for the front prop, and one of those special socket tool things to do them up with

Oh, and finally got the wipers fitted, so I can see in the rain!

[Corbs]

Note also the custom heatshield on the bottom of the storage box!