What did you do on your Defender today ? (well, this week anyway)

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Originally Posted by Dervish

How'd you do that, AM?

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The panel that holds the instruments was cut to shape out off 6mm plate the holes cut with a holesaw and the recess for the gauges bored 4.5mm deep .A 55mm strip was then formed and tacked around the edge and trimmed to shape .The top ,front and bottom piece was formed with three folds and the passenger side folded at 90 deg to form the end.The drivers side is a little more complicated so a piece was made and welded in .The shape off the first panel was cut out and tacked in place. The whole lot was then welded fully dressed up and sand blasted as seen in pic.I then painted with crinkle paint but got a bit impatient and tried to install after 24 hours[bigsad] where 36 hours is needed before handling .finished up damaging the paint .Any way looked ok so decided to paint the binnacle around the steering I made for the Toyota switches last year

Noel:wheelchair:

That's such a good job it's almost upsetting.

Fitted some new headlights... cursed the previous owner!! Turned a 20 minute job into a few hours. All of the clips that hold the metal ring around the light were missing and they had sikaflexed the headlight into the ring instead.

Oh well... guess I have the most over engineered light clips ever now.

Defender HeadLights - Google Photos

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Originally Posted by mattims

Fitted some new headlights... cursed the previous owner!! Turned a 20 minute job into a few hours. All of the clips that hold the metal ring around the light were missing and they had sikaflexed the headlight into the ring instead.

Oh well... guess I have the most over engineered light clips ever now.

Defender HeadLights - Google Photos

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At the risk of getting off topic, reminds me of cases I have come across where the previous maintainer of a piece of machinery clearly has as his favourite tool an electric welder. Bolt missing, damaged keyway, loose rivet, leaking pipe joint, spline worn - never mind, weld it!

Not on, but with. Drove to Molong to pick up some grandchildren from my son who was driving up in a D2 to meet me. Got three girls and two dogs and brought them home.

Traffic was unusually heavy, but pretty well behaved (double demerits?). Saw a few Discoverys of various age, none returned my wave. One Defender, who did return my wave (actually I think he started first!). Saw one police car, going the other way, but there were said to be a lot of unmarked cars about..

No incidents or issues, except partof a road I don't use that often is getting badly corrugated, and there is a noise, which, if it wasn't something inside, I need to check. County is running well.

I've actually found a bit of time recently to do some work on my own car, some necessary and some for improvement or modification.

• Found a hairline crack in the head on my County Isuzu, so fitted a brand new head and gasket.
• Made some rear spring spacers, similar to the Gwyn Lewis ones. 25mm
• Made some drop down shock mounts to match the shocks to the addition of the spring spacers.
• Made some heavy duty track rod protectors and got them galvanised.
• Had some hazard switch panels laser cut from stainless steel.
• Fabricated an all steel dash and inner mount.

I just wish I had time to make all the other little things that are in my head. [smilebigeye]

Spring spacers, head and gasket.

Noticed that the engine seemed to be down on power and was missing. Initially thought that it was a oil in wiring issue. Cleaned the electrical plugs and reassembled. Started up and it did not appear to have made a difference. Went for a test drive and engine developed a loud intermittent clatter that was not engine speed dependent.

Long story short bit the bullet and removed the rocker cover. The attached images show what I found. The noise turned out to be the injector rocker hitting the rocker cover. Spring has fractured and other components then failed. No other apparent damage other than the injector adjusting screw. I have located all the remains of the components and have fished extensively with a magnet for any remaining metallic debris. Next step to conduct an oil and filter change then track down a replacement black top injector, and bits to fit it and a replacement adjusting screw.




Attachment 144828Attachment 144829Attachment 144830Attachment 144831

In order to free up some dollars for other (more necessary) things, I decided to part with my beloved Rijidij bull bar. I removed it for later sale, and today I re-fitted my original defender bumper.

I decided, despite not really loving the look, to mount the driving lights to the defender bumper. I ended up putting them immediately below the headlights, which I suppose is a bit different, but it made it easier for me to reach everything during installation. (There is a support bracket welded into the bumper on each side of the mounting bolt holes, and I had to ensure enough space on the inside of the bar for the driving light mounting bolts and a decent diameter flat washers to help brace it all up).

Please excuse my poor photography with my aging and very dirty iPhone camera...

Cheers,
Nige

Install new brake pads all around....
Previously was using RDA extreme 4wd pads...the brake pedal felt woody and braking mediocre (bad)

Put in new brembo pads and much better.
Although I still can not lock the wheels/abs lights on on bitumen. Maybe it's because running bigger tyres 255 85....

Was able to do that with factory tyre and pads (Continental contact 235 85 16)