Thread: Defender engines

I would recommend a TD5 over a 300 tdi.

A remapped(easy to do) TD5 defender on std gearing is more than fast enough in almost any conditions.
300 tdi requires more $s to get more power from it (compared to a TD5), and it will never have the same smoothness or power.
remapping can be done on any TD5, as the ECU can exchanged to a mappable(NNN) ECU if the original is an MSB type.

eg. if you have a choice of an earlier TD5 with MSB and later one with a NNN, but the cost difference between the two is say a couple of thousand, then for $500 or so you can locate an NNN ECU and retro fit it to the cheaper older TD5.
IIRC the NNN may even work out of a Disco, which are more plentiful in supply.

If budget is going to be tight, Tdi will be the cheaper version overall to keep it going when something does go wrong.

If the choice turns out to be a TD5, then as a minimum, factor in the cost of a electronics analyser tool like the nanocom, to figure out the small gremlins that it will inevitably suffer to begin with.
Once armed with accurate knowledge of what the issue is with a Td5, you won't waste any money on the required fixes(like we did).

Whatever you get, remind yourself that it will be an old car, and as such will have old car wear issues. You just won't know until you have put some klms under your own posterior with it.
And those wear items will surface from anywhere .. not just the major ticket items like turbo/fuel pump/head/gasket/ etc... that could add thousands to the cost in the short term.

as an example: A friend bought himself a TD5 defender with huge muddies on it, and some other mods that indicated that a previous owner had the notion of extreme off roading. eg. suspension is way too hard/harsh .. and so on.
But they had no clue on how to properly maintain it! They rebuilt one of the front wheel bearings utterly hopelessly! This particular model requires a shim ring to get the preload correct, not the dual nut design of most defender/D1/RRC axles.
Previous idiots rebuilt the bearing without! the spacer. So there was no way to set preload.
Poor friend driving it around, and with loud as hell muddies, couldn't hear the unhealthy bearing noise as it wore out quickly.
Turned it into a molten mess eventually. So as the subsequent buyer of a mindless previous owner he had to bear the brunt of the $1K fix to sort it properly.
So once that was sorted the next imperative was to check that the same skilless process wasn't performed on the other front axle too.(it wasn't).

Sorry I have no knowledge of Puma era vehicles, but many parts up to the TD5 are interchangeable between defenders/D1's and RRC models, so this makes certain parts more plentiful and that means usually cheaper too.

My experience with LR vehicles of old over a few years of ownership is that it will cost you approx $5-10K to sort out issues over the period of a couple of years, which then translate into mostly trouble free motoring for a few years after that initial trial and error timeline.
Happened with my RRC, and now D1, same with bro and his D2, and now with my friend and his Defender(once his 2 year trial period will come to an end! )
Soon I believe that I will go through the same process with my impending D2 project too!

Hope that helps you work out what your budget should be!

[QUOTE=AK83;3087542]

Whatever you get, remind yourself that it will be an old car, and as such will have old car wear issues. You just won't know until you have put some klms under your own posterior with it.
And those wear items will surface from anywhere .. not just the major ticket items like turbo/fuel pump/head/gasket/ etc... that could add thousands to the cost in the short term.


My experience with LR vehicles of old over a few years of ownership is that it will cost you approx $5-10K to sort out issues over the period of a couple of years, which then translate into mostly trouble free motoring for a few years after that initial trial and error timeline.