Thread: A few lessons learnt.

Originally Posted by PAT303

If you think a Patrol will be better buy one,I wouldn't jump any dunes in it though,unless you want to change the chassis as well as the tailshaft. Pat

Was waiting for this to appear. Have heard of a semi-gov fleet with twisted chassis probs in less than 40,000 k's.

Originally Posted by Disco44

My thoughts exactly Pat.I don't think that there would be a vehicle made that would take the punishment meted out to the Defender.To complain about the twisted propshaft to me is ludicrous ...look what he was trying to do....Rant Over.

Don't get me wrong, I don't complain about self inflicted breakages, I drive the poor old girl hard and expect to bust a few things along the way. No vehicle that gets used hard in the desert here survives un-scathed, it just goes with the territory.

Some of the things on the list were not self inflicted and failed under their own accord.

With out doubt the patrol is the vehicle that comes out best on average, 100 series cruisers, prados etc are OK but break just like the rest, the patrol and 80 series are held with pretty high regard here. Defenders are only used by a handful of people here as their lack of a decent sized engine and good aircon scare most people off.

The defender is as good as it gets chassis and suspension wise, they can take some hard hits and come through without to many problems at all. The good clearance angle especially on the front are great as you can carry a lot more speed into a lot of situations than you can in vehicles such as the patrol which have quite a bit of overhang, this speed advantage is what helps even things out in the dunes, with what you lack in power I can make up with extra speed and momentun I can carry into a climb.

Originally Posted by Dougal

You poor bugger.

But one note, your cylinder wear is due to dust and dirt. I've been there with an air cleaner that didn't seal on my Isuzu. By the time you see anything on the downstream side of the filter, you need to start planning a rebuild.

I suggest a restriction guage on the filter housing so you know when to change it. Changing it too early is pointless and gives more chance of a new element not sealing. Changing it too late can mean the filter element gets damaged and debris gets sucked through.
Your new pre-cleaner is an excellent idea.

You could be right here mate, it maybe a culmination of high EGT, wear due to dust and sand as well as fair wear and tear after being driven harder than it was probably designed to take on a regular basis.

With the excessive (or anyhow) blow-by why not fit a Man & Hamel unit with a catch can and breating to the air with a small filter. This stops the hot oily air "ever" getting into your nice new intercooler.

And if it had been fitted originally you would have picked up the leaking injector seal as the fuel would have filled the catch can and or poured out the vent pipe. And you wouldn't have had the engine over run?

Also going forward the catch can will give you an idea of how much blow-by you're getting.

Just my non technecial comment

Col
Did the Detroit in the Salisbury break when the axles went?

Originally Posted by scott oz

With the excessive (or anyhow) blow-by why not fit a Man & Hamel unit with a catch can and breating to the air with a small filter. This stops the hot oily air "ever" getting into your nice new intercooler.

Not a bad idea mate, never really thought of it, I'll look into it.

Thanks for the idea.

Originally Posted by djam1

Col
Did the Detroit in the Salisbury break when the axles went?

No mate, the detroit locker didn't bat an eye lid.

They are bloody strong and not much to them when you em in the flesh. I brought the locker second hand in the UK about 7ish years ago then fitted it to my previous 110 which was a 1990 200tdi ex Camel Trophy vehicle. I had it in there for about 2 years before removing it again then fitting it to my current 110. It is fantastic for the sand as it is fit and forget and just works as advertised.

I think I broke my 1st shaft playing on volcanic rock in southern Oman without realising it, then drove it for several month like this until the other shaft let go on whilst playing on loose rocks and had no drive to the rear wheels. When got back home I dropped the rear cover plate off the diff to get the broken stubs out, changed the oil, fitted new shafts and it has been going strong for the last 2 or so years since.

The locker has been in at least 3 different vehicles and done at least 150 000 kms. Now I like to hear it clunk around every week or so just to let me know both rear shafts are still intact.

Here's a picture of the 2 broken shafts after they were removed, nice clean breaks.



Here's a picture of the front diff after it let go, you can see the elongated holes in the carrier where the cross pins goes. This broke early on before I did much hard off roading with it. It's a shame they are so tight and didn't fit 4 pin diffs to the front as standard instead of these crappy 2 pin ones.

CDR's Photos : Off Road | SmugMug

Here's a link to some of my photo's taken during some of the various trips I have done since I've been here.

I rarely take many photo's now unless it is to somewhere different or something unusual happens as, one bit of desert to the next can look pretty similar when you have been out there a few times.

G'day all, for 6 long months my 110 has been off the road for yet another engine rebuild. After the previous dramas mentioned regarding the idiots who rebuilt my engine late last year there is more to follow in the saga. Whilst in the desert a bit before Easter I ran into an overheating problem which I have never encounter before, my engine temp had been reading normal but I blew the bottom hose off the radiator. After a good look around we could find no obvious problems gradually filled the rad again and kept driving. At this time we were deep into the desert & 50km from the nearest road. The engine kept over heating every few kms but was not using any water. After several hours I was able to limp out of the desert to a sand track where we were able to tow the vehicle out to the main road. What had transpirred was that during the engine rebuild the plonkers who rebuilt the engine did NOT torque up the balancer bolt in the crank to 340ft/lb but just used a 1/2 rattle gun. The balancer was spinning on the crank, at idle everything looked OK, but off idle with the balancer slipping on the crank the water pump was failing to turn sufficiently enough to keep the engine cool.

After getting my 110 back home on the back of a recovery truck I started the strip down & found the problem, once the drive belt tension was removed you could wobble the balancer approx 1/2 from side to side & spin it on the crank. The balancer had most of the wear but the crank was also worn & had chucks missing out of it, I tried another balancer on the crank but the wear was to much so I was faced with another complete rebuild to replace the crank only 4000kms after the last rebuild. Due to the plonkers making a complete balls up of the last rebuild I did the job myself this time around. It was lucky I stripped it down as they had also stuffed up the cam timing and there were valve marks in the pistons. The bores of 3 cylinders wer glazed & I am guessing it was due to the deisel which was in the oil during the initial start up so I was faced with boring the engine & fitting OS pistons.

Another crank & balancer, new OS pistons, correct cam timing and all is sweet again, the rebuild took much longer than planned but at least this time around doing it myslef I know everything was done correctly. I have questioned the ******* who rebuild it last time & they have admitted to not using a torque wrench on the balancer bolt or using a DTI to find TDC on #1 but instead used a mark on the fly wheel to time the engine by. In principle they have verbally agreed to cover the costs related all parts required for the rebuild. They had a second hand crank & balancer which they gave me to replace the damaged items removed. Now that it is back on the road & running well again with the first 300km on the clock, its time to see how much they are willing to pay due to their negligence & stuff ups. One further issue I found during the strip down was that they had not loctited the oil pump drive bolt as was requested, so that might have also worked loose over time causing worse damge than already inflicted.