Defender replacement. Got this from wikipedia. Any further developments??

New pinz is more like £70K starting price it seems, sounds more realistic. There are first-gen ones going for £7.5K now, prices seem to have dropped.

On or around Sat, 11 Mar 2006 09:11:09 +0000, Alex enlightened us thusly:

it has a better body but is still on leaf springs, albeit superior ones to the series type.

The coil-spring suspension is actually considerably better than any leafspring one including those on most of the japanese opposition... Likesay, the only beef I had with standard 110 was the seats, which lack support. Not sure if the Santana seats are better, haven't tried one - but I would buy one if I were in the market for a new LWB.

fitting decent seats to the 110 made it fine for 200 mile stretches...

I have done about 600 miles in one day int he disco, which was rather tiring... but I reckon 600 miles in a day would be tiring in any motor.

I know how you feel. A brand new dizzy for my 2.25 SWB has broken the bank at £32.

Alex

Alex uttered summat worrerz funny about:

They had a stand, or at least a UK dealer for them had a stand at Stonleigh last September. I was very impressed. I liked the larger back door as well. Much more useful than the standard Landy one. I'd certainly be giving them some serious thought if they are still pumping them out when the Laguna comes of age.

Lee D

That's the transfer box that's different, not the main box. The transfer box is the very early LT230 as fitted to early Defenders with selectable 4 wheel drive. All the parts have LR part numbers.

Defender has lost the middle seat too. The photo's don't seem show any more elbow room (not that I have a problem with that).

I'm more than happy to pay the extra for the Defender, partly for the coil springs and LT77, but also for spares - any vehicle I own gets used for what it was designed for and spares availability matters!

Richard

The salisbury diff is a four pin isn't it? which means the series three has a four-pin aswell, in the rear anyway.

Yeah, the fibreglass roof on my old landcruiser leaked like a sieve. if you parked it on the wrong angle during rain, you would end up with a small lake in the back.

Sam.

Dunno I reckon Santana are the true inheritors of the series tradition, coil springs marked the beginning of a long decline :)

Part time 4x4 is a backwards step the, Defender transmission is superb in it's design and operation. It is much more flexible and simpler than many of the other systems available.

Unless neglected the centre diff will last forever.

On or around Mon, 13 Mar 2006 10:45:09 +0000, Marc Draper enlightened us thusly:

inclined to agree - especially in heavy towing or suchlike, having all 4 wheels driving makes for less load on half-shafts and so forth.

I've certainly never had any trouble with 'em.

Especially slow speed manoeuvring in low box. No wind up at all with permanent 4WD.

Just come back from doing an event in France (glorified green laning) lots of high ratio 4WD work with lots of road work in between. With the part time series system you would be messing around with stopping then selecting low then high again just to take it out of 4WD.

I beg to differ. A centre differential is not simpler than a selectable 2x4 with a dog clutch.

In "normal" use, yes, but with serious off-road work, it's far easier in the field to change a snapped half-shaft than it is to replace the centre diff.

Alex

If you're that fussed with it, then a simple modification to the series transfer box can provide you with a lever to select 2x4 or 4x4 on the move. And you can even use 2x4 in low range, should you wish. Landrover only went with the yellow button system to retain contininuty with the old freewheel system, and to prevent people driving in 2wd in low range.

Or alternativly, you can fit self-locking freewheeling hubs to the front, which don't give you transmission wind-up in 4wd. If you can find a pair, that is......

Alex

I thought the yellow knob locks the 4wd drive in when changing into high - the object being to give the user a quick change when leaving off road from "off-road mode" to "on road mode" in normal use, but leaving the high 4wd drive option if required by using the yellow knob

- that's certainly how I use it (bit of practice wih double de-clutching required, but then that was standard at the time for most grearboxes). If it wasn't deliberate, it was a very fortunate accident.

Now I wonder why they diasappeared? ;-)

Richard

Yes I remember that conversion from the days when I had a Series III

I am not fussed about it at all as I have no intention of using a vehicle that has part time 4WD.

I was comparing the LT230 to other part time systems that are available in today's vehicles, many of which have an electronic component or two.

If that was the case then every challenge vehicle ever built would be running series transmission !!

If the centre diff is locked then it will not break before a halfshaft. A centre diff will only generally break if lots of power is put through it in an open state with one axle spinning.

A centre diff when locked is effectively one solid lump of metal and therefore has great strength.

On or around Mon, 13 Mar 2006 17:18:48 +0000 (UTC), beamendsltd enlightened us thusly:

up to a point, Lord Copper.

yellow knob, when depressed, engages the front end drive, by means of a simple dog clutch IIRC, so doing it with wheels spinning at the back is a bad move. All this in high range only. To get the thing out of 4H, you have to go into 4L, which releases it. I daresay that you can press the yellow knob down in T-box N and then engage H, but there's no special merit in that unless you're changing up from L and want to retain 4WD. If you start of in 2H, then I just press the yellow knob. declutch if you want but if the 4 wheels are turning more or less equally it's not essential.

Have to say I prefer the fulltime 4WD of the later ones. I also like the viscous diff in the Borg-Warner T-box - can't forget to engage it and it doesn't go in with a bang like the difflock. Nor does it cause wind up in normal conditions, although I imagine it does very slightly increase tyre wear.

Ahh Borg-warner now that is something that is almost guaranteed to go wrong :-)

Have done a few of the viscous couplings, expensive and unnecessary repair.

Nice idea though.

(snip) Everyone seems to have missed the main advantage of the yellow knob system. The alternative, used on the contemporary Jeep for example, was a simple lever - which you had to pull until the slipping wheels allowed the dogs to line up and engage, which could be quite a while if you are engaging four wheel drive as a precaution before getting into the bad stuff. The yellow knob releases a spring to push the dog in, so you can put your hand back on the steering wheel (or prepare to change gears for example) immediately. JD

Centre diffs tend to wear badly if subjected to repeated impact loads, such as happen when driving on corrugated roads. In some parts of the world Landrovers spend most of their life driving long distances at hhigh speed on these, and it is good practice to lock the centre diff to avoid this wear. But I think overall I still prefer this to optional four wheel drive. JD