Detailed workshop manuals, better than the standard ones?

Hello all, I have the Landrover Defender workshop and parts manuals as both printed versions and PDFs, but find them to be rather lacking in detail. I have an old Lotus project car in the garage that has workshop manuals that quite frankly put the Landrover one to shame in a major way. The Lotus ones were so good that I tackled a complete rebuild of a fairly complicated engine with confidence despite it being my first ever major car project, never having known in detail how an engine worked before. I wouldn't have felt happy making my Defender engine the subject of my first engine rebuild given only the detail in the Landrover manual.

The manual I have is publication number LRL0097ENG, is this as good as it gets for the Defender or is there a better, more detailed one that I can buy?

TIA!

Reply to
Ian Rawlings
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Series manuals (1&2 in particular) are much better than the 90/110 and Defender ones. I think it is that after the Series Landrovers they decided that only professional mechanics would be working on them. The main reason for this is to avoid liability I suspect. JD

Reply to
JD

Possibly, although if that's the case then Lotus have gone the other way, I've not seen the Elise manuals but for my ancient Esprit pile-o-parts the manuals for that are both still available despite it being 16 or so years old and are far more detailed than earlier models. If landrover have decided to go in the opposite direction that's a shame. The type 920 engine in the plastic rocket is far more complex than the 300TDi non-ECU engine in my landy but the manuals from Lotus are excellent and make the whole thing easy to understand despite the ECU, turbo, chargecooler, vacuum control system etc etc.

I've got gearbox overhaul manuals for the Defender, but no engine overhaul manuals, does such a thing exist? It's even quite hard to track down electrical manuals for mine (1994 110 300TDi) as the only ones I've found are for the ECU-equipped Defender, although the differences appear to only really affect emissions control.

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

I'd hazard a guess that the post-Series manuals are written by jobbing Technical Authors, whereas the Series manuals were most likely written by long-term Rover employees who had a good understanding themeselves of the subject matter. Some compaies still insist that the manual writers actually do the task being written about rather that rely on second-hand info, I'd hazard a guess thar LR isn't one of them.

The same goes for the parts books - the old ones are true assembly drawings, whereas the current ones can only really be said to be sketches - See the Defender Td5 cooling system for some very confusing sketches as an example.

Richard

Reply to
beamendsltd

I think part of the reason why the LR manuals are not so detailed is that they are written as working reminders for mechanics who have already been on the courses provided for franchised dealerships. Unless I'm mistaken, Lotus never had an extensive dealership network and so the cars were more likely to be worked on by your average Joe. Plus with Lotus' lack of finance they probably couldn't justify the cost of technical authors write the manuals so got staff members to do it. As with the early Series LR manuals you then end up with excellent books written by enthusiasts.

Try to get hold of an Army EMER (Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Regulation) for the Defender - they're excellent ... but rarer than hen's teeth.

Reply to
SteveG

Hmm, does anyone have one of these that I can perhaps bring into contact with my sheet-fed duplex scanner so this situation can be partially rectified? Or anyone know where I can get a printed copy from? I'll have a search on the net tomorrow to try and locate some sources but if they're stored next to the rocking horse droppings then even google won't get that far.

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

Ive got publication number SLR621ENWH which is a ringbound ninety/one ten workshop manual. Seems alright, but im comparing it to haynes manuals! How good is your scanner? This is an inch or 2 thick.

Reply to
Tom Woods

Is it any better than the standard landrover manual though? The description seems to match the one I already have although that's no real guide. Just about anything's better than the Haynes manuals! How many pages does it have, and can you get some shots of some pages by scanning them or taking some shots with a digital camera?

I've just found publication "LRL 0070ENG" as a PDF, a 300TDi overhaul manual, looks interesting.

Well it made short work of 3 inches of Lotus double-sided manual, it takes a while but I scanned it in section by section, took almost a whole day but I was working while it continued in the background on another computer, then when I'd noticed it stopped I'd put the next section in.

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

Any idea where I'd find such a thing for sale?

heh - so far as I can see (from the Haynes site) there isn't even a H-Bol for mine (110 V8 on a 'K') - I have a copy of the diesel haynes but of course that is of limited value.

Reply to
William Tasso

This is the 2.5diesel timing belt section that i scanned in for someone else:

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Its a proper landrover book. It is in a grey ring folder. Says 'Workshop manual Ninety One Ten'

In one corner at the front above a black, white and green drawing of a ninety.

I'm not sure how many pages it has as they aint numbered consequtively

- each section starts from 1 again. Its about an inch or two of paper though. The table of contents at the front says it has 5 parts. Each part is then split into further sections (not necessarily with consecutive numbers again too!)

I'll snap a few more pics later.

Reply to
Tom Woods

50p from a charity shop! :) (I'm not joking!)
Reply to
Tom Woods

On or around Wed, 04 Jan 2006 23:42:07 -0000, "William Tasso" enlightened us thusly:

I found the range rover book good for the V8 bit.

That site in Estonia has a lot of the manuals in PDF.

Reply to
Austin Shackles

I've put out some feelers amongst my old TA comrades but it's quite possible they're still classified documents. One downside would be the engine - the poor old military never saw the 200Tdi and the 300 only came with the current Wolf.

I'll keep the group posted with any progress.

Maybe someone in EMVA has some? Wayne?

Reply to
SteveG

Well I do have security clearance and the required "need to know" ;-)

Hmm, that would be a PITA if no 300TDi.

Excellent, thanks!

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

LR produced several detailed manuals some of which turn up on ebay, also my local non franchised parts supplier has cd's for each vehicle produced by LR; the one for RR classic has 2 parts manuals, 3 service manuals, 2 elecy trouble shooting,and 2 owners handbooks. and I expect the RAVE cd's have it all if you can find a copy.

Anyway there definitely exist engine overhaul manuals for 300 TDI and V8, overhaul manuals for r380 gearbox and transfer boxes LT230Q &LT230T, and defender elecy manuals: Some years ago when all else failed (including main dealers) Land Rover Enthusiast bookshop got me a copy of the RR leccy troubleshooting manual, it was a lot of money mind.

Also some of the suppliments in the back of the series3 cover the same equipment, eg as I have just been looking the LT230T transfer box. Series III manuals were up on the web somewhere.

Reply to
Warwick Barnes

Did you check on Austin's suggestion of the Estonian site?

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.... or were you wanting more than the engine.

Reply to
Dougal

On or around Fri, 06 Jan 2006 15:58:45 +0000, Dougal enlightened us thusly:

ah, well done. I can never remember it.

Reply to
Austin Shackles

Cheers, I've got that one already, I'll post a reminder to myself to check out the other files on the site though when I'm near a computer with a decent display.

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

Getting a Defender electrical manual has never been a problem, getting one that matches my vehicle, a 1994 Defender 110 hardtop, has been harder. All the ones I've seen so far have bits mixed into the diagrams that mine just doesn't have, e.g ECU. The electrical diagams I have, both printed and PDF, refer to either later or much earlier vehicles.

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

On or around Fri, 6 Jan 2006 18:49:16 +0000, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:

I never need to remember it 'cos I downloaded most of them when I first found it.

Reply to
Austin Shackles

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