Gridgway

what happened then Dave? I was considering it, but have quite a few wheels already! Graham

if you can establish that Bilstein have them, phone up Jez Coates and ask him to give a green light for them to sell you one! It seems to work for 1 offs. GRaham

Gary, not quite according to your spec, but Steve Newman's 2001 Academy car is very nice indeed. Not in Bolton though. Might be of some use...look in the for sales. Graham

what about the superlight wheels bulk buy? GRaham

brill, thanks for turning it back on and doing a fab job running the site! Graham

I seem to have stopped getting email notifications on posts and replies. ANyone else had this? Profile seems ok, and other lesser lists are getting through! Graham

A friend has just had a total VHPD engine failure from the water pipe in the bodies. Nasty mess. Not sure of the mode of failure but the bodies had a crack, were only held on with the lower bolts (top ones sheared) and #1 had been filled up with coolant from the inlet to #1. Unfortunately he kept on going and the engine's pretty much toast. So anyone with VHPD bodies (not sure if more recent ones have a support strut like the roller barrel bodies) well worth checking the integrity. It's a big bit of kit hanging on the side of the engine and being shaken up and down. Graham

just in case anyone has the R500 button set they are from left to right... shift light intensity button stack button 1 stack button 2 stack button 4 stack button 3 Had me confused for ages! Graham

the alley box sections are used with the passenger seat. They are bolted to the seat and then they are bolted to the floor from underneath into the riv nuts. The adjusting runners bolt to the drivers seat and are then bolted to the floor with nuts and bolts (IIRC). The plastic spacers are used to space the seats from the runners/box sections with the seat angle to taste! The seats need a greater thickness of spacer in one corner for the cutaway for the adjuster leaver (memory getting hazy now)! Ithink that there are large washers to go underneath the car. I used threadlock on the bolts into the seat and prob not into the riv nuts. The passenger seat is a bar steward to fit, we needed two us. One fatty to sit in the seat to get the box sections onto the floor and lined up and the other to bolt through. That's with pre-drilled holes. If you are drilling the holes yourself, it'll be a lot easier. Hope that helps. Graham

I would ask them to do it for you (don't know the answer to the loom question). Their time costs them very little and I would say it's the least they could do! Graham

My LDS (to quote which Star Trek film?) now has a catch bottle attached to the breather to catch the excess. Graham

I got Caterham to d my SVA under slightly different circs. I paid them and it failed several times, but I only paid the fixed fee. On the grounds that it is not fixable by you, I don't know what else you could do. Graham

are you interested in selling 2 rather than a set of 4? Graham

"suggest" that Caterham do it for you as there are no user adjustable parts and therefore you cannot do it and thus your car is not fit for purpose? Graham

you should be able to get Oxted Trimming to do it. Reasonable cost from my experience. Graham

ahhh, a man after my own heart! Sorry I didn't get the details today Pierre. Will do tomorrow. Graham

it's not often I feel the need to disagree with Paul, but the TDi engine is not crap and defenders are cheaper than Disco's! However, I do agree the TD5 is a better engine and Discoverys are a more comfortable, quieter beast! My TDi defender has done 65k miles, the first 35k miles of which were in Africa (!). The only problems of note were the water pump gasket and a clutch. Oh and everything is still covered in sand! Graham

'pros' are needed when it's a compound curve. Otherwise it's quite easy to fit. Graham

Pierre, I'll get the contact details tomorrow and let you have them. Graham

The Paris plan was to get one cheaper (and 10 seats). No real probs with the TDi (I have been very pleased with mine). There are a couple of weaknesses..the head gasket does sometime blow. The chap who maitains mine suggests a change of gsaket as a service item (at 30k miles). The water pump gasket sometimes goes as well, but again not that big a job. The TD5 might be 5 cylinders of BMW diesel, could be wrong though. The friend of a friend is actually a friend of a friend of a friend...#1 is the chap who looks after mine, #2 lives in Africa and runs safaris (with Defenders) and #3 runs the dealership in Paris! Graham

You can buy LR Defenders in France. In fact I was contemplating getting one from Paris via a friend of a friend for UK use! I currently have a Defender 110 Station Wagon TDi. There is a euro spec 110 model which has 10 seats rather than the standard UK 12 seats. Good tow car, but not too fast! Graham

I have had these symptoms. It came from the plug and socket where the loom from the lights plugs into the vehicle loom at the back. Basically one connector pin was not fully home in the plastic housing. Cant actually remember if it was the male or female. Pushing it properly home into the plastic housing so it was held by the retining lug solved the problem. Hope that helps! Graham

it was suggested to me that by loosening the air-bleed fitting at the top, the oil will run out of the tank and out of the oil filter housing. Not done it myself yet! I am due an oil change so if anyone knows if that works I would be grateful! Graham

nope, not a hope. It is not bolted in as much as the FIA bar, has no cross member and has no petty strut. Graham

factory cars have not been type approved since SVA. Even when they were, only certain models (eg 1.4k) had LVTA. You will find that very few (if any) other cars were 'factory built'. Graham