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Hello all,
Just moved to the Kintyre peninsula in west Scotland with my family - where we are living two miles into a 10 mile forestry track full of deep potholes and sharp stones.
Something I must have said has at some point turned 15 year old daughter no.1 into a total Landy enthusiast... Anyway, after the first two punctures on the forest road (in our 2L turbo Seat Ateca - which does at least have AWD), we realised we were just going to kill the road car...
I didn't take much persuasion - and very quickly became the proud owner of a green 1996 Defender 90 300tdi...
This forum came in handy well before picking it up - I rang the current car insurer, and one of their team put the Defender details into their system for a quote - and started laughing... The age of the vehicle, the classification as a van, and the modifications (I'd had sliding windows and four flip-down seats put in the rear before we collected) were all red-flags for the system at Churchill...
The forum deal with Adrian Flux sorted the insurance - very grateful to find information here quickly... Hoping the £460 premium will lower as I build a no-claims on the 2nd vehicle...
We drove 200 miles over to Perth to collect the new vehicle last weekend. As we are so remote here, we had (crazily) not been able to view/ test drive it before buying/ modifying - but had seen a number of photos. The garage had fitted a new chassis to the vehicle back in 2021, so they had some confidence in the mechanics! I - of course - had little idea what I was looking at... It passed an MOT after 4 years of SORN with no problems.
We weren't disappointed at collection - she's in good condition for £15K including the mods. An amount of rust in the (apparently) usual places - doors and (disappointingly) the bulkhead on the driver's side - but nothing requiring immediate attention... I'm told the bulkhead has a number of years left in it - but it, and the doors, will eventually need dealing with.
We drove back in convoy - via Costco in Glasgow to stock up on all sorts of things - and fill up both vehicles & jerry-cans. Staggered at how cheap their fuel is...
The better half doesn't drive much, and was not confident in a long drive, particularly with the motorway race track around Glasgow. She hadn't driven a manual car for 25 years, and was furious that others had decided what the new vehicle would be...
Anyway - 1 mile out from the garage, I lost drive, and was initially unsure why... I played with the transmission lever - knowing little about it - and managed to engage the diff-lock and panicked... Called the garage, who apologised for not realising just how much of a novice I was... It seems the transmission had jumped out of high range. Released the diff-lock, and we were away again. After successfully coping with Costco, we were on the motorway just past Glasgow Airport - and Daughter no1 and I were attempting to get the headlights on, the stress of the day having stopped us from thinking about such basics... Playing with the stalks - on the motorway - caused not only the passenger wiper to fall off onto the bonnet - but also the wiper stalk to fall out and go floppy. We pulled the convoy over onto the hard shoulder, retrieved the wiper, stuck the stalk back in and headed off again
The only other concern was a whine from the front when approaching 50. I think we hit 62 on the motorway at one point - but the rest of the journey was below the van limit of 50 on the smaller roads. We were by this point late in the evening, driving down Loch Fyne in the dark - and then negotiating the windy single track B-road to Carradale in complete darkness. The last couple of miles on the forest track were bumpy - but stress free, due to the large tyres (Mikey Thompson Baja MT). We pulled into the drive gone 11:30pm, feeling we had well and truly joined the Landy club...
The next day, I was told by a friend here that yes, the wipers do fall off - and that the whine is just the front diff, and I should slow down.
The crazy thing is that we later realised the front number-plate has a garage postcode from 20 miles up-the-road in Tarbert - which would explain the rust! Kintyre has all the weather for the UK (beautiful in the rain, and stunning in the sun), and vehicles come here to die... Everything rusts... Well, this one escaped for a while, but is back, and will be staying with us for some time
The better half came out with me and drove into the village and back - and having absolutely dreaded it, then confessed to our girls that she LOVED it... Phew!
I'm now realising how easy it is to find parts, and how amazing the online communities are.
New (better) wiper wheel boxes, spline adapters, stalk switches will all shortly be on order - I'll fit these at the same time I try to free up the heating sliders, which are stuck solid on hot! Limited slip diffs and hydraulic winch will be future projects...
Couldn't do any of this without the info available on these forums - so thank you!!!
Just moved to the Kintyre peninsula in west Scotland with my family - where we are living two miles into a 10 mile forestry track full of deep potholes and sharp stones.
Something I must have said has at some point turned 15 year old daughter no.1 into a total Landy enthusiast... Anyway, after the first two punctures on the forest road (in our 2L turbo Seat Ateca - which does at least have AWD), we realised we were just going to kill the road car...
I didn't take much persuasion - and very quickly became the proud owner of a green 1996 Defender 90 300tdi...
This forum came in handy well before picking it up - I rang the current car insurer, and one of their team put the Defender details into their system for a quote - and started laughing... The age of the vehicle, the classification as a van, and the modifications (I'd had sliding windows and four flip-down seats put in the rear before we collected) were all red-flags for the system at Churchill...
The forum deal with Adrian Flux sorted the insurance - very grateful to find information here quickly... Hoping the £460 premium will lower as I build a no-claims on the 2nd vehicle...
We drove 200 miles over to Perth to collect the new vehicle last weekend. As we are so remote here, we had (crazily) not been able to view/ test drive it before buying/ modifying - but had seen a number of photos. The garage had fitted a new chassis to the vehicle back in 2021, so they had some confidence in the mechanics! I - of course - had little idea what I was looking at... It passed an MOT after 4 years of SORN with no problems.
We weren't disappointed at collection - she's in good condition for £15K including the mods. An amount of rust in the (apparently) usual places - doors and (disappointingly) the bulkhead on the driver's side - but nothing requiring immediate attention... I'm told the bulkhead has a number of years left in it - but it, and the doors, will eventually need dealing with.
We drove back in convoy - via Costco in Glasgow to stock up on all sorts of things - and fill up both vehicles & jerry-cans. Staggered at how cheap their fuel is...
The better half doesn't drive much, and was not confident in a long drive, particularly with the motorway race track around Glasgow. She hadn't driven a manual car for 25 years, and was furious that others had decided what the new vehicle would be...
Anyway - 1 mile out from the garage, I lost drive, and was initially unsure why... I played with the transmission lever - knowing little about it - and managed to engage the diff-lock and panicked... Called the garage, who apologised for not realising just how much of a novice I was... It seems the transmission had jumped out of high range. Released the diff-lock, and we were away again. After successfully coping with Costco, we were on the motorway just past Glasgow Airport - and Daughter no1 and I were attempting to get the headlights on, the stress of the day having stopped us from thinking about such basics... Playing with the stalks - on the motorway - caused not only the passenger wiper to fall off onto the bonnet - but also the wiper stalk to fall out and go floppy. We pulled the convoy over onto the hard shoulder, retrieved the wiper, stuck the stalk back in and headed off again
The only other concern was a whine from the front when approaching 50. I think we hit 62 on the motorway at one point - but the rest of the journey was below the van limit of 50 on the smaller roads. We were by this point late in the evening, driving down Loch Fyne in the dark - and then negotiating the windy single track B-road to Carradale in complete darkness. The last couple of miles on the forest track were bumpy - but stress free, due to the large tyres (Mikey Thompson Baja MT). We pulled into the drive gone 11:30pm, feeling we had well and truly joined the Landy club...
The next day, I was told by a friend here that yes, the wipers do fall off - and that the whine is just the front diff, and I should slow down
.The crazy thing is that we later realised the front number-plate has a garage postcode from 20 miles up-the-road in Tarbert - which would explain the rust! Kintyre has all the weather for the UK (beautiful in the rain, and stunning in the sun), and vehicles come here to die... Everything rusts... Well, this one escaped for a while, but is back, and will be staying with us for some time
The better half came out with me and drove into the village and back - and having absolutely dreaded it, then confessed to our girls that she LOVED it... Phew!
I'm now realising how easy it is to find parts, and how amazing the online communities are.
New (better) wiper wheel boxes, spline adapters, stalk switches will all shortly be on order - I'll fit these at the same time I try to free up the heating sliders, which are stuck solid on hot! Limited slip diffs and hydraulic winch will be future projects...
Couldn't do any of this without the info available on these forums - so thank you!!!
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