If you have a spare £125 you can buy a custom front pipe from Steve Parker Land Rovers, now my limited experience of Steve Parker's products (TDi engine mounts) suggests that his stuff is very good quality, but being a tight ar5e I couldn't bring myself to part with £125 for a bit of pipe.
I started with a £20 Britpart non-cat front pipe intended for a
300tdi Defender and took 6" out of the length. 6" seems the obvious length as the engine is 6" further back, but as the front of the engine is lower, it may have benefited with another 1/2" or so removing.
I used a full 300tdi exhaust system, but the over axle bend came very close to the crossmember in front of the fuel tank (110), so on reflection I would have been better fitting the rest of the exhaust system before the front pipe.
As the front of the engine is lower I also had to rotate the rear section of the front pipe to put the joint in the correct position. (See the photo below,)
I also had to cut a lump out of the large engine crossmember (held on with four bolts) to allow room for the front pipe, this is because the factory 300 Defenders and Discoveys don't have this crossmember, they have a tiny thing further back near the near the rear of the gearbox.
At first this seems to be a bit of a rough-arse modification, but later Defenders use a much slimmer version of the bolt in crossmember and as I said above, the 300's have a poxy thin thing around the gear box, so there is no significant compromise to the rigidity of the chassis as a result.
Note: the photos of your chassis seem to show a TD5 crossmember, so you can probably ignore the last paragraph re chopping bits out of it.
I will attach some images which hopefully make my explanation more clear. The third image shows a TD5 crossmember and my modified crossmember, I suspect there is still more strength in mine with a lump taken out that there is in the standard TD5 version.
I used a standard 300tdi system for the rest, but because my chassis has the earlier exhaust mounts I chopped off the hangers on the exhaust pipe and used U clamps and fabricated brackets. As you have a replacement chassis it probably has the later exhaust mounts.
[/QUO
Thanks Mate great info there, My crossmember is same as first one on your pics. Have you any pics of your modified hangers, My chassis is the original so not sure yet where to hang from.
Cheers Mate
