Maintaining A Land Rover Defender

[nikster]

Just saw a 1980 Defender for a pretty good price.

I love that car - it's awesome.

So I have been wondering - is it hard/expensive to maintain this car in Thailand? I know labor is cheap and I am in Chiang Mai so there's got to be fan clubs and things, and people who know what they're doing with this car.

But I don't know whether I'll need special parts that need to be imported.

Any classic owners care to comment?

[boolin]

please see : www.lannaclassiccars.com

Land Rover and Classic cars Chiang Mai

[WinnieTheKhwai]

> Just saw a 1980 Defender for a pretty good price.

No you didn't.

The "Defender" badge was only introduced in 1991. Admittedly that was the same car as the Land Rover 90 and Land Rover 110 models, which were introduced in 1983.

So anything from 1980 would be a late Series III model I suppose.

My opinion: It's a 30 year old car built in Britain. You want to stay the $( away from it unless you like tinkering. Sure they are solid structurally, but you wouldn't believe how many things can and will go wrong with one. And it's just plain nasty to drive, and a bit heavy and unwieldy off-road. And gas mileage is horrific, depending on the engine. Most though from that era will have a replacement engine, typically something diesel, which potentially introduces even more trouble.

[Semper]

> Just saw a 1980 Defender for a pretty good price.

No you didn't.

The "Defender" badge was only introduced in 1991. Admittedly that was the same car as the Land Rover 90 and Land Rover 110 models, which were introduced in 1983.

So anything from 1980 would be a late Series III model I suppose.

My opinion: It's a 30 year old car built in Britain. You want to stay the $( away from it unless you like tinkering. Sure they are solid structurally, but you wouldn't believe how many things can and will go wrong with one. And it's just plain nasty to drive, and a bit heavy and unwieldy off-road. And gas mileage is horrific, depending on the engine. Most though from that era will have a replacement engine, typically something diesel, which potentially introduces even more trouble.

Why would a diesel introduce trouble?

[WinnieTheKhwai]

> Just saw a 1980 Defender for a pretty good price.

No you didn't.

The "Defender" badge was only introduced in 1991. Admittedly that was the same car as the Land Rover 90 and Land Rover 110 models, which were introduced in 1983.

So anything from 1980 would be a late Series III model I suppose.

My opinion: It's a 30 year old car built in Britain. You want to stay the $( away from it unless you like tinkering. Sure they are solid structurally, but you wouldn't believe how many things can and will go wrong with one. And it's just plain nasty to drive, and a bit heavy and unwieldy off-road. And gas mileage is horrific, depending on the engine. Most though from that era will have a replacement engine, typically something diesel, which potentially introduces even more trouble.

Why would a diesel introduce trouble?

Not the engine itself, but the process of fitting a different engine into it. Often the gear ratios aren't adjusted, and there could be all kinds of trouble resulting from the engine change, when not done properly.

[Semper]

> Just saw a 1980 Defender for a pretty good price.

No you didn't.

The "Defender" badge was only introduced in 1991. Admittedly that was the same car as the Land Rover 90 and Land Rover 110 models, which were introduced in 1983.

So anything from 1980 would be a late Series III model I suppose.

My opinion: It's a 30 year old car built in Britain. You want to stay the $( away from it unless you like tinkering. Sure they are solid structurally, but you wouldn't believe how many things can and will go wrong with one. And it's just plain nasty to drive, and a bit heavy and unwieldy off-road. And gas mileage is horrific, depending on the engine. Most though from that era will have a replacement engine, typically something diesel, which potentially introduces even more trouble.

Why would a diesel introduce trouble?

Not the engine itself, but the process of fitting a different engine into it. Often the gear ratios aren't adjusted, and there could be all kinds of trouble resulting from the engine change, when not done properly.

Ok, I thought the car would be original as the OP mentioned "classic car". But if the engine is changed to a Toyota diesel, it's not a classic car anymore.

[Spoonman]

Not the engine itself, but the process of fitting a different engine into it. Often the gear ratios aren't adjusted, and there could be all kinds of trouble resulting from the engine change, when not done properly.

I thought that only became an issue when changing from diesel to a petrol, when we did our series II-A many many years ago we put a 186 holden red six into it we had to add a fairey overdrive as well.

To the OP, parts are not a problem through our LR dealership in BKK you can source any part you require from England.

[ignis]

Why would a diesel introduce trouble?

Some time ago a friend bought a Range Rover originally was a V8 automatic, the engine had been changed to a diesel + manual... On a good day with the wind behind, flat out it was difficult to get 75 kmh that was only if the road was long enough and could stand the noise. 1st gear was a waste maxed out at 11 kmh, on the other hand engine had a lot of grunt and was very easy to start from stand still in 3rd gear..

The cost of re-gearing and fitting an overdive box would have solved this but for the price, he drove it around for about 2 years rarely going over 45 kmh

[WinnieTheKhwai]

Why would a diesel introduce trouble?

Some time ago a friend bought a Range Rover originally was a V8 automatic, the engine had been changed to a diesel + manual... On a good day with the wind behind, flat out it was difficult to get 75 kmh that was only if the road was long enough and could stand the noise. 1st gear was a waste maxed out at 11 kmh, on the other hand engine had a lot of grunt and was very easy to start from stand still in 3rd gear..

The cost of re-gearing and fitting an overdive box would have solved this but for the price, he drove it around for about 2 years rarely going over 45 kmh

That sounds VERY familiar.

And exactly what I was hinting at (but failed to explain properly) about replacement engines that have different characteristics from the original one.

[DLock]

I restored a 1959 Jeep CJB (first civilian Jeep).

Tore out the tired old Toyota and 2WD gearbox and put in a fresh Japanese 2 liter motor married to a Daihatsu 4WD (make sure you get paperwork so can change the book legally). There was a bit of cutting down and rebuilding of the firewall and gearbox tunnel, and adding the ECU under the dash, but it works really nice. Changed up the suspension, dash, electrics, but pretty much left the steering and braking standard for now.

But there is no escaping that its a 50+ year old car. Ratios are not ideal, but it can cruise at 80kph....but I'm not sure you'd want to. High center of gravity, narrow wheel base, no air bags, drum brakes, diff noise, lap belts, massive steering wheel. It's more a fun off roader that cruises at 50-60km/h around town and can go pretty much anywhere.

Spares are easy to get over the Internet, but expensive to ship, so source what you can locally, or recondition as much as you can.

Only problem when you have finished a restoration...is that you have nothing to do.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

Nice!