Defender 90 - Story so far

[Bjorn]

Hi everyone,
I am new to the forum, so I thought I would post this and show the story of my trusted 90 so far. Hopefully some will find it interesting, or at least enjoy the pics!

So, as a student I bought a wonderful 300Tdi Defender 90 Biaritz edition, completely stock apart from the soft top. After a short while, I invested in a snorkle and a moderate 2" lift.
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After finishing my degree my now fiancee and I moved to Africa for two years and decided that this was a good time to take the landy with us...why not? Being a student and generally poor, all the work was done by my mate and myself. The idea was to have a 90 with enough diesel, space, water etc to do 4 week expeditions each year. So we started taking her apart...
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More later...

 

[achampagne]

so far, so good!

 

[Bjorn]

Ok so we decided against the aftermarket solutions for a fuel tank and went for a standard Td5 tank instead. The work was pretty easy once we had made a plan.











The original tank is refilled by a little pump (Genuine Land Rover from a V8 Series). The idea was to try and use as many genuine parts as possible, so that if something goes wrong, we would be able to fix it or find spares.

 

[discodisco]

Thanks for posting

Thank you for posting and keep us up to date on how things go. Great pics

 

[Bjorn]

Next, the suspension was uprated. We used OME springs together with Koni Heavy Track Raid shocks, and also changed the trailing arms for stronger and cranked versions. Whilst in Africa, we found that the car was riding a bit low in the rear when the car was full (about 250Kg of weight), so later 20mm spacers were installed.


Due to the new rear tank, the old exhaust did not fit anymore. So we removed all silencers and made our own, which pops out just in front of the rear wheel.

 

[Bjorn]

Once the everything underneath was done, we went for a test drive without the roof or an exhaust for that matter


Then came the bodywork...


And after just 10 days we were done


Now of course during that time a lot more work went on, but that would be too much to post in pics here. Just to let you what else we did, here's the spec list:
Tank guards for both tanks
Diff Guards
Steering guard
Track rod guard
Breather pipes
Snorkle prefilter
EGR removed
Custom exhaust
new bushes everywhere
genuine but cranked radius arms
stronger front Turrets
Disco II spring seats in the front and Disco 1 ones in the rear
Immobiliser removed
changed all fluids
jackable sills
Roof bars
self-made storage inside
replaced middle seat for cubby box
Shiny bumpers sold to my Parents (now on their Puma 110)
Front Hella Spotlights on A-bar

Off to Africa we went...

 

[Bjorn]

Now in Africa, we luckily had a big workshop and enough time to test things. The first change were the tyres, which I changed from 265/75R16 to 255/85R16. The ride actually improved (i guess due to more air) and offroad the 90 just laughed at everyone else

 

[Bjorn]

Then we had MORE time and found some goodies such as Warn 9.5XP winch, new 255/85R16 KM2s and a propper roof tent. Later we also moved the additional jerrycans onto the roof with our own made holders.


The second spare tyre is fastended down using a Disco 1 genuine spare wheel holder btw. It works brilliantly and you have a good place to carry 3 spare wheel nuts!

For those of you who are interested in this, the vehicle carried the following whilst on tour:
70L Water
160L Diesel
2 spare tyres
lots of spares, tools and everything else you need to survive such as cooking equipment, tables, chairs, etc. We didnt miss anything. A Weaco fridge supplied us with ice cold drinks all along, espacially since we installed a second battery and a split charge system.

Now...one would think that a Warn 9.5XP would easily pull out a stuck 90. However, we were young, unexperienced, wrong and had an old used winch that we found in a shed....so it broke just when we needed it. My mate, in his 300Tdi RR classic (which we also build) was first stuck and as I tried to turn around to pull him out...I got stuck!


After 4 hours and lots of sweat we got the 90 out and then the RR. We found that the drive gear in the Winch had snapped. It has since been replaced and has been working fine. We also used the chance to exchange the standard solenoids for uprated, waterproof ones from Albright. Good bit of kit!
To be fair to the winch, we should have used a snatch block, but at the time we thought that the winch would easiliy cope with the weight...oh well, now we know I guess!

 

[Bjorn]

And to finish off for today, just some shots from the past two years of adventure!



There are more if people want them!

I hope you enjoyed this little story. It is very compressed, but I maybe it will encourage some more people that were like me (no money) to go on an adventure like this anyway. Best way to do it....JUST DO IT!

 

[ExploringNH]

I enjoyed reading your build up and you have some great photos. I look forward to more. :sombrero:

 

[regio]

hi there,
great project, great trip.
did you ship ur landrover to afrika? how did that work out?
thanks for the info

regio

 

[Sirocco]

nice to see another 90 being used for long distance overland trips

how has the 2nd tank been holding up? Im running mine off a Y piece filler but its pretty hopeless so I need to cut one like yours I think.

G

 

[Bjorn]

hi there,
great project, great trip.
did you ship ur landrover to afrika? how did that work out?
thanks for the info

regio

Yer the car was shipped out to Zambia and was no issue at all really...not if you compare it to the usual redtape required in Africa. The idea was to drive it back but then political situations, us wanting to avoid Egypt and money all led to my shipping it back now. We drove through Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya over the past years but now it's on the way and will be back with me shortly. After some minor repairs I'm planning to head out to North Africa as I havent been there since I was a child and i'm interested to see how the 90 will cope after some engine tuning...

 

[Bjorn]

nice to see another 90 being used for long distance overland trips

how has the 2nd tank been holding up? Im running mine off a Y piece filler but its pretty hopeless so I need to cut one like yours I think.

G

The tank has been brilliant and no problems at all. It's a good, simple system and I would recommend it to anyone. Only problem I have is if I ever need to access the back of rear lights on the right hand side, I would have to remove the filler first. But there shouldn't ever really be a reason for that as you can change the lights from the outside. If I was to do it again, I would probably use the same set up just with a aluminium guard instead of steel. Ideally, I would also install a second fuel gauge for the rear tank, just so that I don't have to remember whether I filled her up or not...oh and the Td5 tank has about 10L more than the standard 300Tdi one, so I had to stop and look when the pump started to pump air if I was really using all the Diesel I had...only happened once! Range of 1,500Km was enough for most trips!

 

[Sirocco]

I have the 2nd gauge in mine, its very handy glad its been trouble free