Howski's Defender 90 Build Thread

[Howski]

A little update this morning. The truck has been excellent still. I was able to get the first good fuel mileage reading and was very pleased. All city I got 22, close to 23 mpg. This is over twice the mpg I got with my old DII. I ordered a timing belt and water pump from the UK yesterday. The mileage on both of these is currently unknown so I figured I'd spend some money smartly on PM. Also found a great deal on a set of OME 751/764 springs, which I am very excited about. This should give me about 1.5"-2" of lift and is a pretty standard set-up from what I have read. I doubt I'll be able to resist putting them in as soon as I get them, even with stock shocks, just to mall crawl around town until I get some funds for shocks. What is everyone's recommendation on shocks? I am basically between OME's, Bilstein's and TerraFirma's. If anyone has suggestions or experience with these, I am all ears

 

[jscusmcvet]

Really nice truck coming along. Nice that you are working on it and using it at the same time. Congrats on what sounds like a great trade.

John

 

[Howski]

Got a few things taken care of on the 90 this past week. I replaced clogged axle breathers on both axles and raised them to a much higher level than they were previously. The clogged breathers had been causing pressure to build in the axles and oil to seep out of the end caps. Replacing the breathers has eliminated that issue as well as prevents from water ingress in the future.

I was also able to make quite a big of progress with my suspension set-up. Browsing several of the Rover forums, I was able to find a set of lightly used OME shocks very cheap ($100 shipped for all 4!) which arrived on Friday. This weekend provided a good opportunity to get the new springs and shocks under the truck. I have installed the rear shocks and spring but had some issues with the front shocks. As you could expect on a nearly 30 year old truck, there is a ton of rust and this caused me to break off multiple studs on each of the shock towers. I still was able to still install the front springs but will be ordering the rubberized securing rings from a DII today. Once these arrive it should be a pretty simple drop-in for the shocks. I tried to upload a picture showing the new ride height but am having some issues, hopefully I'll be able to get on on here a little bit later.

 

[Snagger]

Sounds like a great project vehicle. A couple of suggestions, though:

A 200Tdi Defender has old style axles, and the fact that yours lacks PAS suggests it's actually a 90 (pre-Dfender) with a Tdi retrofit (nothing to worry about; it is a well established swap and was a direct replacement on 90s), but that again means the old style axles. Their hubs don't fit LR alloys because the centre boss fouls the inside of the wheel, holding them about 4mm off the mating face. Unless your axles have been swapped to 300Tdi units or the insides of the wheels have been turned to increase the depth of the parallel section of the void, then to may be running with the wheels insecurely fitted with the obvious safety issues that presents.

The other suuggestion is to leave the suspension height well alone. Unless you specifically need a lift for rock crawling, it's of no benefit but will screw up the steering castor and the CoG, making the vehicle much less stable and a bit twitchy at speed. It also causes a lot more wear and tear on the prop shafts and increases bump steer on the front axle. The dampers are a good upgrade, though.

 

[Howski]

Unless your axles have been swapped to 300Tdi units or the insides of the wheels have been turned to increase the depth of the parallel section of the void, then to may be running with the wheels insecurely fitted with the obvious safety issues that presents.

The other suuggestion is to leave the suspension height well alone. Unless you specifically need a lift for rock crawling, it's of no benefit but will screw up the steering castor and the CoG, making the vehicle much less stable and a bit twitchy at speed. It also causes a lot more wear and tear on the prop shafts and increases bump steer on the front axle. The dampers are a good upgrade, though.

I'm running spacers in the front to run alloy's with the old style axles and will likely add a pair to the rear over the coming months. I'm not really planning on going any higher than this. The springs that were on it were absolute junk and the ride quality has greatly increased with the new springs.

Here's a picture of the 90 with the OME suspension on.

 

[Howski]

I was able to get to a few things this weekend. I addressed a leak at the top of the passenger's side door. Tested it out with a hose and it seems have eliminated the leak that had gotten passengers pretty wet several times.

Since getting my 90 my dog has never been very comfortable riding in the back. A major reason is it is was awkward for him to stick his head out the rear sliding windows. The opening was at the back which means he basically had to face the back of the truck to stick his head out. I figured I'd do him a favor and remedy this by just swapping the windows between the two sides. This would allow the opening to be at the front and him to get more comfortable than before. This wasn't really too bad of a job, more of a pain removing the old sealant and getting the windows worked in just right on their new sides. This sealant was extremely messy but it got the job done. Again, I tested with a water hose to check for any leaks. There were a few small ones which I added some additional sealant to remedy. Here's a picture before I put the trim to cover the rivets on.

He's much more comfortable with this set up.

While removing the windows in this process, I removed the rear jump seats for ease of removing the lower rivets on the windows. I did not re-install them so I can sand, paint and just clean them up a little when I get the opportunity. I'm also considering the option of going with just a single jump seat on each side instead of the 2-person bench style ones I have now. I just don't carry enough people around in it to really warrant the additional space they take up and could use the extra room for installing storage and speakers for my sound system in the future.

 

[paulnb57]

Theres a minor issue when mounting the side windows the way you have, when driving, the leading edge of the rear pane of glass now faces forward and there is a chance that rain will push past the seal between the two panes..........not sure if you get as much rain as us.........

Paul

 

[Howski]

I have a few upcoming and in-progress projects on the 90 that I'm pretty excited about. I've stripped the interior and am in the process of painting it. The color, Rustoleum Almond, is very very close to the color of the hard top. It's about half pained now and will be completed this weekend. While at it, I replaced the some corroded areas in the rear loadspace floor. Before/after pics of the paint and repairs to follow. After the holidays I plan on adding some indoor/outdoor carpet and insulation to tidy up the interior a little and hopefully reduce some of the TDI rumble. I plan on adding the carpet/insulation in the rear loadspace as well as the front footwells and possibly the seat box.

I will finally be getting some tunes in the Rover as well. I have installed stereo's in nearly every car I've owned, aside from my Disco, so I'm very familiar with the process although I've never had to start from scratch. I got an excellent deal on some very nice Polk Audio 6.5's and purchased an Infinity Basslink 10" subwoofer with a built in amplifier from Cruthfield's Cyber Monday sale. It recieved great reviews as being a well rounded unit, not trunk rattling bass, which is exactly what I'm looking for. For a headunit, I will be going with a Sony DSXS model which has a built in compartment for my iPod. A few of these bits will be Christmas gifts from family so I will being installing that at the beginning of January. I'm really hoping I can have all this completed before I take the Defender on an extended trip to snow ski at the end of January.

 

[rijosho]

10" for a sub will probably be too much in your 90 - I'd highly recommend the 8". I have the 10" JL slim woofer in mine, mounted on the rear door in a custom ECR slim enclosure built to Q spec - it's a super efficient sub. Anyway, it's awesome when the top is off, and I'm on the highway, but when the soft top is back on in the Winter, it's almost too strong for its own good.

Here's mine.

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-rVmV4pB6a16/p_13610W1V24/JL-Audio-10W1v2-4.html

 

[LR Max]

If you are painting the interior, look at putting some paint-on insulation while you are at it. Its called Lizard-something. Either way, if you want to insulate, it might be easy to do sine you are already painting.

I hope to do my rover interior one day with that.

 

[Howski]

I was able to finish painting the interior this weekend and get everything back together. I started this project with spray paint but for the final layers this weekend I decided to roll the paint on. Much better results and easier to paint. I kind of wish I hadn't wasted my time spray painting to begin with. Anyways, here's some before/after pics
Before

And after


I still have a little bit of touch up to do on the roof and in some of the tight corners but overall I'm pretty pleased with the improvement

 

[Howski]

If you are painting the interior, look at putting some paint-on insulation while you are at it. Its called Lizard-something. Either way, if you want to insulate, it might be easy to do sine you are already painting. .

I decided to keep it pretty basic with paint. I'd like to be able to remove it easy if need be. I'm not sure about lizard skin (I think that's the name) but if it's anything like Line-x or other bedliner type products it's virtually impossible to remove. I got a great deal on some insulation that was used with great success on a thread over on D-90 source. Can't beat $15 for 15 sq ft.

 

[Howski]

Haven't updated in quite a while but I've made some big changes since the start of the year. The first was getting my sound system in. As you can see, I basically had to start from scratch. The wiring was a complete mess and required a complete re-wire. Wiring is something I've never been confident about but I took my time, didn't take any short cuts and had zero issues. The completed system sounds excellent and really helps mitigate the noise of the TDI on the highway. The component speakers put out plenty of sound and the Infinity subwoofer has been excellent, creating a very balanced sound. I really cannot say enough about the subwoofer. Incredibly clean bass, very adjustable, not overpowering (unless you want it to be) and most importantly no rattling. I've also been pleased with my decision to mount the speakers on the roof. They're not too 'in your face' and I believe their location helps you hear better because the sound is not getting interfered with by the engine noise (like it may if they were mounted in the doors or lower dash). I still need to do some touch up on the interior but I am very pleased with the end result.





I've also decided to move my spare tire inside and get it off the door. I generally leave it out running around town and only have it when traveling longer distances. I've removed all the mounting hardware for the door and placed a metal panel in the interior of the door and sealed it up to prevent any water leaks.

I don't have a whole lot of things in the immediate works for the 90 now. I have not made a decision on carpeting and insulation because I may be moving to Florida in the coming months. The majority of trails there are extremely muddy and wet, which leads me to believe the carpet and insulation would get trashed and smell incredibly bad. I only have a few minor plans ahead, replacing some missing bolts in the floor pannels and seat box along with installing set of rear wheel spacers.

Aside from that I am just going to enjoy it and hopefully get off pavement in the near future. I should also mention I just took it on a 800 mile round-trip skiing and it ran like top, absolutely no issues at all. After 6 months of ownership, the 90 has been excellent and I'm very satisfied with my decision to trade for it.

 

[LR Max]

Did the component speakers come in those pods? How are they attached to the roof? I like it!

 

[Howski]

Did the component speakers come in those pods? How are they attached to the roof? I like it!

Thanks. The speakers did not come with the pods. The pods are universal kick panel speaker mounts I purchased on Ebay. Pretty inexpensive at $25/pair. They're attached with L brackets and rivets. With the speaker removed you can see the L bracket secured inside the speaker pod with rivets.

I used body filler on the roof to seal from any water entering and also hide the rivets then sanded and painted over.