Eco rant, there is to much hype on Eco cars

Land rovers are Eco cars!

A lot has been said about 4x4’s and how unfriendly they are to the environment and it got me thinking about Land Rovers and other 4x4’s I have owned and what Eco is all about.

Firstly a rant, there is no doubt the new 4x4’s are recyclable and do perhaps 45mpg on a run with the wind behind them and that Toyota Electric cars are the way forward? but I can’t help but thinking this is not what an Eco car is about.

There is no justification for any electric car at the moment, they are too expensive, you have to get the electricity from somewhere and most people who drive them have them as vanity toys and typically own lots of non-Eco toy’s like Apple computers which in themselves cause a lot of issues due to air mileage and effectively slave labour in foreign lands. In fact if we all want electric cars we will need to create a lot of pollution and adopt nuclear power, neither of which is really acceptable.

My 4x4's

I own and have owned a 4x4 now for a number of years, not continually but probably 14 out of my 29 years of driving. In that time I have driven nurses and doctors to work during bad weather, pulled endless BMW’s and Mercedes out of 1cm of snow (Audi are a lot better).

I have enjoyed driving my Nissan Patrol, Land Rover Discovery and Daihatsu Fourtrak off road and done all the bad things Eco people moan about 4x4’s owners like doing, for example 5 people and 3 dogs in one car. I think however in recent years since the snow in the UK of 2010 people have started changing their minds from the blind “they are all evil” to “ok they have a place” as do I.  We all surely remember this;

The UK snow in 2010

Oddly Range Rover drivers seem to have issues with snow and ice?

Range Rover in a ditch but a Discovery sails by.

I live in a rural area where most, probably 80% of the 4x4 are used for work with the other 20% being used as daily drives, with possible bad weather in mind. They are not all large 4x4’s some are just saloon 4x4’s. they are practical everyday transport.  We don't have buses and trains to get on out here, well buses maybe once an hour from Horsham to Brighton for 12 hours a day.

An Eco bit

Older diesel cars will run quite happily on vegetable oil or waste oils, grown from the soil powered by sunlight. I have put both sunflower and rapeseed oil in my car with no issues in the summer (it needs heating in the winter) and I know people who run Land Rovers on WVO (waste vegetable oil) from chip shops and restaurants.  I have even talked to one guy who even filters his used engine oil and puts it into his tank!  Older diesels can recycle and use fuels moder cars cannot.

Land Rover believes over 75% of all defenders ever made are still in service. From an Eco point of view this is a massive point to take on board.  Most of the world’s natural resources are used making a car not running them. A good condition 300TDI will get you 30mpg+ in a Discovery 1, even on chip fat and will last you 20-30 years, I be amazed if a Prius will last this long without several battery changes (the batteries are not eco friendly at all).

The economy of the older cars is not as good as a modern car I give you that :-( but what about an electric car. Let’s look at the Nissan Leaf, this was part of an interesting article I read recently;

“In order to deliver 30 kWh to your house to fully charge the Leaf’s 24 kWh battery bank, for example—incorporating the charge efficiency this time, the source of electricity becomes a highly relevant factor. Two-thirds of our electricity comes from fossil fuel plants, typically converting 35% of the fossil fuel thermal energy into electricity. Only 90% of this makes it through the transmission system, on average. If your electricity comes from a fossil fuel plant, the 30 kWh delivered to your house took about 95 kWh of fossil fuel energy. The 73 miles the Leaf travels on a full charge now puts it at an energy efficiency of 130 kWh/100-mi. The MPG equivalent number is 28 MPG. From a carbon-dioxide standpoint, you’d be better off burning the fossil fuel directly in your car”

Interesting eh!

Also electric cars use a lot of rare metals in the batteries and these really are in short supply. Newer vehicles, yes they are nicer, I have one, and yes they can be recycled netter than older cats, but a car kept on the road for 20-30 years running on VO or WVO has not been recycles and is good for the environment.

Then there is cost, if I had to choose a new car costing me £300 a month or Larry who does 20-33mpg depending on what I’m doing with him I’d take Larry anytime. Mainly because if I had to have one car I’d have a practical large 4x4, however at the moment I’m lucky to have a choice but it is a choice I don't need more than one car.


As for an electric car nope not until they are sub £12k and from an Eco point of view they are definitely not better than a Land Rover.  The electric car answer is the Hydrogen fuel cell car, but we are a long way away from that.

Fitting bull bars to a Discovery 1

How to fit bull bars Discovery 1

During my off road trip in February I manage to clip a wall and remove the plastic end of the bumper, so I decided to get a bull bar set up to protect the front of the car to give it a little more protection during overland or off road trips.  So I bought a second hand bull bar and spot lamp set from ebay for £51.

Ebay is a great place for getting second hand parts for Discovery 1’s providing that is you don’t buy something 100’s of miles away and end up spending a fortune in fuel to get the parts, fortunately my purchase cost me two gallons of diesel.

I’m not sure the exact type the bull bars are but they wrap around the front headlamps with removable grills (so you can change the headlamps) recovery hoops and a brush guard.  I believe when they were made bull bars like these new were probably £200 with another £80 for the headlamps, so buying second hand I have probably saved about £220.  Considering I know I'm going to rough them up a bit I don't need new ones anyway.


They bull bars came with two Hella 8” headlamps fitted which is a bit of a result and included the relay and wiring loom to fit the lights to the cars electrics.  These should provide much better front lighting on full beam, I'll explain how I fitted them later.

Fitting the bull bars with a steering guard and standard bumper

This in theory like any other job is easy, the ball bars connect to the car by removing the bumper valance, or cutting it, and sliding the ball bars under the car and bolting them onto the bumper bolts at the end of the chassis rails. This should be no more than a 30 minute job.

Discovery 1 Chassis Rails, bull bar fitting

Again like most things I seem to do, I had a couple of issues. Firstly I have a heavy duty steering guard on my Land Rover and this needed to have two of the 4 bolts removed (bumper bolts) and the spacers taken out to slide the steering guard down to allow the bull bars to move into place.

The bull bars should (should being the word here) slide between the steering guard and the bumper and you bolt all four bolts tight, the two top one’s going through the bull bar only and the bottom two through the bull bar and steering guard, bingo you’re done.

I will say now this is where buying second hand parts can be a right pain, although cheap. The steering guard was fine, nice and straight, although being second hand.  However, I found out that the bull bar must have had a bump at some point in the past and would not align properly, the two bracket at the bottom of the bull bars you bolt to were pushed inwards a bit and were off centre meaning the steering guard overlapped the bull bars and would not fit.

So after a few minutes of going hmm I decided the thing to do was to tighten up the top bolts holding on the bull bar which should straighten the brackets out and then use a hammer to whack the bottom part of the bull bar straight at which point I could slide the steering guard back up.

Nearly worked perfectly, bull bar straightened enough to let me get the steering guard in, but then I  have to whack it up with a hammer and push it with a jack into place, this was after an hour and with the use of some wd40 to aid it moving, at which point all was good and ended up with the car looking like this.

Ball Bars fitted to my 300tdi

That's it hopefully they will help protect the front of Larry a little next time even if I come across some wild bush ;-) or if I try to knock over a wall and fail.

Also I'm happy with Larry's new look front end more aggressive and functional.

Nearly done with Larry look.

Changing your diff oil, Discovery 1 300TDI

How to change your Differential oil on a Land Rover Discovery 1 300TDI

This is a brief explanation of how I change my diff oil on my Discovery 1 300TDI. This really is simple to do and takes approximately 30 minutes for both diffs, providing you do not have the issues, I did.

It’s really important to change your differential oil at 6,000 mile intervals or sooner if you do any heavy off roading to ensure your Land Rover performs as well as it can.

To do the job you will need;

•  A bowel to drain the diff oil into
• A ratchet 1/2" or 13mm
• Fresh EP80/90 mineral diff oil in one of those poring bottles

Firstly take your Land Rover for a drive for a few minutes to get the diffs warm, and then park on a level surface where you will change the oil.

You then slip a bowel under the diff you are working on and undo the bottom drain plug, this is off centre on the bottom left of the picture below, you can see a diff guards here.

Land Rover Discovery Diff with Diff Guard

The old oil will drain into the bowel, leave to drain for a few minutes until it stops. I use two bowels so I can nip to the other end of the car and do the next diff. When your diffs are empty you will need to put the drain plug back in, and fill with EP80/90 oil until the oil come out of the filler hole, this is the one you can see in the picture below.

Differential filler hole.

Now, what happened when I first did mine was pretty odd, firstly the drain plugs were seized, I had to use the Land Rover Bottle jack and a breaker bar to crack the drain plug bolts loose, it was not as bad with the filler plugs they came out with a good heave on the breaker bar.

My rear differential oil came out washy and green, this is where water had got into the diff. The front diff oil came out looking like black goo.

This should not be the case with either diff, basically at some time in the past the rear had got wet. The good news is, I had no metal coming out of either diff.  So I can only assume the last service I had done the dealer had not changed the diff oil although it was reported as being done on the schedule Grrr.

Look at the colour of the mixed oil below, this is not a reflection of the clouds, that’s the oil from the rear diff.

Water contaminated diff oil, YUK!

Also a tip, but your oil in 5ltr bottles and get a 1 litre bottle to use as a filler. This will save you a lot compared to buying loads of 1ltr bottles.

I use Comma diff oil, because its good quality, cheap and therefore I will not hesitate to replace it. In fact because my rear diff oil was really bad I will be replacing this in 1,000 mile and then at 5,000 mile just to get any remaining crap out.

That’s it simples!

Removing a water cooled EGR on a Discovery 1 300TDI

Discovery 1 EGR removal

My experience of removing an EGR from my Japanese Discovery 1 300TDI with a water cooled EGR system.  I fitted my Safari Snorkel leaving Larry with a blanked off EGR, but it was blanked off at the end of the water cooler pipe.  I had to do this because Larry is a late Japanese Import 300TDI which has a cooled EGR system and not the standard EGR single pipe set up found on earlier models.

You can see io the picture below shows all the pipework on the right side of the engine bay which you will not see on earlier Discovery 1.

EGR Cooler Pipework

When I fitted the snorkel the pipework on the right (the water feed into the EGR) was pressing very heavily against the air box and I had to bend the pipe out of the way making it a pain (to say the least) to get the air filter box closed.  Also to align the air intake I had to remove the heat shield form the air flow sensor. This in itself was not too much of an issues when I fitted the snorkel because we have had the 2nd coldest March on record, however, it was going to warm up at some time and I did not like the idea of loosing the heat sheild which protected the wiring, after all look what it did to the space shuttle.

Anyway, in the hope it will get warmer I bought a standard Discovery 1 300TDI bottom radiator hose and after spending about 5 minutes looking at a) how long my arms would need to be to change the pipe from above and b) not wanting to lie in the driveway under Larry I decided to book him in for a pipe change in my local garage £30 well spent I think.

So, the pipe has been changed and now looks like this, loads of room to the left of the air box.  You can see the EGR cooling pipes are now not used and where I blanked it off at the end of the EGR cooler.

Standard bottom hose fitted and EGR removed

The next part of the process is to remove the EGR itself so I can re-fit the heat shield.  I did this a couple of weeks later.  It was a simple process of removing the top of the air box and air flow sensor and unbolting the EGR and moving the manifold from the EGR to the manifold.

Tip, I soaked the old Allen bolts in WD40 for a few hours, it needed it.

Strip down to remove EGR, see the hole in the exhaust manifold

Then blanking the EGR on the manifold and re-assembling.

EGR blanking plate on and heat sink in place

Now a lot is said about blanking the EGR to improve performance and MPG.  After I fitted the snorkel I did notice the car ran very well, but I'm not sure if this is because it is sucking in air better, or the EGR removal.

I have a de-cat exhaust now as well, so the engine should breath about as good as it can.  I will check the MPG on my next long trip to see what has happened in terms of economy.

Update on Economy, nope not seen any difference, its doing 20mpg off road, 27mpg on mixed runs and 30+ on long ones at 60mph, however the pickup and running it much better.

Fitting a CB Radio for off roading

CB Radio Installation

A CB is quite an important part of any 4x4's kit mainly because it allows you to talk, or laugh at your fellow off roaders when your out playing with your vehicle, something you cannot do using a mobile phone.
Now its been a long time since I've had a CB, I think the last time I used one in the UK before fitting on to Larry was in the early 80's oh yes!  The early 80's!

Anyway, without going too much into my past, my asymmetric wedge, Russian shirts and pixie boots and a passion for Ford Escort MKII's we should move on with the times, quickly would be my preference.

Oddly, back in the 80's you used to pay for a CB license and also was restricted to 40 channels FM at 4 watts output.  To my surprise when I was looking at CB's for Larry, I found out a license was no longer needed and also you can now buy multichannel CB's legally, there's even a rumour that SSB will be legalised soon in 2013 without the need for a Radio Ham license, gosh!

Anyway, after some shopping around I bought a Intek M799 Multiband CB with 80UK channel FM/AM and its also legal across most of Europe and beyond.

Intek M799 stock photo

One thing about the Intek, its really small and could be fitted in a discreet place in your car.

I also bought a gutter mount and 5/8th antenna.  Now, the only thing I will say is don't get a gutter mount for a Discovery 1 is they don't work.  If you try to fit it, the aerial will be at 30 degrees to the gutter and will poke out sideways from your Landy, this is not good.

So after a quick trip to Maplin I bought a large magnetic mount antenna base for £15.  I had also ordered a SWR meter, so all the CB kit was about £100, I could have spent £60 but I wanted a European CB, so ner.

Now some technical stuff about SWR, ground planes and where to mount your aerial.

Mounting a CB radio to talk to someone about a mile away when off road is not really an issue, you can plonk it pretty much anywhere you like on your car.

However, if you are a Defender owner you need to know that although conductive, aluminium does not make a good ground plane, steel on the other hand does, not really a good reason to buy a Discovery over a Defender, but good in my books.  If you are a Defender owner reading this a) you will not be using a mag mount and b) the aerial will probably be at the front or rear of your car, or on a light bar or bumper.

Anyway, to maximise the general coverage of the CB radio on your Discovery you should put it bang in the middle of the roof, that way the signal you will transmit and receive will broadly be even around the car, or omnidirectional.

If you put the aerial at the front or back you will amplify the signal opposite to the aerial mount, making it directional. This is pretty cool if you want to use you car as a directional ground plane and gain extra sensitivity in front of you, but will limit the range of the radio behind your car and to the sides.

I have explained ground planes in the very complex computer generated diagrams below.

Aerial in the middle of the car

Aerial at the back of the car

Image Legend

Green = Car

Blue = Signal

Image Legend if you are colour blind 

Square = Car

Roundy ish Shapes = Signal.

SWR, or Standing Wave Ratio

An SWR meter is a piece of kit that measures the amount of energy reflected back to the CB when you are transmitting, normally caused by a badly tuned aerial or a lack of ground plane.  The idea is to get an SWR measurement as close to 1:1 as possible 1:3 being usable but loosing effectiveness of the radio with the possibility of causing it some damage.  My aerial came pre-tuned, and would you believe it, it was very close to 1:1 so it was good to go out of the box.

If however you get a CB and check the SWR and it generally higher than 1:2 on the meter you need to tune the aerial by making it shorter or longer, this is normally done on car aerials with an allen key and sliding the whip of the aerial into, or out of the base.

Remote Controlled Land Rover

Anyway, enough of the expensive graphics and technical stuff.  I shoved my aerial in the middle of the roof and it worked well, see below.

Now my girlfriend who shall be nameless, but for future reference we can call her Rachel, said Larry looked like a remote controlled car with the aerial on him.  Idiot controlled car I could live with, not remote controlled, that seems to imply there's some spotty kid driving Larry from afar.  Whereas it normally me being the idiot in it.

Rachel did have a point however, I had picked a large one for Larry, which did work, got good range, and fell off when whacked with tree branches.  So I said to Rachel (during our first trip out in the woods) I would get a shorter whip soon, this would stop all the banging at the side of the car when we were out together.  No sniggering, it's not that kinda whip I'm talking about, or that type of banging, I'm talking about the large metal rod sticking erect out of the top of Larry.

Fitting the CB

Anyway, fitting a CB is dead easy.

I did not want to leave the aerial on Larry when not in use, so I put the aerial in the middle of the roof (clump it goes), run the cable several times around the roof bar and then into the rear door and into the back of the radio.

Wire wrapped around roof bar

It's just as well I did run it around the roof bar because at least when the trees knocked it off it dangles down and does not go under the wheels, which happened twice in one trip.

The CB itself is fitted into a CB bracket and the mike on a mike bracket both held on by two screws.  All I needed to do was drill into the plastic inside the car and put the self tapping screws in to hold the brackets.

CB Bracket

Mike Bracket

By taking this approach I can put the aerial back in the car or in doors with the CB itself when not in use, pictures below.

All in all a simple mod for a Discovery 1, and well worth it when out with other Land Rovers, or indeed lesser brands of 4x4.

CB Installed

CD on powered from the cigarette lighter

CB Performance

We have used the CB now a couple of times, it has worked very well and the range on flat ground has been anything upto 8 miles which I'm amazed at.  Obviously when off roading in hilly areas the range is a lot less.

The 7" mag mount has had no issues holding the aerial on down the motorways even with the big whip it has and all in all it works!

Snow in West Sussex 12th March 2013, freak snow storm and cars stuck in snow YAY!!!

The UK winter in West Sussex, travel disruption

Well I must admit coming off the back of the wettest year in UK recorded history in 2012, no one has much hope for 2013.  In fact most people I know have been planning sunny escapes for some time now, and I have even been diagnosed with a vitamin D deficiency.  Which apparently has to do with not getting enough sun, or beer, not sure which one so I have been trying to remedy both.

UK Dealing with weather?

Anyway, yesterday the 11^th March we had quite a nice forecast for the weather “some snow showers which would continue overnight” and we would get “an accumulation of snow of approx. 5-10cm”.  Even for us in the UK this is manageable, unless you use public transport, or drive, the trains obviously do not work and by foot can be slippy, but we cope.

Oh boy from a driving perspective, what as usual our government agencies forgot to do was to a) grit the roads in time and b) not take into account the wind, which was if I’m honest was pretty bad given the 5 days warning they had.

So, after a 2 hour journey 22 miles from Crawley to Littleworth West Sussex on the Monday evening, travelling on icy and snowy roads, on a route which at best is 35 minutes I found the whole experience exciting!  I went to bed later that night after a quick vitamin D fix in the local (yes Americans I live near an English pub in England which is not Irish and no not a sun bed in sight, that’s for my buddies in Florida who are always taking me to Irish pubs in Florida?), knowing the next day I was likely to need more Larry miles to get me to work I got excited.

Some people must have been really excited about their journey home from Crawley to Brighton that night, so exciting that quite a few people decided to spend all night on the A23 south to Brighton taking 11 hours to do a 40 minute journey.  This must have been a super really exciting media hip special thing to do, even minor celebrities like Cheryl Baker from Bucks Fizz joined in/got stuck in her car, shame (insert sympathy here if you can).  This even made the national news. I can see the headline “Bucks Fizz on Ice”.

My trip to work.

So my trip to work today was always going to be special.  I woke up at 6am, I’m using woke up loosely.  Looked out the window and was quite disappointed that we did not have 2 foot of snow everywhere I was hoping for; but cunningly Mother Nature did use the 5-10cm wisely.  Do you like how interchangeable Metric and Imperial measurements are?  What she had done is to take the little amount we had, and by using the power of wind deposit it in nice playful banks everywhere.

Excited Larry

So, I went to the car, now this is where it gets sad.  Larry to me is a car with a personality and I like to think he is a playful thing furry and fun.  I also have a Labradoodle who is a playful thing, furry and fun, so I like to think that this morning Larry was looking around the same way Frodo does when we play chucky stick a complex game of finding a stick and chucking it away, Frodo then gets it and brings it back.  Some would consider this as retrieving, he is not a Retriever and I don’t want to call it Doodling, this does feel right and implies some form of artistic skill.  A dog is not an artist.

This is where my specific metaphor works, Larry was as happy as a Labradoodle playing chucky stick.  There, done, in my little mind that describes it perfectly; I will now wait for the men in white coats......................................................................... 

Ok they are not here, that was just how exciting the drive was going to be.

So I set off to work, nothing really special 2-8ft drifts on the roads, my route was to be the A272 – A281 – Devils Dyke and to the office.  Now parts of the A272 – A281 were shut, not going to discuss the Devils Dyke, but let’s say it was worse.

Local roads

I did take all the precautions you need to on this type of trip in such snow.  I went to the Petrol station shoved some Diesel in Larry and bought some extra strong mints.  I did however forget to get a rope, spade and sleeping bag, snow chains, flashing yellow light, CB radio and food, sweets and anything that could have even possibly been useful if I got stuck.  I even wore cotton summer trousers, beat that Ray Mears.

Minor Drifts

All was well; I had fun driving on icy snowy roads and then the 180 meter climb (sounds more in feet) to the top of the dyke.

Now a bit about the dyke I nicked this from the visitor’s website.

“A legendary beauty spot on the South Downs

Devil’s Dyke, just five miles north of Brighton, offers stunning panoramas, a record breaking valley, a curious history and England’s most colourful habitat.

At nearly a mile long, the Dyke valley is the longest, deepest and widest 'dry valley' in the UK. Legend has it that the Devil dug this chasm to drown the parishioners of the Weald. On the other hand, scientists believe it was formed naturally just over 10,000 years ago in the last ice age.”

Not today it wasn’t, a beauty spot that is; I pulled into the layby to take a couple of pictures of the snow, yes white on white, no polar bears.  I started talking to another guy with his 4x4, I’m going to call him Bob, that was not his name, but I did not ask him his name either, so he may or may not be Bob.

View form the layby

He asked me if I “was going up there” and let me know that a couple of Polish guys in a van were trying to get to Brighton heading south, not normal for Polish guys they normally head north in the UK.  Apparently Bob had turned around when his car, an inferior make of 4x4, could not go any further and he even had to use low ratio to go off road.   

Anyway, we chatted for a few minutes giggling about the snow, and wondering if the Polish guys were by now stuck and guess what!  The Polish guys appeared waved and headed north towards Crawley.  That reassured me not because they were ok, but because Polish people in white vans going north in the UK feels like the norm now.  No doubt they will be picking veg, whenever.  I’m sorry, that was stereotypical.

The Range Rover

Off we go, snow getting worse, drifts getting deeper, cars abandoned, and would you Adam and Eve it, a RANGE ROVER stuck in the snow.   

Stuck but smiling, grrrr

I did the honourable thing wound down my window asked quietly if he was ok, assumed he said yes, I parked the car and then took pictures of him digging his RANGE ROVER 2011 out where my Land Rover 1998 had driven past.   

 Ha ha ha ha ha ha, oh yes, I high fived Larry I did (he even lifted his front tyre to do this), yes.  Ok enough of Yoda.

So, was it a good drive today, yes, was I being sensible, no.  Did the Rage Rover and his mate who turned up in a Disco 4 get out?  Who cares, but they should have both had winter rated tyres like me.

More pictures.

Cold sheep at Littleworth	Approaching the A272	South Downs
Stuck cars	Range Rover stuck on Saddlescombe Road	Discovery 4 pulling out Range Rover
The Dyke Golf Club, well no play today :-)	South downs snow	Entering Brighton

Fitting a Safari Snorkel to a Land Rover Discovery 1 300TDI

Fitting a Snorkel

This is a description of how to fit a Safari Snorkel to a Land Rover Discovery 300TDI with ABS.  Considering I’m not planning in doing anything too wet i.e. wading in very deep rivers, you may ask why I want one?   

Well simply put the plan is to head down to Morocco in my 4x4 and I want to keep the air inlet up high to avoid sand clogging the air box with sand.  The original intake for the air box is in the front passenger side wing exactly where sand ad dust will be blown up by the tyre, someone at Land Rover had thought that through had they?

So after reading all the online shops I found out that snorkels cost from approx. £140 to £400, all seemed to do the same thing so I ordered a cheap one.  It was a Bearmach snorkel and was listed as compatible with a 300tdi ABS.  I got the snorkel and all excited I unboxed it went out to Larry and aligned the parts.  Bugger, the snorkel if fitted would need to go through, not around, the ABS modulator to fit?  Er?  

A quick chat with the supplier as well as a few pictures sent (they really did not believe it was wrong) and I got a refund and then went for a Safari Snorkel at a cost of £276.  When it arrived it said "Safari Snorkel Discovery 1 300TDI – ABS" on he box, yay, this looked a lot better.  I checked out the alignment and it all seemed fine. 

Then it rained continuously for 3 months, except for our trip to Yorkshire for the off road weekend which was lucky.  So the fitting job was put on hold.  Think about it, how ironic, I could not fit a snorkel because of the rain.

The right tools for the job 

Anyway March 2013, I had a couple of days off work and decided I would fit the snorkel, I read the instructions  watched a you tube video on “how to fit a Safari Snorkel” check the required kit list and popped off the local tool shop to buy what I thought I needed to do the job, which was;

86mm hole cutter to cut through the wing

Step drill to make the holes needed for the bolts

Riveter to rivet the snorkel to the a pillar

Tiger seal to seal everything up

So the job itself is quite simple and the instructions say it will take 2 hours, this is of course absolute nonsense for a part time mechanic like me.  More on that later.

At this point I would like to warn you about Tiger Seal.  It's an amazing product, glues really well and makes a complete mess of anything it touches.  Wear gloves, also as soon as you open it, use the whole tube.  You cannot save it for later. After I used some of it on the Landy airbox I went around the house sealing and glueing anything I could.  My gutters on the house ain't moving, like ever.  

I even started thinking about what it would actually glue, lets just say it has its limits.  Also note it takes 3 hours to dry ish but a full day to cure properly.  

Tip, put the Tiger Seal into some hot water and warm it up, its then a lot easier to use.

Fitting the snorkel

The process is as follows.  

Apply the template to the outside of the car aligning the cutting template along the top of the wing.  Drill pilot holes 2mm for the bolts and snorkel hole.  

Snorkel template aligned

Then drill the actual holes for the snorkel to bolt through, these are 16mm using the step drill and the big one use the hole cutter.  Trim and sharp edges from the cuts and prime.

Large holes cut into wing

You then drill a hole on the inside of the wing.

Inner wing hole also drilled

You have to remove the wheel and the wheel arch liner.  This allows you to get your pandies to the bolts on the back of the snorkel, do not tighten it up till everything is in place.  Liner hanging down.

Trim inside the wing pulled down

View inside the wing.

View inside wing where the snokel will be bolted

The snorkel itself has studs which you to put into the recesses on the main snorkel tube.  You do this by putting two nuts on the studs after they have been tightened in buy hand.  Tighten the two nuts together and screw the stud in using a spanner and the locked nots, then take the nuts off.  Sorry forgot to take a picture of this.

You can then put the snorkel on the car and loosely do up the nylock nuts, as below.

Nut in place ready to be tightened up

Now fix the A-Pillar plate, drill 4mm hole in it for the rivets.

Rivet holes drilled in A pillar

 

Fit rivets and rivet the thing, I have not used the rivet tool thing in the picture below, but you get the hint.

Ready to  rivet snorkel tube to A pillar

Go pet you dog, by now mine was pissed off, gwumpy doodle.

Grumpy Labradoodle

You now have to re-work the airbox by sealing the original air inlet; you cut a new inlet in the side, then fix a new locator plate which moves the airbox into the engine bay a little.  

Fill the old inlet, this is what it looks like when you start, I have also cut off the old locating pins and drilled 4 rivet holes.

Holed drilled in air box

Fix the front bracket, plug & seal.

Plug fitted/glued and spacer riveted to air box

Drill and cut new inlet.

Large hole cut by drilling many small 2mm holes

Done, then edges cleaned up using a file

Fit new tube plate.

New snokel inlet fitted

Fill all the holes, then in theory you pop outside and fit the snorkel to the car loosely, fit the tube provided between the inner wing and the engine bay, and reconnect to the airbox, then lastly airbox to air intake on the engine.

Bingo, its done, NOT!

Jappy Larry

However, the process above, whilst correct, does not take into account Larry is a Discovery 1 300tdi Japanese import, this means that the actual re-fitting of the airbox has some issues because my car is a late Discover 1 with the electronics for the Air Flow Meter and ABS, these are.

EGR is water cooled, this means the airbox bumps smack up against the EGR input cooler pipe, in fact the box should go where the pipe splits in the picture below.  This is pretty much makes it impossible to re-fit the airbox.  I bent the cooler tubes out of the way which no doubt restricts coolant (just as well these cars run cold).  I will be replacing the pipe.

Grr pipe in the way

Also the cables on the inside of the engine go around the second battery holder, again argh these need re-routing a little, the cable going to the left goes to the Air Flow Regulator.

Cabled need to be pushed down to fit airbox

Then the air inlet for the AFM system does not align with the output from the airbox and the original airbox rubber is too long, the AFM has to be moved left.

Miss aligned AFM system

So how to actually fit a Safari Snorkel to a late Japanese 300tdi.

Do everything up to the point of putting the airbox back in.

Move the cables out of the way and push out the way, preferable replace the EGR cooling piped and remove the EGR (de-EGR mod).  I had to put the airbox in with them in place till I replace the lower radiator pipe.  This is a complete pain.

Then undo the 3 bolts holding in the AFM and move it to the left one bolt, this aligns the airpox (I was getting annoyed by now) to the AFM.

Air flow meter, moving it to the left

Trim the old rubber pipe 10mm ish and refit.  I trimmed the bottom end in the picture below to move the jubilee clip over to the second ridge.

Pipe to trim

That little bit of info above took me and extra 4 hours to work out, what a pain.  Thanks to the people at Landyzone for the AFM fix.

One tool I wished I had was a trim removal took this would have saved another hour and the cost £2.

All in all I think it’s realistic to spend 4-5 hours on this knowing what I know now, not the 8 it took me.  I hope this blog entry helps you out.

The finished Landy with his new nose….

Discovery 1 300TDI ABS Safari Snorkel fitted

I have added all the pictures I took of the job here.