I got the 90 of ebay for a fairly good price, only problem was the truck was in Portsmouth. Not really a problem, but then we are located in Lancashire! So early one Thursday morning we jumped in the green punto rally car owned by Bobby Powers. Armed with red bull and haribo tangletastic to keep us awake for the trip to the south coast and back!

4 hours later we found the truck on its own, so as you do, have a look round, kick the tyres and hello... The passenger door is open, so we climb in to be greeted by what looked like the inside of a stable and found the spare key.. hmmm ok.

We started it and it ran sweet as a nut, at this moment a van pulls up behind and out gets a rather worried looking chap (well you would be worried if you was selling a car and when you got there, there was 2 un shaven shifty looking lads sky high on red bull and haribo in YOUR car with the engine running.) We said our hello's had a chat and cut a deal.

Then there was the drive home! Now I’ve driven 90's before, but I’ve never had to drive a 1991 defender 360 odd miles up the motorway! Bobby followed cause the sat nav was now in the 90. But that was short lived as soon as we got on the motorway he was off, something about the 55 mph we was travelling at and 300 miles to go! armed with more red bull and haribo 7 hours later i got home!! i felt fully acquainted with the truck after the 7 hour drive and surprisingly i felt as fresh as i did when i left Portsmouth! But i could still hear all the rattles squeaks when i got in bed!

Firstly i changed all the oils in everything and placed a order with paddocks for some metalastic OE bushes for rear trailing arms, rear A frame, Front radius arms, panhard rod & a new A frame ball joint.

Id also managed to pick a couple of bargains up off eBay, a disc braked read axle form a Discovery and a trolley jack big enough to pick up a house!

I then spent many freezing hours lied on the floor removing arms and axles ready to get the bushes pressed out and in. I cleaned up the rather rusty looking rear axle and gave it a quick lick of paint before it was re-fitted. I decided to change the rear discs and pads while i was putting the axle on seeing as a set of discs/pads cost only £15!
Once all the bushes where done the truck felt much better to drive, nice and tight but now with rather wobbly steering! The steering must of been disguised by the worn bushes, so i replaced the 3 track rod ends at a later date. Two of the TRE’s came out easily enough but one required a bit of persuasion with a big vice, large set of sliltsens and a 4 foot long piece of scaffold pole! Now everything felt as it should (well still a million miles away from a normal car, but this isn’t a normal car!)

It was nearing Christmas by now so my Christmas list was filled up with Land rover bits, Diff Guards Steering guards etc.. Father Christmas was nice and fetched me some QT diff guards and a rebel 4x4 alloy steering guard.

 
 
 
  I had to order some new tyres as the ones already on the 90 where old and cracked and wouldn’t be much use on anything other than dry tarmac. Just in time for pre Christmas delivery i managed to get a set of white modulars and colway MT’s in 235 85 16. The new wheels and tyres gave the 90 a much better look and made it sit a couple of inches higher.

I had noticed a thread on the discovery owners club website about doing some green lanes in north Wales for sometime in January after a couple of emails a date was arranged and a route was planned. We met with Tony & Debbie in their disco and Graham & Helena in their disco did some lanes around north Wales. Since then we try to arrange regular monthly laning trips. I also catch a few pay and play sites when i can to get a bit muddy.

Since then ive done other bits and bats to the 90 have a look in the trucks or technical pages for further details as they appear.

Defenders work history since ive owned it