Winds of change...

Well, poor old Bitsa has been laid up since the end of August 2007 with a sad malardy that is best discribed as being generally knackerd. The engine is dead, the gearbox leaks, the chassis has holes in, the brakes don't hold pressure and the electrics (mostly) don't work.

If I'm honest, its partly my fault - the poor old thing got a hammering last year, being forced to do many thousands of miles, with maintance that just never quite caught up... its also partly that she was pressed into service with being finished propperly, and hence never was.

Now, a wind of change is blowing gently through the workshop (Not that is stops it smelling strongly of pig... isn't life on a pig farm great). Back in January I went out and spent a lot of money. Two and a half time what Bitsa had originally cost me in fact. But then, I did get a 200tdi engine in reasonable nick.

Its not a 200tdi now - the turbo has been removed. The Series Landrover world seems to have been devided by the merits of this. As far as I can tell, that divide basically sums up two different aproaches to running series Landys. One is to stay low key, low powered, do the minium moderniseing to get a bit more MPG etc. The other says that as IIa's are aren't the fastest thing on the planet, then they need a lots more bhp, so they can keep up with modern traffic.

Having found that a 2.25D with mild tweaking is more than enough for my daily commute, I'm working on the logic that a 200di should be perfect for me. Same sort of power and insurance group. Better MPG, and fully SVO compatable...

Watch here, as the plan is for a blow by blow rebuild account. Things are slow at the moment, I'm really just gathering parts. Come July/August, I expect the be making real progress with the rebuild...