Being a Land Rover Series II 88″ Pick Up owner for more than 15 years, with all bell and whistles and broken parts (btw, barudak’s Bandung joke, Land Rover is lifetime serviced haha). But i love it, it has PTO Koenig front winches, 7.50×16 Good Year Xtra Grip tires, Defender hood and windshield, and OME shock, the other is Solihull standard. Sure the vehicle sometimes stuck and refuse to run, but considering all of mechanical and electrical component is an old and simple technologies, it always can take me back home. Never towed as i remembered.
Now the vehicle is still running (not so well though) and used as our family farm vehicle. Its main duty is hauling trailer with full bag of compost and livestock feed. Transfer case on 4wd low range most of the time. What an natural habitat for Land Rover. A good ‘ol respected farm vehicle.
for you that don’t know, the landrover is at right. at left is my friends ‘1982 Suzuki Jimny (trepes).
Around 2004, I bought (my dad actually hehe) 1993 Defender from some friend. Its ex-Caltex oil mi
ning at Sumatra, double cab, 200 Tdi, turbo diesel intercooler with 110″ wheel base. Front Warn 8274 winches, side protection bar, hilift jack, 7.50×16 hi miller Xtra Grip (our tyre of choices, in term of price and offroad ability) and the other is dead standard. Oh yea, the car body is dented everywhere as the previous owner decided to take all of putty (dempul) and paint it back with caltex green without fix the dent. I kinda like his idea however. Every dent on the body help build Land Rover character isn’t it ? And this vehicle will see the rough environment, so i don’t really care about paint and body.
When I take the car from the seller, the odometer was dead but its clocked around 116.000 km. Fixed the odo and some of leak then install cheap turbo timer from local auto shop.
It doesn’t have air conditioner yet as of i bought it, but i’ve installed later as the climate on southern area of West Java are very hot for us. The unit kompressor is ND, coming from Suzuki Jimny, small power but surely enough for double cab).
The vehicle mainly base at Bandung, but sometimes drove to West Java southern area where me and my dad have some activities there. Its a lot of fun, and this cars never let us down. Uhm yea one time only when my dad (my dad has heavy right foot) stucked it on muddy V slope and burn the clutch. Oh dad, its turbo engine.. don’t slipped the clutch! hehe. Towed around 100km (towed by my sister’s Suzuki Vitara, what an incredible small but powerful car) to Iwan’s garage and got the clutch replaced and gearboxes services.
Even though the cabin comfort was bad due to loose alumunium panel joint but the green Defender still serve me and my dad (sometimes my sister and my wife) daily driving very well. Every time we go to south, we stuffed thing in the back cab and cover it with waterproof flysheet.
I wrote this article for talk about Land Rover thermostat, but apparently it become a story of my Land Rover experience, so i’ll write about thermostat later 
