African 110 wiring woes! Warning! Contains excess bodging! 

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thats why the defender was or is such an amazing car. you can wire it how you want, dont change the oil, pure water in the coolant system, put afxxxx mecanics or southamerica mecanics to work on it, etc. ... the car keeps running, its amazing. do this on the 2020 - it wont get out of the garage. at least one of his 85 computers will say: no sir, we stay put, i feel something is not in proper order ... gosh land rover, when how and what blew your mind ...

In some parts of Africa, you will be driving along a remote road and a car will be coming towards you, they will put their offside indicator on, at first I thought they were going to turn right across my path. The locals told me that they do it so that it identifies the corner of their vehicle. It sort of makes sense when you drive at night and you see vehicles driving along with only a nearside side light on. Main bulbs are rare and expensive in some parts of Africa so I guess their solution is to put a 21 watt bulb in the side light to give some lumen's on a dark bush road. Eventually they will burn out the wiring so now we are down to leaving the offside indicator on to prevent head on collisions. As for the length of wire on that side light, that is probable so they can pull it out and use it as an inspection light on the engine. No, I am not joking. Batteries for torches are expensive in parts of Africa. (Look up Trevor Baylis and his clockwork radio. It all started because of the lack of batteries in Africa.) Lovely to so you finding all these odd Heath Robinson's all over the 110. I look at it a slightly different way and miss Africa in a strange way

....bloody hell Mike, it just gets better and better....I won't be surprised if you find that the rear suspension has been replaced with bungee cords and secondhand rubber bands... :)

I like this guy !🤩

Red and yellow and pink and blue, purple and orange and fire fire🔥 the bloody thing is on fire 🔥

Lucas water cooled bulbs 🤣🤣 I still come across them on vehicles yet 👍

What the hell ive seen some bodges in my time but this one so far is beating them hands down 🤣😂🤣😂

I'm starting to think you're deliberately avoiding looking at that bulkhead. A lot of what you've already done would be much easier with the front wings off.... and they ARE coming off. :-P Always gives me the heeby jeebies looking at the fusebox on a Defender. That plastic cover hides a lot of crimes.

Water cooled bulbs. Brilliant. 👍🏻

Left all lights on in error at around 5pm (left knee hit the switch ☹️) ....realised at 4am .... expected a flat battery ......Defender started no problem .....all lights are LED 😀😀

Your be needing a new jar of loom smoke Mike!😂😂 When I get on to the stage of rewiring my 90 I intend to do it right first time and no bodges! Mines an old 90. But I've managed to get two 300tdi 90 full wiring looms. So will make sure the wiring is spot on.

If you breakdown at night. you can use those as a lead light.

excellent - what a great Landy for a cross-country trip - can you say Auto Club or fire extinguisher

“Watt watt watt “ from the ‘electrical’ Goon Show ( Neddie Seagoon)

Water-cooled light bulbs, I liked that one Mike. Do you mind if I use that one next time I,m taking the pee out of something? HOWS THIS ONE FOR YOU!!!! I sold a set of rear brake shoes to a bloke to fit on his Mini. The adjusters were seized so he ground the heel of the shoe until he could get the drums back on, is that a bodge too far? Keep on making us laugh Mike, we need it. Best wishes from Yorkshire Rob.

Competition in the comments people: How many weeks will Mike be boxing this job up for? 6/1 Christmas, 3/1 Halloween, 2/1 August bank holiday, 3/2 we notice it hidden behind the containers in future videos... Place your bets...

Hi I found your channel when it was mentioned in a comment on Maximus ironthumpers channel where he's restoring a Land rover . Being a fellow Englishman in Canada I figured I'd take a look here, I'm sadly not a Land rover fan but like what you are sharing and saying so I've subscribed anyway. Are you sure that one came from Africa and didn't spend a year in Manitoba with a rich African prince trying to free his family fortune L.O.L I'm in Manitoba and self employed fixing farm equipment. I find exactly the same crap repairs on machines here . A friend bought a used 1175 Case tractor about 10 years ago ,I put it through the shop here and removed a wheel barrow full of other peoples wiring and connectors. Then fitted more lights and things he wanted and put less wire back in the process, he was quite concerned when he saw the pile of what I hadn't put back afterwards. Then he tried it and everything worked right without blowing fuses and the burning mouse pee smell it had before, so he was real happy then ! Thanks for the video's I've watched so far, Take care.

Wipac led kit comes with a flasher relay you just slot it in! You have to repin the connectors on Tdi's because the ground and live are swapped. I always keep a standard bulb in the side indicators to keep the resistance in the circuit to keep the system happy, never had any problems on both defenders with indicators as a result :)

Ye God's and little fishes.😊 It's an absolute comedy classic.😂 I've hurt my sides just laughing at the wiring on that Near front wing.😃Pure gold.😀

Two orange turn indicator lights per side? Crazy!

Fan cowl is spot on.

I found the drain hole on the side light cases seemed to go at the side on Wipac replacements when fitting to my Series 3. So I ended up punching new screw holes through the rubber seal to reorientate it to the bottom. I think the issue might be mini's use the same lights - great! they're common! - but their fixing pattern might be 90 degreess different. That or the replacements are off. Cheers for the video!👍

Those side light housings are terrible. I replace mine every time a bulb blows. ( Cheap as chips here in the UK). They always brake no matter how careful I am when removing them.

It’s too bad Rupert isn’t still about. You could put him to work sorting the wiring woes. I bet he’d do a better job of it than those Ghana blokes..🤣

hello mike.as before. its carry on screaming without Fenella Fielding. !

Thanks Mike, That was one of the strangest but funny videos with all the dodgy wiring. Yet it also was good in terms of fault finding.. well done ...GN

With regards to the fuse situation I have seen them super master Ghana 🇬🇭 techs remove the silly old little blade fuse and then replace with a single bake a light housed home power unit main panel fuse instead saving much time looking for which fuse had issues. One ☝️ giant that wouldn’t blow even if it were a overload protection set up for a Texas capital punishment electric ⚡️ chair. As you can probably tell by my writing of the incident I’m still in shock that it never seemed to ever blow out just constantly burning sections of the loom . When my electric ⚡️ chap was sentenced to a quick call out for cash to get it running on a homestart kinda deal like the AA used to do. Then he was verbally abused by the idiots who bought the Ghana 🇬🇭 special Heinz 57 variety’s job telling him he was dumb and needed to find a different job if he couldn’t fix the problem promptly.As Land Rover was a simple utility vehicle that even a novice can fix after my pal caused himself considerable hurt laughing himself off the job he never had another job off the company again such a shame. I’m really enjoying your uplifting updates thanks 🙏

Perhaps we could have a "best side light and indicator bulb housing bake off" cos' all the ones I tried/bought were absolute sh**. Ironically the best ones on the car are some crusty mostly metal ones by the prince of darkness himself.

Bodgers with yellow wire !! 😂😂😂

Hi Mike, Watching all these bodges I’m beginning to think maybe my 90 (wee Fergus) came from Africa 😂😂 I’ll have to look in to it! The garage I bought mine from import classic cars from Africa, and a lot of the bodges on mine are very similar. I wonder if the garage in Bonnyrigg are twined with the one yours come from. Ps wee fergus has his new chassis and the rebuild has started 😊

Think I'd take me sticker back off Mike. To many bodgetastic shenanigans on that one to be identified with it.

Hi Mike very well done as always very great help many thanks Eliot ps keep up the good work

Excellent video mate 👍👍

Looks like standard old landrover bodging to me..

Mike, did you top up the smoke in the wiring harness???? Seen a few bottles of genuine NOS lucas harness smoke on ebay.

Maybe the African School of Mechanics has a course titled "Making do when you cannot get parts?"

Loving this more and more, where you from originally.

All interesting stuff Mike. Blimey you clear some jobs in day ! Any chance you could show what you are using now as Dum Dum equivalent ? Been searching your vids and not so clear ? All the best from rainy Peak District

Do you have any video showing how you rewire a 300tdi wiring loom?

The wire is so long that when it melts they probably just cut abit off and join the rest together.... clever that. They're not racist either, any colour wire will do haha

😂😂😂👌