The Beginning

Time to start a blog about my 1986 Land Rover Defender 110.  It all started when I sold my truck.  I had a beautiful 2008 dodge 2500 mega cab diesel.  I bought it brand new.  It had the awesome new 6.7 L Cummins turbo diesel engine in it.  I loved it for the first year I had it then it turned into a nightmare.  It ended up in the shop more than I had it on the road. I would would be driving it and all of the sudden it would loose power and start belching black smoke.  I would limp into Brant Brown Dodge and have it worked on.  They would "fix" it and I would play the whole senario over again about 48 hours after having it back out of the shop.  After about 6 month of this and not being able to use the truck ina any useful way we traded it and our Honda pilot in on an Escalade.  The problem with that was we were now down to the Escalade and my Mini.

This is the only picture I have of my Truck.  Flat time in the middle of no where in Glacier and the guys at  Walmart forgot to put the "key" for my wheels back in the truck when they rotated the tires before the trip.  Another story for another time.  

There are several problems with the current car set up we have.  1st we have a family of 5 with a Mini. 2nd Kelli can't drive a stick.  3rd as a found out 2 winters ago, Mini's are not great in the deep snow.  Really any snow for that matter.  I hear that snow tires help a bit, but 2 winters ago I was plowing snow 2-3 inches above my bumper.  Not fantastic at 3am coming home from work.  

This was one night when I came home from work and could not get up the hill.  So I was going to pull the mini up the hill.  Another problem with the Mini.  No tow points.  You have to buy one.  Thats a hard lesson to learn on a snowy morning.  I ended up backing down the hill and went up a more plowed hill and the came down into the driveway.

So I started searching for a 4 wheel drive that was cheap and that I could drive to work.  Older truck.  Nope.  How about a Jeep.  Nope.  I know an FJ40 Land Cruiser.  Nope.  Hmmm what else could there be?  Oh I don't know.  How about a 1986 Land Rover imported from England.  That should be easy enough?  Right?  

OK for those of you who don't know.  Land rover imported the Defender to the US for several years in the 1990's.  The vast majority were defender 90's.  They were short wheel base Land Rovers.  

In 1993 they imported the Defender 110.  The total number was 500 to the US and 25 to Canada.  All had gasoline engines.  All were white

1997 was the last year that Land Rover imported the Defender 90 into the US due to changes in US DOT safety standards.

So if you want a defender the other way to get one is to import it.  The only problem is that in order to import the vehicle it needs to be at least 25 years old in order to be exempt from the US DOT safety standards. 

So I had the bright idea that I would find an old Land Rover 110 and inport it.  I would do a bit of work on it and voila I would have a totally cool truck to drive to work.

If only it had been that easy...