Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Status of Defender

My mechanic informed me that it was the transfer case that went out on us in Kansas, which is surprising since I just had that replaced about six years ago.  But he also said that since I have the original transmission gear box (LT77), which was superseded in the 1995 NAS Defender by the R380 gear box, that I replace that also.  I agreed, especially since the R380 is more robust than the LT77 and has an option for a higher performance fifth gear, the lack of which I believe caused my transfer case to fail on the snowy, cold, long, empty highway in Kansas two weeks ago.  (I was cruising along in 4th gear because 5th didn’t give me the performance I needed.) Since the transmission is 26 years old and will go out sometime, I will save the labor costs to replace it since it can be accessed at the same time as the transfer case. Better to replace it now than have it go out on us in, say, the Yukon. These parts are being specially manufactured in England on November 21 (it takes four days) and by the time they get here and are installed, I will not see the Defender until the second week in December at the earliest. The bottom line is: clearly, I made the right decision to ship the Defender back to DC and rent an SUV to get us home. Donner thinks so, too.


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