Practical Series
The 1993 Land Rover Defender 200 Tdi
original Owner’s Manual
This is a bit of an oddball thing, and is different to other stuff I’ve published—I’m doing it as a personal request.
I own a Land Rover Defender—it’s an oldish one as cars go—24 years old, but this is still quite young in Land Rover terms.
Coincidentally, to within a week it’s the same age as my eldest daughter, she’s a lawyer—ironically, my youngest daughter (I only have two) is a police woman—I’ve got one daughter banging them up and one getting them out again, a sort of first law of thermodynamics for criminals.
Take note: Neither daughter went into engineering—I really sold that one.
Anyway, the Land Rover—here she is:
This is a 1993 Land Rover Defender 200 Tdi—she’s called Hetty—that’s Henry the saluki in the back, my other dog is Hector (also a saluki). Here they are in close up (just in case you’re interested):
Hector and Henry; funny looking dogs, they spend all their either running like idiots or fast asleep (these dogs can sleep for England). Hector, Henry and Hetty, all the things I care about have names beginning with aitch—that why my daughters are called Latrine and Verruca (hmm, I may be in trouble when they read this).
Hetty the Defender is an absolute beauty, a little bit of an antique by now, but in very good condition. I also have the original owner’s manual—it looks like this:
Someone recently asked if they could have a copy of it and I had no problem providing them with one, but it did occur to me that these things are now few and far between and I’m willing to bet that while there are still a lot of Land Rovers of this age out there, most of them won’t have the Owner’s Manual.
In an attempt to satisfy all those people who are missing their Owner’s Manual, I’ve scanned mine and I’m posting it here as a searchable pdf.
I’m not entirely sure that I’m allowed to do this, the manual is a Land Rover publication after all, and they presumably have the copyright to it. However, defenders aren’t made any more (Land Rover stopped making them because of European Union rules—bloody EU, they’re no use to anybody—roll on Brexit, the harder the better) and mine is 24 years old and went out of production in 1993 (it was one of the last 200 Tdi models to be made).
So I’m publishing it, I hope Land Rover will forgive me and see it as good publicity for the Defender—I am after all a great fan, the Defender is the best car I’ve ever owned.
The Owner’s Manual is printed on double sided A5 paper that clips into the three hole leather effect binder; these are some example pages:
If you are wondering where the three holes have gone, my scanner cleverly fills them in (at least it does most of the time).
You can download the full manual here.
It’s quite big, 56 Mb. You can also download the individual sections below (these are more manageable sizes):
That’s it; I’ll finish with a few more pictures of Hetty:
p.s. That’s not her real licence plate number, but she is a K reg.
and Henry…
and in her natural element…
The dogs on the same day (see, they do occasionally stand up):
I also have the full Workshop Manual and I would like to post that as well, the problem is it’s a bound book and I would have to take it apart—destructively—to scan it and I’m not sure I want to do that.
I’ll think about it.
If you want the Land Rover logo (the one on the cover), you’re more than welcome, I drew it myself using Inkscape. It looks like this—well I think it looks like a Land Rover:
Download it as an svg here or a png here.
I might keep this type of post going, the Land Rover isn’t the only old thing I own, I have my own teeth; I also have my Dad’s old Onoto fountain pen, c1935, I think it might have been my Grandad’s originally. It’s my everyday writing pen now. My old Dad used to say “only ever sign your name with a fountain pen”.
From an engineering perspective, fountain pens are quite clever—bit like the Land Rover really.
So maybe a monograph on the fountain pen next.
Michael Gledhill
Chester—October 2017
