After I had the EP9 for about 15 months I decided to give it it’s second service. I first stripped it to service it after six months and at that time I replaced the very thick black grease it shipped with, with some normal multi-purpose grease. As it was now 9 months on I’d thought I’d strip it again at the weekend, as it’s had quite a few dunkings in that time.

I also wanted to change the grease to CV grease as this had been recommended by some friends that know a lot more than I do. The aim of this is to make freespooling easier, as Bish was bitching when performing winch monkey duties at 7 Sisters recently.

I took some pics, just in case they were useful to anyone. Not having read the manual, you’ll find me using my own naming scheme for the parts

It’s very easy to take apart an EP9. You start by undoing the two drum rods. Once undone, you can pull apart the motor housing, gear/brake housing and the drum. Here’s the gear/brake housing, also showing the motor drive rod that runs through the centre of the drum..

The motor housing, showing the motor gear adapter to the drive rod..

Motor end of drum..

Gearbox end of drum… Highly exciting stuff isn’t it!

I appear to have been lucky again and no water or mud has passed the nylon bush on the motor end…

If yours has water ingress, just strip the motor by taking off the end cap and give it all a good clean with an electrical contact cleaner.

Not so lucky on the gearbox side, but frankly I was expecting this. You can see the muddy grease already..

To release the gearbox end plate, you first turn over and undo the end brake cover. Simply undo the 3 allen screws..

You can now see the brake cam on the end of the housing, the enclosure that activates the cam and the brake cover. The Hylomar, I used after the first strip down, seems to have kept water out and the surface rust you see on the cone brake was there on first strip down…

You then undo six more allen screws, that are exposed now that the brake cover is off. You can then turn it over and reveal all the messy grease/mud inside…

Then take off the Nylon washer and lift the main planetary gear set out (upper part of pick). Often when you lift this main gear set out, out also comes the first of the smaller planetary gear sets. You can see the second of the smaller gear sets still in the housing. You can’t get these mixed up as each has a different length of output shaft..

You then need to split the housing in two to remove the outer ring gear. For me, a short tap with a cold chisel does the trick..

This exposes another nylon washer and the inner ring gear that is part of the freespool mechanism. On pulling this out I noticed that water has been getting in via the freespool lever and obviously some corrosion has developed when the winch has been stationary. This build up can stop the freespool gear from moving freely. I think the only solution here is to silicon seal up the outer part of the freespool lever where it meets the housing…

There seemed no need to take apart the brake mechanism and especially as I didn’t have any new circlips I wasn’t going to just for the pics! I cleaned off the rust on the housing and the freespool ring gear. I also cleaned off the gunk in all the gear sets and on the nylon washers…

This time the gaskets between the parts of the housing and between the housing and the end plate had perished too much, so I removed them and just used hylomar to seal up on reassembly. Then it’s simply a case of greasing everything again and putting back together in reverse order. I fed grease into brake housing, freespool ring gear, all gear sets and nylon washers. Both nylon bushes on end plates got a covering of grease along with their respective end bushes on the drum. I also put a touch of grease on the bearing on the clutch mechanism that mates with the brake cover. Hylomar was also used for sealing all sealed mating surfaces on gear/brake housing and it’s end plate. I’ve left the standard rubber gaskets on the motor alone as they appear to be working ok. I used LR one shot CV grease..

Finally, I sanded down the rusty drum bars and gave them a couple of coats of silver paint for nothing more than aesthetic reasons. They go so well with the chipping powder coat.

As there was no water ingress, I didn’t strip down the motor so unfortunately you don’t get any pics of this .

I decided to fit them in the grille area, rather than on the bumper, to get a higher position for the beam…

I have each of them angled out to give a good wide spread of beam. As you can see in the pic above, the lenses on these already have a ‘fog’ pattern to spread the beam of the HID bulb…

Hopefully they are recessed enough to stop an errant tree pushing them into my intercooler …

Wired into a Carling switch, bought from X-Eng, that I put into vacant slot in switch panel..

Just need to get some more robust brackets made up for the lamps now I have position right.

Didn’t take any pics of them working at night as they don’t usually come out that well to show true difference. Take it from me, these are bright lights. A pair are more than enough for me and do the job of illuminating ahead off road really well. Very pleased so far.

Now I have the lights in the right place, I just need to trim the grille a bit more to tidy it up.

A couple of more pics…

Started with back first (Glad I did as base was harder). undo plastic clip on back..

unravel 3/4′s of the way up..

so that you can unhook the three hooks that pass through seat foam..

Pull cover off fully and carefully peel away seat foam from frame..

Spray foam and fit to seat frame, then spray back of frame to secure foam flap at top of frame..

Turn new cover inside out and place on foam but remember to stop to put 3 hooks on..

Pull seat cover down and then the fun starts. You now have to pull cover down enough to close this gap. The bar at the top is just far enough away to take the skin off your knuckles if you slip! …

A short while later, you’ll be able to close clip and start on the headrest. Start by undoing metal bar at base of the headrest…

remove the staples and then the cover..

Pull on new cover. I then used spray adhesive to glue it down and trim around headrest bar. Finally place metal bar back on and screw down..

da da, one finished seat back and headrest..

Now for the seat base. Like the back, it’s a lot easier to take off the old cover than it is to fit the new one. Remove rubber strip around base..

remove bar at back by simply pulling through..

remove plastic studs with some needle nose pliars..

LR hold the cord in by placing it in the final hole at rear of the base and then hold in place with a plastic stud..

Carefully pull off old foam and cover and then spray seat base and fix new foam..

Leave it to dry a while and the turn seat base cover inside out and glue cover to centre seat base..

Leave this to dry a while too, and then start to stretch the cover over rest of base. Push down cover enough to get the cord into the securing strip and then with your third hand bang rubber strip into place …

Easier said than done. Carry on all the way round until it looks tidy…

Pierce some holes in the cover to enable you to push through plastic stud and then hammer them in..

Tie the cord and pull the rear flap down and hammer in the last two plastic studs. Then place the rod back in..

One finished base…

One down, and one to go  – Repeat the above…

both done..

I was dreading doing it after reading all the horror stories. I steered away from the normal waxoyl as I haven’t been impressed by it when I’ve used it in can form. So I bought a kit of Dinitrol that came with a shultz air spray gun, 2x 1L cans of 3125 and 3 1L cans of 4941. The kit cost £89 incl shipping. I also bought 2 disposable paint suits, 4x rolls of masking tape and 4L white spirit.

I spent the evening before cleaning it off, which wasn’t too bad after spending a few hours cleaning the underside on Sunday after off-roading at Slindon. I used some decorators sheet that I already had to cover the drive, hubs, exhaust etc and used masking tape where I didn’t want the spray to go. So the cleaning and masking took about a day in all…

The spraying actually went fine. I found that a pressure of around 4.5 bar worked well. Only problems was that the two cans of 3125 wax only covered chassis and axles and so I didn’t have enough to do the inside of the chassis. So if you want to do inside of the chassis and doors etc,  I’d buy an extra two cans of 3125.  As expected the 3 cans of 4941 was more than enough.
Then spraying and removal of masking about another day in total. Finish worked out really well, and the 4941 has hardened to a durable finish (well so far so good at 7 months)…

Fitting TDS was a good straight swap..

and now after some use..

Wireless controller is extremely simple to operate and there is no delay in pressing buttons and winch working…

Also fitted some new decals to in cab switches from the Mudstuff/X-Eng carling switch sheets…

I used this opportunity to use the counteract balancing beads from Devon 4×4..

First impression are that they are lot more substantial in the flesh than you expect. The CDS arms are lighter than expected though. Here’s a pic of the new arms compared to the QT ones I took off..

In the pics on the X-eng website they look smaller than they do in the flesh. So here’s a pic with a coin for scale..

Simon warns in his instructions that due to LR tolerances they might not bolt straight on. The first side did..

But the second side needed one of the holes widening…

I thought that was it, but when I went to fit the rear mount it would not slot in due to the bend in the mount. So much for uniform LR mounts ….

So out came the grinder and now it fits..

I adjusted the arms to the same length as the QT ones and tightened the lock nut on the ball joint. When I have time, I’ll check the axle position to see if this is the best length or not.

Here’s a couple of pics of the arms in place. The silver stuff, by the way, is an ally based anti-seize…

I am very pleased with the results and the flex that the arms give…

Kit List

1x Vacum Pipe

1x EGR replacement inlet manifold tube

1x Inlet manifold gasket

1x Exhaust manifold blanking plate plus two allen bolts

2x Heat Exchanger blanking plates plus four allen bolts

1x Rubber bung for EGR solenoid air filter

Step 1

Remove the engine cover, 3x 13mm bolts, and the fan cowl, 4x cross-head twist screws, for better access.

Step 2

The majority of the components to be removed are at the front of the engine. EGR Valve to the left, heat exchanger to the front and exhaust pipe from the manifold to the right.

An easy way to start is from the right working left. Undo two allen head bolts on exhaust pipe connected to the manifold..

Undo the two allen bolts on the inlet to the heat exchanger..

Bolt on exhaust manifold blanking plate with supplied new allen bolts. Then use one of the heat echanger blanking plates and two new allen bolts to seal the inlet side off. I used some hylomar gasket seal for the blanking plates..

Step 3

Undo allen bolts to outlet side of heat exchanger.

Now remove two blue air pipes going into top and ride hand side of EGR Valve (see pic below). Undo jubilee clip on inlet pipe leading into EGR valve.

Then undo four bolts holding EGR Valve to inlet manifold. You’ll need an 8mm socket, spanner ratchet Have fun getting the lower right hand one off.

Step 4

While you have the EGR valve off, replace the vacuum pipe. This needs replacing as it has a T air pipe into the EGR solenoid. So pull off the air pipe here..

And then pull off both ends of vacuum pipe. The end at the brake servo just pulls out..

Unclip pipe and remove other end at the vacuum pump by using pliers to open pipe clip whilst pulling off. Use pliers to open pipe clip on replacement vacuum pipe and push on vacuum pump end.

Route through pipe and clip on, and finally push in brake servo end.

Step 5

Now you can fit the billet aluminium pipe in place of the EGR valve. Don’t forget to fit new inlet manifold gasket supplied. Once fitted push on inlet pipe and tighten jubilee clip…

Step 6

Finally you need to pull the EGR solenoids’ air feed from the air filter assembly and replace with the supplied rubber bung. It feeds in on the right hand side of the air box..

Here’s the rubber pipe you need to pull, lower right..

And the rubber bung just pops on..

You can leave pipes and solenoids in situ if you want, or as I did take a couple of minutes to remove them completely. Here are the solenoids..

You need a 10mm socket for bolts, and here it is all removed..

Lastly you are left with a pile of bits …

I had a few people suggesting that’s it’s the angle of Gwyn’s mounts that reduce the damping effect of the shocks. I know that shock angle affects damping, but the difference in angle is not that much and doesn’t explain why the front is underdamped too where the angle hasn’t changed at all. So a change of shock was needed, but with this much travel there is not a lot of options.

So I decided to change out the shocks for the OME set that Gwyn supplies. These are N73 OME shocks used for lifted landcruisers. The reason I went for the Rough Country’s in the first place and not the OME’s was price, as they were over a £100 less than the OME set.

Here are the shocks side by side…

As you can see they are almost identical in length. Here they are fitted front and rear..

What are they like???? – Well the transformation is instantantaneous with a much firmer ride even on the fairly flat tarmac at the beginning of the test drive. I spend a lot of my road miles on b-roads at speeds of 40-60mph where road quality is not at it’s best and the ride with the Rough Country’s was awful. The test route included some faster b roads and the ride was so much better and it is now back to normal when I was running the DeCarbon +2″ dampers with the previous suspension set up. The damping of the N73 shocks is so much more effective than the Rough Country’s and shows that you can have a good handling Defender with Gwyn’s shock mount set up.

To make sure it wasn’t a placebo effect I popped over to a friend Chris and he drove the 90 before and after fitting the shocks.  It’s safe to say there is no placebo effect in my preference for the OME shocks. I should have saved myself £170 and ordered the OME’s in the first place instead of being a cheapskate!  I have run the OME’s for the last year and have had no problems at all.

Lastly, you seem to get what you pay for and the quality of the shocks is much better with bigger bushes and a full metal shroud over the shock shaft.