LandRoverAnorak wrote:

This afternoon, after washing it in preparation for a show tomorrow, I finally fitted my snorkel, which was a present from last Christmas

I do like a Land Rover with a snorkel and I've fitted several over the years, including offerings from Safari and Mantec. This time though, in keeping with the more traditional look that I've been going for, I've chosen an original-style metal type with a mushroom top that came as a kit from Paddocks.

First job was to remove the existing intake grill, which was held on with screws. This revealed a lot of mess from previous owner painting escapades but, as with so many things, cosmetics will wait for another day. For the purposes of todays' task, I just cleaned it up with some wire wool and marked and drilled the additional hole that the snorkel fitting requires.


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The kit comes with a thin gasket for the mating face of the snorkel with the wing but it looked a bit rubbish, so I made a new one from some 3mm sticky backed, closed cell foam:


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This was then fitted in place with stainless screws into the original intake duct mounting points:


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The A pillar mounting brackets also came with gaskets, which looked ok so were just tacked in place with some superglue:


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Fitting these brackets to the windscreen pillar is the most difficult part of the installation. It's worth checking the measurements supplied in the instructions, as I found that the given position of the top bracket clashed with the upper mounting point for the internal trim. I also threw out the 6mm plated bolts that came with the kit and replaced them with some 5mm stainless flange bolts. The subsequent smaller nut is marginally easier to fit inside the A pillar.


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After that, it was a relatively simple task to assemble the upper parts of the snorkel. The main tube comes painted on the outside but not in and was already rusting when I took it out of the box. Some months ago therefore, I'd cleaned, etch primed and painted the inside with Hammerite. Again, I also replaced the supplied nuts and bolts with stainless versions.


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I'll probably get some stainless jubilee clips for the connections of the flexible rubber section, as the supplied plastic clips are barely long enough.

To be honest, the kit, over all, is not brilliant - even the instructions were wrong as they were for a 300tdi that has it mounted on the other side to a completely different air box. With a bit of fettling though, and some better quality fittings, it can be made into a reasonable installation.


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