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90 Section
1995 NAS Defender 90 Station Wagon
Upgrades
If you cruise the ECR web site often you'll know this truck well. This D90
Wagon has been upgraded by ECR over the years and has even gone with us
to Labrador and other places. The Rover was recently sold by ECR and now
has a new owner. The new owner wanted to make some more upgrades to the
D90 to make it his own, so we brought it in and made it even better.
The first upgrade was to get rid of the BFG All Terrains and install some
33x11.50 Swamper SSR radials as you can see in the image above. This will
make the D90 do what it should off road and believe it or not makes the
on road ride smoother. We also removed all the decals and brought everything
up to snuff.
We also did a number of bolt on upgrades like rear bumper corners and these wing top protectors, a rear fuel tank skid plate and recovery point in the back.
Up front we tossed the cheesy factory winch mount bumper and installed a new front bumper, front skid plate and 3 new Hella 4000s to light up the night.
In case the D90 gets stuck we also added 2 ECR ROX recovery points in the
front. These take a standard 5/8 shackle and make for a great place to tie
things down for various recovery techniques.
In the rear of the D90 we had to make some changes to the ECR ROX rear ladder.
We originally built the ladder for use with the stock step/tow bumper, but
for added departure angle that piece has now been removed in favor of the
Safari Gard corner guards that you see above. So we altered the ladder and
then epoxy primed and painted it in black. Why didn't we just use the factory
ladder or the Brownchurch ladder? Those ladders requires that you drill
holes in the body, with our ladders you can easily unbolt them with no tell-tale
signs in case you don't want to carry the roof rack. So we retain more options
for the customer by doing it this way.
We apply the same "leave no trace" theory when we install work
lights and antennas. Defender 90s are pretty pricey here in the USA, so
drilling big holes in them is not our favorite things to do. In the image
above you can see the mount we have made for the Hella twin bulb work/reverse
light for this D90 Wagon. The mount bolts on underneath the rear door hinge
and allows you to have a nice work light that is out of the way and you
don't have to drill any unsightly holes in your D90. We also primed and
painted the bracket in the factory Coniston Green for a nice hidden custom
look.
Inside the D90 Wagon we installed a factory 3 way switch that allows us
to control the light so that it can be simply off, or it can come on and
off with the reverse lights, and we can turn it on manually so that it can
be a work light around your camp site. The switch looks factory correct
and keeps your interior looking clean and functional.
Here you can see the Hella twin bulb work light installed and ready for
action. The light is placed so that it is below the roof line so that tree
branches will not harm it, and it does not interfere with any aspects of
the rear door or roof rack. In fact with our system you can even take the
roof rack off and still have your work/reverse light in place and doing
its job.
Below the work light we have made the departure angle of the D90 a lot better.
We have removed the factory step and tow bumper and installed a new alloy
fuel tank skid plate, and a class III receiver tube as a recovery point.
This gives the D90 a lot more departure angle and gets rid of the rusting
fuel tank skid plate. This customer still has his sway bars on this D90,
so we modified the fuel tank skid plate to accept the mounts for the rear
sway bar, as you can see above.
To correct the on and off road gearing with the larger SSR tires we installed a set of 4.11 gears front and rear. The D90 already had ARB air lockers, so we swapped over the new 4.11s onto the ARB carriers to give the D90 a better off road crawl ratio, and correct the engine rpms on the highway. In the image we have pulled the front and rear differentials and are ready to rebuild them with new seals and the new 4.11s.
Here you can see the differential has been pulled and being rebuilt with
the 4.11s. These will make a welcome addition off road for the D90 Wagon.
While we were inside the differentials we took the time to update the air
lines. The ARB supplied air fittings have a tendency to loosen up when you
service the air line from the outside. That means for something as simple
as changing a damaged air line you may have to pull out the differential!
That isn't any good for field fixing your D90 on the trail, so we update
the air lines into two separate fittings. Above you can see our unique ARB
air line set up. This allows the inner fitting to always stay tight and
locked, no matter what happens to the exterior fitting. The new exterior
fitting also points the air line down the axle and away from exhaust systems
and driveshafts, making it harder to damage. Experience off road teaches
us these tricks, and we are happy to pass them along to our customers.
Here you can see the completed D90 all tricked out and ready for anything
the new owner wants to throw at it. The D90 now has just about every trick
in the book, with out past years of upgrades and these new installs, and
it should give the new owner years of on and off road enjoyment. Keep an
eye out for this D90 because the new owner plans to attend a number of upcoming
treks that ECR will be involved in. If your D90 needs anything from a few
small repairs to a long laundry list of upgrades feel free to contact us.
We'll be happy to help make your Defender world class... just like this
one!
ECR