More maintenance and some thoughts...

The maintenance for the Disco moves on slowly but almost there, did the transfer and axles, saw some metal shavings on the magnetic plug, but I don't think is too bad, it was a bit low, is leaking a little bit, and I fear is on the connection between auto gear box and input shaft, so once I take the transfer for something I'll replace the oil seals there, but for now, it'll have to wait, not that bad (sorry for the out of focus picture, I did it twice and both are out of focus).

Also, as the new temp sensor for the series is off (measures too low) I did some experiments and tests with the sensor and another one, that measures too high, and tried to find a good compromise between the two. Not sure if the data or the equations I have are of interest, but if they are, drop me a note or a comment if you are suscribed to this blog.

For now I am going with 220 Ohms in parallel with the sensor, we'll see how it behaves.

Also, the other day I found this nice link of when I helped the friend's of Death Valley to rebuild a bridge, it's nice to be listed there. Thanks Randy!
http://www.deathvalley.com/dac/supporters.html



And finally, I have decided to place a banner like picture with all the Land Rovers I had (or have) since 1994, in the order I had them, '94 Landy, '89 Spikes, '98 Reddo, '95 Vulcano and '77 Crappollo (provisional name) :

200K auto box maintenance

 The thing that scared me the most of the 200K maintenance was the auto box filter. I've heard so many stories about it... anyway, I am happy to report that all seems good and was able to complete it in less than 5 hours (not bad for my first time). There is no need to remove the cross member of the chassis on the 300Tdi although some swearing is needed... kind of a Tetris game, but whoever put this bolt here, deserves an award for incompetence, you need to get the screws out of the support for the transfer (very hard by the way) and move it a bit to undo it, they should have done the hole bigger on the plate so you can access it without removing it!

 

Make sure you have a torx T27 handy for the filter.

 The ATF change was well needed.

 

I put 4L. and one bottle of Lucas oil for auto boxes, I measured the oil I got out and was over 4L. probably 5 or so, so I think I may be spot on, I'll check the level in a few hours once all the thick Lucas oil goes down completely.

Land Rover Alcaraz prerun 2012

 Some of us in the Land Rover Club, did a pre-run of the Alcaraz route, we have planned for a little later in the year. This is just a little preview of what you could expect in this fantastic route.

It's going to be cold, really cold, as you can see dress accordingly and expect to see frozen vegetation all around.

Expect to get stuck, specially if you don't have enough clearance, some ruts are deep. We got this RRC back on track in no time.

 Expect your kids and dogs, to go wild with the snow and the ice (pack extra clothes and towels they'll get wet), it's fun!!!

 This is one of the spots we located perfect for lunch, sunny...

 ... views of la Mancha all around...

 ... and places to explore for the kids and animals.

This is another spot, perfect to see the whole "sierra", if weather permits (it's very high), this is a perfect place ...

 ...plenty of snow (be careful, you'll get some snowballs, like I did)...

 ... magnificent views.

 Some of the roads on the dark side of the montains will have snow, with the occasional iced spot.

 And of course, expect your truck to return a little dirty and you with a big smile.
We love Alcaraz and its sierra.
The mods I did on the truck work great, great clearance, perfect articulation and strong grip on all terrains.

200.000,0 Km

What are the odds of stopping at your destination and having exactly this reading??

Diesel and coolant systems, check!

Well,
I finally got the temp sensor, it seems a FAE 1551 will be compatible and so far so good, seems to fit perfectly, no leaks and reads when warm (haven't tried it out on the road yet to see how accurate it is), so I think the cooling system is finally done. I was able to fix the radiator crack after some soldering, seems to be OK so far.

I cleaned the diesel system as much as I could, taking out the fuel sedimentor (I found all sort of diesel color in there from past times) and replacing the diesel filter. It took a while to pump manually diesel back into the system after this, in fact, I tried for a little while and nothing happened, then I used a plastic pipe to try to suck some diesel into the sedimentor and it worked, then I cranked the engine for a few seconds and then I tried manually again until fuel came out clean from the top of the filter. Has been working like a charm since then.

As the white smoke was unbearable, I decided to adjust the timing of the distributor pump a bit forward and it worked great, no more "fog" when I turn the engine on for a few seconds in the garage, it seems to rev up nicely too, which was a bit sluggish before.

I can't wait for a test run and see how everything works in the open.

Also, the Disco is turning 200,000KM, time to do some big maintenance, it needs some love too.

I found 3 pictures in my phone that show the evolution of the Disco, from stock, to lift, to lift + tires:

Camel cut and more Series III maintenance

Time for the camel cut, I basically marked 4.5 cm on the bottom of the rear panel and cut as nicely as I could with a dremel, doesn’t look too bad, if I must say so:

Also, the old tires look good on the old truck:

 

Then the first mayor “procedure” on the Series, valves adjustment, coolant replacement, temp sensor replacement, air cleaner, belts and so on, basically the top of the engine maintenance. Of course with a truck like this things are *never* easy.

To start with, once I had everything apart, I realized that Paddock had sent me the wrong gasket, I sourced one locally but they were nice enough to acknowledge their mistake and reimburse me.

Then, when I got everything back together and put some water for an extra rinse (take a look at what it got out of this engine and how dirty the pipes are) I realized that the temp sensor wasn’t a match, instead of the typical 560794 this truck has a 484307 (Veglia Bressel) I’ll see if I can source one locally.

The good news is that the truck runs OK, better than before, less smoke, revs up nicely.

Also, to make things extra fun the bottom drain screw on the radiator got loose, well, not the screw, but the thing it screws into, so it leaks now… great, I’ll have to figure that one out too. Stay tuned…

Fun never ends with Land Rovers does it?