Merry Xmas

It looks like the Disco has been a good boy and got new shoes (Cooper STT on 235/85R16).

Also, I found one of the old front tires has uneven wear, I did check for play on the front wheels and there is none, so it must have been some other issue maybe with the tire or something. I’ll keep an eye on the new ones.

Merry X-mas or whatever it is that you celebrate, wishing all the best for all those Land Rover nuts out there!

Oil levels

This week’s work on the series III: I’ve been working on the oil levels. Quite a ride, I must say!

The engine oil, was well over the “high” mark, like 3 L. overfilled, I want to remove the oil sump later on, so I didn’t change the oil just yet, but made sure the level is correct for now (I barely move the LRS anyway).

After that I moved to the gear box, … *empty*, I mean it, just empty, no wonder the gears were a little hard when warm (good thing I don’t move this truck much). Of course all the oil had transferred to the transfer box (I am wondering if that is why it’s call that J), there was well over 1L. of overfill, very possible it’s just the gearbox oil moving here. All the nuts holding the bottom of the transfer were loose, no wonder it was leaking a bit.

And to finish it up, the overdrive, was…. Well, you can say it with me *empty*, I am puzzled with this one as I don’t see any visible leaks (yet) so we’ll see what happens with the oil I put on.

I can’t find EP90, so I had to use EP80/90 which is better than no oil anyway.

I also have used this combination of a 10mm ½” socket and an Allen wrench (10mm obviously) that works well on the square level screws on the boxes. 

I am going to make myself a tool from a big screw to be able to drain the boxes and diffs as I haven’t seen many drag link sockets here and I doubt there is one this big (22x11x7 mm the rectangular part I believe).

On to the differentials, the front one, a tiny bit overfill and clean, so far so good and the rear one…. You are right, *empty* and to make it even more fun the square screw on the diffs is slightly bigger than ½” so I was not able to use my ad-hoc tool for this… LR couldn’t use the *same* screws everywhere, could they?... plus whoever did the screw last time over-torqued it and the square was barely visible… way to go, whoever did that!!

Well, it looks like all the liquids are correct for now, down the road, as I see what is wrong with the LR, I’ll be changing oils, brake fluid and so on, but for now, I just want all the levels correct, so I can try the truck a little bit and see what is broken and what seals need replacing.

A few more parts will make their way this coming week and then I should be able to do some serious maintenance on the engine (valve’s clearance, air filter, diesel system, sump clean up, coolant and cleanup of radiator, ….), of course, I won’t do it *all* next week, it will take me a little while, but at least I should have all the stuff I need to work on it, whenever I have the time.

That’s all for now.

Electrics, check.

I finally sorted out the vacuum pump/depressor thing, in the end, I replaced the valves from the donor unit instead of trying to change the pulley, too much work and probably I’ll end up with a broken one anyway, too many years in there… I see the diaphragms in good shape, this is the donor, so I’ll keep them around, I may need them later.

This is the refurbished unit, ready to install.

And pictures of it in place, ready to test!

I’ve been working on the electrics too, first, try to find out what the loose cables are and then removing them, I need to sort out the signal lights and the rear left light set, as none of them work. I had to pull the whole dashboard out to be able to see the cables and their connections, at the end, probably I didn’t need that, but it helped a bit plus a clean it out well, that helps too, here you see the in-progress.

And done (for now) pictures.

I want to fix the basics so I can take the Series for a spin, to check how the engine goes when warm and what needs to be done in the dynamic section, I bet at least a tune up of the injector pump and/or maybe injectors may be needed.

What I realized today is that working in the Land Rovers is a hell of a workout, this of course, after finding sore muscles, some of them I didn’t even know they were there :P, but seriously, working in my Land Rovers beats a Gym any day and it’s a lot of fun (well, sometime is frustrating).

As part of the “getting to know each other” phase, I took a bunch of things apart inside, I found the funniest things, like whoever installed the overdrive, did it by “biting” the metal, to make the hole in the cabin…

I’ve also found 100 pesetas, which haven’t been in use since 2001 or so. I guess I got my investment back already :P

Well, the Santana is ready for a little drive around here out of the road, as it hasn’t passed the ITV yet, but I need to test all the new stuff I’ve done to it. So far, the electrics work, although I will need a new brake switch, this one is kind of “moody” and I discovered something interesting, the directional blinkers, are actually in series with the emergency lights, and the old little weird Lucas switch (the one you pull out) can make bad contact, so in short, the one to blame for the blinkers to not work was actually the switch that would go beyond the stop point.. fixed screwing it in, but the plastic is brittle and broke a bit. Also found a loose earth point in the back, reason for having no lights or signals on the back, left side.

Starting work on the Series III

Well, this weekend had some time to work on the Land Rover, overall seems OK as I said before, but there is plenty of work ahead. I am going to start working on what I consider important things (mechanical, rust) and later on I'll work on the cosmetic things (paint, seats, ...) I got an spare whole vacuum pump from Ivan, mine doesn't work right, so after comparing them I decided to swap the pulleys as the one on the spare is broken. In the picture you can see why you need to create the "helping tool" that Santana recommends, here is a picture I drew to try to get it done somewhere.

My daughter decided to "help" me around and the dog too, and she said that the Series is totally a Lara Croft truck, I took a few pictures while she was playing like being her.

I also checked the rust spots, most of them are superficial, the only concern is the frame on the passenger door and the edge of the roof, but the frame can be replaced easily and the roof looks like it can be repaired.

I also checked under the truck and saw what looks like a leak in the gasket of the oil pan, I planned to change it anyway to clean well the filter in there. So there you have it, starting easy and slow, but it looks promising and it's a fun workout too ;), oh, and it is a 5 bearing 2.25 engine, you can see the "X" on the block.

First day with the Series III

Well, Today I finally had some time to check the Land Rover. Overall is in good health for a 34 year old car, it has some rust spots, but cosmetics, mostly, some issues here and there, but most of the work needed is maintenance, clean up, paint and suspension/tires. I got the roof rack off, it's heavy!, and fixed the driver's door, which was out of whack. I am making a list of things to fix/replace/take care of, and it's already longer than my daughters Xmas list... and theirs is big!!! Anyway, a picture of a proper garage :)

Land Rover Series III

Well, it's time for another chapter in my Land Rover Life. This time I have decided to get a Series III. I always liked this classic Landies, and this one just got today seems to be in good shape as a start project. Lots of hours are going to be needed to bring it back to top shape, but at least is a runner with almost no rust, a 5 bearings engine (it seems at least) and a decent drivetrain. Some pictures to introduce this one for now and more as the project goes on.

Terrafirma 2" lift

It was time to finally install the Terrafirma lift. Jorge (Salvaje) from the CLRTTE showed up to help, much appreciated by the way, while we worked around the Disco, we did find some interesting things too. First of all, last week I replaced the master cylinder and booster, booster broke back in the Land Rover Party, but master was starting to leak a little bit, so I played it safe and replace both, looking good and shiny… and it works perfect too.

Also, I did the stupid ‘P’ gasket, what a waste of time to get there, as always one of the bolts rounded off and I had to hammer in the 3/8 to get it out, oh well. So back to today’s business. We started with the measurements of the old setup, to compare at the end, roughly 79 cm and 80 cm, front and back respectively.

Talking about damages from the Party, the rear bumper is showing signs of “smile-ification” (not my word, Max’s) both ends got loose and I repaired for now. The steering guard got some of the smilification too, you can see Indy the inspector checking it out, and we notice the front axle stabilizer on the driver side, was a little bended too, will stay like that for a bit though… got rid of the side steps, they got pretty damaged too.

So anyway, back to the lift, we tried to take a couple of picture while working on this, here is how the new setup looks like, front and back and a picture of how spooky it looks the car without suspension.

Measurements at the end, 83 cm. and 87 cm., front and rear, of course, they will settle a bit once I use them a bit, but not bad, it drives great too.

So, we had some fun, expending the day with a friend is always nice, we got to talk about Land Rovers and the club, we had lunch and some liquor after we finished the job (I even dare to drink a little bit) and as I said, it was a good day, we ended up tired though, it’s quite some work to do this, we started at around 11am (I was already monkeying around the car since 8-9am) and we finished at about 5pm, including a break for beer and another one for lunch. Here are the protagonists of the day, David, Indy and Jorge.

Land Rover Party 2011

Well,
One of the events I was really looking forward to, is the Land Rover event in Les Comes (Barcelona), I got to hang out with Suri and his family and a lot of friends from the area

I had a lot of fun, met new people and said hello to some people I met before. It was a fun event overall, I didn't have time to check everything out, but maybe next time.

Some pictures of Les Comes:

We did go around the whole property, exploring and checking all sorts of interesting things, like this salt mine.

The wooden bridge was kind of fun too.

But probably one of the things that was more fun was one of the extreme areas, with plenty of mud, where we got stuck twice, once Saturday and then again Sunday.

It's funny how much the mud changed, Saturday had plenty of water, but by Sunday it was very thick and sticky.

Saturday's pictures here, at one point my Disco started digging to get up and sprayed Txus nicely, as you can see below. We got slightly stuck here, but nothing compared to what happened Sunday.

Sunday, things were going smoothly as there was less water in the mud, but the end of the trail, was very hard and almost everyone (but Jordi's Td5 and a Disco3, if I remember well) had some sort of issue there. I broke one of the end caps for the rear bumper and Suri got mud well over the knees, check out his shoes below.

Overall,
we had such a great time, I'll do the whole thing again. And considering I did all that in my stock Disco with street tires, ... not bad at all.

I think I have some issue with the brakes and we had to clean mud from pretty much everywhere, but still fun.

As always with Land Rover events, the best of all is the people.

I'll certainly try to go again next time.

This was the worse of the damage I got... not too bad and very typical problem:

Well, other than repairing the brakes and replacing the "P" gasket, I have some new toys to install too, courtesy of MM4x4: