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?

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.