OkieRover.com

Why Children Should Not Drive Your Toys, Part 2

2012-01-20T22:43:00.000-06:00

If you have read this blog for any length of time, you know that Part 1 of "Why you should not allow your children to drive your toys" was the two years RovErica drove the Range Rover Classic and the four hours I let her borrow the Discovery 2 one fateful April afternoon her Senior year. Two years of RovErica driving the Range Rover resulted in an entire summer up on jack stands and dozens of hours of restoration. Four hours of her driving the Discovery resulted in a totaled vehicle.

Part two of this story is why you should not let your son drive your Range Rover to eat lunch while his Scion is in the BODY SHOP. "BODY SHOP" should have been my first clue why DietMtnDrew should have his wings clipped. This image of my door handle will suffice as the second clue.

Yes that is a cast aluminium door handle torn in half. I blame myself. I should have taught him the trick to opening the door. Instead he just "pulled a little harder". When it failed to open the door he just crawled over from the passenger side.

The doors on the left side have a nasty problem I have yet to solve. They are not set correctly and require you to push on the door to cause the latch to trip. All this while you are pulling the latch. Its tricky to say the least.

Finding door handles to replace the broken units is getting very difficult as well. The last time I was at Rover Cannibal he only had three total in the entire warehouse. At some point one of us enthusiasts will need to send a functioning unit to a machine shop for them to make out of steel or aircraft aluminum. I can't imagine what that would cost.

Last Sunday we were experiencing some more of the "I can't believe this is January in Oklahoma weather". Temps around the state got up to 72 F degrees. Our normal is closer to 45 F. I took advantage of the beautiful day and swapped out my driver's side front door handle.

This is a relatively easy job. The good news is both the left side and right side door handles are inter-changeable. The fronts obviously have locks built in to the handle assembly, while the backs do not. The handle fits in either. I had two rear door handles. So using a punch I freed the hinge pin and the handle just slips out.

You must remove the door cards first. I purposefully bought some of the plastic friction pins just in case I break some in the removal process. On the last Wheeler Dealer, Edd China had a lovely tool I haven't found yet, to assist in the removal. I used a big screw driver with a nice large flat head. After the door cards are off and the plastic is out of the way you can see what you are up against.

You can now remove the handle assembly from the door. It requires an 8mm socket for the nuts.

Simply remove the nuts and the bracket and the lock comes away from the door. This is fairly simple. I don't recommend you dropping any of the nuts. You might not find them again.

Once the handle assembly is out of the door, use a common punch to remove the hinge pin and swap the handles. This model has heated door locks so you will have to work with the assembly hanging from the door, unless you want to cut the wires and splice them back later. I opted not to do that and just worked on it from the door.

Here's a look at the assembly. The new handle is in place. Not pictured and sitting on my bonnet is the actuating rod and spring. It is held in place with a pin and clip. Nothing to worry about. You can see the retaining bolts and you can imagine how badly I wanted to brush off the rust.

I marked the "C" clip because the trickiest part of this job is getting the rod clips loose. They are held in place with a friction spring clip. The one located secured to the unit with the "C" clip was difficult to remove in the door. So I removed it by loosing the "C" clip. You may find your self more dexterous. The last trick to loosen the rod clips is to just use a screw drive and flick (for lack of a better term) them off the rods.

Reverse the dis-assembly and you are back in business. The system of rods and loose fitting wobbly clips is really a poor way to do things in my opinion. There is a lot of room for wear and failure of parts that are probably impossible to find. Once you learn how the door locks are actuated with the electric units, if this doesn't disappoint you nothing will. Its not elegant or even very clever. Its a nightmare waiting to happen. Again this is my opinion. Its hard to believe the same race that put the brilliant Spitfire in to the air to win the Battle of Britain designed that.

On the OkieRover Difficulty Scale this job is a one. Edd China would call the internals fiddly bits and that is a perfect description. They look intimidating but they are not.

The passenger side front handle is also tearing and I'll be using my last spare to fix it. I'm still trying to figure out what to do about the doors not functioning correctly. Most of the internal door parts were made by GM. I'm wondering if I can buy new door latches and solve my problem. Another solution is to just take it down to a body shop and have them "adjust" the doors. If I knew what to do, I'd do it myself, but I don't and haven't seen anything on the interwebs to tell me.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

Brake Caliper Problem Solved

2012-01-15T21:58:00.000-06:00

We had an uncharacteristically warm Saturday just in time for me to sort out the problem with the brake caliper on the Range Rover. As you may remember I came home to find this in my driveway.

As you can imagine it was very disappointing. I knew it was behaving like a warped rotor. As I mentioned in my previous post those rotors were brand new. I got the parts in and found brake fluid at a store I normally don't shop in, Pep Boys. Its good to know someone around here stocks Castrol LMA Dot 4 brake fluid.

As I mentioned Saturday morning came around and I pulled the Range Rover into the garage with only the hand brake to slow me down. I ordered brake calipers for the entire rear axle. I figured if one had failed the other would be near enough to fail as well. My son's friend "Scuba" wanted to learn about brakes so I told him to come over when he was ready. I started and not long after he wandered in. He is studying mechanical engineering and would like to be a automotive designer/engineer for BMW after he graduates.

So back to the caliper. I got her jacked up and got the tire off and started looking at what might have happened. What I found was very, very disappointing.

I noticed a wear mark on the rotor.

The wear marks are only on part of the rotor. This would account for the whomp, whomp sound. So I looked at the brake caliper. The brake pad was dragging on the rotor. This is not designed to happen. So I looked at the caliper for an explanation.

The brake caliper had two distinct wear marks. With the caliper in place the brake pads were definitely rubbing on the rotor. I showed Scuba how the caliper works and we thought about the design and what might have failed. I decided to fit the new caliper and see if we had the same conditions.

With the new caliper in place we didn't see any contact between the rotor and the pad. as I was looking at the setup I noticed something not quite right.

There was a gap between the rotor and the hub. There should not be a gap there. I examined it even more closely and noticed the hub and rotor were touching on the opposite side. But on this side they were separated.

This causes rotor to wobble and as it was rotating it was causing vibration and parts that have very tight clearances were now rubbing on each other. This caused a couple of bolts to be shaved off a bit.

I removed the hub and rotor and found even more damage. The ABS ring was also not properly attached to the rotor. That was apparent from the nyloc nuts that were not properly tightened down.

You can see everything the the following picture. How it stayed together I will never know.

It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. The brake rotor was scorched and had to be replaced. The brake pads were ruined from heat. The brake caliper seal had failed and need to be replaced or refurbished. I had sourced that part but the pads and the rotor were another thing.

I went to O'Reilly's Auto and they told me they didn't have one in any store or in the warehouse. I went out to the parking lot and called NAPA Auto. The kid there told me they had pads and rotors in the warehouse and could have them brought to the store in Norman by Monday. The good news in this is the warehouse is in Edmond. So I called the kid back and told him I'd just drive up there (35 minutes) and pick them up myself. So I did. Ricky was fun to chat with as they pulled my parts.

I headed home and found myself on the road where my family is buried. I stopped to see the burial plot. I didn't stay long.

I got back to the garage and started disassembling and reassembling the parts. In the reassembly I used red thread locker on the bolts that go in to the ABS ring. I used blue thread locker on EVERYTHING ELSE.

I had lost an entire quart of brake fluid. I emptied the full contents of the bottle into the reservoir. Scuba pumped the brake peddle as I bled the air out of the line and caliper. We hopped in and took her for a ride around the block. All was well.

Conclusion.
How on earth did those bolts come out? I know for sure that I tightened the bolts. I remember how I rigged up the breaker bar. I remember the reassembly. There was no thread locker on the bolts when I disassembled it. This was the main reason for not putting any on when I initially did the brake rotors.

I will definitely have the driver's side rear off to check for assembly. If this could occur on the passenger side it could occur on the driver's side. Better to find the problem before it destroys that side.

I have had nothing but trouble with that corner (passenger side) of the Range Rover since I did the last restoration. Was I exceptionally tired that day? Was I loco de color that day? It was exceptionally hot that summer.

Well that is all. I have a few other projects that demand attention. First and foremost is the driver's side door handle. My son Diet Mtn Drew managed to nearly rip it off when he borrowed the the Range Rover while his Scion was in the shop. The main problem is the latch needs adjustment. I will look at that when I pull the door card and sort out the bad handle. I also have to fixed the faulty brake peddle switch.

School starts back on Tuesday. My next free time will be during Spring Break. Let's hope nothing breaks before then.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

This is some seriously good news!

2012-01-06T13:54:00.002-06:00

I have long believed that the Classic's ABS pump was rebuildable. It is just an electric motor and a pump mechanism. I personally believe there should be a pump on the Classic that was good for at least two hours of constant running. Perhaps a type of PTO from the motor, nevermind, but that really doesn't make much sense. I've even kicked around in my head building a circuit to light an LED on the dash when the bloody pump is running. All this just so I can catch a failure before it happens. In any event, the pumps are (IMHO) weak and the relays they use can fail and leave you without brakes as you know them.

If you read enough message boards you will see many guys talking about removing the ABS and going to "standard brakes". Mostly this is because of this failure and the cost of repair. ABS has its place in the universe and I can respect that. But I'd hope it would, in the future, be more reliable over the life of the vehicle. I received an email from George a fellow Rover owner down in Australia a while back and we kicked this subject back and forth.

So today, I'm checking my email and lo and behold I get the following email from my mate down under, George D'Onofrio.

Hey Eric!
Happy New Year!
Just letting you know that ABS pumps ARE repairable!
Got mine back from Al Cowan after a $US378 overhaul (vs $1500 new):
http://www.falconworks.net/britold/brit.htm
along with a new accumulator and 2 new relays.

I held off replacing the accumulator as I wanted to see what it did with a decent pump. The howling has stopped (bearing?) and all I hear is a buzz like a mosquito in my ear. I can also hear the relay click when it starts/stops. AND The Three Amigos have ridden off into the sunset too!

Stationary, I get 3-4 pedal pushes before the pump starts and it only runs for 2-3 secs. On the road, it starts when the brake pedal gets a good push but it stops pretty quickly.

By referring to Al's bible: I've concluded the accumulator is getting near the end of its days but I'm due to change the brake fluid this year so I'll replace it then.
CheersGeorge

Thanks George!

Okay my first observation...HOW THE HELL HAVE I MISSED THIS SITE?

This is a great trove of Land Rover information and I have never seen it? I may have to go back to a Google Search 101 class. I really like this site, well except it looks like it was coded by a 13 year old girl. It is chock full of great info. So much so I'm going to put it on the link section.

So thanks to George and thanks to the fun folks at Falcon Works. If I had known about you when we were trekking across the country in the Disco 2 back in 2008 I would have stopped by. We DROVE RIGHT BY THE PLACE! Ugggh! My pal Dave has been begging us to come back out to California so perhaps we'll stop by on our way home.

Check them out and if you buy something tell them you saw it on OkieRover's blog. They don't know me from Adam's house cat, but I'd like them to know where the referrals are coming from.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

PS. wow this post just just crammed with jargony goodness, wasn't it!?

That's not supposed to happen

2012-01-03T22:08:00.001-06:00

QUICK! Name three things you didn't expect to happen when you got home today.
Was one of them "finding a puddle of brake fluid in your driveway?"
No?
Me neither.

This is what I came home to today.

You will remember in my last post that we had a brake rotor we thought was warped. On first inspection of it, I didn't see anything like that but the evidence (sound and peddle surging) was there.

My son, Diet Mt. Drew, called today and asked to drive the Range Rover to lunch. He first asked, via text, if it was "safe" and "reliable" enough to drive. THE NERVE! He had to ask to drive my Range Rover because his Scion xB was in the shop. It was in the shop because he hit a curb in front of the Cleveland County Fairgrounds while traveling 40 MPH. Yes, a cell phone was involved. Yes he bent the lower "A" Frame, destroyed two rims...etc... but I digress.

In any event...he drove the Classic today. I did not expect the brake caliper to fail with him at the wheel, but apparently it did. He reported all this to his mother, the noted blogging mechanic in the family "that he had severe braking issues" while driving her today.
Did anyone call me or notify me by text?

I've rebuilt that caliper at least once. So today I ordered a couple of re-manufactured brake calipers. They were half the price of new and free shipping, so I bought one for each side on the rear. No core return, so I can rebuild my old and tired ones again and have a spare....just in case Diet Mt. Drew drives to lunch again. (wink, wink)

If you remember the last major brake restore (I keep referring to these previous posts like you all are AVID readers) I swapped brake hoses and ground off all the rust (theoretically) and re-sprayed the brake calipers with some acid-etching primer. It was kind of silly because brake fluid is a paint solvent. But I felt obligated.

When I had them apart I noticed a lot of rusted. Especially inside the caliper. I even took a picture of the rusty bleed screw, see below. The picture doesn't show it very well but it was pitted with rust.

When I did that project, it was determined that I had a bad proportioning valve. I vaguely remember replacing it. But quite honestly if I hadn't seen the picture labeled "Valve that failed" I wouldn't have remember it.

It is likely that these old tattered calipers are past their prime. I'm a bit surprised with only 191,000 miles on them. (okay I'm not really all that surprised).

I'll let you know how the replacements go and whether or not I'd recommend the company as a source for parts for your Range Rover.

Happy New Year, Whoa!

2012-01-01T18:25:00.000-06:00

I say whoa because here in the middle states "whoa" is the command you give a horse to slow down or stop depending on the pull of the reigns. "Whoa" is also what goes through your head when you press on the brakes in your Range Rover and they surge like you have a warped brake disc.

I put those discs on just this summer. They haven't had a thousand miles on them yet and that's pretty disappointing. I'm going to remove them and have them machined down. Its a job I can't get to right now as my garage is not yet reclaimed from all the stuff that didn't make it into the garage sale after mom's funeral.

I also need to adjust the upper rear lift gate. It has a nasty habit of popping open when the body flexes as when we go over the rail road tracks on Robinson street or over a water erosion formation out in the pasture. I think I can back it out just a bit and not try for such a tight fit.

Taking advantage of the beautiful weather on New Year's Eve it was a very unseasonable 70F, we planned to go shooting. RovErica's boyfriend is home on leave from serving in the U.S. Marine Corps water taxi service. In actuality, he serves aboard the USS Guardian. And from the picture you can surmise he's stationed in Japan, as that is Mount Fujiyama in the background.

Our gracious host has some very nice weapons and we took full advantage of the fun provided by shooting some of the classic weapons of the greatest generation. We shot a Thompson, BAR, and some other toys that I brought.

RovErica is my only child who enjoys the shooting sports. She especially likes to shoot the M-1 Garand but she only shoots it a few times before she is done. I made her shoot it "one more time" so I could get some video. Before you beat up on me for being mean to her during the video she is tougher than she might look. And don't worry Momma was there so I couldn't be too mean to her without feeling her wrath.

Chris brought his little brother and together the put on a pretty good display of shooting for rookies. I was quoted at one point as saying to Chris, "You shoot pretty good for a squid." He actually does shoot well and put on a display with the BAR by pushing the rubber target up the berm.

RovErica really likes shooting my .22 revolver. She asked me to leave it to her in my will. I'm pretty sure the other kids will give her all the guns. That might change if any of my grand kids like shooting with their PawPaw. We shall see.

We finished off the New Year's Eve activities by having our friends the Fisher's over. We do this nearly every year. Neither of us have to be out or driving we live just 3 houses away. They brought a new game this year. Name 5 is pretty fun. The gist of it was you draw a card and it has subjects on it and you have to name five of what ever the subject is.
Name five college sports teams.
Easy right? A couple we found fun were name five kinds of house plants. Being that we don't have green thumbs we couldn't come up with five. The other team can challenge your answers and if it is deemed not a acceptable answer you lose. On the house plants my wife answered Marijuana. Between Mrs. OkieRover and I we could name 6 people from our past that grew that in their home. Hell, my brother grew it in his closet at my mom and dad's home when we were growing up. It was deem unacceptable and so we lost that round.

It seemed when the other team would get name five colors, we would get name five Ethiopian Nobel Prize candidates from the first half of the 20th century. Or they would get name five letters in the alphabet, and we would get name five Popes from the Middle Ages who weren't born in Italy. It a pretty good time. We finished up with some Wii Archery, Bowling, and Fencing Speed Slicing. Good times.

As I watch Mrs. OkieRover put away the Christmas decorations and the Dallas Cowboys getting thumped by the New York Football Giants I wish you all a Happy New Year. Let's have a really good one this year and let it be full of awesomeness.

As far as resolutions...eh, I have decided to get into better shape. My man boobs have grown to B cup size and that's just not acceptable. The weight loss I have enjoyed has slipped around 15 pounds. I need to get it back off.
Name five exercises that will get you back into shape if you just do them.
Name five projects the Range Rover needs done so I can get her out on some four wheeling trips this Spring.

Thanks for reading, Happy New Year, and Happy Rovering.

Happy Festivus

2011-12-23T14:52:00.000-06:00

As is the tradition with Festivus, I thought I'd start with the traditional "airing of grievances". In no particular order (that's why I numbered them). All questions are rhetorical and if you sense what I am saying has a hint of sarcasm, it is sarcastic.

The first has to be with the price of ignition coils. Seriously, why does a coil have to cost so bloody much? 140$(US) is just silly.
Why can't we get a diesel motor option in America from Land Rover? Every motor company in the world has a clean diesel engine. Make it happen...FOR ALL LAND ROVER MODELS. Period.
Why do I have such a hard time with electronics? I have to blame all the 16-18 year old GIRLS I went to school with for being so distracting. If I'd gone to an all boys school perhaps I would have paid more attention in vocational training.
Why is taking care of leather seats so damn much work? I can polish a shoe as well as anyone, but I can't save a leather seat from disintegrating under my ass.
Why do automotive engineers think we all have lifts in our garages? Why do they feel compelled to bury parts that are listed on tick sheets to be replaced at intervals in places that require the engine to be removed to easily repair. Think about the ignition wires and coil packs on a 2000-2004 Discovery 2. That is simply asinine.
You design a car that can be driven from Solihull to the Horn of Africa. But if you roll down the windows more than 6 or 7 times the window regulator becomes wad of metal that resembles a pretzel inside the door panel. Think about our beloved Discovery 2 models again.
ABS pumps. You make a vehicle that requires power brakes but the pump you use has only a 10 year lifespan if you are lucky and after 10 years becomes more difficult to find than the effin' Holy Grail. And when you do find one, it costs more than the value of the vehicle it goes on. This is not helping brand sustainability.
Cars in general. Think about the military contracts your country has to provide airplanes and tanks and trucks. Its not the initial cost of the item its the spare parts that you sell that make the money. If you want to be green, hug some trees and stop filling the land fills or in Oklahoma filling the washes next to creeks and streams, build a car that the owner wants to drive for more than 5 years and can get fairly prices parts for.
From http://www.surfaceandsurfacephotography.com/photoblog

This will conclude the "airing of grievances".
Happy Festivus and Happy Rovering everyone.

191,191

2011-12-22T21:18:00.000-06:00

191,191 miles. Its a mileage palindrome. I know that is a lot of miles on a truck. All in all, she's in pretty good condition considering that. However, I think I still need some undercarriage work. A new set of springs and shocks and a new steering damper would probably make things a lot nicer.

There was a threat of snow ever so briefly this week, so I got her out this weekend for some work and to test the starting issues I had this month. It was a beautiful weekend 61F and just a slight breeze. And with a successful road trial I drove her to work and back, too.

She did pretty good. As you can see she hauled some fire wood for us. It was interesting to me how different the ride was with a load in her. This makes me rethink my spring selection. Probably going with the "medium duty" springs. I don't haul a lot but would like to know if I did I'd be good to go.

While I was out this week, I also stopped by the furniture store and grabbed a set of chairs we ordered with our new table. The kid that loaded the box was funny. He was so worried about putting the box in the back seat.

I had to finally say, "Its a truck, just set the box on the seat."
"Its a Range Rover."
"Its just a truck son, put the box back there."

I have to respect that he didn't want to damage anything. I'm sure he's run into some snobby lady that didn't like the way he loaded something in their Range Rover or Lexus or Mercedes. And with that lesson he's learned to be careful. I wasn't hard on him, just matter of fact about it.

When I pulled into the neighborhood for the last time I could hear some sounds underneath. It was definitely related to the speed I was going. Sounded like something rubbing, whomp, whomp, whomp, and it would increase in frequency when I sped up.

So I guess I'll have to try and sort that out this weekend. I hope it's simple like last time and just something I forgot to button up tightly. hope its nothing silly like a rear end about to quit.

Its that time of year again. This year I don't think I'll be doing a 12 days of Christmas post. I'm still a little burned out from the school work this semester and I have enjoyed my brain being idled. But if I get some energy I'll get one going.

So from my family to yours, Merry Christmas, thanks for reading and happy rovering.

Holy Crap the Classic is Running

2011-12-11T22:34:00.001-06:00

I've had to take a few weeks off to finish the semester. I should have an "A" in Motivation in Learning & Leadership LSTD 3673. During that time I ordered a coil and a cap and rotor. Its been killing me not to go out and install it. I ordered the parts from Atlantic British. I was absolutely surprised how much a coil costs. My local O'Reilly Auto Parts had one for 134($US). Rovers North had a coil for 180+($US). What on earth?

This thing is a Buick. Read that as its basically a fancy Chevy. A replacement coil pack for a 1993 Chevy Blazer is 19($US). NINETEEN DOLLARS! What is so special about a coil that makes it cost 180 dollars? Some one please tell me. I realllllly want to know.

In any event I finished my final paper, Motivational Strategies of United States Marine Corps Recruiting Posters (link provided by request, enjoy), and braved the rainy 40 F degree weather to install the new coil. It wasn't all that cold and I got the new coil installed and got the rotor and cap installed. I went into the cab inserted the key and the Range Rover roared to life. ROARED to life. The radiator fan was tapping the shroud again so I shut her down. I got two larger screws and adjusted the shroud so it was not making contact with the fan.

I started her back up and let her run...and run...and run. I closed the bonnet and and let her heat up. She ran flawlessly. I need to take her out for a test drive and make sure she is running right. Maybe I'll drive her to work on Friday.

So was my problem all along a bad coil?
I bought that coil only a few years ago. I'm not exactly sure what year it was, but I remember installing it. And I remember the Range Rover was sitting in the driveway of this house. So am I to guess that coils only last a couple of years? Why did my first coil last 7 years? Why did the coil in my Ford Maverick Grabber NEVER have to be replaced? What's up with that?

So I'm guessing I will have to learn some things about coils. I am almost sure this coil died from heat. Its just a guess, but its dead now and a new one is installed. Thanks for following the saga and sorry it took so long to solve it.

Now we are on to repairing the brake light switch which hangs on and the windshield seal replacement in an attempt to eliminate a leak. Once that is done I can reinstall the floor insulation and carpets. Then its on to finding a new sound system, air conditioning, and new shocks and springs. After that I will attempt to sort out the central locking system. Wait, this seems like I have a bigger list than I did when she was up on jack stands all summer. How did that happen?

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

A diamond in the rough

2011-11-25T09:14:00.000-06:00

Last weekend I dragged my neighbor Fish4OSU up to JagGuy's shoppe to see if I had a spare starter on my spare engine. Unfortunately I did not. On a whim and a suggestion we went by the local "pull-a-part" which I learned today is not part of the national chain. It is U-Pull-It, whatever.

Fish4OSU needed a fan motor for his daughter's Saturn LS-1 and a mirror. I needed a starter. I've been to this breakers yard many times, they seldom have any Land Rovers. But I thought what am I out, a buck...what the hell.

We found lots of Saturns and the mirrors were not in that great a condition. Fish4OSU commented it must be a thing with these cars. Bad or missing passenger side mirrors. Nearly everyone had either swapped paint with something or been driven behind a truck pulling a sand blaster down I-35. While he sourced the fan I went in search of a diamond in the rough.

I walked the 200 yards to the "import" section. I stopped to admire a Mercedes Benz 300SD with a diesel motor. As I walked on, I dreamed about dropping that into my Range Rover. I looked right and what did I see?

YES! that was the tell-tale roof line of a Range Rover Classic. When I got up to her there was a gentleman attempting to extract the transaxle or transfer case or transmission. I'm not sure he was sure. As I looked her over I mumbled, "1993 or 1994, I wonder if there are any others". He heard me and replied, "1994. This is the only one." I politely told him I was going to be in the front and that I'd be right back.

I went back to tell Fish4OSU I found one. He was finished and we returned to the Range Rover. The gentleman was gone and the drive train was still intact. I started on the top end retrieving parts. I got the fuel temperature sensor, the water temperature sensor, the cap from the overflow tank and the throttle position sensor (fingers crossed, say goodbye to my error 14). I went into the cab and found the EFI computer and the window ECU. I pulled them too. I was pretty happy with myself and we returned to the counter to pay.

Just as I put my receipt in my wallet I looked down and noticed a starter sitting on the counter. I forgot to get the one thing I had gone there to get! I had already paid, so I told Fish4OSU to wait for me, "this will only take a second." I got back to the Range Rover and started to work on removing the starter.

The bottom bolt came off easily enough. I got lined up for the top bolt. No matter how hard I tried I could not get it out. I worked on it for at least 30 minutes before I gave up bruised, battered and covered in oily dirt. The tools we borrowed from JagGuy just weren't quite up to snuff or I sucked using them...the jury is still deliberating.

They had Sunday hours and I said I'd just grab my tools and come back tomorrow. Saturday was beautiful, middle 70's and truly pleasant outside. Sunday was the opposite of that. It was 37 degrees and a 10-15mph wind from the North blowing in low clouds. If it had been 10 degrees colder it would have been snowing. That figures doesn't it? But it is the OkieRover way, never easy.

So I got back to her and got to work. I could not break that bolt free. I'm pretty sure I tore the head up as I was unable to get any satisfaction. Frustrated I looked at the top of the motor. There was an original alternator there and an original air conditioning compressor. I thought I could use both of those things. So I went about removing them.

As I cut the lines for the air conditioning compressor, they still had pressure in them! Bonus, this compressor was still working when this Rover met her demise. I grabbed a rear lens from the passenger side and both of the door handles still in the doors. My second day injuries were minimal, some light bruising and a partially crunched pinky finger. Funny thing is, I don't bruise. I've fallen off the back of a van going nearly 30mph through a field and I didn't bruise. Yeah, that's a story for another time.

How this Classic wound up in the yard I do not know. The panels were all straight. It was not a wrecked truck. It even had a cigarette lighter in it (I grabbed it too). The inside was in rough condition. Not as bad as mine but you could tell it was not well cared for by the driver. The headliner was still original. It lead me to believe the transmission or some electrics may have been its undoing. I would have liked to have had the whole body but that was not possible. You cannot buy a Salvaged Title vehicle "intact" in Oklahoma. She was probably still Dealership maintained, looking at the parts I saw inside.

All in all I made a killing. The first days parts cost me roughly 26$(US). If even one of the parts is in working condition I scored big.

The second day's parts were more pricey, 87$(US). But the air conditioning compressor costs twice that so I'm still "standing in tall cotton" as we say in Oklahoma.

I am really happy I found her and was able to get some parts off her. I was sad to see her in the breaker's yard. It just makes me realize that Classics are getting harder to come by and getting parts for them will be getting harder and harder. I guess when I can no longer get the important parts, I'll just have to buy a Series 2a or Series 3. You can still get most of the parts for one of those from Rovers North.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T07:00:00.000-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving.
As we all take a break from our hectic lives and give thanks on this Thanksgiving I thought I'd share some things I'm thankful for....
...my loving wife MrsOkieRover.
...my three healthy children, DietMtDrew, RovErica, Leci-bug.
...my two healthy grand children.
...a good job and a comfortable living.
I am also thankful I am not
...a Lucas Electrical Engineer, its hot enough for me in Oklahoma.
...a Land Rover mechanic for a living, my life doesn't make sense most of the time as it is.

I am most thankful for the men and women who have served in uniform and given everything so that I can live this life.

Thanks for reading, Happy Rovering and Happy Thanksgiving.

This is why I cook my turkey in the oven.

Bad Fuel? Nope...

2011-11-23T13:37:00.001-06:00

Here's a quick follow-up.

It probably isn't bad fuel.
I have come to the conclusion that once the engine is hot she stops running. I've had a few suggestions, bad coil was a good one from ini88.

[ini88] I had something similar with mine after working on it. I hard spark*, fuel, air, etc. Everything was set to go. Then a swapped coil with my Defender because I suspected the coil was weak. yup, that was it. You can have spark, but if its yellow or orange its too weak. You need that white, blue spark to set it running. Maybe check your spark again?

Complete thread here.
Indeed ini88, I will be sourcing a new coil and possibly look at swapping some sensors. I found a derelict 1994 Range Rover in the local breakers yard. I pulled a bunch of stuff off of her. More on that in a later blog post.

Bad fuel? Seriously?

2011-11-18T14:54:00.001-06:00

This is a real shirt!

Radiator project completed.
So I'm putting the radiator back in last Saturday. I get her all fitted and buttoned back up and the battery is dead. So it was late and I stuck the trickle charger on it and decided I would test drive her the next day.

The next day rolled around and I was taking a break from my studies and thought I'd give the old girl a spin around the block. Around the block lead to me visiting our first house on Quanah Parker. I was keen to know if the deck I built was still in the back yard. You can see it if you wander into the Chisholm Trail Park in Northeast Norman.

I turned her around and headed for home. I pulled in the 'hood and was pretty proud of myself. I rounded the traffic calming circle and she died. Dead. No sputter, no cough, dead.

I started on my diagnosis...

Checked spark. CHECK.
Checked air. CHECK.
Checked fuel. CHECK.
Injectors firing. Stethoscope confirmed clicking sound. CHECK.

What the hell? I was stumped. So I called the wife and she pulled me down to the house. I posted a few messages on the Landroversonly.com and RangeRovers.net sites. A few days went by with no responses. I figured I'd probably really done it now.

I called JagGuy and after talking to him he told me a story of two weekends ago when a similar thing happened to him. He tore his Jag apart and never found the problem. It wasn't until he checked the fuel. It didn't have that overwhelming gasoline smell when he opened the fuel rail. I mentioned to him neither did mine.

Well, there you have it. Bad Gas. Lets look at the evidence now that we have the culprit.Range Rover sitting for weeks at a time without being driven.

Using Ethanol fuel.
Would not run.
Fuel didn't smell like fuel.

JagGuy said he couldn't even get his gas to ignite unless he put the torch directly on the fuel. JagGuy does some funny experiments some times. He was being safe, trust me.

So with this as a suggestion, I went down and got 4 gallons of fresh fuel and with RovErica holding the funnel, I poured the fuel ~~all over the side of the Range Rover and on to the ground~~ into the tank. After it was all in, I attempted to start her up. The battery was not charged enough for a proper attempt so we hooked the jumper cables up. A few attempts, she finally coughed and sputtered. And then she started and ran.

Well HOT DAMN!
I called JagGuy and told him he was a Supra-Genius*. He declined the title because he had torn his Jaguar all the way down to find bad fuel, I hadn't. I got the Range Rover ready for a trip down to the Conoco/Phillips petrol vendor. I went in to tell my wife I was heading out and would be right back. She said, "Take your phone. If you are stranded this time, call me before you sit there for 2 hours."
I think she still loves me...I know her confidence in the Range Rover is waning.

I went out to the Range Rover and touched the door to get in and she died.
WHAT.THE.HELL?
I won't bore you any further with a long story laced with lots of expletives. I was unable to get her started again. The bad news was I thought I had less than a quarter of a tank of bad fuel...I have nearly three quarters of a tank of bad fuel. My hypothesis is that as I was pouring in the petrol it stirred the tank. As it sat the fuel and water separated out again.

SO I either have to drain the tank or try to add more fuel to try and get her started again to burn out the bad fuel. Either way I'm probably going to replace my fuel filter and will have a mess to sort out.

So we can say this without doubt, "Don't use ethanol in a vehicle you don't drive frequently." I think I will start driving the Range Rover on Fridays. Most people drive their classic cars on Fridays in Oklahoma. You can see all the guys that have car hobbies because they drive them on Fridays.

I still have a CODE 14, Throttle Position Sensor problem. I will sort that out as soon as I can get the Range Rover running again. I'm proud I haven't had to replace it yet. 190,000 miles. I am also contemplating replacing the fuel temp sensor (running rich), and possibly the O2 sensors again.

I have serious questions now about how to get the Range Rover in a condition that I am confident she would make a multi-day trip to Moab or Colorado or even to work three days in a row.

Car Company Bicycles

2011-10-21T08:16:00.000-05:00

I was looking at some car related bicycle pr0n today on Yahoo and ran across this picture, among others, and thought, "That is pretty cool."

I am sure I cannot afford a new Range Rover, MSRP 79,685 - 95,465$(US) and I'm pretty sure I couldn't afford a bicycle branded the same, 795 pounds (1257$(US)). Surprisingly that is not all that expensive for a really high quality bicycle, if it is a quality bicycle. I wonder if there are any on eBay....or Craigslist.....

Land Rover has a website just for their bikes. Enjoy.

Osborn's Radiator

2011-10-08T10:00:00.000-05:00

I pulled up to Osborn's on Friday afternoon in my Civic after schlepping it through the Capitol Hill neighborhood on Oklahoma City's south side during rush hour. This part of town is also known as "Little Mexico" as a good portion of the city's Hispanic population live and have businesses here. I remember cruising around this part of town with some of my "city friends" back in the day (1980-1981). There were no Hispanics then, only the Czechs who had settle this part of OKC. Se han ido todos.

I took the Range Rover's radiator out of the boot and carried in. The first thing Terry said was, "That's off a Range Rover."
I was stunned!
I said, "How did you know that?"
He replied, "I've seen three of them before."
I countered with, "I'm impressed. Really impressed."

I showed him the leak and the failed brass fill plug. He said, "No problem, the earliest I can get it for you is tomorrow morning." I told him next week was fine, no rush. We started talking about the game tomorrow and he explained why two people were wearing Texas Longhorns shirts out in the bay. They were working on their dirt track racer. When I pulled up and saw the burnt orange clad folks I thought, this isn't going to go well, as I was wearing my OU polo. But Terry told me they coach the little league Moore Sooners but were from Texas and route for the Longhorns on Saturdays.

I was very keen to find out this next part so I asked him "why so many shops were closing down?" I mentioned my hypothesis about the EPA and the advent of the plastic tanked radiators. He shrugged it all off with a point to the vat. "Naw, I've got a machine for that over there for the plastic tanks, people just don't stay in business. We've been here 75 years, my grandfather ran this shop, then my dad, now me. It's a specialized business. If you asked me to do anything else I'd tell you I can't. Radiators aren't something you just do. Aluminum welding, or brass like yours, some plumbers try it but its usually not right. We've been here along time and ain't going anywhere."

I really liked the guy and was impressed. I told him the radiator wasn't all that old, but it might need a cleaning... He cut me off saying, "I'll take care of it."

I often worry about having others work on my Range Rover or do work for Range Rover. Osborn's put that to rest right away. Customer service was first rate. I'm looking forward to getting my radiator back.

More on that when I get their call.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.
Go SOONERS.

Screws Get Loose

2011-10-07T17:46:00.003-05:00

This could very well be the theme song for my Range Rover....Enjoy.

Those Darlins, Screws Get Loose.

I've always wanted to do this

2011-10-07T10:57:00.000-05:00

I've always wanted to do this.

TULSA, Oklahoma -- People driving westbound on I-44 near the Lewis exit were warned to be on the lookout for zombies Thursday.
...
So far no zombies have been reported in the area.Nice touch on the end of that report.

That's classic. Well played.

Thursday night I pulled the radiator out of the Range Rover Classic. As I reported to you last, the radiator has developed a leak. I knew it was leaking a bit around the fill port but it has since developed a crack to the inside of that and was leaking a decent amount of coolant. Also I was completely unable to remove the fill plug. My attempts jacked it up pretty good too. Brass just doesn't hold up well. Perhaps some copper lube when it is reinstalled.

I reported also that there were no radiator repair shoppes in Norman, Oklahoma. So far to my knowledge I am correct. Jennings Garage advertises that they are a "radiator shop". When I called them they said they stopped working on radiators and now only "swap them out".

This lead me to speculate about the reasons these shops have gotten more scarce. I am betting a dollar on some sort of regulation, either the E.P.A. or some other. I'm sure the vat of acid and associated chemicals must be a nightmare of paper work for a small shop. I will ask Osborn's Radiator Shop today when I stop by and drop off my radiator.

The removal reminded me that I wanted to swap my mechanical fan for a set of electric ones. My research has found that a late 1990's model Ford Crown Victoria's fan assembly works. Now I need to find one. I will first get some measurements and then go shopping at the Pull-A-Part or the Ford "breakers" (salvage) yards in Oklahoma City.

Apparently I can buy a new one in the range of 95 - 150$(US) plus shipping. I'm hoping the breakers yard will part with one for less than 50$(US).

I'm glad I found this detailed measurement drawing. I am skeptical that it will fit. But I'm willing to try anything once. The associated fuel savings is reported at 2-3 miles per gallon. Even if it is one mile per gallon I think it is worth it.

I'll post some pictures of the damage next week along with some detailed measurements.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering. Oh...and BOOMER SOONER! Beat Texas!

Ever had one of those a-ha moments?

2011-10-02T14:34:00.000-05:00

Saturday was a beautiful day in America's heartland. I finished my homework early this week and my wife has a new book and bible study to prepare and the Oklahoma Sooners had a late start. All that meant I got some garage time. I went out to the garage and fired up the TV for some regional college football matchups.

I still have a lot of things in the garage from our last garage sale. So my plan was to get the garage organized. At present I couldn't reach anything on my shelves and getting to the tool chest was only possible due to my training in the Marine Corps at avoiding booby traps.

I got to what I call the heavy tool shelves and noticed my small chain saw was down. I forgot that I loaned it to my neighbor and he reported that the chain was too dull to use. It turns out that all my chains are dull. They needed to be sharpened and I only know one place locally that does that. Dave's Small Engine Repair in Noble, Oklahoma. My wife graduated from Noble High School. My best friend Master Guns Jason gets his chains sharpened there so...ROAD TRIP!

I grabbed the keys and was excited to get the Range Rover out on the road. It had been a while since I had driven her. I expected I would drive her or at least fire her up to charge the battery this weekend.

I grabbed the keys and my chains, jumped in and turned the key...rattle, rattle, rattle. I didn't have enough battery to get her turned over. I pulled the Civic up and jumped her. Varooom.

I still have an air bubble in the cooling system so the low coolant light still comes on in cycles. The excessive heat this summer has cause the glue to fail on the rear view mirror. I also noticed the metallic rattle sound had gotten WORSE. Worse? how on earth could it get worse? I haven't driven her in a month. I went about two blocks and decided I could drive no further with this sound it had to be found.

I originally thought it was either the trailer I was pulling or something in the exhaust. The pitch of the metal rattling sound is how you know what to look for. I thought for sure it was the muffler. I dropped down under the rear of the truck and looked around. And then I saw it.

I remembered the sound and thought perhaps it could be the mud guard? It sounded a little like the mud guard scraping sound from the front axle. So I looked at the axle hub area and sure enough there was the mud flap for the left rear dangling and dragging on the rim. Each time I hit a bump it would jump up and land on the rim causing a clanking.

I had horrific ideas of what might have gone wrong under there. Everything from I did something wrong on the bushing replacement project, to needing an entire new exhaust, to something I haven't worked on yet. And in the end it turned out to be something silly simple. A couple of bolts I had improperly tightened on the last brake job project.

I thought I could fix it right there. I looked in the back and low and behold no tool bag. So I had to go back to the house and get the tool bag and exact a repair.

I got it tightened down and examined the scrape wound I got from reacting to a burn on the exhaust. Not too bad. I've had worse, much worse. I tossed the tool bag in the rear and as I was getting everything sorted I think I have an inadequate tool kit. More on that in a later entry.

I climbed behind the wheel and took off for Noble. Oh.my.gawd! It was like driving a new Rover! No rattling, no odd noises when I turned, no clangs when I hit the speed humps. It was great!

I got to the shoppe and standing there in the parking lot was the former State Senator Cal Hobson. Cal told me the shoppe was closed on weekends. That figures. I should have known better. He asked me if I knew where another place to get sharpening done was, I replied, "no but if you do I'll follow you over there." It turned out we were both out of luck for today.

I figure I'll drop by there next week. I have a sharpening tool for chainsaws. But I have too many to mess with and thought perhaps I could learn something from them sharpening them. It seems when I sharpen I only get a couple of uses out of the saw before it is in effective and I'm wishing for a good sharp ax.

I'll leave you with an A-Ha moment and thank you for reading and wish you Happy Rovering.

Transmission time

2011-09-19T09:12:00.000-05:00

It's time to investigate getting the transmission overhauled. I've only had work done on the transmission once. That was a bad torque converter. I don't believe it will be that "easy" this time. This time I believe its time for a told overhaul.The transmission has 190,000+ miles on it. I know I am experiencing slipping in fourth under load. I know the gas mileage has dropped off a lot too. I'm not sure how much the MPG is transmission and how much is perhaps another issue.

I intend to have the ye old transmission shoppe replace the "U" joints as well. They have to take them all down anyway so why not do that now and avoid this problem. I was thinking I could have some stronger "U" joints put in but I'm probably going to stick with OEM. I'd have to first trust that the transmission shoppe knows what upgraded "U" joints are best and/or they would have to trust me with buying the part and they installing it. Most shoppes don't want any part of the "I'll provide the parts." mostly due to warranty issues. I don't blame them.

I would like to have my work checked in regards to last year's suspension changes. My poly bushing project may have not been properly done. I have some clunks and such from underneath that I do not think should be there. There is a sort of "off-road shoppe" on Porter Avenue that I have seen some 4x4 rigs loitering around. I am thinking about checking them out for this review.

View Larger Map

The building has an awesome art deco facade (façade). I hope the guys inside are just as awesome. Nothing disappoints me more than when I chose a shop to work on my Range Rover and people inside are pillocks. You've heard me rail on and on about how customer service is dead. I've been in too many shops that are now out of business where the guys inside complete douche bags. Is it any wonder they've had to fold up the tent? I'll let you know if these guys pass my customer service muster.

And last, but definitely not least, I need a new exhaust. The last one did not survive the winter storms and Snowpocalypse of 2010. I've been driving around with the rattling noise of a bad muffler ever since. There might be some gas mileage issues in this as well.The last time I drove the old girl, I had an check engine light. Code 17. I don't know why yet. THe good people over at Robison Service have that as...

Code 17 - Throttle potentiometer Usually indicates a bad throttle position sensor. Refer to test 17, continuity test procedure.

I have not confirmed this yet. And it didn't pop up until after I ordered parts the last time. I ordered some of those plastic studs to put my door panels back on. This was in anticipation of fixing the door locks.

I also ordered a upper radiator hose to replace the one that sprung a leak. I also need to look into replacing the upper fill tubes plastic filler cap. Whoever thought that was a good idea needs to have their head examined. I think Expedition Exchange has a brass one to replace it. I'll be looking in to that today as well.

Well this was a long and rambling post and for that I apologize. It's more or less the next to-do list for me after we get done with the garage sale. Mrs. OkieRover is in the process of selling a lot of the stuff we got from my mother after her death. We also have a bunch of stuff from years and years of ~~hoarding~~ ~~improper emotional attachment~~ not properly getting rid of STUFF accumulating in the garage over the years.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

Castra Praetoria: Marines can do anything.

2011-08-18T09:34:00.000-05:00

Castra Praetoria: Marines can do anything.

Well played by America's First Sergeant.

What the heck?

2011-08-17T20:32:00.003-05:00

Saturday started out pretty good. I had talked my son in to doing some lifting for me. Okay I offered to pay him. He thought he had the last laugh when I said I'd pay him 20$(US). He said, "I would have done it for 10$(US). Ha." I responded with, "You would have done it for free..."

Diet Mt. Drew

Anyway, we were driving and I noticed the radiator coolant light blinking at me. I didn't think much of it as it turns out I have a slight leak in the radiator fill plug. It mostly weeps out when I get the engine hot. I haven't filled the bottle in a while and thought it was just telling me I was low.

So we continued on to the auto parts store to get some oil for the Honda Civic. When I got out, I smelled it. That sugary sweet smell of coolant. "What the heck!" I exclaimed. Okay I didn't really say "what the heck" I'm cleaning it up for a wider audience appeal.

So I popped the bonnet and low and behold....

So as you all know, the top radiator hose is not supposed to do that. Well its a pretty stupid idea to put a sensor right there in the first place. I mean seriously, who came up with that?

What is disappointing is I barely drive the BWB. Only about every other weekend at best. I don't have air conditioning in her at the moment and if you have followed my tweets its been above 100F for nearly 50 days here in Oklahoma. Setting records for hottest month of July, consecutive days above 100F (37C) and most days without measurable rain (a lot, like 3 months).

We hit 115F that day in the shade.

Why would a hose fail that isn't even being used? I'm guessing age at this point. I have probably had that hose on for at least 5 years. Is replacing the radiator hoses part of the PM (preventative maintenance)? You bet your Aunt Petunia it is. But why fix what ain't broke? I've got spares on the shelf from PM that I have no idea how long they have been sitting up there. Will I use them, in this case probably as I need the Range Rover on Friday.

So tomorrow I will try to find my spare, install it, and test it for leaks in the vain hope it will get me to work and home one time. I'll order a new one this weekend.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

It's an oldie...but a goodie

2011-08-12T07:57:00.000-05:00

I was reading a recent post by America's First Sergeant on his blog Castra Praetoria. He was talking about movies he was not likely to see.
From his post...

My feelings on the matter were best articulated by my CO recently when his wife asked him why he he had zero interest in watching The Hurtlocker on DVD. His answer: "Why the hell would I want to watch that? Do you think if the Marines made a movie about hippies and communists anyone would want to go see it?"

He linked this story from the Daily Show....

The Daily Show - Marines in Berkeley
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook

Very funny...Have a good weekend and thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.
Semper Fidelis.

Just a quick note

2011-07-21T21:34:00.000-05:00

Hello readers. I'm guessing you all thought I'd died. Well, I have not. It has been over a month since I last posted. I am sorry to report I don't have much to say.

I've used the Range Rover to haul some fence materials around after the micro-burst weather events we have had lately.

As you can imagine, wind that hard knocked down some fences. My daughter Lecia's fence took a beating. My son Diet Mt. Drew and I put it back up as best we could. I lost a few cross pieces and my fence was leaning pretty hard. I used the Rangie again with a tow strap to pull it closer to plum. In the video off in the distance you can see the rain blowing side ways. There are lots of videos on you tube. Just check out keywords Norman Microburst.

We have also been experiencing the hottest weather ever recorded in Oklahoma. Just today, July 21st we have tied the hottest recorded month of August 1936. If you know any history you'll know this was in the middle of what is know as the "Dust Bowl".

You can read for hours on the effects of the Dust Bowl on the economy and the people of this region. While we have not yet had dust storms, it wouldn't surprise me if we don't break out of the drought, that we would have them next year.

In any event we are well on our way to 50 consecutive days of 100 plus as a high temperature. The highest temperature I've recorded this summer was 114.9. I was told it went over 115 that day but I didn't see it. I have two thermostats on the front porch which is on the shaded North side of the house. Both of them registered that temp.

Here in Norman we are in D3. The D4 zone shaped like a penis in this map is south of us and if the Texas map is any indication we will be swallowed by D4 by late August.

I have no idea what the heat index was that day, I'm sure it was over 125 degrees F. Today we had another 108 degree day. The heat index today was 114F in Oklahoma City. The Severe Weather Forecast Center said there were no weather models that showed any relief in the future. That seems a little open ended, but I think they are getting desperate to be the first one to spot a break in this brutal weather.

We have already lost our 5 ton air conditioning compressor on the house. That was the cost of a BUNCH of very nice upgrades to the Range Rover to replace, nearly five grand. I am not excited to see our next electric bill.

So let me share this with you. On February 9th Oklahoma recorded its lowest temperature, a frigid -31 degrees F. If you take into consideration the low temperature for Norman that day was somewhere near -7 degrees F that gives us a 121 degree change in temps in six months. That's extreme. It is not nearly as extreme as Nowata though. Seven days after their record low of -31, the temperature was 79 deg F; a 110 degree F difference!

So when you see me pack both my winter clothes and my summer clothes for trips within Oklahoma in February - April and October - November now you know why.

A contractor in our office who hails from Maryland put it best...how do you people live here with all this dangerous weather? We are humble in our response, "We're Okies...we are build of stubborner stronger stuff."

I can't imagine living anywhere else. I can imagine a week in the mountains though. Anything to get away from this heat if only for a few days.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

Camel Trophy Indeed

2011-06-12T18:48:00.001-05:00

I found this Camel tire repair kit in my dad's garage. We have been cleaning my mom's house out the past couple of weekends. Now I am sorting all that stuff in my garage.

I will definitely pack that in my road kit if for nothing else a conversation starter.

Happy Rovering and thanks for reading.

William Andrew Stephens

2011-05-30T10:13:00.000-05:00

The announcer read his name...William Andrew Stephens. And on cue our family and friends yelled as loud as we could for my son had graduated high school.

I remember the little boy Drew, as he is called, more than this six foot version standing over me now. I remember him wearing a path in the grass of the Quanah Parker home's lawn with his battery powered Jeep. I remember begging him to play that first game of baseball after all the weeks of practice, telling him if he didn't like it after the first game THEN he could quit. I remember dropping him off at Oklahoma Christian Cage Camp and pulling his luggage for him because it was bigger and heavier than him. That is the Drew I remember.

This new taller graduated version of Drew I barely know. Yet I created it, formed it, comforted it, coached it, counseled it, disciplined it, he is me. And I barely know him. I know I will have decades to "get to know" this emerging man before me. I am excited to see what he will become. Yet at the same time, we start over again, worrying about his future now more than ever. For everything he does now is harder and the consequences are greater.

These days I find myself no longer focusing on the lower portion of my hourglass but at the top portion. The end is inevitable and I can't help but think, did I do enough? Did I do it right? I'm running out of time to course correct the ships of my children's lives. Or perhaps it is the ships that no longer are so easy to correct. It is as if the ship's wheel no longer responds to my efforts to turn it.

What ever the metaphor may be, that first lighthouse has been passed. I remember vaguely my graduation. I remember how it was time to work now. I had joined the United States Marine Reserve and had a semester of college at OU ahead of me. Little did I know at that time that neither would be my course. I wasn't scared of the future, I was standing on the deck of my life's ship watching the waves come over the bow and never flinched.

Right next to me my father sailed his ship cringing and worrying as he watched what must have seemed to him to be a ship foundering in the sea. My ship. But as I sailed my ship away from him he grew to worry less and saw the course I had laid out and how inevitably it would be okay. I wish that great old man were here today so I could ask him how to do that very thing, as I watch Drew start to sail his course.

Congratulations Drew. I love you and I know you will do well.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

Liz Shankland: I love my Land Rover

2011-05-24T05:55:00.001-05:00

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, says our smallholder columnist.

SOME women would sell their soul for a pair of Manolo Blahniks. Others crave glittering jewellery and expensive watches. With me, it’s Land Rovers.

Its that way with us too Liz. What the hell is a Manolo Blahnik? Apparently they are shoes.

A Lazy Sunday

2011-05-22T20:23:00.001-05:00

Ah...a lazy Sunday in Oklahoma. Spring is upon us and each day we wonder if we will get some our famous southern plains weather. Saturday night Mrs. OkieRover and I enjoyed a steak, asparagus, and an adult beverage for me and watched as the thunderheads anvil out as they trekked across the state. I tried to capture a panoramic picture of the storm. Eh...I'm obviously not a photographer.

Panoramic due east to SSE

Sunset reflecting on the clouds

Fortunately for us they stayed to the south and east of us. We had 5 inches of rain this week, more on that later. We got more on Sunday tonight but again they are east and south of us.

Sunday morning I played hookie from church and wanted to work on my Range Rover. I went out to the garage with a cup of tea in my Rover's North Coveted Mug, 1 each, and The Cars Greatest Hits.

First, the garage is a WRECK. Several factors have contributed to this fact. We bought a new couch and loveseat and that meant that the old couch went to the garage.

Also the city of Norman gave away rain barrels to the first 90 people to show up at Forest Lumber. Forest Lumber is my new hardware store. I won't need to go all the way to Lowe's now. That place was awesome. My pal Larry and I took the Range Rover down there and hauled the barrels back. When we were looking around Forest Lumber we were discussing America's First Sergeant's Zombie Apocalypse Preparation Post. We found a wrecking bar that would make a great zombie deterrent weapon. You can see how impressive it is. It has an awesome name too, the FuBar III. FUBAR is a familiar acronym to all Marines. After a few applications of this tool most things it touches will be FUBAR.

Also currently located in the garage is a TV, a dead TV. It previously graced the entertainment center until it unceremoniously fell due to the affects of gravity on a shelf. I'm not happy. The budget took a big hit this week. The rest is the normal condition of the garage...cluttered.

Sunday's Range Rover project was the sun roof. As you may have read, it was working when I went to Fort Washita. When I came home from Fort Washita, it wasn't. So I started by taking the headliner out. I've taken the headliner out so many times it takes only a few minutes using a powered drill with Phillip's bit.

Once out I started by unbolting the sunroof. The sunroof system is kinda heavy so if you can get help you should. Again I've done this a few times so it's no biggy. You can use the head rests as supports and leave the front bolts that hold the motor connected to the roof structure as one point and the head rests as the other.

Once I got it lowered I started trying to figure out what was causing the problem. I futzed with it for at least an hour. Once I got it working I bolted it back up only to find it was not working again. When you pressed the button to retract it would stop as if something was blocking it.

I could not figure it out. Finally I decided I should lube up the tracks. They looked pretty dry. So off to the chemical shelf and out with the silicone spray lube. I hosed it down and the window moved better but not great.

You can see in the above photo the red spray hose, it is important to control the spray as not to hose the interior with silicone lube. After a couple of trial refits and more and more silicone spray the sunroof works. It still has a little catch but it slides back and forth on its own. In the process I ran the battery down and had to jump the Range Rover with the Honda Civic. It was shameful but necessary.

Now, back to the rain. We had five inches of rain over night on Thursday and Friday this week. That is enough rain to tell me if there is a water problem with the windshield. There is. The pads were wet...as usual. I pulled them out to dry. I will probably throw them out. The windshield is obviously the problem. I'm not sure if it is the seal or rust.

I'm going to start with the windshield seal. The good folks at Binswanger Glass told me I should test it with a garden hose. It wasn't necessary as I didn't drive the Range Rover in the rain so it had to be from the seal. With the pads up, the rust is back on the floor pans.

Its probably surface rust or staining from the bottom of the pads. Either way it is annoying. Considering the trouble I went through to remove the rust and cover the panels with layers and layers of paint. I'm now thinking bedlining spray and more sound deadening material like I originally planned.

I buttoned up the Range Rover and went on to the other duties requiring my attention. With that much rain the grass went nuts. With the drought we've had this year, I've only had the mower out twice. I think we are still behind overall for the year on rainfall, but the grass hasn't noticed.

I tried to organize the hardware and parts shelves but I ran out of steam. I need a budget infusion to do anything else on the Range Rover this year. The first money I'm going to use will be to sort out the windshield seal issue. I can't move forward on the interior until that is all sorted out.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

We have a go at the ivy...

2011-04-29T10:33:00.000-05:00

I drove the Range Rover in this morning.
I could say I drove it in honor of the Prince and his lovely bride gettin' hitched today, but that would not be true. I drove her in today because RovErica needed a car while her's was in the shop getting the air conditioning refurbed. My best friend told me about a fellow Marine who works on the side as a mechanic. He needs the money now more than ever with his wife carrying a bun in the oven. In any event, RovErica gets air conditioning, I help out a fellow Marine, and I save a few bucks off the cost of a professional shoppe tapping me for A/C repair. That's what winning is all about.

The drive in reminded me of why I love to drive this gas guzzling beast. I love the ride position in morning traffic. I love that when I change lanes people get out of the way. I love the revs when I accelerate. I do not love the 7.20$(US) it costs me to drive 24 miles to work (12 miles per gallon). And as you can imagine I don't love the fact that 3 fivers are gone in fuel cost when I get home.

But it is what it is. I love my Range Rover.

With the royal wedding behind us I thought I'd share a video of the Queen driving her Defender. I love how cordial she is when she addresses the "poachers". I thought it is amusing that they don't like ivy on their trees. We don't like ivy on our trees either. Unlike the English ivy they are referring to, our ivy is poison ivy and you don't handle it if you can avoid it. Of course if I were the ~~queen~~ king of England I'd have some one pull all my ivy down as well.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

I told you so...

2011-04-08T08:28:00.000-05:00

Some time ago I wrote a blog post about octane and the myth about fuel economy. I wrote a spreadsheet calculator, included a link to it and everything. I wish I could find it for you. You'll have to settle for this link to an old post which includes another site about Fuel Myths. Very good stuff.

In short any mileage saved by buying higher octane fuel is off set by the additional cost of the fuel. It turns out, at least according to this article, the outlandish claims of the fuel producers are to say the least, EXAGGERATED (dramatic reverb).

In other news... Sofia Vergara drives a Range Rover.

Read on and enjoy.

HARD-PRESSED motorists being lured into buying expensive 'premium' fuel are wasting their money, new research shows.

Oil firms are shelling out millions advertising pricey super fuels, promising drivers up to 25 PER CENT extra mileage from a tank.

But an extensive study found premium fuels costing an average of five per cent more than standard fuel delivered just ONE per cent extra performance.

In tests by motoring mag What Car? high-octane premium fuels — including BP Ultimate, Esso Supreme, Tesco Momentum and Total Excellium — performed little or no better than their cheaper equivalents.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

Fort Washita 2011

2011-04-05T22:11:00.000-05:00

Once again I had a great weekend with my friends at Fort Washita.
The weekend started a day early and with me packing the Range Rover with my 1820's kit. I kissed the wife and started out of the neighborhood and out of the 21st century in route to the 1820s. I decided the best course would be all back highways. Time was not a factor so I decided to see some parts of Oklahoma I haven't seen before and take a long lazy drive south.

I started out of Norman along Highway 77. This was the main North-South highway before the Federal Highway Administration started building "the interstate". I passed through Noble, Oklahoma. My wife finished high school in Noble and lettered in 3 sports there. I also passed through Slaughterville. You may have seen the Slaughterville sign that mysteriously found its way into my garage 25 years ago.

The next town was Lexington and on the north end of that town the site of the Camp Holmes Treaty.

The actual site is over there, somewhere.

We have reenacted that event at Fort Washita back in 2005. I portrayed one of the two Cherokees that attended that event.

This site also has a marker for the South Boundary of the Land Run of 1889.

I turned on to Oklahoma Highway 39 and headed east. The town of Lexington is here at this intersection. I snapped a picture of the now defunct Dairy Boy. Great sign and look at what it was like in the "olden days".

I then entered into the post removal homelands of my son-in-law's tribe, The Citizen Pottawatomie Nation.

OK 39 takes you out passed the Joseph Harp Correctional Facility and the Lexington Wildlife Management Area. Which sounds nice until you find out it is a public hunting ground. Famous for how dangerous it is to hunt there due to the number of hunters during the various seasons.

I turned off OK 39 and on to OK 102. This highway takes me through Wanette and what I hoped was a fun stretch of back roads to Byars. I was right. It was great.

View Larger Map

An old single lane bridge crosses the South Canadian River between Wanette and Byars. It was really fun. My wife hates...HATES...these old trestle bridges. The south bound highways and roads when they crossed the rivers of the southern half of Oklahoma were on bridges similar to these. There is a great panoramic picture in the Cleveland County Abstract offices of a couple of artillery units out of Fort Sill stopped on the trestle bridge south of Norman. My hometown of Newcastle has an old trestle bridge that is one of the signature icons of the town.

Well enough of that, back to the drive! I crossed the bridge and headed into what is left of the town of Byars. it is a textbook example of a Oklahoma town that has seen much better days.

I snapped a quick picture of a bar there in town named GiGi's. I had a girl friend in high school who is a friend of mine on Facebook and I know she will like the pic.

I left the Byars on OK 59 on my way to OK 177. OK 177 is a long straight stretch through peach country. Stratford peaches are famous in Oklahoma. That weird metal hand with the butterfly statue is on this stretch.

I then passed through Sulphur, Oklahoma. This is the home of the Chickasaw National Recreation Area. Its a nice attraction for the town and for the Chickasaw Nation. I continued on to Dickson, Oklahoma and on to OK 199. OK 199 takes us into the town of Madill and on to Fort Washita.

I could feel the transmission when I pulled in to the Fort. I know there is something not right in there and I'm sure before the year is over I will need to get her into the transmission shop.

I was now at the Fort and I started my weekend with a walk passed the now burned out ruins of the former barracks. You have seen the post that announced the fire there. I got the scoop from the superintendent about the fire. Three drunk kids set the fire by lighting a roll of toilet paper and tossing it into the bathrooms on the west side. It didn't take long and the entire structure was gone.

The next day one of the kids had a guilty conscience and ratted out the others. Two of the kids took the plea deal and the third who reportedly has family money is fighting the charges and going through a trial. I hope he goes to prison. The estimate to rebuild the barracks is around 1.2 million dollars. The state doesn't have the money to replace it and probably never will. I'm a bit surprised that there was no insurance on the structure but that is a policy of a state agency. The communities are rallying around the fort and donations are rolling in. I'm sure it will be a few years before the jars of coins collected by the elementary schools will add up to a building. Its sad that stupid kids could be so careless and destroy something so many people loved.

I proceeded to plug my self in to the 19th century. I sat and watch my friends scrape hides and cleaned my musket.

The weather cooperated nicely and was beautiful all weekend. We made dinner and shared stories and played a new gambling game. It consists of 9 tiles number one through nine. You roll a pair of dice and with the number rolled you knock over tiles. For example if you roll a 7 you can knock over the 7 or a 5 and a 2 or 4 and 3, etc... It was fun.

We woke and had a great breakfast. We proceeded to scrape hides and then got all dressed up and wandered over to the sutler's row. The attendance was very good. At times the guys had 30-40 people watching them scrape hides. We wandered around and got our pictures taken a lot. Its normal for us to be stopped every few yards for people to take our pictures.

After the crowd left we started on our Saturday night feast. We try really hard to have a period meal and enjoy foods you don't normally have. This year was roasted corn, green peppers and onions. We had squash and sausage and Cornish hens. We also now have a new favorite wine, Beaujolais.

I am certain we would have drank 4 bottles if I had brought four. Unfortunately we only had one bottle. So we wiped out the last of the port and red wine and the Beaujolais. We then started on the beer we brought. I had my fill of all of it and went to bed fat and happy.

Sunday morning dawned and we packed our things and headed out. I decided to take a different route home. Without a radio it was a quiet drive. The only sounds I could hear were the tires on the highway and wind coming through the windows. For some reason the sunroof would not open all the way. It was open for the entire trip down but for some odd reason it was behaving exactly as it did before I fixed it.

I took OK 199 to OK 99 to the outskirts of Tishomingo, Oklahoma. This is one of my favorite Oklahoma town names. I then took OK 22 to OK 7 and back to Sulphur. I took OK 177 to OK 29 through Wynnewood. I then went on to Elmore City and took OK 74 north toward Maysville, home of Wiley Post. I lived in Maysville for a short time when I was working nearby Lindsay, Oklahoma. I decided to take a drive passed the old apartment. It did not bring back any fond memories.

I blew out of town with the 30mph tail wind. I took OK 74 to Interstate 35. I decided my fun was over and joined the rat race on the interstate. I got home and unpacked the trusty Range Rover.

Each time I get her home I remember something else I need to work on. With my son about to graduate from high school the weekends are busy with activities. The grass will need to be cut soon and I still have not fixed the mower.

Last year I managed to hit some debris and bent the cam shaft on my Honda push mower. The part is 30$(US) and who knows how many hours tearing down the engine. I've never done small engine repair but I either take a shot at this repair or buy a new mower. A new Honda 21 inch is around 300$(US) so you can see my dilemma.

Well thanks once again for reading and Happy Rovering.

Pain in the ass

2011-03-30T21:25:00.001-05:00

Pain in the ass
A fed-up motorist towed his 200,000 GBP Range Rover to his garage by donkey power after claiming the dealers had made an ass of him.

I'm wondering if any one in that country is "factory trained"?

Four times the cost of Europe? That's insane.

Free trade? Not much.

It was a tie

2011-03-20T19:14:00.000-05:00

Major League Soccer called me to Frisco, Texas this weekend. I only get to attend one game a year and this is the match that is easiest. I decided as I almost always do, to take the Range Rover. This game is always fun and being the closest game to Norman since the demise of the Saturn Cup it is easy to attend. I have also setup the tailgate party for the Fire fans coming from Chicago and other parts for three of the last four years. That alone required the carrying capacity of the Big White Bus.

Stopping for a tinkle just inside Texas.

Looking North back into Oklahoma.

The overhaul this winter was very noticeable. First because things I didn't finish as in, we didn't have a radio, but secondly that the BWB ran like a top. There were a few problems as there always are driving a Land Rover. The first is the exhaust noises. The baffles are loose in the muffler and at certain idles they make a hell of a racket. In addition there is an exhaust bracket broken and that causes a metallic noise.

There are also some other annoying things starting with gas mileage. This will need to be addressed. We got about 11mpg on the highway. That is terrible, even for a flying brick shaped Range Rover. When we landed at Larry's home we both noticed a distinct gas smell coming from the exhaust. It is easy to surmise that I am running too rich. This is something I will need to research to get fixed as I am not throwing any codes and the motor spins like a top.

I also heard the heater fan blower motor making a terrible squeak. My co-pilot Larry diagnosed it just after we crossed back in to Oklahoma. He said, "it sounds like something spinning." I immediately confirmed that it was blower motor by shutting down the fresh air intake. This stopped the air from blowing passed the fan cages which was spinning the motor causing the squeak. Well done Larry.

I also heard a few suspension sounds that need to be investigated. Three of the four doors have a quirk about unlatching. The passenger front requires a double pull of the latch. The two driver's side doors require you to slightly lean on the door before pulling. I also found a door window that didn't open. I think this is from the disassembled nature of the door while I was addressing the door latch replacement project. Another reference to the incompleteness of the overhaul.

We set up the tailgate and enjoyed meeting new friends.

My friend Mike provided a cookie for dessert.

We served sandwiches and they were generally well received. We have attempted to serve brats and dogs one year and the weather has yet to comply. The wind was gusting 25mph that day and it was again on Saturday, so sandwiches made that an easy decision.

The match was hectic. The FC Dallas team "sold out" the stadium for their Opening Day. They definitely sold all the seats in our section confining us to just two rows. There were several open areas in the seats but they called it a sell out. The fans next to us were pretty rowdy. We normally draw a mean look or two but these people were out right annoying. We sang nearly the entire game they did their best to drown us out.

The best cheer was as the little kids and their moms were filing off the field during the pre-game festivities.

"Bourbon Soaked Soccer Moms"

This elicited a fun response from one of the more provocatively dressed soccer moms. Nothing is sacred in soccer and taking a shot at the parents of children is an easy target. Taking shots at the opposing teams goalie is almost expected during warm ups. As we yelled about their loss in the MLS championship due to an own goal we got the gestures we expected. Also taunting the goalie for his hair is an easy target.

Chants like Clairol Golden Platinum #6 and such are easy to come up with.

The urinals were entertaining. Its the little details like this that make going to a soccer match fun.

Banners make for an entertaining fan experience. Some serious creativity goes into making each one. The Simpson's and Family Guy characters often play a part. The "I shot JR" banner was also well received and made it on to the live broadcast of the game.

Our security detail, yes, we had a dedicated security staff, were a lot of fun and were very cool. They took good care of us and kept the more rowdy fans away as we cheered for the Chicago Fire in their draw with FC Dallas.

We stayed the night and made the drive home Sunday morning. This way we had the wind pushing us and our fuel consumption was much better. At times we were running 92 mph. This Range Rover runs amazingly well at that speed. I know I am consuming fuel at an imagined rate of a pound per hour at that speed. I wish I had a tighter suspension and better roads to test her on. I'm sure I could reach the top speed rating (110mph) of the Firestone Destination A/T I have on her.

In just two weeks I head south again this time for the yearly Ft. Washita Rendezvous. I will again take pics and enjoy the drive.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

Tina, tools and tailgating

2011-03-18T15:07:00.000-05:00

If you are anything like me and my Twitter buddy Tina ( @tinastullracing ) you know how important your tools are to your success as a Land Rover shade tree mechanic. I would echo exactly everything she says about having the right tool and you don't "know it" until you "do it". I've used Craftsman tools and know that the warranty is pretty unbeatable.

Everyone has their own opinion about tools and quality. I have a pretty good collection of crappy hand me downs and stuff I inherited from my dad. I've taken 45 year old Craftsman sockets down to Sears have them replaced. I've used screwdrivers as levers and chisels and when they fail I take them back and get another one. That's pretty unbeatable. Get good stuff and you won't be disappointed later.

Check out Tina's video below.

Hopefully we won't need any tools this weekend as I take the Range Rover down to Frisco, Texas to watch the mighty Chicago Fire beat FC Dallas in an MLS matchup on Saturday at Pizza Hut Park. I'll be packing the tailgate gear down for a tailgate pre-match party. So if you are inclined come by and look for us in the parking lot around 2:00pm we'll be having a good time. Stop by for a beer.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

Fire, lots and lots of fire

2011-03-13T14:38:00.000-05:00

Fire is this week's theme. Friday, March 11th, Oklahoma experienced one of the scariest weather events we have. Tornadoes are pretty scary but even worse is prairie fire.

We experienced 32 grass fires across the state on Friday. The governor issued a state of emergency and Firefighters were out all over the state putting out fires that damaged and destroyed homes and barns and businesses. The fires in McClain county were started most likely by an arsonist. The origins were road side two miles apart. Some of the others were caused by careless smokers tossing cigarettes out of their cars.

The conditions were ripe for wild fires. 40-50mph wind gusts. Drought conditions. Low humidity. Idiot pyromaniacs and cigarette smokers. We see this every year here in Oklahoma. Why can't people remember from one year to the next not to throw their cigarettes out of their cars? Its ignorance.

I took the Range Rover over to Newcastle to see if everything was fine at the family homestead and pick up mom's mail. They had closed highway 9 on Friday due to smoke. It was open Saturday.

I expected to see more burned areas but the fire fighters were amazing and saved many people's homes. I drove out to check on my friends that live just a mile and a half from the fires. All was well there at their homes. I had a nice chat and on my way out there was still a few fires burning. You can see a structure fire here in this picture and ahead of me on the other side of the highway a few hot spots were still smoldering in the woods there.

This week will also culminate in the first match of the Brimstone Cup, the annual competition between the Chicago Fire and FC Dallas. It is the closest MLS match to my home every year and it is sweeter that my Chicago Fire play in it. The match between the two teams has a long history which you can read about here.

I will be packing the tailgating gear into the Range Rover for the trip to Frisco, Texas. Tailgating with my friends who come down from Chicago is a treat.

I got a whopping 11 mpg out of the last tank of fuel. And with petrol now 3.29$(US) a gallon that hurts the pocket book. I'm not sure where to start to fix that problem. I've replaced the O2 sensors and have good spark. I'm guessing it is in the slipping of the transmission. I will have to get that sorted out this summer if I can get the money together.

So thankfully the fires are under control with a bit of weather change today (Sunday). The wind died down today and it is cloudy.

Not much going on

2011-02-28T21:03:00.000-06:00

LR2 Owner with a sense of adventure PRA4SNO

I just thought I'd stop in and say not much is going on. I've been able to drive the Range Rover a couple of times. I took my nephew out to my mother's house and we knocked around the property. I was able to incorporate the Range Rover for use as a ladder. I stepped up on the tailgate to get to a higher limb.

We also used her to haul the storm door back from Lowe's. With the door hanging out the back I recalled that was the one thing I didn't like about my Discovery 2. The fact that I COULDN'T hang over sized loads out the back. We rolled down the windows and had the sunroof open to abate the exhaust coming in from the back. I'm wondering if there is a way to pipe the exhaust out the side that might minimalize the exhaust coming back into the vehicle when using the back to haul over sized stuff.

At one point Mrs. OkieRover asked me if we could, "just strap the door on top." The first reason no was all my straps were in the garage at the house. I could have bought more at Lowe's but I didn't. I told her there was a glass sunroof up there and that, "I don't have a roof rack." She gave her customary, "whatever" comment. Which I take to mean, "I know you will buy one when you want one." WELL...I want one.

I need to start on the door locks. I'm not sure how to approach the issue, but it needs to be addressed.

I will also be taking the Range Rover on my soccer strip in a few weeks. I've tried to have some type of tailgate for the Chicago Fire vs FC Dallas MLS match. This is the closest MLS game to my home location. Saturn used to sponsor a pre-season soccer match at OU's soccer facility. But with the car dealers taking it on the chin and the demise of Saturn, it might be a cold day in hell before MLS is back in our metro.

We had a chance at a USL team in Edmond, but it never happened. The expansion didn't include the OKC metro area. I'm still holding out for a merger that would somehow make MLS and USL one giant all powerful league that elevates the level of play and gives America a leg up on the world competition. Ah....a soccer fan can dream.

Parking lot shoveler takes a break

The Firestone Destination AT tires worked out great in the snow. I was never disappointed in their stickiness on the ice and their grip in the snow. The tires worked great. They are quiet on the highway too. So far so good.

They really liked resting on the Classic

In the first picture you can see a local Land Rover LR2 owner with a pretty funny personalized license plate.

PRA4SNO

I'm guessing he was praying for it because it was starting during the evening commute the night I took this picture. The next day it hit in earnest and we missed two days of work with a blizzard. I've seen him a couple of other times on the way home, but never when I'm in my Range Rover.

I had another encounter during the recent snow. No doubt you have heard of the "Rover Wave". My quote at the bottom of that page happened again during the blizzards. While sitting in front of Bass Pro store in Bricktown waiting for the signal light to change, a woman driving a Tambora Flame Orange LR2 gave me a big toothy smile as she turned into the parking lot. I sensed with that smile, that she knew that the only vehicle to drive in this crappy weather was a Land Rover.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

1991 and 1993 Range Rover Classics SWBs Available

2011-02-21T14:58:00.004-06:00

My good friend Mike and Rogers have two Range Rovers they are trying to part with. Each of them have bad transmissions. There is a 1991 SWB (Black) and a 1993 SWB (I remember it being white). They are located in Oklahoma City.

They want just $1500 for the pair. Yes THE PAIR! Engines are good and were running right up to the point where the transmissions quit.

Each of these guys are Jaguar men and Mike builds Bobbed M35's on the side. They have these Range Rovers and are not willing to put in the time or effort to keep them on the street. Each of them were formerly vehicles their adult kids drove. Neither are in the position to dump the money in to keep these Classics on the road.

If you are interested, send him an email at mike w at crtonline dot com.

I am working on getting pictures.

God Bless Oklahoma

2011-02-21T11:21:00.000-06:00

My son's friend Briana capture this photo on a recent road trip. She posted it on her Facebook page and titled it "Yay, Oklahoma!"

It's a sad fact, but I'm afraid it is accurate. Bri has an interesting way of looking at the world. It is sad that she sees this in our state. But it is good she knows the dangers are out there and she avoids them.

God bless Oklahoma.

Snowpocalyse 2: Electric Boogaloo

2011-02-07T09:00:00.002-06:00

The good people at the Accuweather.com are predicting another snow storm for late Tuesday and Wednesday this week. According to some local weather men on Sunday night we will get 6-12 inches of snow and high winds. Already on Monday morning that has been adjusted to 8-12 inches. According to weather people, who are not driven by local businesses selling furniture and cars a.k.a. fear mongering ad revenue whores, we are getting 3-6 inches of snow and some high winds.

According to another story on the Accuweather site we Okies should expect "light snow".

One of our local television stations is today (Monday, February 7) predicting 8-12 inches of snow. Which in their minds is HEAVY SNOW (all caps, heavy typeface). This is channel KOCO (ABC affiliate), home of weatherman Mike "You are all going to die" Morgan. Scaring the elderly and people without cable TV is his JOB. Tune in tomorrow and I'll tell you how a snow storm can murder you and all of your kin in a matter of seconds and if you have the technical savvy to do so, upload your really bad photos to our website so we can over hype this weather event EVEN MORE!!!111

None of it really matters anyway because we will have 40's and 50's over the weekend. But that won't stop people from descending on the grocery stores and buying EVERYTHING IN SIGHT. I kid you not, as of noon on Sunday, there was not a single carton of eggs in any store in the entire OKC metro area. Seriously, sold out in every store. Most of this is due to the fear mongering weather men bent on getting people to tune in tomorrow for some more weather bad news. You see, bad news sells. No one watches the weather in San Diego...why? No bad news. Try baking a cake for your wife's birthday after a snow storm in Oklahoma.

Now back to the title of this blog post and the term Electric Boogaloo. I have used it before but may not have explained it to you. Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo was one of the universally accepted worst sequels ever to be made. It is a phenomenon that is common in Hollywood. If a movie did well then we should whore it out for a sequel.

I'm sure I could have used Snowpocalyse 2: The Quickening. It would not be as well understood as Electric Boogaloo but serves the same point, only to a smaller audience of fans of the Highlander franchise.

I have knocked a few things loose underneath the BWB with all the driving on the bad roads. I am 90% sure I have destroyed the catalytic converters. They are rattling like crazy. I also have a brake caliper sticking on the left front. I know of at least one exhaust hanger weld broken loose. More things to check out if the weather improves in the coming weekend. Right after we check on my mom's pipes to make sure they didn't freeze.

Thanks for ~~boogalooing~~ reading and Happy Rovering.

Moving OkieRover.com

2011-02-06T16:22:00.000-06:00

Me with my Coveted Mug

My hosting service is kicking me out. He said of our break up, that it was him and not me that was the problem. I am going to miss having such a trusted location to park my website.

In actuality my site has been hosted on my best friend's servers for free for all of these years. He has been really awesome in that. He has decided to drop the account that allows him to host sites and go back to residential service which is twice as fast and half the cost. How can I blame him?

In any event OkieRover.com will be transferring to a GoDaddy.com hosted site in the next week. So if you are looking for us and for some bizarre reason you don't find us well...

I AM WORKING ON IT DAMMIT!
WEBSITES ARE HARD!
Just kidding be patient with me, and if you have any questions you can always email me.

Once again THANK YOU to my friend JagGuy for hosting my site for so long.
And as always, thank you so much for coming to my site and hopefully we will be back to full functionality soon.

Car Love is the Hardest Love

2011-02-06T15:06:00.000-06:00

Land Rover Alexandria produced this piece. Mrs. OkieRover just rolled her eyes, but I was laughing hard enough to make my jaws hurt. I came across it on the Rovers North Facebook page.

Enjoy.
Thanks for ~~reading~~ watching and Happy Rovering.

A trip to Saturn

2011-02-03T09:00:00.002-06:00

Before the bad weather was about to embrace us, my neighbor Larry asked me to schedule some time to look at his daughter's Saturn. It was running rough and dying when you came to a stop light. Her 16th birthday was coming and they were giving her the Saturn so the plan was to put a few bucks in the car to "dress it up". Her sister drove it faithfully until her graduation from high school and it was now time for the old girl to carry another Fisher to and from high school. The mileage on the Saturn revealed that it had probably been driven to Saturn, the planet, and back at least once. 172,000 miles and some change.
[Editors note: I know as you do now, that Saturn "the planet" is 1.2 billion km from earth at its closest point. Not the paltry distance of 172,000 miles which isn't even a one way trip to our own moon (238,857 miles on average)]

I offered to buy this car from him when his first daughter graduated on to a new car and college. He said he couldn't, not wouldn't, couldn't sell it to me. It wasn't worth anything and he couldn't replace it for that. I know exactly what he means. You know these cars. 10 year old cars that have nothing seriously wrong with them that the bank and the people like Kelly Blue Book say are worth about a thousand dollars.

You couldn't buy a thousand dollar car that is reliable if you wanted to. No matter what you bought you'd immediately be dumping a thousand dollars in it to get it back to running. Its simply economically not worth selling. I didn't have any hard feelings about that. My buddy JagGuy wouldn't sell me his Ford Contour beater either. Sadly the Contour was destroyed in the huge hail storm of 2009.

He came over on a Thursday evening to ask and I said we should look at it now. He described the symptoms:

Rough idle
Coughing and choking
Acceleration problems

He also said it tends to die when you corner hard if the level in the fuel tank dropped below 1/8th of a tank. He had a very elegant solution to this problem...He told his girls never to let the fuel drop below 1/8th of a tank. Genius, a man after my own heart. I had a similar request of my girls. I told them if I ever get in your car and it's below an 1/8th of a tank on the fuel gauge, your driving privileges will be revoked for a week.

Well back to the car problems...Does this problem of rough idle sound familiar? If you drive a Range Rover Classic you know this to be a problem with the air idler valve. A dirty air idler valve will cause rough idle. So I told him this would be no problem. I told him we should check that out first and that my confidence level in this solution was pretty high. The trick was finding the silly thing. He had the Chilton's book so we found the section with the throttle body and right there was a picture of the air idler valve. It is the same one we use on a Range Rover Classic. I told him it should be easy to find.

I told him if we can find it, it's an easy thing to clean. We started looking for it and it was not to be found. Finally I told him we should take the throttle body off and the valve would reveal itself. We removed the throttle body. And there was the problem. An eighth of an inch of oily carbon deposits on everything on the engine side of the butterfly.

These photos were shot ~~after a few beers~~ with a cell phone and trouble lights, in the dark, on a moonless night. We took a picture of the inside of the intake and every surface was covered in the carbon oil goo. The detail is not there that would reveal how bad this really looked. I've never seen anything like that. I scraped it with a screwdriver. Wow.

I was amazed the thing ran at all. It became pretty obvious that the butterfly was not closing securely. So we proceeded to clean it up. A little brake fluid cleaner and a stiff toothbrush made short work of the majority of it.

The air idler valve was different from the picture. It wasn't the same as the Range Rover's. I wasn't surprised. We removed it and cleaned up the seat. You can imagine it was pretty dirty as well. We got it cleaned up and reinstalled the assembly.

As you can see, it is shiny and clean. It made a pretty good difference in how the Saturn idled. Larry's other complaint was the acceleration. So I got in the Saturn and drove her. The throttle response was great. Press the peddle and the revs went up. But in first gear of the automatic transmission, you could tell the acceleration didn't match the revs on the tachometer. Second and third gears behaved as expected but first gear, in my humble opinion, was slipping.

I drove it home and asked when the last time the transmission fluid was changed. "Probably, never." He hadn't done it and was unsure if it had ever been done by a previous owner. I recommended he have a transmission service. A batch of fresh fluid might, and I told him might, bring several thousand more miles of Saturn-y goodness and if he was lucky the slipping would stop.

It was fun to find a problem and solve it. It was really, really fun to help a friend make one of his cars more reliable for one of his daughters. I have two daughters and I know the trepidation he feels each time one takes a car out of the driveway.

I could tell you a dozen stories about this daughter, like the one when she was five years old. She was feeling oppressed because she could not run around the neighborhood topless like all the other kids (all boys). But I'll let her mom post them on her knitting blog. Happy Birthday Laurianne.

Thanks for reading and thanks Happy Rovering.

Oklahoma Blizzard

2011-02-03T08:09:00.000-06:00

In case you just woke up from a Rip Van Winkle style slumber the central states got smacked by a blizzard. A real deal, Snowpocalypse style, weathermen telling you we are all gonna die, go to the grocery store and buy everything even though you don't need it, shut down highways and schools, blizzard.

It was pretty bad. Far worse than that has been the single digit temperatures. I think we got all the way up to 17 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday. The lowest temp I've seen was 5.3F for my neighborhood. That was the reading on the cheap car thermometer I bought last summer for my Range Rover. It now has an impressive 112.5F for it's high and 5.3F for it's low temperature. Such is life in Oklahoma.

Check out this pretty cool time (2:00 minutes) lapse video from three cameras. Considering this kind of weather event has only happened about a half dozen times since 1970, you can see how it shut down the state.

I remember some notable ones. 1973 Blizzard, 1974 Blizzard, Ice Storm of 1987, Christmas Eve Blizzard 2009 and this week. I'm sure a more astute weather historian could fill in the blanks for us, but those are the biggies I remember.

4.3F Overnight

2011-02-02T12:10:00.001-06:00

35mph winds and white-out conditions

We were blessed with another blizzard the past two days. The arctic air mass settled on our fine land and with it brought temperatures which make you wonder about the logic of 20w50 oil in your crankcase. The overnight low was 4.3F and at 10:00am the temperature on my porch was 5.9F.

I was granted a second snow day by the powers of our autonomous collective. And with that second slack day, I decided to sleep in as my lovely wife Mrs. OkieRover decided to go to work. Ten feet out of the garage she high centered the Honda CRV. She came in to wake me and inform me that my morning work out would consist of snow shoveling. RovErica's Taurus and Diet Mountain Drew's Scion xB are not going anywhere today and probably tomorrow. The drifts are just too high. With a little luck we'll have above freezing temperatures to melt away the snow this weekend.

As you can see, our house and driveway face North and the wind blows the snow into drifts that form a lovely wall right at the bottom of our driveway. From what I saw Mrs. OkieRover did not attack the drift with any velocity. Unfortunately she in her efforts blocked the Range Rover in. In order to get her to work I had to get her out first.

My neighbors begin to dig out

An hour of snow shoveling and some strategic driving with the Range Rover allowed me to carve ruts that will allow her to get out. I fully expect a call tomorrow morning while I am at work, telling me she is stuck again.

On the way home from taking her to work I stopped to help an elderly man who had gotten his C class Mercedes stuck in a drift. Why he drove directly into the drift instead of around is a mystery. The man was also transporting his dog, in a cage, to some unknown location. It was difficult to convince him to allow me to drive him to his house instead of him walking. It was also impossible to pull him out. The entire under side of the Mercedes was covered in plastic. I couldn't find a tow hook on either end of the car.

I gave him a ride home with his little dog. He had a pickup truck there in the driveway and he, I'm sure, took that little dog somewhere. I have a few more posts to finish you can catch them later this week.

Happy ~~shoveling~~ Rovering and stay warm and thanks for reading.

Follow-Up on Tires

2011-01-20T11:25:00.000-06:00

I received a GREAT coupon in my email from my preferred tire dealer. Basically it is store cost plus a dollar for Bridgestone or Firestone tires. As you have no doubt read I have had a love affair with Bridgestone Dueler AT Revo II's. The bad news about this is the supply of this tire in sizes that would work well for a classic Range Rover has dried up.
Basically I am looking for tires that match as closely as possible the original size.

As you can read on RangeRovers.net the original size was 205/80-16.

Getting a tire close to this size is the trick. Knowing which tire is the same size requires a little math. Thankfully there are lots of tire calculators available on the interwebs.

I used this one on 1010tires.com.

The tire sizes I’m considering are…

Tire Size Comparison
Size	Size Change Percent	Speed at 60mph
205/80-16	0	60
215/85-16	-.77	60.4
225/75-16	+1.27	59.2
245/70-16	+2	58.7
235/75-16	+3.22	58.0

This tire calculator will pop up a message saying the 235/75-16 tire is outside the recommended range of 3 percent or smaller.

I highly recommend you read the tire page on RangeRovers.net. There is a lot of information about sizes on there that will remove a lot of the guess work.

So back to the Bridgestone problem of supply. Art at Hibdon’s Tire Plus called Bridgestone and asked the question I’ve been trying find out. Are they dropping the Dueler AT REVO II?

According to Bridgestone they have a supply problem. Tire manufacturers do not like to have tires sitting on the shelf too long. Tires have expiration dates just like milk only a tad bit longer. I can’t answer how long is “too long” but lets just say the tire companies know. In any event, they are trying to keep their stock rotated. When uncertain times like these come around manufacturers cut back. Apparently they cut back too much and a GREAT tire became unavailable.

Again, according to Bridgestone the Dueler AT REVO II’s stock will be replenished. So the tire sizes for that tire that are best for our Range Rovers will again be on the shelves or racks in late March or early April. You know I will be checking out this information.

In the mean time a quandary has appeared in our path like a rather large rock slide. Do we buy tires now and just source a different tire that got good marks, in effect DRIVE AROUND the rock slide? Or do we wait for the Dueler’s to show up meanwhile driving around on bald tires or severely limit our driving? This second portion has some added weight that I will miss using the coupon the dealer sent me.

How good a coupon is it? Well, I’ll tell ya.
I asked them to quote me Firestone Destination A/T with full hazard replacement. Here is the survey page for this tire at TIRERACK.COM.

They place 2nd in the category and are actually ranked higher than both of the Dueler AT REVOs.

With out the coupon I can get a set of four installed for 733.45$(US)
With the coupon I can get a set of four installed for 589.63$(US)
143.82$(US) savings!!!

That’s a pretty good alternative to waiting for the Dueler AT REVOs to arrive. Now I could buy Bridgestone Dueler AT REVO IIs in the 245/70-16 size. This is a common pickup truck size and there seem to be plenty of them to be found. They will supposedly fit with no modifications. The coupon is in affect as well giving me a 200.09$(US) savings (nice) on a set of four. Unfortunately a set of four tires without the coupon is 1009.53$(US). HOLY CRAP!

This takes us back to the thoughts in my last tire post about “how much driving am I going to be doing”. This is not my daily driver at best it will be two days a week one of which is a Saturday or Sunday. This Range Rover does not need to rest on a 1000$ set of tires in my driveway. This makes this a fairly easy decision.

So to wrap up.
Milk expires on the shelf. Tires expire on the shelf.
Manufacturers reduce inventories of even their best products when hard times come around.
According to one source at the Bridgestone warehouse, as of this post, they are not planning to eliminate the Dueler REVO tire line from their inventory.
Tires are expensive. Why buy a more expensive tire when a cheaper and notably better product is available? Rhetorical question Farley.

Time for Tires Again

2011-01-07T15:30:00.000-06:00

I've blogged about this subject a few times. One of those posts sits in the top position of most pageviews for my site.

As you may have gathered from the post's title, I'm looking for new tires for the Range Rover Classic. The project and calendar have progressed to the point where it is time for new rubber to meet the road. We have pending snow storm coming on Sunday. It will not be the blizzard we had last year. Hell, it probably won't even snow enough to measure it. But after the local weathermen(and women) get finished with the weather tonight the grocery stores will have a run on milk, smokes, booze, bread and canned soup. And by Wednesday the roads will be clear so new tires are not an emergency situation and neither is running to the grocery to buy something you can wait a day or two for the trucks to deliver.

Consider this, I have not put even a hundred miles on the Classic since last year's Snowpocalypse storm the tires on her right now will most likely work just fine. They are bald for sure, but I was able to manage with just a failed viscous coupling and front wheel drive and bald tires in blizzard conditions. Now I have both axles working correctly so...I have that going for me.

I have been digging around on the net and I found some bad news today. Bridgestone Dueler AT REVO's are being discontinued. At the very least they are on closeout at TireRack.com. It's no great surprise to me. I knew it would happen. Every time a company produces a product that is genius it only takes a few production runs for someone to change it and thusly screw it up. Or someone at corporate to declare we need a new product and thus kill all the successful products they have produced to date.

This is pushing demand for Bridgestone Dueler AT Revo II's and the smallest size of that tire which is perfect for your Range Rover, 235/75R16, is listed on TireRack.com as....back ordered. Of course it is, I need to buy four of them. I'm not going to wait for them. My local tire shoppe, Hibdon's Tire Plus, which is normally able to shit me a pair of Tiffany cuff links on command, can't get either the Revo or Revo II's. What the hell is that all about?

So I'm looking for a new tire. I could wait to buy, but there is a pending snow storm coming on Sunday night/Monday. That in itself is not enough reason to go buy tires but I need to start looking. So what do we have available as a replacement.

Here is an obligatory graphic that will be out dated 15 minutes after I post it.

These are the top 7 tires in this category at TireRack.com and an associated observation from my point of view for each...

Kumho Road Venture SAT KL61
Never owned a set. Smallest size 225/75R15. The brand is one of those you perhaps don't know what to expect. I've seen more Kumho tire signs on abandoned tire shops than active ones. But they seem to have hit a homerun with the folks on TireRack.com.

Firestone Destination A/T
Lots of sizes. Firestone let me down in the 1990s with a set of tires and I've never forgiven them. You remember when Ford and Firestone were sued for tires that fell apart and caused cars and SUVs to flip over? I had a set of those tires in the smaller 15 inch size. They didn't get recalled, but they fell apart just like the 16 inch ones. I took them back to Firestone and they would not replace them. I haven't darkened their door since.

It seems they are using UNI-T technology just like the Bridgestone REVO's. I also know they are essentially the same company as Bridgestone as one owns the other.

Michelin LTX A/T 2
They made the OEM tires for your Range Rover. Those 205/80R16's had a distinctive narrow and tall look that can't be copied. If they weren't 200-300$(US) more than everyone else I would have bought another set. Another strike against them, I can't buy them at my tire dealer of choice. That is sad because there is a Michelin plant in Ardmore Oklahoma, and I'm all about buying products made in Oklahoma or at least products made by companies with a presence in Oklahoma.

Bridgestone REVO and Bridgestone REVO II
Discontinued and not available. I am very disappointed in this.

Goodyear Wrangler SilentArmor
Not excited about Goodyear. SilentArmor? really? that's the name you came up with?

Pirelli Scorpion ATR
I saw a set on a truck the other day they looked really good. I've never owned a set though. I know they had a tire that was popular with Land Rover owners a decade ago.

I bounced this situation off my friends EGD, Magnum Mike and Titanium Hitch. They sometimes offer sound advice. Most of the time the advice is littered with insults about the Land Rover brand. The gist of their points this time revolved around how much are "you" going to drive the Range Rover. They aren't too keen with spending the equivalent of the per capita GDP of your average Chadian for tires on a vehicle I'm going to drive only a couple times a week.

This is a good point. I did mention that I'd like to have quality tires because I plan to do some cross country driving. Their observation that I was either stupid or completely mad to drive the Range Rover across the country were well founded. I am often stupid and I am mad to spend the energy I have on a nearly 20 year old Range Rover and to expect it to carry me to California or the Carolina's is pretty crazy. Can you say AAA? Sure, sure you can.

So I'll call the tire shoppe and ask them if they carry Pirelli Scorpian ATR's. Then I may wait for a month and see if I can get a ~~discount~~, ~~rebate~~, Bridgestones, if not, I guess I'll be rollin' fat on Pirelli's.

And if they are willing to have a set on hand, I'm willing to buy them. Of course I will let you know how they perform and whether or not I'd buy them again.

Thanks for reading, stay warm and Happy Rovering.

Where have I seen this before?

2011-01-02T18:03:00.000-06:00

I figured after Ford owned Land Rover for a few years we would see systems and parts show up from Land Rovers in the Fords. I just didn't think it would be so soon.

This picture is from a LR4. You would have thought they would have at least changed the icons. Click the picture for Land Rover's response to Ford's new traction control system.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering in the New Year.

What OkieRover Readers Come Here to Read

2010-12-30T13:38:00.003-06:00

It's time to put a cap on 2010. This will be my compilation post for the year. I'm going to post the top stories at the end of this year. In May I turned on the stat tracker and these are the top posts for my site to date.

I was very tempted to title this post...

Naked Farm Girls Racing Maverick Grabbers Going to the Prom in Land Rovers Pulling Sankey Trailers and the Tires They Prefer

Although that basically describes the key words that generated most of the traffic for the blog this year, I thought that was too obvious.

Tires....again, 725 Pageviews
This post is an obvious one. Way back in March of 2009 I put up a post about tires. All Land Rover owners agree on one thing, the tires they are running are the best. Tire debates litter the message boards of many Land Rover sites. If you follow any site it will only take a month or two before someone posts a "What tires do I buy?" post. Instead of reading the 20 posts already posted on the subject they would prefer a new post.

That's just fine though, because if people update their opinions. You should begin to see a pattern of which tires work, which tires are adequate, and the strong brand loyalty out there.

For the record...As of this post, I am firmly convinced the Bridgestone Dueler AT Revo 2 is the best tire hands down.

Wish me luck next week, 407 Pageviews
This is the post where I have a buddy of mine bid on a military trailer at a Govliquidation.com auction. For the record we won and I picked up a great trailer.

I think this post speaks to the adventuresome nature of Land Rover owners. We use these vehicles for adventure and to have a proper adventure you need lots of ~~crap~~ gear. In any event you all liked it a lot. This is 2010's most popular post.

Yep! Brake cylinder was leakin', 248 Pageviews
At first glance you may think this post is popular because people like to stop. Nothing is more exciting than pressing on the brake peddle and it dropping to the floor. But if one dug a little further it's likely that this post is popular because of my 1973 Ford Maverick Grabber. I had quite a few searches that came to my site with that "1973 Maverick Grabber" in the criteria. When I was in high school I bought a used Maverick. It was a hideous color of orange but it had factory mags and it looked pretty cool.

My good friend Jack bought a Maverick a few years later and together we were, The Midnight Maverick Marauders. We had a good time tearing around the south side of Oklahoma City and Moore in our Mavericks. Good Times, good times. Jack and I are more famous for getting stuck on a cold late night in December 1986 or was it 1987? I don't remember, I used to drink...a lot.

What does that mean...really?, 221 Pageviews
This is an easy one. My readers like hot chicks. I thought I could derive some traffic from some pin-up art in the side banner. But a single picture of a very pretty girl and a Land Rover beats that all to hell. The details in the article about Tata buying Land Rover are totally lost.

Traler Project a Bust for Now, 205 Pageviews
Another trailer post. This makes me wonder if I should just put "SANKEY" in all my post's metadata, to generate traffic.

How Old is your Rover in Car Years?, 129 Pageviews
This post's popularity is a mystery to me. A link to a car age calculator on Jalopnik.com is listed.

"THE" Rover V8, 89 Pageviews
If tires stir the debate pot, then what powers our Land Rovers is the soup. Land Rover owners love to read about motors, power plants, and anything that will move a Land Rover. A Jalopnik.com link couldn't have hurt this post's popularity any.

Garage clean up, moving spare parts, adjusting the door, 71 Pageviews
I'm going out on a limb here and am going to say the popularity of this post is...a messy garage. I guess either you all are really curious as about where I work on my Land Rover or you were hoping I had a secret about how to keep a clean garage.

My Farm Girl is Wearing a Prom Dress, 49 Pageviews
I'm afraid the popularity of this post was due to the key words, "prom dress" and "farm girl". I have to say I thought it was a clever analogy. Hopefully you came for the analogy and left with some good information about models and utilitarianism.

The one where I catch myself on fire in the furtherance of Land Rovering, 46 Pageviews
I can promise you this one was the name of the title that drew you in. The fact that I caught myself on fire is comically amusing and that I could do it AND still finish the project makes me freakin' awesome.

Sometime just before this post I turned on links to Networked Blogs and Facebook. I know a fair amount of traffic came from Facebook because of the messages I received from friends taunting me and questioning my intelligence.

It was good to see the Marilyn Monroe post drop off the top ten. I was beginning to think everyone who visited my blog was a fan of hot chicks and Land Rovers. As much as I'd like to drive my traffic, which I get absolutely nothing in the form of monetary compensation for, I'd like to be the go to site for clever writing about Land Rovers, not just hot chicks and Land Rovers. You have Google and it's infinite power for that.

Well there you have it, that's the top 10 posts all time on the OkieRover.com Blog. Next year I'll limit it to the top posts of 2011.

The 12 Days of Christmas OkieRover Style

2010-12-25T08:00:00.024-06:00

12th day of Christmas my true love gave to me...
12 inches of ground clearance.

Okay I confess, I don't have twelve inches of ground clearance under my stock Range Rover Classic. But I did have 12 inches of snow to navigate through and that was given by my other true love, The Almighty.

You can see from the picture that this storm was not for the inadequate vehicles to the Land Rover's right. We had drifts in some places up to five feet. You can see one in front of my neighbor's house at the far left of this picture. There have been five or so notable weather events that I have been very pleased I bought and maintain a Land Rover for. Two of them came a month apart last year Christmas Eve 2009 and the January 2010 Icepocalypse that crippled the state for a week.

Thank you for reading and Merry Christmas and Happy Rovering everyone.

The 12 Days of Christmas OkieRover Style

2010-12-24T13:58:00.000-06:00

I dug and dug and could not find a single thing that had anything to do with Eleven. The only thing is the obvious reference to the move Spinal Tap (1984). The great scene where Marti DiBergi is interviewing Nigel Tufnel. Nigel is telling him about his amp that goes to eleven, one louder. The words, "...but this one goes to eleven" have been repeated many, many times. Most people know the reference and make the connection.

I am going to replace or repair the sound system in the Range Rover during this restoration. When I'm done, I'm hoping it will "go to eleven". I have it on good authority that Santa's radio goes to eleven.

The 12 Days of Christmas OkieRover Style

2010-12-23T08:00:00.019-06:00

10th day of Christmas my true love gave to me...
Ten nuts to tighten

There are ten nuts holding the rear differential on the axle housing. I had to pull the differential to remove the piece of broken axle out of the differential. To get it out I also had to sacrifice a screwdriver and convert it to a long narrow punch.

It was kinda awesome to see how the differential worked. It is almost magical, sort of how you imagine Santa's workshop functions. I would have liked to done this job while my Classic was on a rack but I learned that I can do this job flat on my back. So if ever I see a differential go out on the trail, I know I can do this job. All the mystery is gone.

The 12 Days of Christmas OkieRover Style

2010-12-22T08:00:00.026-06:00

9th day of Christmas my true love gave to me...
Nine spots of rust on the tailgate to address.

Only slightly less famous than Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer is the rusting of Range Rover Classic upper and lower tailgates. When you look through the pictures of my tailgate after 17 years, its a wonder any of it was left at all. The missing paint on the bottom of the lower tailgate was probably on the day that Land Rover's Quality Assurance Team took off early to attend the Christmas Party down at the pub. When you look at some of the things I found it is funny that my Land Rover was actually on the assembly line over Christmas or real close. The delivery date was January 1993.

I learned the basics of automotive painting by painting my tailgate. I also learned that you should not paint without a mask while you have the flu. I survived but only just barely, sort of like my tailgate.

The one where I catch myself on fire in the furtherance of Land Rovering

2010-12-21T10:50:00.001-06:00

I started a little slow out of the gate Saturday. My good friend, the Evil German Dude (EGD) agreed to help me weld in patches for my rusted passenger side floor. So the plan was to get up on Saturday and drive to the lovely town of Jones, Oklahoma where EGD has his evil lair. It didn’t help that I had what would be considered a bad dream the night before. In the dream I forgot to get up and go to EGD’s house for the project and I couldn’t get him on the phone to tell him why. Weird.

My slow start was mostly due to me failing to move all the crap that was piled on and around my Range Rover. I had to move two cars and it simply took longer than I planned. It turned out not to be a big deal, but when you are dealing with Evil German Dudes you want to be punctual. The drive was unremarkable except for the big hole in the floor letting in the morning chill. The heater kept it comfortable so it turned out not to be the issue I expected. I did see one thing on the way in that disturbed me though. A sign at the city limits of Jones read,

It is illegal to dump animals in Jones.

Is this a big problem? I guess it would make sense to drop an unwanted animal off in "the country” instead of feeding it and loving it. Jones is definitely in "the country". But Jones is having none of that. It must be a big enough problem that the City of Jones sprung for a sign to declare its intention to fine you if you are caught.

I arrived at EGD’s evil lair and with some pleasantries we got the Range Rover into the garage. “Back it in.” was my first instruction. I asked why, to whit he responded, “it will be easier to push it out of the garage if it catches on fire.” DULY NOTED! That had not even crossed my mind.

The project at hand was to weld in replacement floor panels to cover the rusted holes that I cut out of the floor. EGD’s evil mistress is EGB, the Evil German Broad. She had a project as well and so we all assembled in the secret lair and got started. I’m substituting broad for bitch. I like her, so I tend to think of her in a better light than the later word would denote.

I failed to do my homework so we were set back while I made my templates for the holes. Templates are a good idea. With the price of sheet steel and the distance required to retrieve more if you screw up makes mistakes like poor cutting a show stopper. I got the card board and cut the template.

My next task was to cut the steel to match the template. All this would be duplicated for the second set of holes in the front of the floor pan. I transferred the template on to the steel by tracing the outline and got to cutting. I positioned our old friend, the angle grinder, now fitted with a cutting wheel, and got to cutting.

This is the part where a quote from a movie is necessary.

“Stupid is as stupid does.” – Forest Gump

I can just hear you all out there, “But OkieRover, I always thought of you as a pretty sharp guy.” Well that is a nice thought my dear readers, but let me tell you the facts. As my cousin Victoria will assure you, “Marines are NOT the sharpest knives in the drawer.” She would also be the first Army dog to tell you, “Marines may well be the biggest and scariest knives in the drawer, but not the sharpest.”

You can see from the picture that something ~~funny is about to happen~~ is about to go horribly wrong. On my third cut the sparks flying at my thigh were hot enough to ignite my Levi's 501 jeans.

On the first and second cuts I had noticed that the spot where the sparks landed on my leg got warm. But I’m a Marine and I am not phased by such annoyances for my pain threshold is high and my discipline is unwavering. Sadly that level of pride proved too much when the warm spot on my leg got A LOT WARMER, you might even say damn hot.

I looked down just as the Evil German Dude said, “You are on fire.” Before the last syllable of –ire was said I was already slapping the fire out. I did not feel “stop, drop and roll” was appropriate so I just slapped my thigh until the flames were gone.

We all had a big laugh. EGD said, “If you would have left it burning for another minute I would have had a picture of it.” I’m not sure that would have been worth the photo. As it turned out I only received a small blister and a bruised ego.

Growing impatient with my pathetic attempts to cut the steel EGD leaped into action. He took over the cutting. Perhaps he was wanting to have all the fun. I know he has had extensive training in metal working, shop procedures, welding, and nuclear reactor construction techniques from the ~~Stadtweke Bremen AG~~ Academy of Evil Villains. We often tease him that he could build a fully functioning nuclear reactor from two paper clips, a nine volt battery and a piece of cork. We also know he minored in earthquake manipulation while at the Academy. It should then come as no surprise that Jones Oklahoma experiences an extraordinary number of earthquakes. We have not yet gathered the evidence that he is guilty of the earthquakes, it’s only a hunch at this point. Update: The evidence is getting stronger.

The next step was to cut holes in the steel plate to make tack welds. Unfortunately I had only two thicknesses of steel to choose from at Lowe's, 16 gauge and 22 gauge. Sixteen gauge being the thicker steel. EGD’s pneumatic punch tool was no match for this thickness and it was determined to edge weld the larger patch.

With that in mind we had to remove the paint I sprayed to protect the naked steel from rusting. I marked the outline of the panel and EGD ground the paint away with his air tool.

Then it was on to the welding. Originally I had intended to learn this task and do it myself. I was pretty sure I wasn’t ready for this today. EGD was the accomplished welder and I just stepped aside and assisted when necessary holding the plate down as he made the tack welds.

Pretty soon he was done and I was back in there to make the template for the last two holes. I’m now an expert at making templates. I also cut this panel out and managed to not catch myself on fire for a second time. 22 gauge is pretty thin so I cut this one out with the metal shears.

To get the flex and bend necessary for this section we went with the 22 gauge. The punch was easily able to penetrate this thickness and EGD went to work. He also gave the piece a nice bend in his vise and it was back in to weld it down.

I got in and used the air grinder to get the paint off to insure good welds. This time I ground the paint back inside the template marks due to the punch method being deployed.

EGD fired up the welder and got the last panel welded in place. He used the hammer to assist in holding the plate in place with the proper bend. It was necessary to have the air compressor fitted with a blowing tool and at the ready. As the welds were made, several times the rubberized undercoating Land Rover saw fit to install caught fire. It was easy enough to keep under control with a few hundred PSI of forced air to blow out the flame and cool the steel after the weld.

The final step was to knock the high spots of the welds down with the angle grinder. I got that task knocked out in no time.

All that was left was cleaning up. I grabbed the shop vacuum and cleaned up the floor pans the best I could. The grinder wheel and slag from the welding can leave a pretty good pile of debris.

We finished up the day with a lovely meal. EGB had prepared chili and cornbread. It was delicious. I bid them a good day and I was on my way home.

On the way home the alarm went off inside the cab. This is the same alarm that sounds when the transfer case is in neutral. I thought I had eliminated all possibility that it would sound again.

I pulled over in Nicoma Park, Oklahoma and shifted the transmission to PARK. I grabbed the shifter and fully expecting the damn thing to sound, I shifted back to DRIVE. Nothing, no alarm, WHY.THE.HELL did it do that?

I proceeded on home and one more time the alarm sounded. Just a short beep and then no more trouble. The road noise was reduced by the new panels, so I thought I’d listen to the radio. I punched in my CODE and the radio did not spring to life. Maybe it’s the wrong code. So I’ll have to pull the radio again and get the code. My good friend and former roommate Master Guns has a radio from one of his cars for me. I have to get it from him to see if it will fit in the limited space of the Range Rover’s dash. Maybe we’ll just go with a whole different system, I don’t know.

I got home and jumped out of Range Rover. As I passed the front of the Rover I heard a high pitched sound from the engine compartment. I went back and popped the bonnet and listened. My guess is I am loosing the bearings in my alternator. I have a lifetime warranty on the alternator so I guess I’ll pull it and take it down for a replacement. I didn’t expect a new project but I am not surprised by it either.

On Monday evening, Oklahoma was blessed with some unseasonably warm weather. We topped 73 degrees (F). That is very unusual for this time of year. Consider last year at this time. The weathermen were predicting a snow storm for Christmas Eve. What we got was a blizzard with five foot snow drifts that crippled the metro area for 7 days. We named the event Snowpocalypse 2009 mocking the news coverage of the event.

So, with seventy degree weather I was determined to paint the new bare naked panels before surface rust sets in. After Mrs. OkieRover and I got dinner (Chick-Fil-A), mom’s grocery shopping (Homeland), we had to take a roll of tape over to our friend who owns Rusty’s Frozen Custard. When we were neighbors he would always come over on December 23rd or 24th and ask if we had any tape for he had exhausted his tape supply wrapping presents. So after the second year of his late season visits, we started buying extra rolls and giving them to him as a present. Eventually we moved away, and now we take the tape to his store and leave it for him. On and off for fifteen years we have been doing this, a very long running joke.

With all our duties done, we still had time to go to O’Reilly’s for paint and bed liner material. If I hurried I still had time to get some of that paint on the metal before bed time.

We went into O’Reilly’s. Mrs. OkieRover said she “always” goes in with me. I told her she NEVER goes with me to the parts store. I can’t honestly remember the last time we were even at the parts store together. So once again her ALWAYS and my NEVER come up short on reality.

Castrol Edge Synthetic was on sale, buy five quarts get a Mobil One oil filter free. The Scion and the Civic both need oil changes so I grabbed 10 quarts. I don’t know anything about Mobil One oil filters. So that’s something I’m going to have to look up today.

So I look at the receipt,

2 cans of bedliner,
2 cans of MarHyde acid etching primer,
10 quarts of synthetic oil.

130$(US)! WTH? Wow that was a lot. I have to get it out of my head that a quart of oil costs a dollar. So you can imagine I was not expecting 70$(US) for two oil changes. I guess I know what I’ll be doing during the day on Christmas Eve. I’ll probably take advantage of the situation and extend it to a learning situation to the boys. Diet Mountain Drew graduates this year and needs to know about this stuff.

The next steps are to see about sealing up the floor and getting the bedliner sprayed on the new panels. There are some unavoidable problems already popping up. The best way to have done this job was to take the body off the frame and weld in a new floor for this section. With that in mind, it is going to be a challenge to seal out the water. I’ll have pictures of the underneath in another blog post this week. It will become clear why this task is going to be such a challenge when you see the pictures.

One more time, I'd like to send a big thanks out to my friend EGD for his help and to EGB for the great meal.

And to everyone else thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

The 12 Days of Christmas OkieRover Style

2010-12-21T08:00:00.025-06:00

8th day of Christmas my true love gave to me...
Eight soft nyloc nuts to cut off and replace with grade 8 nuts

Few things make me want to punch someone in the face. Using inadequate materials on a LUXURY SUV is in top five things that I would punch someone in the face over. I know punching someone in the face will put me on Santa's bad list, but I'm pretty sure the bean counting jackass that sourced the nuts for the drive shafts on Range Rover Classics is already on Santa's bad list.

Do us all a favor next time and spend the extra 50p [1$(US)] and get the hardened nuts. Some poor bastard like me will thank you when they have to take them off ten years from now.

The 12 Days of Christmas OkieRover Style

2010-12-20T08:00:00.019-06:00

7th day of Christmas my true love gave to me...20
Seven-ty thousand sparks a flyin'.

I could have probably said seven scars a scarring. Hot embers from the cutting wheel rested on my skin so many times I stopped counting. One time the hot ember landed in the palm of my hand while I was cutting a nut off. It burned...a lot, but I wasn't in a place to stop so I powered through it. The mental discipline the Marine Corps burned into me comes in handy ever once in a while.

Chicks dig guys dressed in red who bring them presents driving sleighs and guys with scars driving Land Rovers.

The 12 Days of Christmas OkieRover Style

2010-12-19T08:02:00.037-06:00

6th day of Christmas my true love gave to me...
A friend with several 6x6 trucks.

My best friend JagGuy has been converting M35 6x6 trucks to "Bobbed Dueces". He is amazing at seeing a huge, slow, decommissioned truck and seeing it renewed into a new toy for big boys to enjoy.

I drove 6x6 trucks in the Marine Corps. They were 5 ton trucks but for the most part they were identical except for the weight. I really enjoyed the first ride I had in it. It was great and brought back a lot of fond memories and perhaps a few not so fond. To quote or perhaps paraphrase the famous baseball player Chico Escuela, "The Marine Corps was berra, berra, berra, good to me."

I learned a lot about driving off road. I learned there is nothing better than an M110A2 howitzer to pull a very stuck truck out of the mud. My very good friend Bear Bechtold and I were truck drivers together and managed to get our 6x6 stuck TWICE in the same day. Stuck, like buried all the way to the axles.

Trust me when I say, that truck weren't going no where but down the more we let the wheels spin. And for the record, we were ordered to drive down there. You can tell this was a generation ago, from the old school poplin BDUs and the World War 2 style helmets we used to wear. Good times, good times.

The 12 Days of Christmas OkieRover Style

2010-12-18T08:00:00.019-06:00

5th day of Christmas my true love gave to me...
Five bolts to turn.

You could probably count to 50 the number of times I turned a set of five bolts on this restoration project. Just on the hubs alone there are
5 bolts holding the ABS ring on
5 bolts holding the hub to the brake disc
5 bolts holding the half shafts to the hubs
5 lug nuts hold the tire on

FIVE BOLTS TO TURN!
Can be sung slowly and loudly, because you'll turn all of them at least 5 times. Nothing will make you wish Santa brought you an impact wrench and a proper air compressor this year than swapping the brake discs.

The 12 Days of Christmas OkieRover Style

2010-12-17T08:00:00.020-06:00

Fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me...
Four discs to replace.

You never really appreciate the systems that make stopping possible until you can't stop. With that in mind I knew the rotors and pads needed to be replaced. I had rebuilt the calipers just two short years ago. This project required me to partially rebuild two of the calipers again this time around.

Now we have four new discs, all new fluid, new pads and this Classic stops faster than Santa's can bring those reindeer to a halt on top your roof.

The 12 Days of Christmas OkieRover Style

2010-12-16T08:00:00.002-06:00

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me...
Three rusted holes to patch

I've been battling rust on the Range Rover ever since I got her in June of 2000. Finally the rust won and took out several sections of the floor pan on the passenger side.

The good news is I'm going to learn how to weld. The bad news is I don't think this will be the last time I have to weld a new piece of floor in.

Mrs. OkieRover won't have to worry about freezing cold slush and ice shooting up her leg.

The 12 Days of Christmas OkieRover Style

2010-12-14T20:47:00.000-06:00

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me...
Two new headlights to replace.

There are very few things more important than proper lighting. My favorite pet peeve is driving a vehicle at night I can't see in front of.

The 12 Days of Christmas OkieRover Style

2010-12-14T20:44:00.001-06:00

I know the 12 days of Christmas START on Christmas day and end on January 5th. But here on the plains we do things differently. We drive rusty British vehicles and we drink creamy ales and we are just a bit different from our Jeepy and FJ cousins. So, I'm going to start the 12 days as a count down to Christmas. That will leave you the 12 days after Christmas to play with all the toys you will have for your Land Rover.

So....On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me...
One broken axle.

The reason for my viscous coupling failure. RovErica confessed that she probably broke it when she swerved off the road one late night coming home from The Badger's house scarring the crap out of her friend Jenny.

So with just a front wheel drive Range Rover, I was still able to rescue stuck vehicles during the Christmas Eve Snowpocalypse of 2009. Impressive.

THE CHEAPEST REPLACEMENT PART for a Land Rover EVER

2010-12-11T15:18:00.002-06:00

I started this Saturday out with a cup of hot cocoa in my Fox Battery 2nd Battalion 14th Marines mug and a hope of getting a lot done. The weather report had today getting worse as the day progressed. By the time I knocked off for the day to watch the Army / Navy (Go Navy) football game, the wind was gusting over 30 mph from the north. With an air temperature around 48(F) that makes for an unpleasant work environment in my north facing garage. At a minimum, I wanted to finish what I had started last weekend.

Last weekend I was supposed to be scraping deer hides with my friends. Those plans changed and I was instead home for the weekend. Mrs. OkieRover and I went to a friends house to watch the last Big XII championship football game between our beloved University of Oklahoma Sooners and their long time rival the Nebraska Cornhuskers. The company of my friends is always welcome and it was good to sit and all six of us fuss about the play calling in a tight game. The Sooners triumphed over the bug eaters from the North.

My friend had prepared quite a spread for us. We had chili, lots of finger foods, sushi, and lots of sweets. We enjoyed a bottle of wine and had a great night. Well I can say it started great and ended the next morning with me in the toilet with either a food allergy or food poisoning. I ate the sushi as I always do, but something served did not agree with me. I say food allergy because at one point my hands and feet and ears itched. In any event it ended my weekend early.

The day before all the parts I ordered arrived. I went through the parts and sorted them.

Before the evening activities I was able to go to O'Reilly's and get some power steering fluid and spare hose clamps. I also asked about replacing the power steering hose that runs from the pump to the reservoir. It is just a length of hose, no pressure fittings. O'Reilly's did not carry any hoses that would hold up to oils and together we came up with P & K Equipment. They are a John Deere (TM) dealer and do a steady trade in equipment and parts.

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As I arrived I learned from the sign posted there at the counter that they make hoses. So that was good news for me as I knew they would have the type of hose I needed. I handed him the length of hose I wanted to replace and off he went. He was back in a few minutes with a cut length and asked if there was anything else. I described the flange types Land Rover uses for the power steering hoses and expected him to either stare blankly back at me or shrug me off. Instead, he said, "yeah that's an inverted flange, we can make those." No shit? No shit. I told him I'd bring the next hose that leaked down to him to see if he could make a replacement.

I was ready to go and he rung me up. I retrieved my debit card to pay for the hose and the young man said, "that'll be a dollar fifty five."
I said, "1.55?"
He said, "yep".
I said, "hang on" as I had that in change in the car and went out to fetch it. With this purchase, I think I have set the record now for THE CHEAPEST REPLACEMENT PART for a Land Rover. Atlantic British lists this hose for 47.95$(US). For you math nerds out there that is a 96.77% savings. YES!

I'm very interested in seeing if they can indeed make the high pressure hoses and how much they might cost. I love finding savings like this.

I reattached all the hoses and today I filled it with power steering fluid. I chose power steering fluid instead of my normal routine of using automatic transmission fluid (ATF). I am looking for leaks and this area is already the location of the transmission cooling lines. We know those have the crimson ATF fluid running through them. So to differentiate I put power steering fluid in the power steering fluid system. The power steering fluid I bought is clear, that way if either are still leaking I'll know which system has the leak by the color of the fluid leaking out.

In addition to all this steering work, I put the lamps in their sockets where the bulbs needed to be replaced. I then decided to take the Rover to the car wash to put some hot soapy water on the hoses. I need to find the leak and with clean dry hoses if there is a leak it should show up quickly. I should see weeping on the hoses or even a drip on the butcher paper I put down to watch for new leaks.

On the way to the car wash I was able to get the Range Rover through all the gears. As you remember I think I may have burned the 4th gear in my transmission. I put in fresh fluid and the shift points couldn't have been better. I know this is no measurement of the condition of my transmission, but I was happy to see it shifting well.

Here is the list of projects as of today. I've struck the projects I've completed.
Projects

~~Brake discs~~
~~Brake reservoir~~
~~Bushings~~
~~Viscous Coupling~~
~~Rust in the bed~~
~~Rust on the lower tailgate~~
~~Rust in the front footwells~~
~~Broken axle~~
~~Transaxle shifter solenoid~~
~~Complete fluid service~~ partially done
~~Power steering hoses~~
~~Head liner~~
~~Sun roof~~
Rusted floor pans
Windshield Seal
Tires
Sound system
Door locks
Transmission problems

Not vital but needed eventually.

Springs and shocks
Air conditioning

That is all for now. Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

The Perfect Wife

2010-11-30T21:06:00.002-06:00

I know I read this line somewhere but I can't find the reference.

Its a rare thing and when you find it, you should grab it with both hands and hold on to it.

Maybe its a paraphrase of something I heard in my youth. I found some lyrics to a song by Outkast that come close. Some where around the 3:20 mark you'll hear the prophetic lines...

So if you find one, I beg you, hold her tight
If you spot one, good sir, treat her right

Some of the comments on the video are funny.

Kinda old song, but I like it and i feel a lot of people need to hear it. - dh2130, June 28, 2008

According to Wikipedia the album was released September 23, 2003.
Kinda old?
That's funny. But dh2130 is right, a lot of people do need to hear this.

You will encounter things your entire life that will hopefully fit in to this "hold on to it philosophy". It could be a Camel Trophy vehicle, it could be a classic motorcycle, it could be a rare photograph or painting that really speaks to you. And it could be a lady.

I got the following text from my good friend JagGuy today...

So I'm laying in bed with my wife last night and she said to me the most wonderful thing,
"I think you should buy some more army trucks."
I love my wife!!!!!

My best friend has been working on a new venture and he enjoys the work and turns out a product people really want. It would seem at first that his wife is happy with it and he should do more of it. How awesome is that?

My response to him was skeptical, mostly because I know his wife. In general I would say I "know" most people's wives...

Is this after you gave her the Tiffany tennis bracelet?

It turns out I was close, this was actually in response to him selling another of his Bobbed Dueces. I'm pretty sure JagGuy is going to hold on to Mrs. JagGuy, as you can tell above, she's a keeper.

But what if this was due to the fact that they both had a hobby they enjoyed....together?

They may have a hobby they do together, I don't know. But that quote got me thinking. Besides the obvious hobby couples share and usually both enjoy, only a few of my friends have hobbies their wives enjoy with them. A quick survey of my closest circle of friends produces only a few things some of the couples have in common. Kids, sports, grand kids, movies...kinda bleak.

I know my hobbies. Let's see if any of them line up with Mrs. OkieRover...
Land Rovers?...not a hobby of my wife.
Living History?...again not a hobby of my wife.
Firearms?...nope.
Soccer?...not a chance.
Camping...not YET a hobby of my wife. I hope to change this in the coming year.

We both love to go on road trips.
We both love staying away from home.

Now all I have to do is combine road trip with staying away from home in a tent and BOOM we have a hobby together. I think I can add bird watching and swimming in the ocean to the package and sweeten the deal. Mrs. OkieRover doesn't do cold weather.

See when you have a woman, like Mrs. OkieRover, you hold on to her. She has put up with a lot of my crap over the years. She has allowed me to have hobbies and spend time doing stuff I LIKE for 20 years. We played competitive softball for a few years together, but our bodies have not allowed softball since we gave it up to watch our kids play sports.

We are just a few short years from being what is known as "empty-nesters". Our nest, which we have built over the last 20 plus years is going to be a few bodies short in just a few years. And until now, we haven't thought much about it. But with only teenagers in the house the last few years we have been able to steal away a few trips. And we like it.

Our future is coming at us faster than a K5 Blazer without brakes on the Lion's Back in Moab.

Now we are looking at have what might appear to be years and years of time to entertain ourselves. We have got to find something we both like to do...together... other than play backgammon. We need to find something to do away from the house....together.

The obvious is travel.
Lots of couples travel together.
I have a Land Rover. Hey! you can travel in a Land Rover, I've seen it.
My wife has a ... ummm, uh, a love for my company! Yeah! Well most of the time anyway.

My wife loves my cooking, for the most part.
I love the way she moves her mouth when she eats.
See we are perfect for each other! Perhaps we can enjoy cooking and eating in the wilderness together.

Cooking is a very popular activity in the off-roading magazines. It seems lots of foodies love off-roading. Expedition Exchange used to have the Iron Chef Showdown. Teams would compete by cooking a gourmet meal. We are not gourmet meal people but we both enjoy a nice steak and a baked potato. I know I'll enjoy cooking us some nice dinners while we are camping.

Or perhaps we can get the grand kids and take them camping and fishing. Maybe we can throw in some board games and some swimming or surfing, maybe some star gazing and some bird watching and make a good time of it. I'm sure the grand kids will love it...at least they will until it begins to interrupt what ever hand held gaming system they will own and what ever cell phones are like in the future.

The possibilities are endless. Well, not endless per se. We just have to find something and try it. I'll have to have patience as we work out what we like to do together and Mrs. OkieRover will have to adjust to not having a roof over her head and waking up in a hotel every morning.

I can't wait to see what the future will be like. I hope it is filled with lots of mornings waking up in some remote place and spending lots of time together.

Like my quote above, I'm going to put her in the Range Rover and hold on to her with both hands. Wait, she usually fusses at me when I don't drive with both hands. She always says something like, "I can't believe you are driving with your knees and eating a cheeseburger." Okay maybe I'll hold her with just one hand, I'll use the other to steer.

As the famous Geritol commercial from the 1970s says, "My wife, I think I'll keep her."
I wish I could have found that clip online...and you thought the internet had everything.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

Fluid Guidance

2010-11-28T19:06:00.001-06:00

As most of you are aware, your Range Rover has a power steering system. How are you aware? You are aware because of the puddle of power steering fluid you have under the front of your Range Rover. If you don't have a leak in the power steering system, YOU WILL.

I have had one kind of leak or another in the power steering system since I purchased her in Summer of 2000. I have replaced a hose or two in the vain hope I was finding the problem. Eventually you give up mostly because your daily driver can't go without having hoses up there. And what's a little fluid leak if you can keep up with it with the occasional refilling of the reservoir.

Well eventually you will move into a new house and that leak staining the driveway will upset your spouse. Mrs. OkieRover asked me what that dark spot was under the Range Rover. I was embarrassed to tell her, "that was there when we bought the place. Damn that builder!" So was not amused at my quip.

This brings me to this round of restoration and my mission to fix ALL the leaks this time. I was sure I had a bad hose or failed hose. When you look at most of the hoses in this system you are likely to see some protective wrap. That wrap is all fine and good and I'm sure it has a good purpose. I'm not sure what the purpose is...but it is excellent at hiding the location of a leak.

I started the project by removing the power steering reservoir and the air filter assembly. They are in the way for the most part when you are trying to get to the hose connections. They are easy to remove and will make your life easier on this job.

You are going to remove four hoses. Two connect to the power steering pump. And two additional hoses that are connected to each other and labeled pump to box. Why they needed two hoses to connect to each other instead of just one hose is a question perhaps only an engineer could answer. But since they all died from liver failure from the booze they drank while designing this vehicle we may never know.

There are two low pressure hoses. They are low pressure because they are held in place by a hose clamp. If they had metal fittings on each ends you would know they were high pressure hoses.

I'm going to replace both of these hoses. The one with out any pressure fittings is just a rubber hose. Rubber hoses are prone to failure as you already know. Rubber hoses have been failing ever since they were put on the first cars in the 20th century. Land Rovers are no different.

This is a picture of the top of the power steering box. It shows where the hoses connect to the box.

It lower hose is the one I have a crack in. This crack was hidden by the protective wrap I talked about before. With the wrap in place the leaking fluid covered the entire hose and dripped from every separation. This made the entire area underneath wet with power steering fluid which contributed to the mystery of the leak. I have to note here that a pressure fitting on the side of the pump was also loose. I'm not sure how it got that way or if any fluid was leaking from it. But it was interesting to mention.

When the hose was in its installed relaxed position the crack was closed which led to weeping of fluid and not an active dripping. With the hose covered with protective material, it would not have dripped anyway.

So I got online and ordered one from Atlantic British. I also ordered a few other items but did not get to the free shipping special. I couldn't justify buying 60$(US) more stuff to save 12$(US) in shipping.
On the list was...

dome light covers
tailgate handle finisher - lower
dust caps for the front axle
some seemingly hard to find bulbs
a pair of mud flaps
windshield seal
the bad power steering hose

There may have been one or two more items but I couldn't remember them. When the get it all in I'll reassemble the steering system and take the Range Rover down for a hot wash of the area that was formerly wet with power steering fluid and then another check for leaks. I'm confident I have found all the leaks but you can never really know for sure. When you have a British automobile you either have a leak or you are out of fluid. There is no in between.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

The last of the 70 degree days

2010-11-27T13:10:00.000-06:00

I caught a break on Wednesday. The temperature was above 70 (F) degrees. That may not seem like much of a break. If you knew that last Tuesday I pulled the sagging headliner off my overhead with the thought I would replace it after I was done running my mom to her doctor appointments. What I didn't plan for was the application temperature for the spray glue.

Yes, spray glue has an optimum temperature with a minimum and maximum temperature use range. 70(F) is the lowest you should attempt to use their product. As the temperature was a pleasant and hovering in the mid 50s(F) that day I thought I'd be fine. But after reading the side, I thought I should probably call the information line. The lady on the other end of the line, said, "seventy, seventy degrees". Well that was disappointing.

So I went on with my sanding of the old glue away from the overhead and generally cleaned up the surface in anticipation of NEXT MARCH! when I know the temperature would creep above 70 degrees. I used some 60 grit sandpaper and a foam sanding block. It's light sanding, just enough to remove the glue. It is apparent that this will be the last swap with this fiberglass overhead. The fiberglass layers are starting to separate and will either need to be repaired or replaced.

So I rolled out the new headliner material that I bought from Gipson's Trim in Oklahoma City. This place is a throw back to the old warehouse style shops in the olden days. Every thing about this place is retro. They still hand write receipts. You can see the rolls of materials behind them in the dusty and unkempt shop. So I told the counter man my application and he suggested the thin foam fabric due to the sunroof, and pointed me to the samples board, "Just match it up the best you can." So I did, selecting W1913. I am mostly unable to distinguish one shade from another, my internal color wheel doesn't work all that well.

I purchased three yards and two cans of glue. I remembered after I got home and cut the fabric that I made this same mistake last time. I needed 3.5 yards, factoring in the fabric for the sunroof cover and a little over two cans of glue. I had two extra cans of glue so I was good there, but will need to buy another yard (half yard if they will sell that little) for the sunroof.

I laid out the fabric and decided to use the "glue a foot, stick a foot" method. My friend EGD said that is how he had done it before. The last time I did the job I glued a few feet and tried to stick it with mixed results.

I am now ready to offer the secret to getting the liner into all the corners. I didn't do this, and only came up with the solution AFTER I finished gluing. Get some weights in bags, place them on the fabric in the corners to insure they fabric meets the contours and stays in place as you stretch and match the fabric to the contours. I have a few places that the fabric after stretching it here and there pulled loose from the headliner overhead. I may try a injection technique I'm dreaming up in a lame attempt to fix my mistakes. A bag full of shot might be too heavy, while a small bag full of beans might be too lightweight. I think some five pound leg weights, the kind in bags might work. More on that if I try it.

The last time I did this project I attempted to cut the fabric "to fit" the openings. But after I saw what it was doing I decided to try a different technique. The first time I did the project I used masking tape to hold the fabric. It worked well, and was still in place when I removed the old fabric this time. On this headliner swap I decided to use glue and glue the fabric on the underside.

I also cut all the holes using a pie pattern which I hope will provide good results.

It produces a star pattern when you glue it back.

I used this or a similar method in all the openings. The sunroof, I cut to the corners and then cut out the middle to within 3 inches of the edge. The same with the front dome light opening.

You can see my multi-function ladder which transforms like a freakin' Transformer in to all kids of forms. This is the scaffold configuration which made a good surface for me to work on.

So with that, the temperature was dropping each minute so I was in a hurry. It shows in my work. Pro tip: Avoid being in a hurry and take your time. It will result in a much better product when you are done. Like EGD said while checking out my work at our Thanksgiving feast, "Just think, a few more times and you will be pretty good at that." Maybe so, maybe so.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

Its all about the little things

2010-11-24T19:26:00.000-06:00

When you are restoring any older automobile the issue of replacing the "trim" parts comes up. When I watch the show Wheeler Dealers it is simple for them to just stop by a "breakers yard" for a few parts. But, when you live, 4,566 miles or 7348 kilometers from Solihull, United Kingdom getting those little things to make your Land Rover complete is at a minimum difficult.

You can sometimes find prime trim parts on eBay. You maybe even lucky enough to find a Range Rover in your local Pull-A-Part yard. I usually find them right about the time my bank account is empty. For now, Range Rover Classic trim parts for the most part are still available.

Which brings me to a recent trip to Rover Cannibal. I stopped in for a license plate lamp lens. It is a simple piece but totally irreplaceable without a breakers yard. I say that, and yet you can make your own. I watched a guy on one of the classic car shows mold his own 1936 Packard tail light lens. But I don't have the patience or materials to do that. So it was off to my local breakers yard.

I walked in to Rover Cannibal and saw Ryan, I made the customary greetings and he asked if I was still blogging? How was the Rover? All the catch up stuff. His comment, "I don't do enough social networking." made me think, "dear Lord, I do too much social networking."

I told him I was in to see if he had a few parts, knowing he had them. Rover Cannibal is a huge warehouse. The first floor is vehicles in various states of disassemble. The upstairs is racks and racks of parts. Knowing the Range Rovers are getting fewer and fewer it is good to see so many spares. He even had a 1994 white LWB being disassembled. Oh how I wish I had a shop to store a parts car.

I told him I could use the lens and a left front door seal. I told him I was sure I needed more but didn't have my list with me. He told me to, "run up and get them". Ryan and I have that kind of relationship. Nothing feels better than to be accepted and trusted like that.

When I didn't find what I needed upstairs he told me to see Billy because, "he knows where everything is". Billy is a Navy man and you can see that the sea salt is still caked on in places. So naturally we hit it off great. He showed me the 94 white LWB and I immediately found only a dozen things I needed. I didn't have the money right in my budget this close to Christmas to take them off his hands.

As a matter of fact I had already attempted to glue and refurbish several of the pieces I found laying right there in that breakers yard LWB. This is where the rubber really meets the road. Right there in the bits I found what might be considered the holy grail of trim pieces. A fully intact fuse cover! Yes, I know, you can call me a lucky bastard all you like, I'll take that for sure.

This is one of those parts you just can't find. This is the story with any older car and restoration project, every car has its Holy Grail. My friend Mr. Fisher told me about a friend of his, Brian deFonteny, that has a 1966 Chevy El Camino. It is a total restoration and in mint condition. This fellow is going through the painstaking process of getting EVERY AVAILABLE FACTORY OPTION for this 1966 car. He finds the OEM parts still in the box in remote warehouses all over the United States. He mentions on the site that he recently replaced the manual windows with the factory electric ones. He has about $25,000 in parts on his car...not including labor.

Some of you younger readers might not know what this really means. Back in the golden days of automotive dealerships the 1950s and 60s you went to the dealership to see the latest models. There were not parking lots full of cars for you to drive home. You went to the dealership to test drive the models. Unless you wanted a USED car, you had to order your car from the factory. Seriously. An order would go to the factory and they would build your car and it would be delivered to the dealer.

So you would get the list of options and pick what you wanted your car to have. Paint color, radio, air conditioning, engine, think of something and you probably had the option of ordering it. It was an amazing time in the auto industry.

This gets me back to the trim options and Mr. deFonteny's 1966 El Camino. Like I said, his quest is to have every available factory option for his car. He even has an ORIGINAL tissue holder. This part is apparently exceedingly rare. A true Holy Grail.

This is picture of a reproduction available for 90$(US). An original, once he was able to find it, cost him 1000$(US). Yes, one thousand dollars. He also has the headrests for the bench seats. These were only delivered on 689 of the half a million El Camino's that were built in 1966.

But if you are going to play with the big boys you've got to be able to talk the talk and walk the walk. That is where I get off. I don't think it is possible to build a Range Rover and have all the trim pieces be that nice. I am not building a show car. Hell, if necessary I'd drive my Range Rover through a barbed wire fence, I'm not afraid.

I'd just like to have all the visible bits be in functioning order. And having the fuses covered up on the dash is a good thing. Mrs. OkieRover is not a flight engineer. In fact, when we were on a date in my 1973 Dodge Ram pickup truck I had the headlights go out. I said, "well crap" and slid over to the middle of the bench seat and opened the glove box all this while I was still DRIVING. I dug out the appropriate fuse from the spares and popped it in restoring the lights. All the time she was mostly freaking out.

So I don't need to have an exposed fuse box on the dash. And since my trusty wife will not be swapping fuses for me it needs to be covered. If not for the practical, it must be covered for the cosmetic factor. Mrs. OkieRover does not do "wires and stuff". Mind you she is not without skills. Mrs. OkieRover can start an IV on a vampire with Raynaud's Disease in the dark while she recites the famous Womack brownie recipe, but when it comes to cars or anything mechanical, forget about it.

So I'm pretty stoked that I have a nearly new fuse cover, my broken license plate lens replaced and a new driver's side door trim with rubber seal intact. I pulled the headliner out and the dome light lens are nearly gone. In fact one sacrificed itself for this picture.

The good news here is this part is still available new from Atlantic British. I also need a tailgate trim piece that covers the carpet edge around the tailgate release. This piece is also available new. I only have 4 of the catches left and only one of eight contact pins left on the trim piece.

Plastic? Go figure. A nice aluminum piece secured by screws would have totally worked back there. Of course if they had done that, the screws would have rusted through the tailgate by now and I'd be writing about how I manufactured a new piece out of 16 gauge steel.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving and as always thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

Running out of crap to fix

2010-11-22T21:34:00.000-06:00

Yeah, I know! YOU SHOULD NEVER SAY THOSE WORDS ABOUT A LAND ROVER!

So let me clarify. My to-do list is dwindling.
On Sunday I was able to pull the headliner. This job is no challenge. It is a 1 on the Difficulty Scale I will buy a couple of yards of fabric and some spray glue at Gibson’s and get it all put back together maybe this weekend.

I also found out why the sunroof would not retract. Some of the structure was bumping the glass panel as it retracted. I pulled and tugged on the metal that was causing the friction. I’m not sure how RovErica managed to bend this, probably rough housing or climbing from the front seat to the back seat. I also had a scenario in my head with her sitting on the roof with her feet dangling through the sunroof. Either way it is more or less fixed with a little coaxing of the metal back where it belongs.

The Park Neutral Switch problem was a bit more complicated. After researching and reading about the switch I crawled under the middle of the Range Rover. I found out the switch is virtually unreachable from the bottom and impossible to reach from the top. So I made what I will call a simplification of systems repair.

Yes, I simplified the system by cutting the wires and disabling the switch. It has always been one of my complaints that the Range Rover of the 1990s was WAY TOO COMPLICATED with electrical this-and-that’s. This system is basically a way to idiot proof the changing of the transaxle from low to high. The system works as such, if the transaxle is in neutral a tone sounds warning you that is the case.

I don’t need that level of safety system. I’m a pretty sharp guy. Well, I like to think I am, most of the time anyway. So a system so ripe with failure as this one was is probably not necessary for a guy “like me”. If low range is necessary, by God, I can promise you, I’ll make sure it is in LOW before I go. There are no safety circuits like this on a Defender or Series model, and now, there isn’t on my Range Rover.

So I cut the microswitch’s wires and applied a little bit of heat shrink to their ends so they would not short out anywhere. I also labeled them with my handy-dandy label maker. That way if I ever open this area up again I won’t look at those wires and wonder, “why the hell are those cut?”

And lastly I ground the surface rust off the floor pan on the passenger side, AGAIN. I have a picture of me using the angle grinder to remove rust from this floor pan in an earlier post. For some reason it must not have been enough grinding to remove the rust. It needed another round. This time I used the grinding disk and tore it back to metal. At this point you have to imagine that the floor pan is badly rusted. Pitting of the metal had set in and it looks pretty bad. I was careful not to grind it so much that I made the metal too thin.

I’m not 100% confident this will stay fixed over the life of this Range Rover. By the time we weld the replacement panels down this section will be pretty badly Frankensteened.

And rust, as much as I’d like to think I got rid of it, will appear again. I have decided to get a heat shield sound deadening material. There are too many options to choose from.

SecondSkin, Dynamat, FatMat, Lizardskin

I did some research and will probably get SecondSkin Damplifier Pro. The only thing that could have swayed me more to this product would have been bikini clad installers. But I’m glad they didn’t sink to that level to sell the product. At least I don’t think they haven’t sunk, there are only a hundred videos I haven’t quite looked at when you search second skin and bikini on YouTube.

That LuxuryLiner Pro product looks great too. Closed foam so you can count on water not sitting there promoting rust. I looked at the OEM foam liner and it is NOT closed foam. I could probably get away with just putting it back in. Consider that the metal floor will have the Damplifier Pro as a barrier so if the foam gets wet it will not be touching the floor pan. This will probably be a game time decision based on how much the players cost.

I’ve already talked to SecondSkin and will probably buy the materials next week and get them down as soon as I can get the welding, and painting and sealing done.

The layers will be as follows…
Carpet
Either OEM foam pad or LuxuryLiner Pro
Damplifier Pro
Spray on bedliner product
Rustoleum Paint
Metal
(Now we are outside the Rover)
Rustoleum Paint
Lots of spray on bedliner product

All of this preparation will probably fail so the more crap I pile on there the happier I’ll feel when I put the carpet down and attempt to forget about it. Its going to rust, I just need to slow it down until I’m too old to fix it or rich enough to buy something else to play with. Either way as long as Mrs. OkieRover’s legs don’t go poking out the floor it’s all good. My best friend used an aluminum speed limit sign he liberated from its duties managing the speed limit on some back county road as a floor pan in his 1962 Ford Falcon. I wish I had a picture of that. Maybe I’ll dig one up.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

Uggggh! Electrical Problems

2010-11-14T18:03:00.000-06:00

I love electrical problems. I love them like I love ingrown toenails. I love them like I love getting speeding tickets. I love them like I love getting phone calls from my children telling me they have dropped ANOTHER cell phone in a toilet or a sink at work or jumped in the swimming pool with it in their pocket.

Lately my electrical problems have been related to the transmission system. When I pull the shifter to change gears the warning tone goes off. Here is the page from the Range Rover Owner's Manual 1993, Page 41.

Just before I took the Range Rover out of service RovErica and I had been seeing the odd Code 69. And during the really, really cold weather the tone would sound randomly. DietMtDrew thought that was, "the coolest code ever". Great, teenage boys, I'm pretty sure that is something he and I should talk about. Anyway, it looks like I have something going on with the switches and monitoring of my transmission.

I am guessing the next thing is to find all the electrics and check the connections. Right now the engine and transmission are hot and will need to cool. With the weather change outside that will be easy. Today the temp outside was 57 (F) degrees. It is interesting that when I started this project the temperature is 107 (F) outside. By the time I finish this project, and I say finish in a "finish for now" sorta way, the temperature will be closer to 37 (F) outside.

The engine and transmission were hot, because I swapped the transmission fluid in the transmission. And after I swapped it I went for a little drive. The fluid that came out was a nasty color and had a burnt smell. That was totally expected. If you have read the blog you know I burnt four gear pulling the camping trailer back from Fort Sill where I took possession from military surplus.

I ran an errand early this afternoon to fill up my wife's Honda CRV with petrol and while I was out I bought a gallon of Mercon/Dex-a-something-or-other. I read a blog post where swapping the fluid was as easy as dropping the fluid and pouring in a gallon of new fluid. It took a little more than a gallon to top her off.

While I was working on replacing the center console I managed to damage the emergency brake position switch. And now it's broke. I'll get to that after I sort out the last of my lovely electrical issues, brake light. The last time I shut the Rover down all was well. When I started her up this time, I have a nagging brake light illuminated in the warning lights. Nothing has changed in that system from the last time I drove her so I'll have to get under and check all the sensors and pray I find a loose wire somewhere. It's a lead pipe cinch it's not the emergency brake position switch.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

Thank You Veterans

2010-11-11T08:00:00.001-06:00

Without your sacrifice we would not have the rights and privileges we have in our country. Thank you for paying for those freedoms.

Thank you to all who have served and who serve today.

God Bless You.

Happy Birthday Marines!

2010-11-10T07:02:00.002-06:00

Today is the 235th birthday of my beloved Corps. Two hundred and thirty five years ago some brave and bold men met in Tun Tavern and on this day the Continental Congress authorized the formation of what would become one of the most feared and respected armed forces in the world, The United States Marine Corps.

Today I wish all Marines all over the world a Happy Birthday.

Here's to the Corps! OOOoorah!

Taking stock

2010-11-09T08:33:00.000-06:00

With the major milestone of driving the Range Rover last weekend, it is time to take stock of where I am in regards to the Restoration Project Part Duex. I went back to the original post describing the beginning of the Restoration Project.

I've struck the projects I've completed.
Projects

~~Brake discs~~
~~Brake reservoir~~
~~Bushings~~
~~Viscous Coupling~~
~~Rust in the bed~~
~~Rust on the lower tailgate~~
~~Rust in the front footwells~~
~~Broken axle~~
~~Transaxle shifter solenoid~~ partially done
~~Complete fluid service~~ partially done
Rusted floor pans
Power steering hoses
Tires
Sound system
Door locks
Head liner
Transmission problems

Not vital but needed eventually.

Springs and shocks
Air conditioning
Sun roof

I've dropped the CV joints and the drive shaft seals. The CV joints will probably fail nut for now they don't seem to be an issue. The drive shaft seals are part of this and I'm just going to wait until I have to do the CV joints before I do the drive shaft seals.

I've done so much and I've gotten a lot of the BIG projects done. Tires and the transmission problem will be done by professionals. The air conditioning will be filled by a professional but the components will be swapped by me.
Door locks will require some electrical magic.
The headliner is pretty easy.
The sound system is going to be part electrical magic and part Frankenstein project.
The sun roof is most likely a mechanical problem.
Springs and shocks will require a special tool (spring compressor).
Power steering hoses will be custom made by a local hose shop and that will allow me to get braided hoses which I hope will last much longer than the ones offered at the internet vendors.

Hopefully no more projects will raise their ugly heads. Hopefully, I will be able to get the projects that might keep the Range Rover sidelined done before any potential bad weather comes our way.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

I drove the Range Rover!!

2010-11-07T20:23:00.000-06:00

Saturday was a great day. Well on the Range Rover front anyway, on the football front it sucked. Saturday I decided that I would drive the Range Rover and test out all the stuff I have repaired and been working on for so long.

First things first, I needed to bleed the brakes. I had bled the brakes before when my neighbor Mr. Fisher came over and helped me. But for some reason I did not do the high side on the front calipers. And the air moved around as it is want to do and we had no brakes.

I was in a spot, as all my children were gone and Mr. Fisher was on his way to Stillwater to see the Pokes play football. So the only person left was Mrs. OkieRover. Mrs. OkieRover is a wonderful woman. She is awesome at being a mom. She is probably the best nurse in the Norman Regional Hospital system. She is really, really patient and puts up with nearly all of my crap. But one thing she is not, is mechanical.

Cars are still magical metal boxes that take you from one place to another place. Getting her to help me was asking for me to have patience with her. That is not really a card OkieRover has in his deck.

So with challenges facing both of us, I asked her to help and she agreed. We started off rocky with her not coming out to the garage in a timely manner. Then I was reading the instructions for the umpteenth time when she popped off from the driver's seat, "I thought you were ready to go?"

I handed her the instructions and asked her read them and tell me what we were doing first.
She read them and said, "I have no idea."
So I gently said, "How about you let me make sure I do this right."

My first instruction, "I'm going to tell you to turn on the ignition and then press the brake."
"Okay, " she said.
"Okay, turn on the ignition." I said.
She turned on the ignition and then went to cranking the the engine for start-up.
"NO!" I shouted.
"You said turn on the ignition."
"Yes, yes I did. I said turn on the ignition. I didn't say anything about starting the car."

So that's how it went. I was more careful about my instructions and we worked through each procedure and finally I found the massive air pocket in the upper circuit of the front calipers. A few more turns of the bleeder valves and we were done. I told her thank you and told her I was taking the Rangie on a drive.

So I removed all the interior parts I had stacked all over and confirmed all the connections on the electrics and did my "pre-flight checks".
I tweeted my intentions and asked for luck. I fired her up, backed her out, and began with a test of the viscous coupling. I turned her hard into a left hand turn and circled the cul-de-sac. No chirping. VC seemed to be working.

I then started off down the street. I was very happy. Sadly I had NO ONE TO SHARE IT WITH! My neighbors were all gone. No one but me and my wife knew I was driving.

I drove a few blocks and then stopped. I put the transfer case in to low and moved through 3 of the 4 forward gears. I stopped and slid her back into high and headed for the 7-Eleven. Brakes worked, transfer case worked, so far so good.

I turned on to Porter and hit her hard to get her moving. I let off the accelerator and didn't dive to the right, she stayed true. I punched the accelerator and she didn't pull to the left. I tried it several more times. And oh man how great that was. The bushings worked and corrected the very exciting wandering all over the road the Range Rover had recently been known for.

I pulled up to the 7-Eleven and decided I would put some fresh petrol in her. I filled her up, jumped in and fired her up and drove her home. I listened to every little sound as she rolled down the road.

I have decided that the exhaust will need to be changed. I don't know where the sounds are coming from but the exhaust sounds like crap. I need to get a better solution for that. After riding around at lunch in a colleague's Dodge Magnum, I'm getting to like the tuned exhaust sound. I'll be looking into that as I get closer to having the money to do it.

With the passenger side floor cut and absolutely no floor insulation there are a lot of sounds you normally don't hear. The ticking of the exhaust, the bald tires rolling on the pavement, and lots of others. The most annoying was the warning tone from the transaxle.

As you know I "fixed" the solenoid so it no longer hampered me from shifting into low range. But in doing so I'm guessing there is something causing the warning tone to tell me I was not in neutral. Everything is connected. So I'm not sure what causes the warning tone to sound. I fiddled with the connections and the electrics there in the transaxle and transmission shifter. I guess I'll be hitting up the message boards tomorrow for some technical assistance.

I got her home and sorted out the garage and rearranged some things in anticipation of the next project. Whatever that will be. I was not ready to start the warning tone solution, but I fiddled with it again to no avail.

I decided that I would put the carpet and sound deadening pads back in the rear of the Rover. I sorted all those parts and cleaned them with the shop vacuum and cleaner where necessary. To keep the spongy pad from holding water next to the metal panels in the wettest areas I cut the pad away. This resulted in 3 inches being cut off the rear most of the pad. This will leave the water trench, that rusted so badly, without any spongy pad to sit there with water in it.

I put the carpet back in and buttoned it all down. I cleaned the rear seat with leather cleaner and then gave the seat a good soaking with conditioner. The leather is quite dry in several places and with out a LOT of attention it will be gone soon.

You can see in this picture that I have the passenger seat unbolted, that is to have it out of the way for the floor board welding. I am not sure what the white area is on the middle of the rear seat. This picture was taken before I cleaned everything and conditioned it.

I have the center console out due to the sorting of the shifter electrics and the pending floor pan welding project. It was broken in the same places as before. The breaks are in the joints between the back area and the front are that covers the shifting mechanisms. I got the Dremel out and cut a channel for a 16 penny nail. The joint has no support and I figured if I used something to link the two sides and to strengthen the joint it might last a little longer. At one time I kicked around making a new console out of fiberglass. But that is a really, really ambitious project.

With some Gorilla Glue I proceeded to cover the seam and the nail. You can see that here and the carpet back in the rear.

Here is a close up picture...

Gorilla glue has an expansive property to it. It foams up like that so you have to be careful how you use it. I have used it and it expanded out and all over the counter, the floor, pretty much lots of places you wouldn't want yellow glue. So if you use it be careful.

Everything is getting a fresh going over with a rag and cleaner as I reinstall it. My daughter RovErica spilled a lot of drinks in her before I took the Range Rover off line and grounded her. Grounded the Rover not RovErica that is.

So the next item for attention is the shifter electrics and then on to welding the floor pan. I will then get some Dynamat or a similar product and get the front wheel wells finished and the carpets back in her. After that I will have to get the money together to have the windshield pulled and the seam and replaced and sealed to prevent the water from getting inside and starting the rust all over again.

We ended the night Saturday at the Marine Corps Ball for Fox Battery 2nd Battalion 14th Marines and over all had a great weekend.

I have another 4 day weekend coming up with Veteran's Day and with another Marine Corps Luncheon on Friday. I plan on getting some more done on the Range Rover and if I sort the shifter electrics I'll hopefully be welding on Saturday. Otherwise I'll be getting the power steering hoses off and to the shop for a custom replacement.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

Sick...again

2010-11-04T10:29:00.000-05:00

I know you are out there wondering "why no post from this last weekend, what a freakin' slacker". Well I'll tell ya, I have been sick, again or maybe even still sick. I've been fighting sinus problems for more than a month now. Now its official, I have a sinus infection.

I managed to start Saturday by putting a few nagging tasks behind me on the Restoration Project. I first relocated the retaining clip for the tailgate springs. In its present location it was rubbing off the paint I labored so hard on the week before. I also removed the tires in preparation for another round of brake bleeding. I also hooked up all the electrics underneath the passenger side seat. I also sprayed some 3m Undercoating to seal the holes in the cargo area. And I got all the tools that were scattered all over the garage, put back in their places. All of this was so I could test out my handy work on the suspension, brake system, and viscous coupling with a short drive.

My goal for Saturday was a drive. As fate would have it though I was asked by my wife's best friend's husband if I would like to use his wife's ticket to attend the University of Oklahoma vs the University of Colorado football game at Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Allen "The Cable Guy", is a hoot to tailgate hang out with. He informing me that the ham he was bringing was smoked for 8 hours in his smoker, and a promise of a ride to and fro, I accepted.

By Saturday mid-morning my head felt like someone had driven a chisel directly into my brain with the entry point between my eyes. Normally, I would have said no thank you I need to rest and recuperate. But I was thinking a handful of Advil and a couple of beers and I'd be good to go for a football game. Hell, I'd felt like this all week, how would today be any different than yesterday?

I had a haircut scheduled for 13:00 and wife my wife's advice I stopped in at the Minor Emergency Clinic at the Healthplex for some drugs. Normally, I would have attempted to see my preferred physician, Dr. Karl Langkamp. The name almost impels you to say it with a hard German accent punctuated with an exclamation mark.
Doc-tur Kaarl Lang-KAMP!
But, Dr. Langkamp is not a first generation German emigrant like my friend The Evil German Dude (EGD) whom I've written about several times. The good doctor, is a gentle and jolly man, sans German accent. To get back to the story, Dr. Langkamp does not see patients on Friday afternoons and I didn't think I was all that sick on Friday. I was at that time, still holding out hope that I would defeat the infection.

So after I got my hardcore Marine Corps style haircut, I went to get some treatment for my sinus infection. I filled out the forms, saw the doctor, got a few prescriptions for treatment of a chisel-to-the-forehead style sinus infection. I had to fill them away from my regular pharmacy (chemist) as well, they close at noon on Saturdays.

With pills in hand I arrived home just before Allen "The Cable Guy" was due to pick me up. With Mrs. OkieRover, THE REGISTERED NURSE, by my side she gave me instructions about the pills.
"Take the antibiotic now. You can start the Prednisone and Respa C&C tomorrow. That way you can have a few beers tonight."
So I popped the first dose of Azithromycin, 500 mg, 2 tablets, as instructed and went to the game.

I have taken this pill many times. Why I can't remember that I have to take it WITH FOOD is still a mystery to me. In any event you would think your wife THE REGISTERED NURSE, would have mentioned that I not take that on an empty stomach. She didn't.

So we get to the tailgate and I start to put my drink on. I had 4 hours to game time and a six pack to nurse. I didn't need to get blind, stinking, drunk, I just wanted to have a nice buzz come game time. At that point, I had also decided that I would treat myself with a cigar. So I walked through the tailgates and down to the neighborhood tobacconist, Royal Pipes and Tobacco, and picked out an Arturo Fuente Opus X. It had a nice draw and overall was pretty good for a 10$(US) cigar.

View Larger Map
So back at the tailgate, I'm nearly finished with my cigar and have had two beers. Then it hit me. I became very dizzy and started sweating profusely. I had the overwhelming desire to lay down except for the fact that if you lay down in public, on campus, surrounded by beer drinking revelers, you are going to get arrested. I also had an overwhelming desire not to be manhandled by the friend police officers of the OUPD. Discipline is the key to life. And today I'm glad I had the discipline to ride it out.

As you can well imagine, I didn't want my day to end that way. So I sat down in the shade and waited it out. Allen "The Cable Guy" came back to the tailgate and told me, "I didn't look so good". I told him the story and we both thought if I ate something I would be good to go. They had just started serving and with a plate full of food and a couple of bottles of water I was in fact, good to go.

We continued to enjoy the company of the tailgate and finally headed into the game. OU prevailed in grand fashion and it was back to the tailgate. I had one more beer and then it was back to home.

Overall it was a good day. I would have liked to finished the short list of Saturday's tasks but I had a good time and the break from the Restoration Part Duex was well deserved. As you may well imagine, I spent most of Sunday in bed. It wasn't from the 3 beers I drank either. I started feeling human late Sunday evening. Except for some unexplained tiredness, I think I have turned the corner and feel pretty good. I'm hoping I will defeat the sinus infection this week and get back on the project come Saturday.

This coming Saturday I am going to drain the transmission fluid and replace it with some fresh stuff.
I am going to bleed the brakes and sort out any remaining issues with that system.
I am going to put the carpet and interior parts back inside the rear of the Rover.
And lastly I am going to drive the Range Rover for the first time since late August.

Hopefully it will be a satisfying jaunt and will be a welcome reward for so much time spent working on her.
And if it is not...at least the Marine Corps Ball is that night and I can toss a few back to forget about it.

As always, thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

Bushings More Important Than You Know

2010-10-27T18:41:00.000-05:00

Driving my Range Rover Classic LWB is an adventure.
And I don't mean an off-road adventure. Driving her on pavement is exciting, and that is perhaps an understatement. Exciting like you really don't know where she will go at any given bump in the road.

This all began shortly after I got her. My carpool buddy had a funny quip after watching me navigate an on-ramp near the capitol one day. As I accelerated and decelerated, the Classic was bobbing and weaving in the lane. He said, "I wish you'd decide which curb you are going to hit."

As you have probably surmised, the bushings were very worn. When I would accelerate, the Rover would pull to the left, as you let up on the accelerator, it would dive to the right. When I was in the habit of driving her every day, you learned how to handle that. Combine that with bald tires, worn shocks, old springs, its easy to see that the last few drives to JagGuy's shop on Saturdays was beginning to be pretty exciting.

Bushings
I changed the front radius arm bushings first, actually several months ago. This week I finished the rest of the standard bushing kit.

I purchased the poly bush kit over a year ago, thinking I would have time to do the entire job in one day. That was really unrealistic. Even with JagGuy's great shop and tools I could only get the front radius arms done in one 6 hour session.

So with the Classic sitting in my garage I endeavored to change the rest out. The bushing kit replacement has only a few simple concepts.

Difficult to remove bolts and nuts.
Finding replacement hardened nyloc nuts.
Difficult to remove bad bushings.
Patience.

The good news is the instructions that come with the kit were pretty good. The only problem with them is the fact I was working on a Range Rover and the instructions were for a Defender. Almost the same. Almost.

First I started on the rear radius arms. And the first side demonstrated the corrosive nature of the parts that live underneath your Rover. To remove the first nut I had to use penetrating fluid, which was funny because it is a nyloc nut. Basically I don't think any fluid got to the corroded bits.

At one point I had both feet braced and a twelve inch wrench with a rag to lessen the pain of metal on my hand. With all that I couldn't get it to budge. I soaked it again and went to the other side and did it while I hoped the penetrating fluid did its magic. I also lined up my hoss of a neighbor, Kramer. He's a big weightlifting tattooed biker guy. I asked if I was unable to get it broke loose if he could lend a hand. He agreed.

I returned and thought, "Ungh, fire. Fire good!" Why didn't I think of that sooner? Hell I'm a closet pyromaniac. Fire should have been one of my first thoughts! So I got out the torch and heated the nut...a lot. The penetrating fluid boiled off, the nylon locking part boiled out as I continued to apply the heat.

I gave her a few minutes more of heat and then I went back to the wrench. I pulled hard and finally with a satisfying moan the nut turned. I reset the wrench and pulled again and another nice groan of metal on metal. A few more turns and it was off.

You can see the rust. This was bad. But what I found after that was worse. The end of the shaft had been machined wrong. There was a missing thread and the threading that was there was just slightly off. As if they didn't place the unit in the machining lathe correctly. You can see that in this picture. The clean and shiny one on the left is from the passenger side. The rusted one is the driver's side and the poorly machined one.

You can see how the threading just unceremoniously ends. Poorly done. This is a good example of the rust that had to be removed as well. it was bad.

You then remove the rest of the bolts to get the radius arm off the Rover.

After you have the front bolts off, you can start on the back. A few turns of the wrench and off comes the radius arm.

I then went to the front end of the Rover and removed the panhard rod. This was a bit more trouble as this is where the instructions failed to mention the driver's side bolt will not come out with out removing the bracket.

Blocked bolt.

You can see the abuse the front radius arms have had in just a few months. I have the wrench on the backside nut in this picture.

I now had all the parts off. The task of cleaning off the rust. I gave the bench grinder a good work out.

The old bushings need to be removed. You can use an industrial press with the right size of jigs and press the bushings out. I didn't have the right size of jigs. You can also burn out the rubber bits. And considering I am a Marine and an amateur pyromaniac I chose the fire method. It is not glamorous and its pretty messy but it works in a pinch.

After you get the middle rubber part out you need to get the metal ring out. This is better removed if you have the jig and the press. Without the jig you are relegated to using a chisel or two to bend and cut the bushing wall out. I've done this two ways. I have used a big vise to hold the part while I banged on the old bushing with a hammer and chisel. I have also placed the arm on an old brake disc on the driveway floor and banged away with a hammer and chisel.

Using sandpaper and my Dremel with a grinding stone I cleaned out the rust and cleaned up the burrs from the chisel whacks. Poly bushes do not do well when they get cut and nicked and the instructions made it clear this step was very important.

I then painted everything with it's first coat of primer. I was determined that I would limit as much as I could, the inevitable rust.

With a second coat of primer and Rust-oleum I put the new poly bushings in and reinstalled. To correct for the bad shaft on the driver's side I added an additional washer. This was to back the nut up the shaft so all the threads were on good threads. Probably not necessary but I wanted to make sure.

It is important to know that replacement nyloc hardened metric nuts did not come with my kit. So I should mention how hard nyloc hardened metric nuts are to find. Lowe's didn't have them. Ace Hardware didn't have them. So with a phone call to my buddy JagGuy I was turned on to the location for the Mecca of fasteners. The things he remembers is truly amazing. Everyone should have a JagGuy to call. He said J&E Fasteners on SE 59th in OKC was the bomb dot com. And as always HE WAS RIGHT.

I showed up with my bolts and one of the rear radius arms and Dana matched them up with Grade 10.9 nyloc hardened metric nuts. I bought a few extras for my trail kit. I highly recommend J&E Fasteners.
One of the fellows behind the counter said, "the website was a work in progress".
I replied, "Aren't they all?"
You can order from there and they will ship. If you visit their OKC location don't mind the strip clubs across the street. This is Valley Brook and their only claim to fame are the strip clubs and their jack-booted police department. I've never experienced a run-in with their police department, that is just their reputation. Two miles an hour over the speed limit...yeah, you're getting a ticket.

With the bushings installed and the items painted, all that was left was to reinstalled the bits. I had to use the floor jack to position the rear radius arms and to get them pressed into place. I recommend taking a rubber mallet with you when you go under your Rover to gently align the bolt holes.

The panhard rod was not difficult to install. The instructions recommend a lever to help align the holes. I used my large standard screw driver.

Do the left side of the panhard rod first. Slip the bolt through the bracket and then place the bracket into the holes and wrench it all down.

The Wrap-up
This job on the whole is pretty easy. I would however give it a solid 3 on the OkieRover Difficulty Scale. Having a lift would make this job easier. Having a press with the proper jigs would make this job easier.

After doing this job I now know why people just buy kits and upgrade these parts. The fiddling and cleaning and prep is very time consuming for parts that are known to fail in extreme off-road conditions.

This picture of the nut from the left side rear radius arm should tell you everything you need to know about the corrosion you will encounter on this job.

You can see two clean threads inside the nut. The rest of the threads are rusted and nasty. This makes me wish I had a nice impact wrench, and a bigger air compressor, and a vehicle lift, and a nice set of 1/2 inch sockets in twelve point and six point, and a gallon of penetrating fluid, and a portable sand blasting kit, and a case of acid etching primer, and...

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

High/Low Range Solenoid Problem

2010-10-26T09:46:00.155-05:00

A common failure on the Range Rover Classic is the high/low range shift solenoid. This system often fails and leaves your Range Rover stuck in high range.

My Classic has had it's lever stuck this way for 5 years. And in those five years, I've needed low range at least once each year since it happened. The reasons are all the same, keeping myself from getting stuck. When I got stuck behind my new house in 2005, I'd like to believe if I had low range then I would not have gotten stuck. Last year during the Christmas Eve Snowpocalypse I needed the low range to help extract the my oldests kid's Ford Explorer 4x4, some dumb kids dressed in shorts, hoodies, and flip flops (seriously) that got stuck in a snow drift at the entrance to our neighborhood, and when my friend used the LWB to pull his Jeep out of a snow drift a few days later after he got stuck trying to pull a car out.

In every example except the first, low range was not needed. I wonder if it would have mattered anyway. The Range Rover was able to pull everyone out with only the front axle, due to the failed drive shaft and busted viscous coupling. Imagine how capable the Classic would have been with both axles working correctly!

So with that a common fix is to remove the solenoid and to remove the pin that holds the lever stuck in high. I know I could have investigated all the parts that caused it to fail. But I didn't want to spend the time to find the gremlin. It is easy enough to just disable the SAFETY DEVICE.

You must know at this point you are removing the device that prevents you from ACCIDENTALLY putting your transfer case into low range if you are exceeding any of the conditions that are installed to prevent that from happening. This shouldn't be a problem. I know you have to basically be sitting still, in neutral before you can move the lever to low.

I lined up my tools to remove the solenoid and investigate how to disable it. I got my socket set out and a hex head bit to remove the two bolts holding the solenoid to the shifting lever.

Once again these were difficult to get broke free. The years of water and corrosion have basically welded the bolts in place. After they broke free I pulled the solenoid out and had a look at it.

That's the pin that prevents a lever located on the bottom of the shift lever from moving "forward" to the low range. To get to the mechanism you have to remove the silicone bathroom caulk...wait what? Yeah, bathroom caulk, They filled the back side of the solenoid frame with caulk.

You can see in the picture with some of the caulk removed that the unit is not exactly water tight. I wonder how many of these failed before the factory started sealing them with bathroom caulk? I wonder which engineer got a bonus for his simple solution to this problem?

Head Engineer: "These solenoids are failing at an alarming rate from water ingression."
Lesser Engineer: "I have an idea. Last night I was working in the loo and I was sealing the toilet at the base with caulking. How about we just fill the backside with silicone bathroom caulk. That should buy us at least three years. At that point the warranty will be void."
Head Engineer: "Genius! Let's head down to the pub to celebrate!"
Lesser Engineer: "But sir, it's only 9:03 am."
Head Engineer: "What's your point?"

I think you get MY point. So you get the C clip pliers out and with the help of a small screw driver you remove the clip and remove the electrical bits from the casing.

All that's left is cutting the pin off. No biggy. With the pin cut off it's time to get it all reassembled and to have a couple of rum and cokes and a nice Arturo Fuente cigar while you wait for the bathroom caulk to set up.

Actually I did mine, got drunk and went to bed.

So why did you re-caulk it if you just destroyed it's ability to do its job? Well I'm not exactly sure how to answer that. It seemed like the thing to do at the time. Hell, using bathroom caulk on a brand new 50,000$(US) Range Rover with Mediterranean Poplar wood accents is just redneck enough to make it into the Redneck Repair Hall of Fame.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

Painting is harder than it looks

2010-10-24T22:38:00.001-05:00

Before my raging sinus infection took hold of me on Saturday, I decided to paint the tailgate. I woke up to a rainy day and temperatures in the 50s. I know humidity has a huge effect on painting but I could not wait. I'd been held up too many times on this project to blow an entire day once again.

On Thursday I went by my local auto paint supply store, B&H Supply. The good folks there were very patient with me when I had stopped by a month ago to get the "low down" on painting. After describing the project and what I wanted to accomplish, they suggested using a one step process to paint the tailgate. They suggested using Preval system to paint the tailgate. It is simple and easy and has pretty good results considering the situation.

I found the Land Rover paint codes from a website by Stephen Hull. He has a great site that had a helpful chart of codes for all Land Rovers. I found my paint code in the "non metallic" page. I printed the page and took it with me to the paint store. Bud (a truly great Okie name) was a lot of help and was able to find the code listed in his computer. He went to the back and got the paint mixed. He said I'd only need a pint.

He brought out the paint, hardener, reducer. With a measured mixing container he marked the ratios for me and told me I'd have about half my paint left over when I poured the first mix. That wasn't quite right. I mentioned that when he marked it but he was insistent. As it turned out it was exactly twice too much. Live and learn.

Bud had suggested that I should at least sand the surface with at least 500 grit sandpaper. I'm pretty sure I didn't give enough attention to the sanding that I could have. I sanded off most of the edges.

I got everything set up and mixed the paint. I went back to the Range Rover and made sure I had everything taped off. In hind sight I should have lit that side of the garage up as well. I set up in my wife's third of the garage. I got my bright halogen lamps and set them up. I got the paint materials out and tried to imagine how it would all go. I decided to paint the tailgate flat on the work table.

That would turn out to be a mistake. I should have had it propped up from the beginning. I was able to correct that later.

I mixed the paint and filled the paint jar. I used the short spray, short stroke method I've seen Edd China do a hundred times. Basically you spray and move, spray and move. If you do it the same way as Edd does you never have the paint coming out more than a couple of seconds before you release. After a couple of passes you have the area coated but not so much paint on it that it will cause a drop or a wave.

Now I say that and it seems my technique could use some more work. I did have runs and I did have one wave. The paint coats well and I think the problems I had were from the humidity. If I had a booth I think the results would have been better.

I painted both sides of the tailgate and both of the spots on the fenders. I sprayed the tailgate hitch, I sprayed stuff I didn't think I even needed to spray. I had a lot of paint still mixed. I almost painted the floor board on the driver's side but it was really dirty and would have taken me an hour to get clean enough to paint, so I passed.

Once I was done I used some of the reducer to clean up the parts. I let it dry all the rest of Saturday. I went in and watched football and tried to beat back the sinus attack with orange juice and Respa (tm).

On Sunday I assembled everything. I had left the spots where the bolts went through the tailgate unpainted. Turned out I didn't need to do that after all. The hinges were so loose that I had to align them from scratch. That was easy. I put the tailgate on and tightened it down. Open and closed the gate a few times and called it good. I tightened the bolts and began to work on the upper tail gate. It was a lot harder to get aligned.

I had to adjust the catches to get them to function correctly. This takes a vise-grip and a 7mm wrench to tighten the keeper nut. I got the latches working well, lubed them and put the pieces back on the gate.

I then began to put the badging back on the tail gate. I purchased some double sided tape for emblems from O'Reily's. I cut it and got all the emblems reattached.

You may notice my EXTRA addition of the Oklahoma Edition badge. I have a friend that works for a dealership and I asked him to get me one when I saw them on a Ford Truck commercial. I put one on my 2003 Discovery and no one ever mentioned it. So when that truck was on the way to the scrap heap I took the badge off. I have a spare but was unable to find it.

I bought the RANGE ROVER and the COUNTY LWB badges quite a while ago and quite frankly was surprised I found them in that mess I call a garage. I put them on and the original dealer badge which was Andrew's out of Nashville. That dealer is now called Land Rover Nashville. I also mounted the original green oval as well after I cleaned it up and re-glued it all back together.

The purchase of stainless steel screws came in handy when reassembling the tail lights. I was a few short so I just cleaned up the old rusty ones and gave them a coat of paint. I put the lamp assemblies back in their places and with a couple of new bulbs they were ready to go.

And if you go back to the first picture you can see the end result. I am happy with it. It is after all a work truck. It is not a beauty queen. God only knows how many scratches this paint job will have in the future. That is if the floor boards don't rust out from under my feet before I can get those well earned scratches on her.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

Painting

2010-10-23T12:57:00.001-05:00

Its a rainy weekend here in Oklahoma. I am coming down with a sinus infection or something. I did manage to roll out of bed and get the paint on the quarter panels and the tailgate. Sadly it looks like "I" painted it. I'm hoping some buffing will help the finish. I'm not too worried about it though. This is a WORK truck or a TRAIL truck, not a show truck. I just wanted the paint to match.

I didn't need half the paint I mixed up though and a lot went to waste. I feel more or less like crap and have decided to punt for the day and just relax and fight the sinus problems.

If I can string some thoughts together tomorrow I'll post the final on the suspension bushings I finished yesterday. I also took care of the solenoid that malfunctioned and keeps me from going into low range.

More later....
Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

2010-10-21T15:21:00.001-05:00

Just found J and E Supply in south OKC. All kinds of fasteners. More on this later.

Feedback

2010-10-15T12:07:00.000-05:00

This is exactly the kind of feedback I love to receive. At this time, I don't advertise or make any money off my website. The entire reason for it's existence is to help others. From the Land Rovers Only Message Board:

I just saw a post you made back in Sept 2007. It was where you recommended that someone check the connection on the ignition switch. I've had my 16 yr old son's 88 RRC torn to pieces this week looking for an electrical gremlin. The windows had stopped working as did the wipers, the a/c and the stereo. I had almost the whole dash out of this thing.

So tonight I checked the connector you mentioned. Behold, it was about to fall off. A few wire ties later and everything is fine. I could have fixed this by removing 6 screws... Next time I'll search this forum first. It's the first place I go for any Disco issues but didn't think of it for the RRC.

It's all back together now and I just wanted to say thanks! Also got your site marked as it appears to be full of good things.

Robert
Huntsville, AL
2004 Disco SE7
1988 RRC

When you hear several major systems have failed you can be sure it has something to do with the accessory connections on the ignition switch. I initially noticed problems with my radio and my windows not working when my ignition tumbler problem was discovered. Sadly when my quit me it was a cold December day. The temperature had dropped to 12 degrees that night and early morning. It is not any fun trying to find issues when you are shaking so hard your teeth are chattering from the arctic cold.

I'm really happy I could help some one out. I see a lot of these issues on the message boards. Of all the problems on Land Rovers, the electrical ones are the worst. At least that's my opinion. When you break down the system to its elements it gets easier but it can be a overwhelming situation when you open a panel or look behind something and all you see are bundles of wires.

I opened a kick panel on my Range Rover one day. Inside I found a severely burnt bare wire. Everything on the Rover at that time was working fine. What was it? Who knows. There is really no good way to know. I taped it off so it would no longer make sparks bumping up against the bulk head. To this day I have no idea what that wire goes to.

Have a good weekend, and wish me luck when I fire up the Range Rover and drive her for the first time in nearly 4 months.
Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

Transaxle Fluid Fill

2010-10-12T21:23:00.001-05:00

As you read yesterday, or are about to go back and read from yesterday, or about to click on the next link in your list, I had a sick feeling in my stomach from finding very little fluid in my transfer case. The fluid that was there was in terrible shape.

I had a gallon of Dex-Merc which is a Dextron III compatible fluid. Matter of fact, Dextron is a General Motors owned name. It denotes a standard of fluid. As the fluid was improved with each new formula they added a number to denote which formula was in the container. Dextron, was replaced with Dextron II, IIa and eventually Dextron III. In 2006 all the licenses to produce this fluid expired.

The licenses were for companies wishing to produce a Dextron III fluid and market it. If the company's product met GM's standard they received a license to use the name. That is why you see companies that don't use the name produce documentation that compares their "BRAND NAME X" product to Dextron III with out using the Dextron III name.

With all the licenses expired it is more important now to know the numbers for the fluid to compare it to another company. Claiming or using the Dextron III name does mean anything any more. GM no longer controls the quality or standard and thus companies can say their product is Dextron III even though you don't know what it really is.

Now this is not to say that these companies are skimping on quality. Any company in their right mind that wants repeat business will continue to produce fluids of the quality they are able.

Today Dextron VI is the standard and is specially formulated for "today's" automotive transmissions. Meaning, Dextron III will not work in your wife's Chevy Aveo. And Dextron VI is not formulated for your 1978 Chevy Suburban.

With that out of the way. I had some Coastal Dextron III. Its just some generic transmission fluid my buddy gave me when he decided he would not be fixing his step-son's 1991 Range Rover with the busted transmission case. I will run this fluid for a few months and then drain it. That is, if the transfer case is not crapped out. If it is good to go, I'll refill it with Castrol Dex Merc.

I located the fill plug.

I broke it free using a 1/2 inch break over bar. It required at least that much leverage it was well placed.

I then broke the drain plug lose.

You can see my painting handy work there behind the transfer case. This plug took the 1/2 inch break over bar and the cheater pipe for me to break it lose. It was in very tight.

The fluid that drained out was black like the fluid that came out of the viscous coupling. I would say there was not near enough fluid in the transfer case. After it drained out, I prepared the plugs with with gray gasket sealer and put the drain plug back in.

I then located my fluid pump.

If you don't own this tool, go tomorrow and buy one, hell, buy two. They are great for filling differentials, transfer cases, anywhere you need to move fluid from a bottle into a place where you can't tip a bottle up.

I proceeded to fill the transfer case.

You can see my black nitrile glove covered hand on the pump. I pumped a full half gallon into the transfer case.

I can't wait to drive the Range Rover to test my work. I will probably empty the transmission and refill it with transmission fluid. This is only a test as I'm pretty sure that 4th gear is toast. I'm hoping that it is not and that the troubles I had are related to the transfer case and the VC.

With that said and a prayer on my lips, I need to see if the new used viscous coupling works.
I need to see if the brakes work.
I need to feel the transmission shift into and out of fourth gear.
I need to know that all this work has made a difference.
I need my Range Rover Morale lifted.

Thanks for all the great posts from the guys over on RangeRovers.net.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering....hopefully! {fingers crossed}