In this post I explore the rust under the passenger side fender well. It was my intension to WELD this weekend. Unfortunately I absent-mindedly did not turn off the shielding gas and the tank was empty. Major bummer.
So I took time to get the fender ready. I also cut my patches. I also installed the new gas tank filler hoses and my new gas cap. How exciting! It wasn’t.
I cut the fender rust out of the part where the body mount is. Turned out it was just the outer skin that had rust. I cleaned up the rusty metal underneath and will paint it with the magic rust-encapsulating-paint before I weld the patch for the fender back in place. Why Land Rover didn’t bother to try and keep rust out of there is still a mystery to me. It’s like they WANT their vehicles to rust out. What kind of a sales strategy is that?
I’ll need to get more shielding gas this week. However there is really NO RUSH because Christmas is this week and the house will be filled with people and very little in the way of rust repair will get done.
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In this short video I take care of the surface rust I found under the passenger side fender. There were some unpainted surfaces notably under the rubber washers at the top of the quarter panel. There were also some pin hole spots of rust.
They look like dirty spots until you put the wire wheel on them. Is that primer? this stuff Land Rover used under the panel just flaked off in spots. In the video there is a segment that has some leopard spots…that’s where the paint just came off.
The two rust spots in the arch will be ground down again. I don’t think I need to fix them, just stop the rust. The holes are on the outside of the vehicle so water getting in won’t be from these two spots.
I wire wheel all the rust I could see. Then I washed the panel with acetone. This was to remove any lingering dust, dirt, oil, whatever.
I then coated the panel with primer in a green color I really like. I could see myself driving a vehicle painted like that. I’ll watch the weather and give it all a second coat when it warms up a bit. The temp in the shoppe was 54F when I started the work and 52F when I started painting. That’s just barely above the paint range listed on the side of the can.
A big shout out to my fans in Norway. 31 views from that country on 12/12! Tusen takk!
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In my previous post I talked about the fuel pump and it’s lack of suckage of fuel to make the Big White Bus go down the road. Or more importantly in the short term, get out of the shoppe so I can proceed with the rust repairs.
I ordered the fuel pump from Atlantic British. As I’ve said earlier. If you order from them the part will not officially ship until the day after the first business day in which they receive the order. So if you order on Saturday, they will see the order on Monday, and it will be picked up on Tuesday. Then it will be in transit. For us here in the central southern plains that means a minimum of 6 days to arrive. I think I got this one in 7 days. I’ve come to accept this as the way it’s gonna be. Since the Range Rover is not my daily driver this does not upset me anymore. It just takes extra planning when you need something.
Removing the derelict pump is pretty easy. Turn the ring first. This may take some tapping with a screwdriver and a hammer. Take it easy and take your time. Don’t damage the ring.
The second step if it wasn’t your first step is take the fuel lines off. You will need a pair of 15mm wrenches. Once the lines are out of the way you can rock the fuel pump back and forth while pulling up. It will eventually come up.
The “bowl” will have fuel in it commiserate with how full the tank is with petrol. Pour this out while the fuel pump is still over the tank opening. Be prepared to clean up some petrol if it spills.
Reassembly is a reverse of the process. The most difficult of the tasks is getting the rings of the seal past the tank opening. You can gently coax it past the lip with a flathead screwdriver and steady pressure pushing down on the pump.
Is there a way to use a lubricant…maybe, I didn’t research that. I’ve never used lube for the install, so its not necessary for success.
Take it easy with the float and its electronic bits. Don’t bang it around.
That’s about it for the swap. I need to test the pump and get the the BWB running again. I’ll give it some test cranks to get fuel back up to the fuel rail then reinstall the plugs and fire her up. If I’ve sorted everything we should have a running Range Rover.
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I have fired it up once since I parked it in my newly constructed shoppe 5 years ago. I guess I should have expected there would be “issues”. But I wasn’t expecting the issue to be this one.
Mr. Fisher came over and we diagnosed the issue. We started with checking the power at the pump. As you may be aware, when you turn the key over it powers the pump briefly. So if you just “turn on the key” and go back there to check the voltage you won’t find any. That’s why it takes either some seriously creative use of a volt meter or you get one of the bestest friends to come over and turn the key for you. We had voltage all the way through the wiring harness.
We then confirmed we have spark from the ignition system. I pulled the number 1 plug and with a screwdriver I grounded it and watched for spark. You can buy a fancy spark tester, matter of fact I think I own one. I have no idea where it is though. Spark confirmed.
So we have two of the three things (Meatloaf would say that “ain’t bad”) to make the vehicle run. Air and Spark. Now why aren’t we getting fuel.
I pulled the gas line off at the regulator on the back side top of the engine and had Mr. Fisher crank the ignition. We should have had gas squirting out if it worked. It did not. This fit with me NOT hearing the pump run when the ignition was turned over.
The only thing left was to pull the fuel pump and do a visual inspection. What I found was not expected. I said, “Wow.” a lot in the video. There were several parts that were obviously degrading due to being submerged in petrol for so long. There was visible rust on the steel parts as well. Generally the pump was in a terrible state. I was not aware that petrol would do that to those parts. The only gas I ever put in my Classic is 100% real gas, unless I am in Texas where they only sell ethanol (at least the last time I was buying gas there). You would expect ethanol to eventually separate and turn to water. You can read all about that on the Road Guardians website.
I will be replacing the fuel pump and have ordered the part from Atlantic British. I found some that were cheaper on Amazon. But my skepticism and need to have it delivered before next October weighed heavily on my decision where to purchase. The pictures all looked like the pumps were manufactured in the same place. Same white plastic. Same blue plugs.
PRC9409K
If you look on Amazon you’ll see the pumps look like the same ones. If I had unlimited funds or sponsorship, I’d buy one from everyone and do a side-by-side comparison.
All this “BUY IT NEW” has me thinking about what this would cost if we just fixed the pump. All you need to do is replace the pump in the collector can (that bottom part). I’ll do a post about that in the coming weeks.
So…do I drain the tank too? If the gasoline HAS turned to varnish I should probably put some treatment in there. I’m thinking I’m gonna add a silly amount of STP Fuel Injector cleaner in that tank. I can say, WHEN I get it running It will run for quite a while before I shut her down. I want to give the truck plenty of time to dislodge any crap in the fuel lines. I’m also guessing I’ll need to swap the fuel filter too.
If its not one thing, its another. It really, never ends.
Mr. Fisher also brought over his Viair Compressor. We spent some time looking at it and checking out all its features.
Day Three came with the sun shining and the air a bit on the chilly side. As soon as the sun came up it warmed up nicely. Our plan for the morning was to run some trails.
I got dressed in my Rover Cannibal shirt and cooked up some breakfast. We knocked down breakfast and went up to the main pavilion to meet the other drivers.
I found the other drivers very ready and after learning Jacob Dearborn drew the beginner group. Jake as he was called was very nice young man and had a course sorted out. We fell in behind a great couple named Max and Diane and their Series. They had owned it for twenty years if I remembered that correctly. We got the CBs set and off went. Continue reading “SCARR – Day Three (Post #479) 4/6/2014”
There is a great post on the Land Rovers Only Forum that has compiled a great collection of the part numbers for the Air Idler Valve. The part is very pricey if you source if from the major Land Rover online sites like Atlantic British and Rovers North. Those are the two I use, there are others as well.
The part is a common GM part for Chevy Astro vans and S-10 pickups. You can read the post to get all the part numbers and then you can source the part from your favorite provider.
Finding parts for 20-year-old Range Rovers is getting harder and harder every day. Have you looked for a fan resistor kit lately? There are none to be had presently.
