A Blog About Land Rovers in Oklahoma
My wife got me the roof rack I was looking at a few months ago. My future son-in-law Brian and I put it together. RovErica did the intel and figured out what I wanted.
I loved the lines in this photo. If I were a better photographer I think this photo might have been even better.
Uptown has really changed. The building behind the BWB has been having a “Going Out of Business” for more than 13 years. The building will be razed later this year and a new shopping center put there. Kathryn of the Big Truck Taco, Mutt’s, and Back Door Bar-B-Que group told me they were venturing into pizza and putting the restaurant in the new site.
When asked, “New York or Chicago style?” She replied, “Italian.” So that’s gonna be nice, I’m looking forward to it.
Thanks for reading, seeing something different, and Happy Rovering.
Back in the saddle again. I picked up the Big White Bus from Mickey’s Garage this past Friday. Mickey send me these pictures telling me the BWB was ready for pick up. As you’ve read in previous posts, the AC compressor they installed originally had a leaking seal. True to his word he replaced it. As you can see, its now putting out 45 F degree air. The volume of air needs to be investigated. It’s probably the air box. We had a chat about the design and what might need to be done to make it better.
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| That’s cold air. |
Mickey put a coat of paint on the compressor to pretty it up for my blog. I like that. I’m hoping its good to go. If we have trouble with it, he said he’d take car of it for 6 months. That’s not bad for a replacement used part.
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| Looks good in silver. |
The water pump is new. The old one was a questionable part now that the pulley broke. After it was off, it seems to be okay. I’m going to put it on the shelf for a spare. The new pulley’s from Rover Cannibal are now in place with new belts.
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| New water pump. |
I talked to Mickey about the horse power the large fan robs from the engine. I talked to him about putting electric fans on. My research showed that a fan shroud from a late 1990s model Ford Crown Victoria would match up nicely. I’ll start looking for one as soon as the weather cools off a bit. I need to get my measurements and start hitting the breaker’s yards.
The expense of having someone else work on the Range Rover will need to be recovered over the winter. With school, getting the tornado shelter installed, visits to the doctor, and work, I had to trade money for time. Which according to my good friend Paul is a good trade.
Now I’ve got a new water pump, belts, and AC compressor. Three more failure points removed making the Rover even more reliable as a daily driver. No one said keeping a 20 year old Land Rover on the road as a daily driver was going to be cheap or easy. So far the costs are still cheaper than a car payment and insurance for another car. If you consider a payment for a new-ish Land Rover…I’m WAY AHEAD!
Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.
I tried something a little different. My front grill was pretty knackered. It was a couple of colors of black or gray depending on the part you were looking at.
I took the grill off and used my neighbor’s power washer. I blasted it and the paint and most of the oxidation came off. Underneath it was Arden’s Green, obviously a replacement part.
My first thought was to paint it black again. But ever since I saw a color matched front end on a Discovery 2 I’ve wanted to see what it would look like on my Range Rover.
I wasn’t willing to pull the brush guard and respray it. It would require a media blasting of some sort due to some minor rust. That makes the entire thought and project too expensive. Quite frankly a white brush guard would not look manly studly proper in my mind.
The paint was only 8.14$(US) a can. The respray would require two cans. The best part was if it looked terrible to me…I can always return it to black. (I bought a can of black just in case.) The most difficult thing was picking which shade of white to use. There were no fewer than 6 shades of white to choose from. It was an O’Reilly’s Auto so there were NO BRITISH car colors in the paint rack.
I picked Wimbledon White. There was an Oxford White but I felt Wimbledon was closer to Chawton White. I say that because the paint on the rear half is mostly oxidized and doesn’t match the front half. I should get the whole entire thing polished and waxed. Not to make it pretty, just to make it the same color front and back. Protecting the paint with a bit of wax would also slow the oxidation of the paint. When it rains the oxidized paint stains the black bits with a chalky color.
I’m going to let it ride for a bit and see if it grows on me. So far I like it, and isn’t that all that really matters?
Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.
I liked the lines and angles when I walked up to her sitting at the curb outside my doctor’s office in Midtown.
Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering, even if it’s in the city.
I was privileged enough to take my grand daughter, we’ll call her Pistol, to her first cheerleading camp in Newcastle. The lack of an air bag in the 1993 Range Rover affords her the ability to ride in the front seat. She cheekily borrowed a pair of sunglasses to complete her look.
Her mom, Fireball, was none to pleased about her riding position when I posted this picture to Facebook. +Mrs. Okierover had to point out that it was safer than when Fireball was riding on the armrest in her grandpa’s 1984 Ford LTD. The only thing holding her from going through the windshield in the LTD was grandma and grandpa’s arms as they instinctively went up when they had to brake hard.
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| Looks safe to me, wink, wink |
Pistol was perched on her booster seat in the Big White Bus and belted in. I remember the days before I was married to Mrs. Okierover and little Fireball was learning about safety in school and we had to all start wearing our “belt seats”. So we made a game of it to see who could get their “belt seat” on first. Before this I NEVER wore my seat belt. The legislature eventually would get around to passing a law requiring seat belts. Our youngest two children do not remember a time before mandatory seat belt wearing.
I had to remind Fireball that if we were going to discuss dangerous and unsafe behavior, that it was illegal for six year old kids to operate motor vehicles in the state of Oklahoma. She drove my 1974 BMW 3.0s on at least two occasions. I would let her drive the car across the field that served as the softball field for a women’s softball team I was helping coach. She’d drive us up to the gravel parking lot behind the Indian Hills Steak House (as of this posting it is now a bar called Mooney’s (Maps.google.com street view) . There she would stop the car and we would swap places.
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| I wish we still had this car |
So as far as safety goes, Pistol was as safe as a bug in a rug in the front seat of the BWB. And comparing her riding position to our habits just 20 years ago she was about as safe as you could ever expect to be. Besides, the air conditioning works better if you are sitting directly in front of the vents when it’s 106 degrees outside in Oklahoma.
I also posted on Facebook that RovErica was out and Pistol was in, as my new Range Rover buddy. This brought much scorn from RovErica and many sad and mad emoticons were exchanged.
I’ve had a quiet month of correspondence with Land Rover owners this month. I have made contact with a fellow Range Rover owner in my home town. We are trying to arrange a meeting to talk Range Rovers. More on that later.
The maps came in for a new trip I’m planning. I plan to drive across Oklahoma on all gravel and dirt roads. More on this later as well.
Buckle up, thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.
