Wrecked
She hit the BWB hard enough to deploy her airbags. My guess, 30+ miles per hour in a 25 mph zone. She said, “I didn’t expect a vehicle to be there.”
Big White Bus
Oil Sump Gasket Replaced
…the Big White Bus has recently been leaving a nice puddle of oil when she comes to a stop. I know all the jokes about British cars and leaks. If you don’t see a leak, it’s probably dry. Well I don’t care for leaks.
Death Wobble Garage Day
If you’ve been following for any time you’ll have read about my problems with the suspension on the Big White Bus. Mr. Fisher helped me swap out all the tie-rod ends. I thought I blogged about that but I guess I didn’t. In any event, I swapped out the tie-rod ends in an effort to find my death wobble problem.
You’ve never heard of death wobble? Check out this definition from High Sierra 4×4’s Glossary page.
Death Wobble: \ˈdeth\ \ˈwä-bəl\ noun. Death wobble is an exaggerated slang term for extreme steering vibration. This typically occurs when driving your vehicle and due to loose steering components or alignment issues the front end vibrates excessively. In extreme cases this has caused the driver to lose control of the vehicle.
Exhaust Gasket Blow Out
The Big White Bus started sounding like she was losing a catalytic converter. The sound started as a ticking. However yesterday and today I knew it was a blown exhaust gasket and a missing exhaust stud. I naturally assumed the worst had happened and I would need new exhaust pieces. I was prepared to replace the exhaust starting with the Y. It’s Frankenstein’d together as it is. The next problem or failure is going to require a new exhaust system. I thought that was now. […]
Too Hot to Land Rover
Blasphemy! you might say. So I’ll qualify that to it’s too hot to wrench. It is the height of summer here in Oklahoma. Temperatures while they haven’t been anywhere near the lovely year of 100’s, they have been close. Our exiting of the drought in such a dramatic way this year (2015) has the humidity up to the levels I remember it from before the drought.
So your greasy fingered blogger has not put much effort into much of anything Land Rover. That is not to say I don’t have a handful of project to do, I do.
Family Reunion Road Trip
The Courtright Family Reunion was this past weekend. I am a Courtright on my biological mother’s maternal side. Mrs. Okierover normally attends this yearly event with me. This year a church carnival demanded her time. So traveling solo gave me an opportunity to drive the Big White Bus to Stillwater, Oklahoma and as you can imagine, I took the “back roads”.
I’ve had recent trouble with the Range Rover’s normally trouble-free 4.2 motor. She doesn’t want to idle correctly. That normally means the air idler valve is dirty. Saturday afternoon I went about cleaning it. It was indeed filthy. I was kinda happy about that. If this maintenance fixed my problem I’d be even happier because it meant I diagnosed and repaired the problem.
While I was at it, I cleaned out my flame trap. Apparently you can Australian Land Rover Forum Post. “Templ4r” has Land Rover UK Forum of what this emissions item does for you on Land Rover UK Forums. I started with running some parts cleaner/diesel through her. This was not dislodging the crap as I hoped it would. I did not have a can of brake cleaner but my neighbor Nick had a can of carburetor cleaner. I used the entire can to clean it out. Chunks of nastiness came out. I reassembled it and hoped for the best.
She seemed to idle well in the driveway. Good enough for me/close enough for government work/redneck repair complete.
Sunday morning I took off. My plan was to drive I-35 to the “Mother Road”, Interstate 66 to interstate 177 to Oklahoma highway 51. This route has some fun names of roads and creeks you will pass along the way.
You will pass Triple X road, sometimes Triple XXX road. You will pass Wild Horse Creek. This is one of the three Wild Horse creeks in Oklahoma I am aware of. You will also cross over Bell Cow Creek. Yes, Bell Cow, not Cow Bell. […]
SCARR 2015 – The Trails
Panoramic of the East Texas hills.
With all the rain we had at SCARR 2015 the trails were muddy. But unlike Oklahoma’s red clay this soil took the water very well and drained away. That didn’t mean it came off any easier than Oklahoma red mud, but it was not as nasty when you were driving through it. We had quite a few creek crossings to add to the mud.
Arto and his well equipped Discovery 2.
We started the first day with a lecture from Arto Pullinen. Some of us (read that as NOT Mr. Fisher) learned some new hand signals that trail guides would be using.
Back in the Saddle Again
I picked up the Big White Bus on Saturday. Mickey was pretty busy this week and had to catch up on Saturday. I unfortunately did not leave enough gas in her for a proper test drive. So he told me to give her a spin around the block and give her a shake down. I[…]
A Long Drive for Nothing
It turned out to be a long drive for nothing. My goal this past weekend was to go to the Southwestern Regional Rendezvous in Leslie, Arkansas. I went. But I didn’t stay.
It was a 5.5 hour drive to Leslie, Arkansas from Norman, Oklahoma. About an hour into the drive it started to rain. It rained from Shawnee all the way to Leslie. When I got to Leslie I found the event. I pulled into the lot that was passing for a parking lot.
Time to Prepare for S.C.A.R.R. 2015
Doesn’t the Big White Bus look good all washed up parked in the drive. Well she looks better with a little mud on the tires and traipsing up and down the hills of Barnwell Offroad Park in East Texas. Yes, it’s close to that time of year again. Its time to prepare the Range Rover for the South Central Area Rover Rendezvous aka SCARR.
Once again there is lots to do. A short list…
- Transmission Rebuild
- Plugs, wires, and cap
- Tie-rod ends
- Oil Pan Gasket
- Power Steering Leak
Its a short list but an expensive one. Getting the transmission done will be somewhere in the 2000$(US). I’ve known this was a problem for a while now. I’ve turned 220,000 miles and I think it’s time for a rebuild on the transmission. I have a plan for this. […]