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July 31, 2023August 1, 2023

Shoppe Clean-Up and Mower Repair (Post #617) July 31, 2023

No Land Rover content this week. I started the weekend trying to get the chores done first. Mowing the grass which grows at a ridiculous rate due the the wet July we’ve had. I’m cutting grass every week now.

I got on the mower and got my book on tape going [Extreme Measures by Vince Flynn the eleventh book in the series]. I kept hearing some odd noises, vibrating parts, and the engine was running like crap. Just last week I was evaluating how many more summers I might get from this mower while I was patching the holes in the tires with plugs.

I have been impressed at how trouble free this mower (Husqvarna 1842) had been with this being the sixth summer. I’ve only had one other serious repair. It was also a mandrel. I have also replaced one battery and before the summer is up, I really should replace all the tires.

After an inspection I saw the shaft on the mandrel wiggling like crazy. The upper bearing failed on the mandrel. So it wasn’t going to be grass cutting for the weekend, it would be mower repair. I looked the part up and found it had a John Deere part cross referenced. I went down to P&K Tractor on Highway 9. The parts guy was SUPER helpful. He looked up the part on several sites and found a part number at O’Reilly’s. Turns out in his words this was the most common bearing in the world. I was surprised how many different parts numbers were associated with it. I ran down to O’Reilly’s grabbed two.

The bolts (steel) were really stuck in the mandrel housing (cast aluminum). You don’t have to be a chemist to know this is a recipe for disaster. And that’s exactly what happened.

I wound up having to attempt to drill and easy-out what was left of the bolts. Broke two drill bits and eventually the mandrel. Four hours lost. I’ve ordered a replacement, it comes in this week. So I spent the rest of the day cleaning and organizing the shoppe.

I’m going to visit an old Marine friend of mine this week. Jeff was one of my closest friends in the Marine Corps. We went to boot camp together and artillery school. I haven’t seen or heard from him since perhaps 1988. Gonna be great catching up. RovErica’s kids are coming to stay with us this week too. With all this happening I don’t think there will be any video next week. But we’ll see.

Heavy sigh.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

March 24, 2022May 16, 2023

D Pillar Vinyl Replacement, Part 1 (Post #596) 3/24/2022

D Pillar Vinyl Replacement

In this video post I investigate my cracking vinyl on the D pillar of the Big White Bus. The Southern Plains is very unforgiving to fabric, even plastic fabric. Mine is cracking and looking pretty terrible. Time to pull it off and get it replaced.

I’m going to need to refresh the black paint on all the pillars and the door frames. I found the part number for a rattle can of Beluga Black. Lots of cleaning, light sanding, cleaning, taping, priming, sanding, and painting, and more painting coming this summer.

And…the headliner is going to need either regluing or replacing…..again. I might go with a fabric that I can stick my souvenir event patches can stick to, just.like.a.real.overlander.

I also find a lovely whole rusted in the passenger side D pillar that will need some repair. Lots of grinding away the rust (rust abatement), welding in a new piece of metal, priming and painting. Good thing I took a welding class last year.

This is part one of possibly two or three videos.

Thanks for watching and Happy Rovering.

April 9, 2014May 16, 2023

SCARR – Day Four (Post #481) 4/9/2014

Sunday the sun came up as expected in the east and we realized it was time to go home. We started packing up the kit. The tent fit in the amazingly small bag with a little coaxing. The boxes were all loaded and I lashed everything down on the roof rack.

John and Jayden were keen to caravan with us home. It couldn’t hurt to have a support vehicle after what we had just put our Rovers through. We agreed to meet at the main pavilion.

The night before after I found my on-board air compressor, I had aired up my tires . When we got to the top it turns out they have an airing station right there on the site. What a great amenity to have for the off-roaders. Continue reading “SCARR – Day Four (Post #481) 4/9/2014”

April 6, 2014May 16, 2023

SCARR – Day Three (Post #479) 4/6/2014

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”

January 24, 2014May 15, 2023

Fan Troubles Plague All the Cars from the British Isles (Post #436) 1/24/2014

That heading is probably a stretch but when I was a kid, the last thing you could expect to fail on your 1965 Pontiac Tempest was the iron cooling fan. You were more likely to lose a finger than it to fail in any way.

“Got Lucky” was the title of the text I received from JagGuy. His initial comment was, “Even metal radiator cooling fans fail.” He sent the following two pictures.

Cooling fan on JagGuy’s Mark I Jaguar.

The “Lucky” part. Only slight damage to the radiator.

His text to me was in response to one of my recent posts, Radiator Cooling Fan Cracked Again. In it I mention the options to replacing your radiator fan. One of them was finding a replacement fan made of metal. JagGuy had replaced his crappy plastic fan with this aluminum one. He also mentioned that Jaguar actually started making fans out of a different type of plastic. These “black” colored fans don’t suffer from the same type of failure as the crappy “white” ones.

He was very worried that he would be repairing his radiator due to this recent failure. Its entirely likely that the fan blade failed due to metal fatigue from flexing. He was in the process of putting electric fans on.

So in short, you really can’t escape fan failure. You can only hope it doesn’t destroy something else in the process.

The exchanged ended as such.

JagGuy: “$20 fan with 200,000 miles on it. I want my money back!”

Okierover: “They just don’t make things like they used too.”

It’s true…they don’t make things like they used to.

Thanks for reading, and Happy Rovering.

July 6, 2007May 15, 2023

December 3rd, 2002 (Post #14)

December 3, 2002
The Joys of Urban Living and Good Thing He was at the Garage
Garage Day is Saturday. With that in mind Friday after Thanksgiving was a crummy day. I went out to the curb to return the trash cans to the side of the house and there on the ground was my right rear lens protector and some red plastic. I looked at it an thought that’s strange. Then I looked at the truck, long scratch, and a torn quarter panel (with hole). Seems the City of Norman trashman put the retrieval arm of his large trash truck down the side of the Range Rover. Boy was I steamed. I called the City and they came out and assumed full responsibility and the driver returned and apologized.
Monday I went to get estimates for repair. Surprisingly the damage was anywhere from $1200-1400(US). Good grief! In the good ole days my Dad would have said lets pound it out and fill it with Bond-O. Well on a steel car maybe, aluminum who knows. We would have been out $200 with paint. I will have it repaired but the process to be paid by the city is tenuous so I will have to wait until they approve the repair at the City Council meeting someday in the future.
My arrival at work was greeted by several jokes. A sign with pictures of trash trucks and dumpsters from FordShortBed (a new evil woodworking superhero) that says “Stay away from these!!! They are dangerous!!!” stubbornly taped to my monitor. Also Titanium Hitch came in and said excitedly “come on, quick we gotta move the Rover there’s a trash truck in the parking lot!!” I almost got up and went out there. Ha Ha. I will keep you apprised and I will post some pics when I can get them back.

Almost a recovery…
JagGuy drove his Range Rover to Cajun Country (Baton Rouge) over the long weekend and back home. 1500 miles round trip. And after stopping at the Garage to pick up some stuff he came out put his truck in gear and a lound “BINK” came from under the truck. He had a CV joint fail. Wow, what luck that he was at the Garage when it happened. He called me on Monday and told me he had already taken it apart and was heading to Rover Cannibal to pick up a spare. He promised pictures and a write up for all of us. I will post it when he finishes it. It will give him a good reason to buy a digital camera if he didn’t already have one.