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August 31, 2025August 26, 2025

Random Next Jobs on my Range Rover Classic Overland Rig Part 2 (Post #716) 8/31/2025

The first thing we did this weekend was drive up and surprise Lucas by taking him to his first pro football game. It was my first too, but we made it all about him. He had a great time.

In this post I worked on the footwell and the rust issues that may come up from melting off the stone chip/bedliner material with my welding. I got underneath and scraped off as much as I could reach with all the exhaust and drive shafts in the way. I also now realize there is a fair amount of leaking oil on this beast.

I found some transmission fluid, obviously engine oil, and I saw some antifreeze too. These are all leaks I can list along with my power steering which is weeping from the lower seal. All very annoying. Some we can fix. Some we will probably not fix. Engine oil could be coming from the valve covers which I think need sorting. Antifreeze is likely coming from one of the heater hoses on top the engine. All of those should probably be replaced based on age alone.

I also used some of the fancy zip ties to lock some stuff down. That was very satisfying. There is actually only one size in the bag and they were too small for some of the holes.

I also found some rust. “NO, how is this possible!!!” you might say. The front differential is really rusty. Flakey rusty. So that will need to be cleaned up and coated in rust converter. Then painted. The other rust I found was on the tube that houses the bonnet release (hood release to my fellow Americans). It looked terrible. I got the wire wheel out and got it knocked down to bare metal. I was pretty proud of myself for not wire wheeling my fingers.

I got it coated in rust converter and will get it painted next weekend. I still have several additional jobs to do. It’s labor day weekend so I plan to spend some quality time out there.

That’s about it for this week. No video last week because I had trouble getting the video to build and by the time it was built it was the middle of the week. So I slotted it for later.

Thanks for reading, like and subscribe, and may the wind take your troubles away.

Happy Rovering.

https://youtu.be/ERO8ZXFW5Q4

December 22, 2024December 20, 2024

Floor Pan Repair on a Range Rover Classic: Part 3: Z Bar (Post #684) 12/22/2024

In this episode. Grady and I get the Z bar welded to the floor pan panel. After the debacle of last week was finally solved, we had some new tools and great grounds to work with. These allowed for our plug welds and our panel butt-welds to hold.

I also noticed I had the heat up too high on the welder. Once I lowered that, the welder didn’t blow through the panel. There were a LOT of welds. We went through a half tank of shielding gas. And in the end we ran out of gas. So next weekend I’m going to need to get down to the welding supply house and get a fresh tank of gas.

If you remember the first video we determined we needed to cut about an 1/8th of an inch off one side. It turned out to be closer to 1/4th of an inch when I finished. We used the pinch vise clamps, some hammering, and a lot of bending to get the panel flat enough to make good welds.

Grady got to weld quite a few welds. I think I need a second welding mask so I can watch his technique and help him to get better. He did a pretty good job after he got the hang of it. Its fun for me to see him engaged and wanting to learn.

We have 2/3rds of the sides on now. Our first task will be to get the last one welded on and to fit it ONE MORE TIME. We fitted the panel and I’m 92.6% sure the panel will go in cleanly and fit properly.

That’s all for this week.

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering. Like and subscribe.

https://youtu.be/F3x3iota0Dw

December 10, 2024

Floor Pan Repair on a Range Rover Classic: Fitting the bed Part 1 (Post #682) 12/10/2024

In this post my grandson and I work on the floor bed to get it to dry fit. The first thing we needed to do was to get the Z bar into place. This required us making the side rail straightened and in some places cut some useless steel off.

The next thing we needed was to tack weld the Z bar into place. This was quite the challenge. I tried tacking and it didn’t take. I finally got my weld to hold. I let Grady weld too. His welds would not stick either.

After some frustration we determined that likely we didn’t have a good ground. I put in a lot of effort to get this steel painted so it wouldn’t rust. That unfortunately also prevented us from having a good ground for our welding.

I ground off a lot of paint. This is going to be a problem. The whole reason for the paint is to prevent the damn rust in the first place. So once I get the Z bar in place I’m going to need to paint everything again.

We finally got the Z bar into place and tried to fit the panel. We are about an 1/8 to a 1/4 of an inch off. This is going to require some additional cutting and more fitting to make sure we have it right before we start attaching the braces.

This is part 1 of 2. We spent WAY too much time with welding and prepping. So I cut this down to under 30 minutes.

Like and subcribe.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

October 4, 2014May 16, 2023

Video Blog #3 (Post #514) 10/4/2014

Video Blog.

As I mentioned in the Okierover Video Blog #3, I recently got a Service Engine light.

I don’t see Check Engine or Service Engine lights very often. I forgot that this was not the CHECK ENGINE light. So I rambled on a bit on the video. Here’s how to reset the SERVICE ENGINE light on a Range Rover Classic.

Find the SERVICE Module under the passenger seat. Just remove frustration, move the seat all the way forward and lift it up too.

Turn the ignition on. With a paper clip or other metal bar pierce the paper sticker on the top (it has probably already been pierced) and insert the rod. You will feel the pins and if you look at the instrument cluster the SERVICE ENGINE light will go off when you have satisfied the reset.

Now if I could only find something to short out to fix the ABS / Traction Control problem…oh well.

Thanks for reading/watching and Happy Rovering.

October 30, 2013May 15, 2023

Guthrie and Beyond October 2013 (Post #406) 10/30/2013

I loved the lines.
High on a hill east of Guthrie.

Mrs. Okierover and I love a good road trip. So when our oldest daughter (Fireball) told us our oldest grandchild (Pistol, aka Tater) was cheering in Guthrie, Oklahoma, we had to go. Guthrie holds a special place in our family’s history. Fireball was proposed to in this city by our now son-in-law J-man.

From our home in Norman, Guthrie is a solid one hour drive on the interstate. The first grade football game began at 0830. This meant both Fireball and her brood would need to roll out of their racks around 0630 in order to be more or less on time for the game. It’s no small task to haul a 6, 4, and 9 month old anywhere let alone at 0630. I’ve done it, alone, with only 6$(US) in my pocket, so I know. (A story for another time.)

I am not fond of “rolling out” at 0730 on my only “sleep in” day of the week. Add driving an hour on the interstate on a OU home football game weekend. Not fun. So I ponied up the money for us to stay in Guthrie over night. The grand kids had never stayed in a hotel so we knew they would have fun. Continue reading “Guthrie and Beyond October 2013 (Post #406) 10/30/2013”

November 24, 2012May 15, 2023

Circumnavigating the Great State of Oklahoma (Post #305) 11/24/2012

While we listened on the radio to Norman North High School defeat Owasso Community College* in the semi-final round of the state 6A football playoffs, my wife did some preliminary mapping of a route to circumnavigate the state of Oklahoma.

As I have mentioned before I would like to drive around the entire state of Oklahoma. My ultimate goal would be to drive exclusively on county roads. This would simulate as rough a passage as any jaunt around Africa. Oklahoma has notoriously bad roads and bridges (#6 on the Business Insider Website).

Mainstreet.com has us at #3. Sweet! Well, not really sweet unless you like driving on crappy roads.

Mrs. OkieRover took down some preliminary distance and time calculations. The initial route is on highways that edge around the state. It looks like it would take at least 4 days to accomplish the feat. We plan to make lots of stops and take lots of photos and video so this may morph into several more hours of travel per leg. The best part is if we run out of time we are at the most eight hours from the farthest point directly home.

I am thinking where possible we would use the state line roads. I know there is a lengthy section on the western border and across the northern border. The southern border is the Red River and has a good part of it lined with county roads. We will use these as we can.

The eastern border is mostly “mountainous” or what passes for mountains on the plains of Oklahoma. As such, the roads are a windy passage around the peaks and through the valleys. Not a lot we can do there.

I am thinking the trip will require us to outfit the Range Rover with a roof rack and fuel cans, “just in case”. It would be really awesome if I could figure out how to get the trip sponsored and some coverage by the local news. I will think about this more as we get closer to finding the dates for the trip. Spring Break would be ideal.

As far as the Range Rover mechanically, I think she would make the trip today if I wanted her to. The fuel mileage is not ideal but as I discussed in a previous post we have some things to work on in regards to that. I would like to get the radio outfitted. Having some boss tunes would be good but not absolutely necessary. The Mrs. and I most go radio-free on long drives. We just spend the time talking. And lastly, I don’t think the trip would be possible without air conditioning. Mrs. Okierover is fond of conditioned air.

To recap, it looks like 4.5 days of driving with a moderate level of stops. If the Mrs. is working the numbers she is game to give it a try. I really like to have 100% buy in and I believe I have it. I wish I could say we would sleep in a tent in the fields “expedition style” but that is not practical considering I would not want to “camp” in some farmer’s field without permission. This is Oklahoma and I can tell you I would not appreciate it if I found someone on my land.

Now I’m off to secure some URLs and to plan the next phase.

Thanks for reading. Go Timberwolves and Happy Rovering.

*This is an inside joke in our state. A joke the east side schools don’t appreciate. There are four east side schools that are enrollment-wise, twice as big as the biggest west side school. Each of these districts refuse to split like the west side schools have. The largest of them Broken Arrow has 4500 students enrolled 9-12th grades. Therefore the media on the west side of the state calls each of them either a college or university. There is even talk at the OSSAA, Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association (the sanctioning body of high school sports) of making a 7A class, just for those schools. We on the west side of the state are all for this, of course. Since 1996 only Jenks High School or Union High School have competed for the state title in football.

UPDATE: We did not win. We were proud to have the chance to play though. Heads are up.