Category: grand children

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Ignition Coil Strikes Again (Post #324) 3/18/2013

It was a lovely day today. It was lovely right up to when the Range Rover decided I’d gone far enough with these ignition components. I stopped at the post office in Newcastle and when I came out lots of turning over, not so much spark.
I figured it was the coil. Interestingly enough there isn’t a compatible coil in Oklahoma. That’s right, not in the entire state. I called the big three, 
  • NAPA – who told me there was ONE in the entire United States. Highly unlikely, but that’s what he told me on the phone.
  • Autozone – who were more than willing to order me one and charge me to have it sent to the store.
  • O’Reilly’s – “I could maybe get you one by next Friday.” was not exactly what I wanted to hear.

As you can imagine, I’m pretty frustrated by this point. My awesome oldest daughter taxi’ed me all over. To O’Reilly’s, and over to Norman to get my spare, and then back to Norman to take me home when the spare was found to be failed as well. It cost me a tank of gas for her Ford Explorer and lunch at Braum’s Ice Cream and Dairy. She had my three grand children in tow and we made the most of it.

I called Rick’s Auto for a tow truck. Matt told me it would “be a while” before he could get there. I was thinking 3 hours it is Saturday in small town Oklahoma.
He said, “I’ll be there in about 45 minutes.”
“No problem,” I replied.

While waiting for the tow truck I decided to take Grady and Cadence down to see the chickens who were making quite a fuss while being sold at the Fair Barn. I was stumbling for what to call the building thinking the Fair Barn wasn’t going to really describe it very well to a three and six year old, when Cadence blurted out from the back seat, “That’s the Fair Barn.”

Apparently she had gone to see some “livestock” the farmers brought for her Kindergarten class to see. They were instructed to write a “Thank You letter”. Most of the kids wrote Thank You and signed their name. Cadence wrote a letter which garnered praise from her teacher. It went more or less like this…

Thank you for bringing your livestock.
Thank you for letting us see them.
I don’t remember what you said you did with the pigs.
Do you walk them or just let them go free.
Love Cadence.

So Cadence knew all about the Fair Barn. We looked at what was a poultry show. Chickens, ducks, turkey’s, guinea hens, even some rabbits. Our visit killed a good 15 minutes.

Then nearly exactly when he said he would arrive, Matt from Rick’s Auto arrived with his flat bed. He got me up on the back and delivered me to my daughter’s house. Very efficient and very courteous. He even shared a picture of his Jeep which he was still tricking out. Bed-lined top and bottom, winch, bumpers, and a custom paint job that reminded me of an electric Tangier’s Orange from the G4 series.

A blurry picture of Matt the tow truck driver. He’s a Jeeper and showed me a pic of his pretty awesome rig.
The color he color he painted it reminded me of an electric Tangier’s Orange from the G4 series.
The results of a failed coil on a Land Rover in Oklahoma.
I must remember to have a “working” spare next time.

So with a quick call to JagGuy we came to the same conclusion I came to before the call, bad coil. Considering how it seems to be a frequently failing part you’d think I’d have an idea of a compatible part. I did not. So I quickly checked John Brabyn’s Rangerovers.net to see if his excellent site had mention of a spare coil. The ignition link 404’s me. I tried a couple other links and they 404’d me as well. Only when I got home did I remember how his site was constructed and if I’d just scrolled down I’d have found that he didn’t have any listed.

So a little coil education is warranted. Deciding to try a different source for the parts JagGuy suggested going to a beefier coil perhaps from Summit Racing. So off to their website. Basically there are about a trillion combinations of coils there. You can limit them to your specific vehicle. Important parameters for a novice like myself are

  • Coin Internal Construction: OIL or EPOXY
  • Maximum Voltage: 40,000V or 45,000V

JagGuy steered me away from 45,000V coils with the logic that with a little rain the arcing off to the surface of the distributor would be greater, OR that’s how I heard it. If anyone understands this and provide any comment I’m all ears.

The OIL or EPOXY filled is a give and take.
Oil is cooler. Heat kills coils.
Epoxy is used to reduce the damage of vibration. Vibration kills coils.

In the end I opted for OIL for the cooler operation. I might consider a swap to EPOXY when we go to vibrating the Range Rover over some rough country. I am definitely buying two coils.

I WILL HAVE AN ON-BOARD spare going forward. 

I can almost guarantee you that because I have a spare, the coil I will install will have a record 25 year live span. But only because I have a spare ready-at-hand.

I bought TWO PerTronix Flame-Thrower Ignition Coils. (Summit Racing)
(Flame-thrower has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?)
The rest of the stats for this coil are listed here from their site.

Coil Style: Canister
Primary Resistance: 1.500 ohms
Coil Internal Construction: Oil-filled
Coil Color: Black
Maximum Voltage: 40,000 V
Turns Ratio: 115:1
Secondary Resistance: 10.6K ohms
Inductance: 6.4 mH
Peak Current: 7.2 amps
Spark Duration: 1.5 mS
Mounting Bracket Included: No
Coil Wire Included: No
Ballast Resistor Included: No
Coil Shape: Round Diameter (in):2.125 in. Height (in):6.000 in.
Quantity: Sold individually. (DARN: A six pack might have been a better option.)—->
Notes: For use with the original Pertronix Ignitor ignition. Can also be used with other induction ignition systems.

I am hoping I slap this bad boy in and off I’m running. I will be exploring the rest of the ignition system when I get the Range Rover back to my house and my tools. It was not all that long ago that I upgraded and or replaced the cap and rotor and the ignition wires (2011) and put in a new coil.

Sal in New York chatted me up about heater core replacement and fan resistor placement. Hang in there Sal.
Chris in Denton is putting in a diesel conversion and was kind enough to let me know. I am very keen to follow his exploits on Texas Rovers Forum. (TexasRovers.org)

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.
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Sooooo Incredibly Busy (Post #320) 2/20/2013

I thought I’d drop a note so you would know I’m not dead. I’ve been really busy with work and school. I completed the fundamentals for Lean/Six Sigma Green Belt (Strong America Now) over the last three weekends. I’ll finish my Green Belt project this summer. My SQL Server (Wikipedia) class at Oklahoma City Community College class is starting to kick my butt. Big test tonight. This is going to require more cycles if I am to be successful with it.

The weather also hasn’t cooperated. I woke up and drove in this morning (February 20) to GIANT snowflakes coming down. This is the second time this year, shoot fire, this month! I was sitting in McNellie’s Pub in Midtown OKC when it did this last. It looked like we were sitting in a snow globe.

We need the rain and/or snow desperately so I am not complaining. I hope it rains a lot more. The drought is the worst I can remember seeing it. Makes me wonder if I shouldn’t read up on the Dust Bowl (PBS) again. The days it did cooperate, I was sitting in the Carson Engineering Center at OU learning Six Sigma and Lean principles. I’m barely smart enough to open the doors of this Nerditorium, however, Scuba Seamus (Diet Mt. Drew’s friend) who is studying mechanical engineering was in my class, so I was able to sneak in with a kind word from him.

I’m at 37 birds for this birding season. I was pleased to see an American Kestrel on the way home the other day. Even more exciting was seeing the Redhead swimming in a local pond. They are migrating back to Canada and it was quite a treat for me to see one.

Grand baby #3, Prestyn, is doing swimmingly well. She is cute as a bug and we have pictures to prove it, lots and lots of pictures. Her Mimi is happy when she gets to visit. When Mimi is happy, everyone is happy.

RovErica is now engaged. She met a young man that Mrs. OkieRover and I really like. Best of all he thinks RovErica hung the moon. Bonus for us (the readers of this blog and I), he’s mechanical. And not the Fat Jack “I can fix it, I’m mechanical.” and then he starts wailing on the outboard motor with a hammer from the movie Splash (1984) either. He graduated from Wyotech while working on his Masters. Yeah, my evil plans to have him fix the ABS relay buzzing problem are already in the works. He needs a nickname for this blog…but I’m working on that.

Diet Mt. Drew is considering moving back in with us and going back to school. It’ll kill him to do it, but I think he’ll like the amount of cash in his pocket and the well stocked pantry and the free internet service and cable TV.

I’m going to the South Central Coalition of Historical Trekkers meet this weekend at Fort Gibson. I’ll take lots of pictures, not that you want to see them, but I want to take them. It will hopefully be a nice break for me. I need to let the flywheel spin for a few turns without me having to spin it if you know what I mean.

My new TerraFirma springs and shocks are in and have been sitting in the garage for nearly a month. I hope to put them on the first weekend of March. Mrs. OkieRover will be away from the house for a lady’s retreat so unfettered Land Rover mechanicing should ensue. I can fix it, I’m mechanical.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

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Grandchildren, The Definitive Post (Post #319) 1/31/2013

Grady, Prestyn, Cadence

If you know me personally you already know we have a new grandchild. Prestyn Rhenea was born at 1631 on January 28th, 2013. She came in at 18.5 inches and 7 pounds 7 ounces. Big brother and big sissy are very happy to have her. Mom and baby are doing great and there were no complications. It is my understanding that Prestyn has quite a set of pipes.

Yes, I know they are not wearing seat belts.
We only had to drive a couple of blocks in the neighborhood.

While we were waiting for baby Prestyn to be born we had the grand kids for a few days.

We are in the middle of January and it was near 70F outside, so Mrs. Okierover and I took them to the park one day. I risked a certain chewing out and possibly death from their mom, but I let them play on the teeter totter with no hands, slide down the slide train style, and let them steer the Range Rover on the way home. Some fouls are more egregious than others. 😉

I figured since I once let their mommy drive my 1974 BMW 3.0s around the softball field by the Indian Hills Steak House when she was six years old, I was in the clear. I know what you are thinking “driving?”. She was actually driving, pedals and till all in her control. Obviously, a great time was had by all (in both incidences until mom found out). This is why I am the greatest grandpa in the known universe.

Such a ham! 

Grand kids love Land Rovers. These two play inside of mine every chance they get. So far they haven’t broken anything that couldn’t be fixed. When I was constructing their playground set a couple of weeks ago they sat in the Range Rover and played with their “See-and-Say”‘s or whatever those tablet things are they got for Christmas. Our Range Rover acts as a defacto human habi-trail when they are near it. Imagine how much fun a roof rack is going to be!

Even their dog Paisley (85 pound Lab) was up in the back rummaging around and managed to steal both my water bottles and chew them into unrecognizable shapes. What is it with all the dogs in my life? They are all chewers.

So I know this is not “definitive” by definition. It is merely another post about my grandchildren and how proud I am to be a grandfather thrice over.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

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Passing it to the next generation (Post #290) 5/10/2012

My grand kids were knocking around inside the Range Rover this weekend. In between the expected “look at me Paw-paw’s” I caught them looking out the back.

I had to have a picture.

The good news is they didn’t break anything. Nothing on the Rover and nothing on themselves. The inside of the Range Rover isn’t exactly “kid friendly”. We all go to great lengths to child proof our houses. How do you child proof a Range Rover with a machete and tactical entrenching tool bouncing around in the boot? Not to mention a bag full of tools that will either poke you, cut you, or scratch you, if you don’t pay attention.

I left fate in God’s hands and told them not to touch anything.
I mean, it worked for you and I right? Wink, wink.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

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Happy Thanksgiving (Post #274) 11/24/2011

Happy Thanksgiving.
As we all take a break from our hectic lives and give thanks on this Thanksgiving I thought I’d share some things I’m thankful for….
…my loving wife MrsOkieRover.
…my three healthy children, DietMtDrew, RovErica, Leci-bug.
…my two healthy grand children.
…a good job and a comfortable living.
I am also thankful I am not
…a Lucas Electrical Engineer, its hot enough for me in Oklahoma.
…a Land Rover mechanic for a living, my life doesn’t make sense most of the time as it is.

I am most thankful for the men and women who have served in uniform and given everything so that I can live this life.

Thanks for reading, Happy Rovering and Happy Thanksgiving.

This is why I cook my turkey in the oven.

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December 27th, 2006 (Post #68)

December 27th, 2006


My first grand-baby is coming tomorrow. I am totally excited about it too. Cadence Marie. I will update later with the details.


Restoring the Rangie. Got a butt-load of parts in yesterday. Gotta sort through and see what all I have and order the brake caliper refurbish kits. And get started on that as soon as I can. Then it will probably be paint and rust removal time.

Disco Headlamps
Replaced the head lamps in the Discovery last night. I’d blown one last week. And I was wondering if I needed to have my eyes checked as it was getting darker at night when I drove. My wife told me I had a headlight out so that was a relief on the eyesight bit. Changing the headlamp was dreadfully simple. You have to remove the grill to get to some of the access screws. But it was very easy. Instructions were in the on-board manual. And after glancing at them it was evident that this was child’s play.

I can’t remember the last time I replaced a headlight on one of my cars. It’s been a really long time. I replaced the lamps with Sylvania H7 lamps from Atlantic British.

I intended to buy the IPF bulbs but Atlantic British had discontinued them. I was placing a large order and didn’t want to research where to buy them so I just switched to the Sylvanias. I drove a bit last night with them and they look good.

The real test is how they look when it’s raining.

Been interested in a thread on the DiscoWeb forum.
Camp Kitchens
I’ve been thinking about a trailer for the camping and this has lots of ideas in it. I also read on a forum about getting a military trailer instead of making one from scratch. Also lots to consider there. For now I think I’m going to consider the military trailer first. There are a few on eBay every week. Affordable considering the time involved setting up to build a trailer. With a restore project in the garage it is not really feasible to build a trailer.

Driveway replaced.
The builder finally came by last week and replaced the concrete on the driveway. It was poured with too much water and crumbled under the ice and snow. I am very happy about this now as I can get on the driveway and look under the Rovers without digging concrete out of my back afterwards.
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