Category: helping fellow rover drivers

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Door Handles That Last (Post #611) 6/5/2023

If you were to rate the most annoying things on a Range Rover Classic at the top of that list would be the Questionable Use of Paint and Seam Sealer to Prevent Rust. I think we could all agree with that. The second item has GOT to be the Door Handles.

At some point in owning a Range Rover Classic or a Discovery 1 you will have a door handle fail. I’m not sure what specific material the door handles are made from. I’ve speculated in another post that they were made from Play-DohTM. I’m pretty sure they are made from some kind of aluminum mache’ and hope. You might as well say they were made of Unobtainium [Wikipedia] because finding a set of new/old stock (ran out decades ago) or on a rig in a breaker’s yard (aka junk yard in the USA). I haven’t seen a Range Rover in a junk yard since 2016 [Okierover.com]. The odd one may have snuck past me in that time…suffice to say they are getting rare. Spotted one in 2015 and 2011.

It was quite frankly a surprise to me that it took so long for some smart guy or girl to machine their own. I am surprised no longer. A gentleman right here in my home state of Oklahoma is making them. This is the best of all possible situations, Made in Oklahoma, Small Business, genuinely nice guy, and almost certainly better than OEM.

Chris McCune‘s [Facebook] handles are made from 6061 aluminum. I am but a simple caveman and your systems of measurements of specific metals frightens and confuses me, but when I get in my Range Rover Classic and drive to the mall through the outback, I want to open the doors with the handles and not crawl in the window like psychopath.

(Apologies to the, now deceased, genius of Phil Hartman for the paraphrase above.)

You are more likely to pull the entire handle assembly off the door, than to have one of these break like the OEM handles. He’s so confident in his design he is offering a Limited Lifetime Warranty. Basically as long as you aren’t using the handle as recovery point when you get stuck, he’ll make it right if one of his handles fail.

This is an unsponsored product recommendation. I have not been compensated in any way to promote Chris’s products. I’m just helping out a fellow Okie with his small business in this niche market.

The next time you tear your door handle remember Chris and order some handles. I would publish the price, but prices of metals change and I don’t want someone in the future who may be reading this post to get the wrong idea about what the handles cost. At the time of this post (June 2023), they are fairly priced. I’ve seen them for sale for more than this and have purchased some crappy OEM ones for this same price. Click the link above and send him a Private Message.

I looked up my previous posts on door handles, check those out too. One contains the instructions for replacing your door handles.

Why Children Should Not Drive Your Toys, Part 2 (Post #283) 1/21/2012
Weekend Repairs (Post #358) 6/21/2013
Door Handles: The Trapeze of Opening (Post #342) 5/24/2013

Thanks for Reading and Happy Rovering.

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S.C.A.R.R! (Post #455) 2/26/2014

I registered this morning for the yearly South Central Area Rover Rally, aka SCARR. I’ve been meaning to attend this event for the last three years. But as things are, something always comes up, vehicle problems, family problems, failing to plan. What’s that old saying?

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Well that stings a bit, but it’s accurate. So this year I sorted out the weekend, announced I was going, got funding to go, invited a friend to go with me, in short, I made plans to go.  Continue reading “S.C.A.R.R! (Post #455) 2/26/2014”

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A Late Winter Drive (Post #322) 3/6/2013

Sometimes the best drives are the laziest drives. I was able to sneak away to the South Central Coalition of Historical Trekkers winter gathering at Fort Gibson. The weather was dreadfully cold Friday night but there was a glimmer of hope it would warm up at least during the day on Saturday so off I went.

The drive out was uneventful as I was in the dark most of the way. I’m trying to preserve my annual leave so I left after work on Friday and made the 2.5 hour drive. I still have the dash apart looking for the relay that is buzzing and thus the lights that illuminate the gauges are disabled due to a missing rheostat. The Range Rover was really humming along and I thought I’d check the speedometer so I flipped on the map light under the rear view mirror. The indicator was hovering around 92 miles an hour. “GOOD GRAVY!”

I thought as I slowed her down, but realized, this Rover can still run.

I got to the Fort and made the customary greetings, observing all the protocols of a 19th century gathering and unloaded my stuff. The frost was already settling but as fortune would have it, my mates had us in the north end of one of the dog-trots on the site. Sleeping indoors even when it is cold is a blessing. Having a roaring fireplace was a godsend.

View Larger Map

I put my dinner on and will now give you a recipe to try. This is an OkieRover first on this site. Perhaps I’ll share more of my culinary secrets in the future.

Pan Poached Catfish
Heat a cast iron skillet on coals. Insert two half pound catfish fillets. Add a cup of apple cider. Poach the fillets until the liquid begins to evaporate. Allow to crisp just a bit for texture and serve.

It was a happy accident that the apple cider was in the coffee pot and not just water. Everyone had already eaten so I enjoyed the pound of catfish alone except for a small part that David wanted to try. We all went to bed with bellies full of wine and food, and with smiles on our faces from our palaver.

We woke in the 19th century and went about our day. We took a walk down to the Arkansas river. We spotted several birds among them black vultures, red-headed, downy, and red-bellied woodpeckers. We returned to the dog trot and cooked two hens on our squirrel cookers over an open fire while the flocks of ducks and geese headed to their nesting areas. The troop of pelicans was a nice treat to see as well.

Saturday night was more of the same as Friday and we all had a great time. As Sunday began we were all back in the 20th 21st century. With the Range Rover all packed and my salutations offered I headed home.

My intention was to do a little birding on the way home and to generally wander westerly until I got home. I added a half dozen more birds with a barnacled goose being probably the most unusual of them.

This a view of the fort from the road which passes to the north of the fort. 

This is the bridge that passes over the Arkansas near the fort going North. A great relic of the 1930s. Passing to the right you can see the railroad bridge. A mile up this road is the site where Sam Houston built his cabin and lived while with the Cherokees (Wikipedia). There is only a rubble field and a mound where the cabin once was.

Oklahoma does a pretty good job of telling the story of our state in road side markers. I had never heard of the Nuyaka Mission nor of the Green Peach War (RootsWeb). It was a civil war between two factions of Creeks in the 1880s.

My good friend Mike Segroves often seeks out the Dairy Queens while on his travels. I spotted this one in Okmulgee. My Great-Grandparents on my father’s mother’s side of the family, the Fishers lived in Okmulgee.

Okmulgee State Park and Dripping Springs State Park are found just past the outskirts of town west of Okmulgee. It was nice to wind through the parks at a leisurely pace.

Oklahoma, before integration was fashionable, had white towns, Indian towns, and black towns. I’m not going to regale you with politically correct terms here, it was what it was. There were many prominent men and women in each that from the surface were exactly the same as their counter parts in the other races.

One of those towns was Boley, Oklahoma (Wikipedia). To say it has seen better days is an understatement. But where many dozens of towns are just a burned out building here or there, Boley is still in the fight.

I would have loved to have seen this town in its hey day. To be there when they fought off Pretty Boy Floyd and his gang in 1932 would have been epic.

I ran out of places I’d never been just after Boley. I made my way to the more traveled of highways and made up some time to get home before dark. The leisurely pace was good for the pocket book too. I averaged 16 miles per gallon on the way home. Not bad! Imagine what it would have been if I had a transmission that didn’t slip in fourth and some new oxygen sensors.

This was another lengthy post, so first thanks for hanging in there with me this far.

I’ve received a few emails from folks this week looking advice and help finding other Land Rover services. I am always happy to help when I can. I’m thinking positive thoughts for Casey in California and Tom in Maryland, I hope you both can get your Range Rovers back on the road in short order.

And lastly, Land Rovers USA contacted me about a picture I posted to their Facebook page. They were very keen on it and want to use in an upcoming project. Keep and eye out for it.

Thanks for reading, thanks for writing, and Happy Rovering.

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Bad Fuel? Nope… (Post #273) 11/23/2011

Here’s a quick follow-up.

It probably isn’t bad fuel.
I have come to the conclusion that once the engine is hot she stops running. I’ve had a few suggestions, bad coil was a good one from ini88.

[ini88] I had something similar with mine after working on it. I hard spark*, fuel, air, etc. Everything was set to go. Then a swapped coil with my Defender because I suspected the coil was weak. yup, that was it. You can have spark, but if its yellow or orange its too weak. You need that white, blue spark to set it running. Maybe check your spark again?

Complete thread here.
Indeed ini88, I will be sourcing a new coil and possibly look at swapping some sensors. I found a derelict 1994 Range Rover in the local breakers yard. I pulled a bunch of stuff off of her. More on that in a later blog post.

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Feedback (Post #211) 10/15/2010

This is exactly the kind of feedback I love to receive. At this time, I don’t advertise or make any money off my website. The entire reason for it’s existence is to help others. From the Land Rovers Only Message Board:

I just saw a post you made back in Sept 2007. It was where you recommended that someone check the connection on the ignition switch. I’ve had my 16 yr old son’s 88 RRC torn to pieces this week looking for an electrical gremlin. The windows had stopped working as did the wipers, the a/c and the stereo. I had almost the whole dash out of this thing.

So tonight I checked the connector you mentioned. Behold, it was about to fall off. A few wire ties later and everything is fine. I could have fixed this by removing 6 screws… Next time I’ll search this forum first. It’s the first place I go for any Disco issues but didn’t think of it for the RRC.

It’s all back together now and I just wanted to say thanks! Also got your site marked as it appears to be full of good things.

Robert
Huntsville, AL
2004 Disco SE7
1988 RRC

When you hear several major systems have failed you can be sure it has something to do with the accessory connections on the ignition switch. I initially noticed problems with my radio and my windows not working when my ignition tumbler problem was discovered. Sadly when my quit me it was a cold December day. The temperature had dropped to 12 degrees that night and early morning. It is not any fun trying to find issues when you are shaking so hard your teeth are chattering from the arctic cold.

I’m really happy I could help some one out. I see a lot of these issues on the message boards. Of all the problems on Land Rovers, the electrical ones are the worst. At least that’s my opinion. When you break down the system to its elements it gets easier but it can be a overwhelming situation when you open a panel or look behind something and all you see are bundles of wires.

I opened a kick panel on my Range Rover one day. Inside I found a severely burnt bare wire. Everything on the Rover at that time was working fine. What was it? Who knows. There is really no good way to know. I taped it off so it would no longer make sparks bumping up against the bulk head. To this day I have no idea what that wire goes to.

Have a good weekend, and wish me luck when I fire up the Range Rover and drive her for the first time in nearly 4 months.
Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

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No Oil Change for Jooooooo!!! (Post #92) 6/6/2008

On the way home Saturday night I passed a Discovery 1 on the side of the I-35 in Moore. I wanted to zip back and check it out see it I could help but I had to get my son to his engagement for the evening. My very understanding wife allowed me to zip back up the interstate and see if he was still there. He was, and I stopped and asked if I could help him out. He was from Texas and as his window stickers told me it was south Texas.

As I got there the wrecker he had called through his AAA membership was just finishing getting him up on wheels. He told me it over heated, as you know is common for Land Rovers. I didn’t argue with him. He asked me, “who does the work on your Rover,”
“Well, I do.” I confidently told him.
So I asked if I could give him a ride somewhere and when he declined I was off. About 4 miles down the road I figured out what he had just asked me. He wanted to know a shop in the area he could get his Rover confidently worked on. So in my pride and arrogance I missed an opportunity to direct him to Charlie Blankenship at Sports and Classics just 10 miles down the highway. Who knows where that wrecker took him for repairs.

So with that, whoever you are out there I hope you got back on the road and I apologize for misinterpreting your question and in doing so failed to offer you the help you needed.

Sunday, I settled in to the garage today for some easy time after my son’s basketball tournament. They won one, lost two. Not bad for a team whose first goal is everyone getting each player the same amount of playing time. He had a good weekend considering the rust he has built up due to his lack of playing time for the past year and some change.

So I set in to change the oil in the Discovery. I got the bonnet open, got the oil wrench out, I retrieved the oil drain pan and donned my rubber gloves. Then I discovered I didn’t have enough 20w50 to do the change and I didn’t have an oil filter on hand. That was disappointing. So I sat and debated about going to the store and picking up some oil and a filter and decided….I’d rather drink beer. So I had a few brews and a cigar and managed to get myself quite toasted.

So the oil change that wasn’t to be will have to be on another weekend. I did manage to cut out some air filter material and replace the air vents under the hood while I listened to KGOU and my friend’s Blues radio show. Hard Luck Jim does a great job mixing up (we used to call it spinning) a superb blues show every Saturday and Sunday afternoon.

Well, thats all for now, thanks for reading and happy rovering.

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