Category: JagGuy

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Removing the Radius Arms on my Range Rover Classic Overland Rig: Part 2 (Post #712) 7/27/2025

Sorry no post last week. I was really tired and my back was really acting up. All you missed was three hours of frustration and a hot ember flying off the cutting wheel and landing in my ear. WHICH I didn’t manage to catch on the video. Stupid GoPro. I’ll post the link to both videos down below.

This weekend I pulled the second radius arm off. I went straight to the cutting. There was no resolution to remove the bolt with a wrench. The bushing sleave was completely rust welded to the bolt. I banged and banged on the first one to NO avail. I even managed to hit my hand at the wrist with the hammer. OUCH does not cover it. Two pound hammers win EVERY time when they meet bone.

Once off everything needed to have rust removed or nasty old sticky polyurethane failed bushing material removed from it. Think, chewing gum, but it doesn’t dissolve in acetone. Nasty.

After I spent 30 minutes at the bench wire wheel, I remembered I own a sandblasting cabinet. So I blasted all the parts. So easy. It did reinforce that I need to improve that cabinet by relocating the pick up tube like they do on a hundred YouTube videos.

Once clean all the parts got a nice couple of coats of primer and a coat of matte black paint in the vain hope that rust and corrosion will not cause me trouble later. I know I’m fooling myself, but it’s become habit at this point.

I found a nice surprise… I have already replaced the poly bushings on the front half!!! Yeah! Holy unexpected outcomes Batman! I am swapping the panhard rod bushing because its been sitting soaked in steering oil for 5 years. I wonder if a put a boot over it, it would not deteriorate….. hmmmmm.

Next step is getting the new bushings pressed into the radius arm and the panhard rod. For this I will need to visit one of my friends shops that own a press. That’s either the Evil German Dude or Mike the JagGuy. You’ll see who wins next week.

That’s about it for this week. Thanks for visiting.

May the wind take your troubles away…. Happy Rovering.

Part 1

Part 2

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Planning the Exterior Lights for my Range Rover Classic Overland Rig (Post #707) 6/22/2025

I have a plan to light the exterior of the Range Rover Classic. I want to be able to turn on the exterior lights while I lay on my mattress inside. This is mostly to have a tactical advantage if something or someone is on the outside of my vehicle.

I want to be able to turn on a single light or with one switch turn on ALL THE LIGHTS. In order to do this I needed to come up with a circuit drawing for this task. I tried my hand but had little to no confidence that I had done it correctly.

So I consulted my best friend Mike to get a circuit drawn and to get a source for the parts. I drove up last weekend and had lunch with he and Paul and then went back to Mike’s shop. We sat and had a beer in his RV while we talked about lots of stuff and got caught up since we saw each other at my birthday part in October last year.

He scribbled a circuit for me. We talked about where to get the parts and he gave me the details. He buys parts that are for automotive use. He buys from them to build the trailer wiring conversions from military to civilian / civilian to military. He sells them on XM381.com if that is something you are looking for.

xm381.com image of a cable conversion.

I took the graphic and re-drew it. Then from the parts I ordered after we met I cobbled together a loose circuit and tested it. Using the battery from the Range Rover Classic and some wires and two lights from my stock of lights I’ve salvaged from breaker’s yards.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Next thing I need to do is order some switches and 16 gauge wire and decide on the lights I want to install. I have some picked out, I’ll need to make a decision one way or another.

I took my time and puzzled this out and I’m so happy I got it to work. My drawing was “close” but would not have worked. Mike was so gracious to help me with this.

Thanks for reading, like and subscribe, and Happy Rovering.

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Diagnosing Parasitic Draw on a Range Rover Classic: Part 3 (Post #680) 11/25/2024

If you’ve been following along I’ve been trying to find the parasitic draw for quite some time. I finally put my head on straight and dug in.

Having found the circuit that was giving me the trouble it was then time to call in the brains and ask some questions. So I called JagGuy. Mike is a genius and understands more about the physical universe than is possible for most mere mortals.

In our chat he said it about the time the thought was pulling up in the driveway of my mind, “You need to check your relay.” He said he’d look at the schematics (which he said were terrible by the way). It indeed came down to the relay. I have the WRONG relay installed.

I don’t remember when I came up with the fact the OEM relay failed. I do remember bringing it into my house were it sat on my end table and then in the drawer of my end table and then moved to the office? and then lost forever. SO I suspected the relay, I just forgot why.

So back to “the wrong relay” this is the one I had installed…..

What I should have installed was this relay…

You can see the slight difference. The 87a relay has 87a hot. the 87 87 relay is NOT hot all the time. How he came up with that I will never know. What he shared was the 87a relay might be the most common relay in the “relay world”. He has purchased and installed 1000’s of them making his trailer wiring converter boxes for military to civilian service [xm381.com]. He said they are common on fuel injections too if I remember the conversation.

Anyway, he said the far LESS common 87 87 relay is the one I needed. I promptly ordered one from Atlantic British an hour before he texted me back all the great details.

So there you have it. Something as simple as that can disable you. It is good to know that your can use an 87a in a pinch if your 87 87 fails. But you will want to pull it before you park it for any length of time.

UPDATE: The part has arrived and I’m going to test this weekend to confirm by parasitic draw is gone!

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

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Diagnosing Parasitic Draw on a Range Rover Classic: Part 1 (Post #678) 11/10/2024

Parasitic draw. Nothing is worse than electric problems with your vehicle. Nothing. Nope…not even that….or that. Electronic problems top the list. Okay, I googled it and electric problems weren’t even on the list on some sites. It’s numero uno on my list so let’s run with that.

In this installment I set out to the source of my parasitic draw. Seems like this is a common issue with older cars and British cars in particular. This is not the first time for me. A few episodes ago I diagnosed a possible failed alternator. When the diode pack fails in an alternator it can lead to dead batteries.

I currently have the alternator isolated so I know my issue isn’t that. I setup the multimeter in series with my battery and got it placed on the windshield so I could watch the setting change.

I started with 1.9 amps of draw. I pulled every fuse in the fuse block to no avail. I then started on the auxiliary fuses under the passenger seat. There is a row of covered fuses, I check all those. There is also two fuses stuck on the side. Turns out one of these was the culprit. When I pulled the red 10 amp fuse the draw dropped to .01 amps.

I have 4 manuals and one of them had the fuses identified. This fuse was the fuel pump. Now that’s a bit of a puzzler. The fuel pump is OFF when the key is off. I spent a lot of time thinking about it. And I didn’t come up with anything. I’ll need to look at the electrical circuit and see what comes up. I’m also going to call JagGuy and get his take on it.

This is part 1 of I’m not sure how many parts. As many as it takes…

This weekend was the Marine Corps’ 249th birthday. I give a shout out to my friends and family who were Marines. I also gave a shout out to all the veterans in my family. There were a bunch.

Marines, my grandfather William Alvy Stephens served during the Banana Wars after WW1 and my uncle Ben Johnson on my mom’s side served during Vietnam. I also served with several friends who also served with me in the USMCR and went on to retire, MGySgt Jason Rogers, USMCR (ret.) and Col. Mike Gann, USMC (ret.). My friend Howard McKinnis also served in the Marine Corps during Vietnam. My wife has several cousins who also served and retired from our beloved Corps.

I come from a long line of veterans. Both my dad and uncle served in the Navy. Another uncle on my mom’s side served in the Navy. My cousin Victoria retired from the Army and she had a son who also served in the Army. My cousin Dan served in the Air Force and a son of his served in the Navy. Many of my Great Uncles served during WW2 in the Merchant Marines and in the US Army Air Corps. Brave men one and all. I’m sure I could go on to name all my cousins who are married to military men but I’ll stop here.

Thank you for your service to our great nation.

Like and subscribe, thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

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Fuel Pump Failure: Part Duex (Post #667) 8/19/2024

Well here we go again. I decided this weekend I was going to get the Big White Bus started and move her out of the shoppe. I tried to get her started and nothing. I didn’t hear the fuel pump kick on. That’s…a bad sign.

So I asked my son to help me test. I had him turn the ignition on while I checked the voltage at the fuel pump. I had voltage.

That eliminated a LOT of testing of other components. I had a bad feeling the fuel pump was crapped out again. Turns out I was right. It was completely varnished.

What the hell right? I put 5 gallons of fresh gas in it back in December after I replaced the rubber filler hoses. I guess that wasn’t enough fresh gas. I called my friend JagGuy and asked some “chemistry” questions regarding gasoline.

Is it possible that the gas in the tank is so far gone that it varnishes? Its possible was his reply. We came to the same conclusion that all the gas needs to be removed and fresh gas added. We also talked about fuel stabilizer. I’ve never used fuel stabilizer. I guess I’m going to use it going forward.

Who knows how long the Big White Bus is going to be laid up until I can get her running regularly? Not me and I’m the project manager! So fuel stabilizer is going to be all the rage. And I’ll start running her on a regular basis.

What is odd are all these “This [insert vehicle type here] has been sitting in this field for 30 years!!! Will it start?!?!” videos on Youtube. JagGuy surmised, probably accurately that most of the truly ancient stuff has mechanical fuel pumps. Throw in a fresh battery, hope the rats haven’t eaten the wires, and if they drain the tank and use fresh gas…maybe that’s how they get them started.

Otherwise I’m calling bullshit on all these videos. There’s no way 30 year old gas is any good. My gas is five years, old give or take a year, and it’s crap.

Now I’m going to be tasked with trying to drain the tank. And then what do I do with it. Do I dare trying to mix it with good gas and burning it in my cars? What do you think?

If you watch the video you’ll see a demonstration on how simple it is to fix the fuel pump.

Like and subscribe. Patreon contributions are always accepted.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

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D Pillar – Painting? (Post #602) 10/3/2022

D Pillar Work, Interior trim painting…allergies

I got out into the shop and was working on some peripheral projects over the weekend. Peripheral because they don’t directly get the Big White Bus back on the road for driving. These are the cosmetic fixes, plain and simple. The primary project line is getting the motor back to 100% and making it reliable. I completed the repair of the heater fan blower motor. That disabled the motor due to the coolant hoses being removed.

I did start the motor about a month ago. Surprisingly she fired right up. I was really happy about that. I have not addressed the original issue with the reliability of the motor which is the ignition system. I’m 94.67% sure I’m going to replace the distributor with a Davis Unified Ignition (DUI). Its an all in one unit built in Memphis, Tennessee. Seeing the price today makes me wish I’d have bought it a year ago. The price has gone up about 50$(US). Although waiting has allowed me to start the one year warranty when I’m actually driving her.

All other projects from the list….linked here [Okierover.com Blog] not counting the replacement alternator, which I believe is where my vampire batter drain is coming from, are not keeping me from driving her.

I’ve ordered Knightsbridge seat covers. I finally talked myself out of putting leather back in. The estimates I got from local car upholstery companies were more expensive than ordering new leather…..customized with embroidered family crests on the headrests and my face digitally embroidered on the seat backs. Just kidding, but seriously, super expensive. So I ordered seat covers I’m not afraid to get muddy and dirty.

My new radio and speakers have arrived. I’ll need to watch the install video, call tech support 16 times, and finally give up and have the Evil German Dude or JagGuy help me install it. I’ll post something about that when I get closer to installing.

Still a couple of interior trim pieces that need painting. I am not going to remove them, I’m going to paint them in place, its just not worth the effort to remove them. The door cards came out without much effort and I need to wash them down, tape them off, and paint them. Perhaps next weekend.

I know this post was about the D Pillar so let me close with that. I have the welding repair still yet to do. As mentioned in the video, I used a palm sander and 100grit sandpaper to remove the glue from the beauty cover. It formerly had vinyl wrapped on it.

I’ve cut out some closed cell neoprene foam to replace the rust inducing open cell crap they delivered the Range Rover with from the factory. I’ve decided to start with painting the beauty panels. Rattle can style…can’t get much more redneck than that. I’ll show the finished product when I get it done.

Thanks for reading, watching, and Happy Rovering.

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