Category: JagGuy

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Delinquent Posting (Post #325) 4/2/2013

Sorry for the delinquency of my posting. I have been busy I swear it! You know the Range Rover is marooned at my daughter’s house. It was initially thought to be a coil issue. While the coil was probably a problem, but it turns out to be the fuel pump.

I know! How could I miss that? Well I didn’t. The three things you need to make a Land Rover are AIR, GAS, and SPARK. Contrary to popular myth MAGIC has very little to do with it. If you break it down to those three components it is really quite simple to figure out why your Land Rover stranded you in the parking lot of a rural post office.

I diagnosed the spark as “failed”. It was. It was so weak it was probably going to give me a problem in the near future. That is sorted out with the new Flamethrower coil.

I called JagGuy and confirmed how the fuel system worked. So it’s the fuel pump. I am really wanting to repair the old one by swapping out just the pump. For convenience I will replace it with a replacement pump. I will repair the original by rebuilding it. That way I will have an on-the-shelf-spare.

Sorry no pictures. I have a test and an assignment due on Wednesday. I don’t have the time to play right now. I gave myself a break on Saturday and Sunday. Lately it seems I’ve been exhausted for no apparent reason. The rest was appreciated greatly by this old sack of bones.

Next week will have two posts, one to repair the Range Rover and the other the results of the Fort Washita Rendezvous which is this weekend. April 5-7.

Aaron checked in and left a funny email.

“I thought of you the other day.
I changed the oil on my 93 Range Rover Classic and I didn’t even burn my eyebrows!”

My reply,

“LOL. Eyebrows are over-rated.”

Thanks for checking in Aaron, it was good to hear from you.

Today was April Fool’s Day. I pranked NO ONE.
It was also Killer Dave’s beautiful wife Elizabeth’s birthday. Happy Birthday Liz.
It was also one of my Marine brother’s birthday, Happy Birthday Wally Beddoe. He has a Marine-centric blog (http://www.usmc81.com/) which is quite well regarded in the blogosphere.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

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Preppers Anthem (Post #316) 1/19/2013

If you don’t watch “Doomsday Preppers on the National Geographic Channel” (National Geographic) then this song really doesn’t mean anything to you other than a message about how we are destroying the world around us. To those of you who do watch “Preppers” you “get it”. I enjoy watching the Preppers show. I have learned something different in every episode. For me, the hardcore preppers are a trip. One of those guys has at least a million dollars invested in his plan to survive…whatever happens next. Seriously, if you watch that show you will see people who are preparing for an end to the way of life as we currently know it.

Think of a worst case scenario, really think about it, now take the severity of that and multiply it by ten, there is a person out there preparing for that to happen. The show goes through several of these scenarios:

  • Failed financial system
  • Comet/meteor impact
  • Civil unrest
  • Famine
  • Natural disasters
  • Dirty bomb attack

All of these might happen.

If you watch the show you know that they assess each prepper at the end of their segment. The give them a score on their readiness and the “experts” give their opinion of the likeliness of the particular disaster actually occurring. I haven’t heard one that said, it was very likely.

Momentum
I am a firm believer in the momentum approach. You know the physics adage, “objects in motion tend to stay in motion”. Just a decade ago, people had over-inflated worries about the Y2K bug. Remember that? It was the thought at the time, that all the computers would just magically stop working when the date rolled over to January 1, 2000.

Did a lot of people spend a LOT of money to make that not happen, sure they did. Not all of it was necessary. I worked for my buddy JagGuy back then and he made a pretty good living off the regulatory concerns of the Federal Deposit and Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the banks it serves. Among the many things we did for the clients, we helped banks certify elevators that didn’t even have a computer in them, “Y2K ready”. Madness.

Let’s get back to my momentum theory. I had a concerned citizen back then ask me about Y2K and their concern there would be no power. They detailed how they were going to buy a generator and stock up on food, “Just in case.”

Even though deep down inside I wanted to laugh at them, I didn’t belittle them, I thought, “If this helps them sleep at night, good for them. At least they are preparing.” I listened to their concerns and then I asked them a simple question.
“Does the power company make any money if they can’t provide power to their customers?”
They finally said, “No, I guess not.”
Then I said, “Don’t you think they want to continue to be able to bill their customers for power?”
You could see the lights come on, and they said, “So I shouldn’t buy a generator?”

I told them that was not my call. Do whatever you think will be best. They were preparing for a disaster. Why discourage them? They are working out a plan for some unforeseen event. GOOD!

I believe the momentum of the society we live in will continue. People will always need water and food and fuel and electrical power and the basic necessities of life. There will be someone there to provide those things in all but the absolutely worst case scenarios.

World War 3 was once a real worry, some of you younger readers might not remember the START treaties and how we were all sure we would die from nuclear war. Nuclear détente (Wikipedia) was inevitable. People planned for this event by building bomb shelters and stocking up on food. “Blast from the Past” (1999) (IMDB) was a romantic comedy about a naïve man who comes out into the world after being in a nuclear fallout shelter for 35 years. As you know, it never happened. It will most likely never happen on that scale.

Not a Prepper
I’ve had people say I was a prepper. I have seen the 1984 version of “Red Dawn“ (IMDB) literally 100 times. Thirty years ago, we believed it was a real possibility that Russians might invade America. This isn’t even part of any serious discussion at the Pentagon today. There is no way we are being invaded, not even by China. (Who would they sell all the stuff they produce to?) With this in mind I’ve been prepared to wage a counterinsurgency since 1984.

I think it is important to clarify my position:

  • I believe it is important to be prepared for EVERY situation.
  • I believe I am more prepared than most people.
  • I believe our system of government and the organization of our society will survive nearly all man-made catastrophes.
  • I believe within two hours I could leave my home and live anywhere for at least a week.

As far as I am concerned, I am not a prepper. Am I prepared for an event that might change the way I live comfortably off the resources provided by an organized system of government and society?
Short answer, not as prepared as I’d like to be.

What should we prepare for?
Our biggest worry should be natural disasters. Tornadoes wipe out communities almost every year in Oklahoma. Being ready for an interruption in basic services is probably the place you should put the majority of your resources. We are not likely to see a tsunami wipe out tens of thousands of people, or a volcano spew magma all over our cities. But a tornado could plow a mile wide path through your hometown tomorrow (any tomorrow). I’ve seen it.

So to wrap this up. If you want to prep/be a prepper by all means go for it. My advice for most everyone else in Oklahoma in descending order of importance:

  • Have an alternate source of water
  • Have some sort of shelter and or a way to heat your home
  • Store some rations if you plan to bug in
  • Be prepared to repel looters

If it is a natural disaster, the government and the aid societies will be onsite in a few hours after it strikes. Your friends will be able to help you too so don’t be afraid to ask for help.

If you are just getting started I suggest you read about making a Bug-Out Bag (Art of Manliness.com) and formulate a plan. This type of planning will get you a LONG way toward being prepared for something temporarily terrible happening.

Arming Myself to the Teeth

Contrary to what you may read on some websites, you don’t need a fully kitted-out expedition-class Land Rover Defender with ring-mounted MK19 40mm grenade launcher to survive. (I didn’t say you shouldn’t have a MK19, I just said you don’t NEED one.) A full tank of gas for your Range Rover will get you a long way toward getting out of the way of danger.  I see a lot of guys paying for some very expensive firearms. For what an well configured AR-15 costs, you could buy 3 months worth of portable food and a very reliable Mossberg 12 gauge shotgun.

Wrap-Up
Well that was a lot. It was possibly a little scatter-brained but I think most people will get the gist of this post.

Key points…

  • Something bad will probably happen (think natural disaster not societal collapse)
  • Make a good Bug-Out Bag
  • Be prepared, have a plan

Thanks for reading and Happy Prepping Rovering.

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Shocking (Post #311) 1/11/2013

If you are a regular reader you will remember, or perhaps you will not, that I found the broken shock mount back in July 2012 when I was working on the steering box. At the time I did nothing about it.

As you can well imagine that would come back to haunt me. While driving the Range Rover during the latest little bit of snowy weather I heard some new clunking from below. I was pretty sure of the location and source.

I knew this would require welding so I called up my buddy JagGuy. His superior shoppe and skills to go with it were just the ticket for this project.

I drove up to the shoppe on Saturday morning. We never really do any work before lunch. We spent that time chatting and catching up on the latest news on our children and grandchildren’s progress to and through adulthood.

We share stories and generally solve all the world’s problems and as the Grinch so eloquently puts it in How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), “Solve world hunger, tell no one.”

When Paul and his son arrives it is time to get on the road and get some food. We headed off for lunch at Earl’s Rib Palace (I know classy name, right?) It’s hard to beat their chow. The owner was Elvis’s personal chef at the time of The King’s death. With yesterday (January 8th) being the King’s birthday I thought this tidbit was appropriate to this story. After reading the history of Earl, it’s not too far a stretch to say, “Earl killed Elvis.”

Due to the conversation we had at lunch, I almost put black bars across everyone’s eyes to mask their identities.

After we put on a couple of pounds and drank a half gallon of tea we returned to the shop. We cleared the rack and ran the Range Rover up on it and lifted her up for an inspection.

The steering damper is showing some wear. I have a post prepping for that. The rear differential is showing a leak on the drive shaft seal. After I pointed that out, JagGuy quipped, “That’s not a leak, when you have to put a receptical under it to catch the fluid, then it’s a leak. I’ll keep an eye on it just the same.

We lowered the Classic so we could get the work done on her. I removed the left front wheel and wired the shock up out of the way. I took the busted piece off and we examined what would need to be done to fix it.

The shock mount is welded to the axle and is thus not a part you can readily buy and bolt on a new one. It requires a repair.

JagGuy took the mount off to the sandblasting cabinet for clean up. I got the angle grinder and wire wheel out and cleaned up the remaining part of the mount. I wiped the bits off with some degreaser and was ready for the welding to begin.

JagGuy cleaned up a large “military grade” washer. The plan was to use the washer to splint the broken bits back together. His work with the “Ma Dueces” he bobs provides lots of left over bits such as washers. The fact that the splint came from a vehicle our military used to keep Mr. I Hate America at bay makes me proud.

JagGuy started by “tacking” the broken bits in place. A few bursts of light and some sparks meant the TIG welds were in place. I learned a lot about TIG and MIG welding between coolings. This makes me wish I had taken that night class at the Vo-Tech when I worked there. Oh well, as long as I have Evil German Dudes and JagGuys willing to ply their skill I don’t have to learn it.

JagGuy then set the washer in place and used a “C” clamp to hold it in position for the first tack. This caused some issues with the bits of the original part. It moved and caused him to start over. I was happy to fetch the tools while he sorted out where it went wrong.

He got it all back in place and proceeded to weld her all up.

JagGuy finished up the welding. He was quite funny about the job. He said don’t show this to the Evil German Dude. “He wouldn’t like it, but it’ll work.”

I got some rust resistant paint and put a coat on it. After it dried…more or less…I started bolting everything back up. That’s when the slight difference in thickness of the washer caused me some problems.

The added thickness caused me to have trouble getting the nut started. JagGuy produced a different nut an after some effort I got it started and tightened up. The alignment of the bottom cup of the shock bushing is slightly skewed but shouldn’t cause any trouble.

The good news is, the weld made it all the way home and is working out well. I don’t anticipate any more trouble. If it does fail, JagGuy said we would just cut out the old one and weld in a new one. If that happens maybe I’ll invite the Evil German Dude and put his welding skills to the test.

Thanks go out to JagGuy for helping me out.
Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

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Moving Okierover.com (Post #246) 2/6/2011

Me with my Coveted Mug

My hosting service is kicking me out. He said of our break up, that it was him and not me that was the problem. I am going to miss having such a trusted location to park my website.

In actuality my site has been hosted on my best friend’s servers for free for all of these years. He has been really awesome in that. He has decided to drop the account that allows him to host sites and go back to residential service which is twice as fast and half the cost. How can I blame him?

In any event OkieRover.com will be transferring to a GoDaddy.com hosted site in the next week. So if you are looking for us and for some bizarre reason you don’t find us well… 

I AM WORKING ON IT DAMMIT! 
WEBSITES ARE HARD!
Just kidding be patient with me, and if you have any questions you can always email me.

Once again THANK YOU to my friend JagGuy for hosting my site for so long.
And as always, thank you so much for coming to my site and hopefully we will be back to full functionality soon.

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Differential Out (Post #196) 8/24/2010

Holy crap! Sunday was not all that much fun. I had a few hours to devote to Range Rover Classic Restoration Part Duex. I started with sanding the tailgate. I’m not sure if you have ever done any paint work or if you have watched any of the dozens of car shows on television. But when you see them sanding, and sanding, and sanding, there is a very good reason for that.

When you take paint off a panel you often have to remove the paint and primer down to the metal. Once you do, you can see how thick the paint is on the metal. I noticed this on the tailgate and remembered watching Edd China on Wheeler Dealers BBC America, sand the panel before he painted it. The basic idea here is to reduce the lip of the paint. Sanding it down makes the edge disappear. Well very nearly disappear anyway.

This is not a show car and I am not a paint and body guy. So I sanded the edge down on all the bits where it showed. I think I did a pretty good job but I know I could do better but I thought the time was better spent somewhere else. So I finished sanding, checked the edge and touched it up again. Then I wiped it all down with paint thinner to remove the dust and I covered it with more acid etching primer. The next step on this is to buy the paint to cover the tailgate and rear panels.

I then set out to get the differential out of the axle. To do this you need to remove the drive shaft. As I tried to do this it seemed like every one of those nyloc nuts would round off. Frustrated I finally decided the drive shaft would come off at the differential. I latched the vise-grips to each nut and went to wrenching or socketing whatever.
With the drive shaft out of the way, I started on the nyloc nuts on the differential. Luckily they did not round off. I positioned the hydraulic jack under the differential and had my trusty helper RovErica lower the jack. That didn’t work out like I thought it should. I just had her let it go and I manually wrangled it to the garage floor.

Let me tell you it doesn’t take many of these projects for you to appreciate the weight of some of the parts of the Range Rover. The differential is a very dense and heavy bit of the Range Rover. I totally underestimated my upper arm strength and its weight. The good news after it was out, I only had one busted up finger so I feel fortunate. Although sore, that finger was still functioning, so bonus.

I was pretty spent when it was all said and done as evidenced by this picture of me.

I looked at the differential and there locked deep inside was the end of my axle shaft. I piddled around trying to get it out but nothing worked. It took me modifying an old screwdriver into a punch of sorts. I placed it on the broken shaft and started banging away gently persuading it out with a one pound hammer.

You can well imagine with the heat generated when a shaft spins in two, that it would be stuck. Think heat expansion properties and bendy metal. And stuck it was. Finally after quite a few whacks the tip came out.

You can see in the picture that there was some serious stress involved in breaking that shaft. I talked to RovErica again to see if she remembered what might have occurred during her driving that might have caused it to break. I took her back to when she remembered the front wheels starting to chirp. The chirping tires were the result of the viscous coupling failing post drive shaft failure.

She recalled two episodes where she drove off the road why coming home from a friend’s home in East Norman. She said one of those resulted in the Range Rover leaving the road and her coming to a halt sideways. Or that’s how she told it. Either way this could have been the event. My friend who served in the Oklahoma Highway Patrol told me the spin out maneuver they employ to stop cars often breaks the drive shaft or at the least the drive train. Good work RovErica.

I called my pal JagGuy and asked him if there was anything I needed to do to the differential before I reinstalled it. He started talking about limited slip differentials and the fact that if it was limited slip the clutches would be totally hosed. I mentioned I could not see anything like that but he was insistent.

I also looked at Atlantic British and Rovers North for parts lists for the differential. Neither of them listed any part for the differential that could be for a limited slip.

I got on the RangRovers.net message board and asked if anyone knew one way or the other.

Danny from West Wycombe, England and James from Wisconsin offered some wisdom on the differential. Danny lives in what looks like from Google Maps an ideal place to own a Land Rover. I’d love to know if he lives in this estate. Hell Fire Caves looks like a lot of fun. I pretty sure they have a little bit of money. That looks like an incredible place to live. CHECK OUT THAT CARRIAGE HOUSE!

There are even ponies on the polo ground!

View Larger Map

I can just imagine greenlaning around that great property in my Land Rover.

Equal billing for James leaves me with this remembrance. The last time I was in Wisconsin, I was driving around in an M54A2 6×6.

I’ve never been to Spain, Emu Plains, NSW, Australia  but I been to Oklahoma. Ron Beckett (P38ARover) also commented on the board, “Your car would have a standard open diff. LR never offered an LSD.”

View Larger Map

I don’t see myself putting that back in until then and that gives me plenty of time to confirm everything. I do not want to take it out again. While it’s out I think I put my angle grinder to work and give it a lovely coat of primer gray.

I will also investigate some synthetic lubricant for the refit. I cleaned out some nasty stuff from the “pumpkin”. As you can imagine the last bits of the axle and all the fine bits that were ground off wound up in the bottom of the reservoir. The axle lube was a lovely silvery color. This is what initially tipped JagGuy off that a clutch was eaten. We shall see.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

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So much information, so little blog posts (Post #188) 7/19/2010

I am progressing at a leisurely pace on the Range Rover Restoration Part Duex. I have run out of funds for now and have changed gears a bit. I am now working on stuff that doesn’t require any supplies. Its also kinda hard to be motivated to “bust it out” when the temperature is 100+F in the garage. As RovErica said to me the other day when she came home after a long drive around town in her unairconditioned Ford Taurus, “I’m sweating balls out there.” As she said that, I remembered the good old days when I didn’t have air conditioning. Ahhh memories. Nothing motivates a kid more than suffering.

I have started to organize the pictures so the tasks can be broken down in to manageable pieces. This hopefully will prevent me from having novel sized posts about rust removal. I know WTH! I know how you all love to read about grinding rust but I’m sorry you will have to get your War and Peace sized fix of minutia of rust removal from some Jaguar or Jeep website. 

With some new tools, I have decided I could proceed with the rust portion of the project and pull the carpets in the front of the Rover and see what kind of damage is up there. I was NOT surprised to find rust. I was surprised to find holes. The good news is it was only two holes. The bad news is they are not in easy places to work. I also believe before long another seam will begin producing holes.

This is a picture underneath the passenger side seat. You can see the hole in the floor and the rust along the seam there. There is a bit of rust a little further back that is even worse than this. Therefore the entire passenger side seat and electrics will need to be removed to get to the problem spots. If I don’t, its only a matter of time before my passenger is ejected through the floor board. I only allow people I ACTUALLY LIKE to ride with me in the Range Rover so I should really try to fix this correctly. While I’m at it, I think moving the engine management computer to place higher up would be prudent. We’ll see how that all pans out when I get closer to reassembly.

I pulled the carpets and mats and to my surprise they were still wet two weeks after the last rain. We have had 90 plus degree heat for over a month and except for a drive during the flash flooding on July 4th she has just sat in the driveway. We did have quite a bit of rain during the early part of the month so I have to assume this rain is coming from somewhere above the rust. My first guess is the windshield seal. So add to the list of things to do, pulling the windshield and replacing the seam. More expense and more time. This will have to be professionally done for I have no way to pull the windshield. The guys across the pond on the TV show Wheeler Dealer hire this out and I will take their lead and do the same. If it’s good enough for Edd China, its good enough for me.

So with wet carpet and very, very wet sound pads coming out, are we at all surprised there is rust on the floor boards? Rhetorical question! Lets get a look at it.

In these pictures there is a pre and a post picture. The PRE pictures are before any grinding was done. There were some pads glued to the floor and they were very rusted underneath. The goal was to get to bare metal and remove the rust. I will probably hit all this one more time before the acid etching primer goes down and the entire area is covered in new sound deadening material.

Driver’s side

Passenger’s side

I mentioned two holes. It was somewhat comforting to find the stainless steel screw that holds the seat facia firmly embedded in the rusty metal. Here are the pre and post pics for each hole.

I think perhaps it looks worse than it really is. I stopped by JagGuy’s shop on Saturday to show him the pictures of all this rust. He said, “That ain’t rust.” He proceeded to show me a Jaguar with rust so bad entire sections of the body were gone. The surface rust I had was not even to be concerned about in his eyes. He says a liberal application of Rustoleum paint will slow down the rust. Even better would be some Waxoyl or the like. I’m still investigating which one I will go with.

So overall I felt pretty good about that. But he had not seen the footwell pictures yet. He had only seen the pictures from the rear of the Range Rover. And those my friends, will be in the next blog post.

Stay warm and Happy Rovering.

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