In this video post I investigate my cracking vinyl on the D pillar of the Big White Bus. The Southern Plains is very unforgiving to fabric, even plastic fabric. Mine is cracking and looking pretty terrible. Time to pull it off and get it replaced.
I’m going to need to refresh the black paint on all the pillars and the door frames. I found the part number for a rattle can of Beluga Black. Lots of cleaning, light sanding, cleaning, taping, priming, sanding, and painting, and more painting coming this summer.
And…the headliner is going to need either regluing or replacing…..again. I might go with a fabric that I can stick my souvenir event patches can stick to, just.like.a.real.overlander.
I also find a lovely whole rusted in the passenger side D pillar that will need some repair. Lots of grinding away the rust (rust abatement), welding in a new piece of metal, priming and painting. Good thing I took a welding class last year.
Some time ago I noticed the footpad on my inner fender well would droop when I rested my foot on it. In the beginning I would just put my foot under it and lift it back up. But one day when doing that the footpad broke away from the fender well.
The bolts holding the footpad in place had rust welded to the fender well. So when I was lifting it back into place I was actually bending the fender well pieces, much like you wiggle a wire rapidly to break it. As I’ve said before I really have become accustom to resting my foot on the pad and I wanted it fixed.
So I took some time and investigated and repaired it. I used a Dremel tool with a 60 grit grinding wheel and got as much rust off the inner and outer fender well. While I was behind the quarter panel I also ground off some surface rust.
Once I had it all ground down, I applied some acid etching primer to the metal surfaces. I know it won’t last forever, but maybe it will slow down the rust.
Thanks for reading and watching the video. It’s low quality but hopefully entertaining.
If you are a regular reader you will remember some late unpleasantness when a distracted driver smacked into the Big White Bus while she was parked on a city street. I was determined to get the BWB back on the road. After all we already have one car payment and my budget would not allow for a second. Besides that, I love this Range Rover. We have a lot of miles together and I know her inside and out. I didn’t really relish going through learning another automobile.
So the day was set aside for “mechanic-ing”, but before we managed to get started some friends of Rogers showed up with a lovely 1932 Buick. I don’t remember all the specs on this car but it was a Buick and nicely done. The trunk was a dealer option and still had the original leather clad luggage inside. A time capsule to another time.
1932 Buick. You never know what will show up at the shoppe.
To get the fender straightened was the first thing. We got the Range Rover lined up with our pull point. We did not believe the under structure was damaged but we needed to pull the fender out to make sure. JagGuy got the “come along” out and hooked it to a M54 military truck parked in front of the shoppe and on to the bent fender.
Mike gently pulls the fender out.
After the pulling, inspection.
That worked nicely. “The panel “wants” to go back the way it started.” he said admiring the job. So pulling it straight will help with a lot of the work. We did learn the bumper was a loss. I couldn’t see any reason to try and straighten it. I’ll have to get a new bumper. I’ve got my eyes on some aftermarket ones.
We took a break after that and went over to Back Door BBQ. The “Beastwich” sounded appetizing so I indulged. This might have been the best sandwich I’ve ever eaten. No, really. It was amazing.
Beastwich. Something different each day.
Satisfied we decided to attempt to put a coat of paint on the new fender I had salvaged from the Pull-A-Part yard a few weeks back. We got it on to the table and I was instructed to rough it up and wash it down with a solution that removed all the grit and oils. These are basically all the same, sorry I didn’t remember the product name.
A little rust to remove.
Buffing it rough to assist in paint adhesion.
Painting.
After JagGuy applied a layer of paint he wasn’t terribly happy with the results. Knowing we weren’t going to be able to install the same day as paint, he told me he would put another coat on during the week and it would be ready for the next weekend to install.
The results were mixed. I should have probably bought medium drying instead of the fast I wound up buying from English Color and Supply. Good folks there, and they have the expertise and a nice disposition. I didn’t pretend to know what I was doing and asked for help all the way. Highly recommended.
English Color and Supply
So I retrieved the fender and a couple of weeks later I installed it. I had already disassembled the fender on the donor Range Rover so this was old hat to me. There really isn’t anything special about removing the fender. Remember these are built to be worked on.
Remove the lights.
Remove the pozi-drive (The Garage Journal) screws (use a number 1 or 2 Phillips) from the inside.
You will need to remove the plastic box on the seat release. The push button unscrews.
You need to remove the two bolts on the inside of the fender above the tire.
Screw removed.
Five if I remember correctly.
Two bolts underneath.
What she looks like without the fender.
Fender off.
Reattached the lens cover rubber to the fender BEFORE you put the new fender on. You can do it after…its just harder. I ground down the rust spots as well as I could and gave everything with rust a coat of self-etching primer.
I reattached the fender. The rear inside is attached with pop rivets. So you’ll need to put some elbow grease on the fender to get the holes lined up.
Pop rivets
I think there were 4 or 5 needed. That’s it except for putting the light assembly back on. I used the new one I salvaged from the wreck. In the end, it looks great.
It is now the third different painting she has had. I really should get an orbital buffer to her this summer and get the oxidation off and get the panels shining and perhaps closer to the same color.
That’s about it. The removal and reassembly of the fender is a 1(one) on the Okierover Difficulty Scale. The painting however is another thing. If you REALLY, REALLY care about the paint matching and there being a nice coat of paint this might be a 3(three) on the Difficulty Scale. You would need to apply bondo and sand a great deal more than we did. Every minor imperfection on the panel will be magnified by ten once you start to apply paint. I didn’t care all that much about perfection.
I was coming out of lunch today at Richey’s Grill(Urbanspoon) in the Research Park and eyed a young man giving my Range Rover “the once over” (Idiom dictionary). I quickly noticed his Range Rover next to mine in the lot. That gentleman was Cyrus. I introduced myself and we then began chatting about our Land Rovers.
As you can tell his Land Rover was a bit different from mine. His is a 1988 model. Cyrus went on to tell me that the fellow he got it from went to a lot of trouble to make it appear to be an even earlier model. You can see some of the work in the pictures. Wing-mounted mirrors, badging, wheels, even the gas filler looked to be non-North American standard. He’d stripped out the interior and even swapped the steering wheel for an older version.
We talked about that a bit. I don’t know the models before 1989 very well so I didn’t have much to offer. I later looked them up on Rangerovers.net and the differences were great. Cyrus’s previous owner was obviously on a mission. The automatic shifter-cover even appeared to be from a 1970’s model Ford Maverick.
He opened it up and showed me the terrible floor pan rust he has. It is truly terrible and will take a lot of fabrication to correct. Cyrus talked about bringing it back to more original kit with an instrument bezel and some other bits.
I really enjoyed talking to him. As with most of my meetings it almost immediately turned to the subject of off-roading. I told him about Red Dirt Rovers and some garage days of old and shared my blog address again. He seemed really keen to join and meet up again. I’ll be sending him an email and a Google Community invite for Red Dirt Rovers.
I think I need to have some of those cheap business cards printed up so I can share this info more efficiently.
Guess what I’m working on this weekend? My dear wife Mrs. OkieRover “accidentally” damaged my door handle. She was unaware of the adjustment problem with the driver’s side door and instead of asking for help, kept pulling the already damaged (by Diet Mountain Drew) door handle.
I know the “trick” to opening the door and have been limping along. This changes everything as the door is now hard to open. I ordered a used door handle off eBay and it arrived yesterday. I’ll be installing the replacement handle this weekend. At the time of this writing getting a left side door handle is very difficult.
What the sweet hell is this? I’ve noticed in the last week that the rust here on the windshield wiper shafts is amazingly bad. I have a really bad feeling about this problem. First is removing the bonnet. Maybe with it removed I’ll find the leak that is flooding the carpets. In any event I hope it is repairable.
Think good thoughts.
I also have to clean up from the latest storm. Yeah, we had a little blow of a storm that dumped an inch of rain on us on Sunday. I had planned to drive out to Newcastle on Sunday afternoon. So when I got home from church I didn’t roll up any of the windows, nor did I close the sunroof. Yeah, second time I’ve done that in a month.
The inside got pretty wet. As did I when I went out at 0330 in the morning to roll up the windows. The leather is looking pretty rough now and the windshield has water drop markings on it…on the inside! The storm was blowing in from the north and the orientation of the Range Rover directed that rain on to the dash.
What ever rain drained out brought a couple of nasty stains on the concrete under the Big White Bus. That’s nasty. So a good cleaning is in order. I may even pull the carpets and hose them off. The leather seats need quite a lot of loving care. Sadly I think they are mostly past it and I may need to investigate getting the covers replaced. That’s not going to be cheap.
Think more good thoughts…
We have an interested party for the Honda Civic. He is my son-in-law’s youngest brother. He has had his eye on the Civic since we bought it. He mentioned to me a year ago that if I were ever to sell it, he wanted it. He is coming out to test drive it tonight. This will eliminate a car from our car insurance and a car payment as well. This will make Mrs. OkieRover very happy.
I’ve got to learn to SLOW DOWN. I was in a bit of a manic state Saturday. I had so much I wanted to get done, I didn’t know where to start. You’ve been there.
This time I cross-threaded one of the bolts that holds the right rear brake caliper to the hub. So Monday on the way home I have to make a stop at J&B to buy another tap. I won’t be surprised when they tell me they don’t have that “weird bolt pattern”. But I’ve got to try. When I told my future son-in-law about this, he told me he owns a complete set of taps and dies, but it is at his father’s house. A LOT OF GOOD THAT DOES ME!
I told him he needed to store that in my garage. He was smart and didn’t commit to bringing it to my home to be “stored”. I just created a new definition of the word “store”.
store [stawr, stohr] noun, verb, stored, stor·ing, adjective
17. To use discretely when I screw up a bolt or threaded hole, especially on a Saturday when all the stores that might, even remotely, have the tool I need are closed.
I’ll get around to submitting that definition to the committee over at Webster’s after finals are over later this week. More after the jump….
I did manage to get my sandblasting cabinet into use. I blasted some of the rust off the brake caliper I was complaining about a few posts ago. I also de-rusted the bracket that holds the air conditioning dryer. It was bad. It is now coated in gray primer and re-installed.
I have to complain again about the crappy selection of fittings available at the two Lowe’s stores in my area. Seriously?! are they trying to reduce stock so they can pull those cabinets out? If I was their hardware vendor I could retire on the order that would need to be filed to replace the stock that was missing between the two sites. I’m not kidding. They should just pull the sections of stainless fittings out. MOST of the drawers were empty.
Lowe’s in Moore Oklahoma
Ridiculous. I’ve complained before, I need to complain more. Maybe they will send me a coupon. I know they will never fill their drawers so I’m not really sure what I’d buy with the coupon.
It’s almost like I’m living back in 1975. Back then, if my dad wanted any kind of hardware he had to drive to Oklahoma City. So we would drive 30 minutes (one way) up to the 74th Street Expressway and get what he thought he needed and anything else he might not. I was a lead-pipe cinch we would not make another trip to OKC if he needed something. One trip would kill half a day. Who has that kind of time?
To be absolutely honest…I was pretty sure they wouldn’t have the hardware I needed. In fact, it was just a whim I decided to check.
So back to the sandblasting cabinet, I need a new plexi-glass window and I need to replace the media inside. Overall it worked pretty great. I need to sort out what setting to set the air compressor on. Hopefully full blast will not be the setting necessary.
I like to give a shout out to one of my good friends and fellow Marine. I saw Scott at church on Sunday and he told me he always reads my blog. He mentioned trouble with commenting. Mrs. OkieRover mentioned the same trouble. In Mrs. OkieRover’s case its probably a “how to” in Scott’s it was something else. More on that, later. Ooo-rah Scott, keep on truckin’ brother.
