September 30th, 2004 (Post #52)

September 30th, 2004
House going fine, console back in
Everything is going well on the house. Waiting on brick to arrive now.

I started to put the console back in this weekend. The broken bits I have had
to glue held up well. The parts that were not broke are now broke. So I spent
Sunday gluing those pieces. The front part connects to the cubby box so they will
need to be glued together. I have noticed with my glue in place that they no longer
fit well together. I will have to chop part of the rear portion of the gear
selector section back. I also glued a new piece to attach the window switch panel
to. The previous holes were destroyed and the panel with the switches mostly danced
around there. I will be able to secure it now.

The switch relay that powers the rear windows that don’t normally operate correctly still needs to be replace. I have fitted it in the Rover anyway and will inquire with Rover Cannibal about getting another to see if it fixes the problem.

Tossed, and I mean literally tossed, a ladder up on the top to haul down to the new house in order to run cable for the computers. Just as I released it I realized I have a sun roof. I thought for sure I had just broke it out. But I hadn’t. That was a close call. Just another reason I need a roof rack. Maybe Santa will bring me one? Who am I kidding? Santa is going to have to buy window treatments for the new house. I’ll be lucky if I get a lump of coal in my stocking.

I fired off an email to Ozzie at Ozzie’s Offroad asking for his pics of the bracket to move the ECU up to the dash. I told him I’ve been jonesing for something new to read about Rovers. Seems this lack of getting out and my lack of being able to work on the Big White Bus has got me down in the dumps.

The water in the floor boards has to be from a leaking wind screen (wind shield). I will have to find a good shop to pull that and reseal it. Any suggestions you might have just send me an email.

September 21st, 2004 (Post #52)

September 21st, 2004
Update on the Tech Tips
My laziness is only surpassed by my gluttony when it comes to pie. Well anyway I updated the O2 Sensors, Mirror Replacement, and OME Shocks tech tips. I am ready to reinstall the carpet this weekend. I did not find the leak yet and will look one more time this weekend before putting the carpet back in.

I need to fix the rear window rolling down problem. I have futzed with it a few ways and have determined I will replace the module and see if the problem goes away. I think that it will fix it. Anyway I hope it fixes it.

I need a new rubber seal for my back window. And as you have previously read, it is still rusted. Ozzie at Ozziesoffroad.com is going to send some pics of his POR-15 project. If I understand it correctly, his email was a little fuzzy on this part but he dipped his entire Rover in POR-15,
painted his fingernails with it and sacrificed a chicken, two Jeeps and Izuzu to the rust gods that inhabit the Florida wilds too. I don’t really know if all that is true but he said he POR-15’d the entire truck. I can’t wait to see the pics.

We are moving to a new house. And when I said new I meant new. I will get the two car side of the garage for my shop. I failed to ask the builder to up the garage door height so I will not be able to have a roof rack and lift on my truck AND park it in the garage. But we will see. It will be nice to have the room to tear down if I need too.

Anyone want to buy a house in a nice neighborhood?

Anyone want to help me move?

Hello…hello…is this thing on?

September 8th, 2004 ( (Post #51)

The Tire Rack has good prices but I’ll have
to have them mounted locally. Lots of comparison charts and good information there. I wanted
to put the Michelins back on this time but the price is way too expensive. Right now it looks like the Bridgestone Dueler tire is the winner.

My mother has been sick so I haven’t had time to futz with the center console. This weekend looks good but at this rate I’ll won’t know until it gets here. My wife and I have been so busy with the kids and my mom. She jokingly said, “I’ll see you on Friday.” Wish it was a fun kinda busy instead of a teadious grind kind of busy.

Happy Rovering, watch what you eat and get some exercise.

August 30th, 2004 (Post #50)

August 30th, 2004
Wet carpet, wet pad, and I didn’t even get in the river
I noticed that my Rover doesn’t leave a little puddle underneath like most cars in the semi-arid desert that is Oklahoma when the air conditioning is running. Guess where all that water is? Come you can do it…YES! right in the floor board of the passenger side. Evil German Dude offered the advice that my drain tubes were clogged. I knew that but I’m thinking it may not be. But I’ll try to find the drain tube and try to clear it first. Thank heaven for compressed air.

Carpet cleaning
As I stated on the OkieRover home page I have pulled the carpet out of the front of the Rover.
It required the complete removal of the console and was quite a mess. There are only 5 million
wires, two air vents (for the back foot area), 4 relays and 18,000 connectors, and some petrified cheese from a taco or some other mexican fast food. The nickel and four pennies I found are offsetting the repair costs too! I also found an old note reminding me of some awfully important information. I couldn’t decypher my codes on the paper, but I think it was a part number for something on the air conditioning. But who knows. I took some pics and will share in a tech tip on carpet cleaning which was the purpose for removing the carpet. I can tell you my good friends that I will not be putting it back in one piece. I will cut it in half and install it as two pieces. I don’t
think you should remove the center console to clean the carpet. That’s just silly.

Center console
My center console has seen better days. I have repaired the flip top door a couple of times. The switch panels don’t fit well and a couple of the braces are broke. The kids when they were younger were disposed to sit on it when they were switching places in the back or just to chat with one of the front passengers when the other one of us ran into a store or such while they waited. That and the occasional climb into the back seat from the front seat using the console as a step on the way over have taken their toll.

The console is basically two parts fitted together with a couple of flimzy plastic pieces. The first part holds the ashtray and the shifting levers protrude from there. The rear part is the box and houses two cup holders.

All this console talk is due to the fact that I have need for a Citizen’s Band radio when we off-road. I would have liked to mount it on the back of the present console. The Infamous Perrone Ford installed his this way as did Chad Manz but Chad doesn’t like it there and describes some problems with that location on his website, AzArmadillo.

I thought about building a new center console box to conceal the CB radio. I haven’t ruled that out yet. I use the box to hold quite a managery of items that would, if I had one, fit in the glove box. Most modern American cars have a glove box. The glove box must have in the early days contained, well gloves. In the early days of driving with out full enclosed coaches the need for gloves in the colder months must have necessitated a place to store them. This and the popularity of gloves at the transition of the 19th to the 20th century made a glove box an absolute necessity.

In my Rover the absence of a glove box and the center console box have caused me to use this space to store everything but gloves. In it you will find a dizzying collection of items including: a cup full of spare change, a calculator, several ink pens, a tape of my favorite Pow Wow music, a bottle of Visine, a US military issue pocket knife, an eyeglass repair kit, dental floss,
finger nail clippers, and my window punch for blasting out the windows if I ever turn the Rover into a submarine and go submerged. So as you can see I use the box to it’s utmost so shrinking the size of the box to mount the CB radio inside is mostly out of the question.

I could get a new CB radio. One with the spiffy controls on the mic. There are several available. Cobra makes the 75 WX ST it has weather band too, but so does my stock Land Rover radio. But I inherited this one from my departed father and if it still works it may have a few more years left in it. And it was free. I got some cool power meters with it too. So the radio location is still pending.

August 2nd, 2004 (Post #49)

August 2nd, 2004
Rust the bain of all autos
Tomorrow my lovely wife and I will celebrate 15 years married. That is an accomplishment here in the middle lands of America. With a 50% divorce rate it seems to be harder for some than for others. Thank you for staying with me all these years. You are the best accessory a guy could have to make the Rover worth riding in.

Rust. Rust is popping up on the rear door. It seems to stay wet back there. I will probably look at replacing the rubber back there soon and to look at stripping the rust off and ending that problem for the time being. My buddy the Titanium Hitch has used some POR-15. He is in the process of using it on his old Ford pickup’s roof to stop the rust which is all over it. He doesn’t have anything to report yet.

Ozzie at Ozzie’s Offroad has recently used some POR-15 also. He promises some pictures and that always means some writing too. Anyway the rear lid needs some work and I will take the opportunity to fix the lock back there too. I don’t think it works like it’s supposed to. I’ll do a write up on it as I start on it look for it in the Tech Tips section. The rain has stopped for a while so it would be a good time to start on it.

I’m gonna pull up the carpet in the front and try to clean it as I did in the back. This will also give me an opportunity to check out the rust I fear is under my feet as I motor about.

I’m gonna add an avatar for any medical things that happen to me when I work on the truck. Maybe I’ll add pictures of the injuries too! The last one was the wrench slipping out of my hand and hitting me in the nose. Right on the bridge and now I have a lovely popping sound when I fiddle with my nose. On the CV joint repair I described the ginsu bracket and the new scar I got from that. So look for the red cross somewhere on the new articles.

July 15th, 2004 (Post #48)

July 15th, 2004
Shocks On, Radiator Woes, Work and Weather
Over the Fourth of July weekend I finally got all four shocks on. I took some pics
and will have an update with that when I can get around to it.

As I had just finished the last shock, I was collecting tools and getting everything gathered up and noticed a puddle under the front left side. Antifreeze was dripping out. What? I didn’t even
touch the radiator. I wasn’t even up there for anything. Being as it was a million degrees outside I took the Rover down to Sooner Radiator on Porter Street in Norman. Sports and Classics uses them a lot and I have had them work on the Rover before. This was July 5th and I was hoping they were open considering the government holiday. They got it done and told me it was a bad tube and the tank had started leaking too. Both due to pressure most likely. Pressure, as we all know is coming from the head gasket most likely. $100(US) later I’m back on the road. So I take my wife to the Target store and when I come out there is a huge puddle of antifreeze under the truck. I was none to happy about it I can assure you. I got under bonnet and sure enough a hose clamp not properly secured. It dawned on me that they did that last time I had it in there too. No big loss but you would expect that if I had been out on a trip and I lost that much coolant I would have been in trouble.

I’ve been really busy with work lately and have not been working on the site or the Rover. It is now summer here and you can’t really comfortably work on anything without suffering.

I’ve got a great idea for a camper but I’m not ready to tell you about it. But I think it would be a one of a kind and be a lot of fun to make.