“If your Land Rover isn’t leaking you’ve run out of that fluid.”
I heard them all, I’ve even made up some of my own. But the jokes are all true. The only Land Rovers that don’t leak are still in the first 3 years of their life. Even then, I’m not entirely sure you won’t have a leak of some kind. The basic premise is, if you’ve cracked open a system, coolant, oil, transmission fluid, air condition, steering fluid, brake fluid, blinker fluid, it doesn’t matter, that system will forever leak from that day forward.
This year I decided, I’m not going to pour my hard earned money “through” my Land Rover any longer. You buy the fluid, you pour it whatever reservoir, and you see it on the ground in your parking spot at home, work, wherever you park. I decided I am stopping that now.
Earlier this year, I started with my power steering system. I got that sealed back up only to have the “O” rings fail and it leak out again. That’s fixed now.
I then decided that my oil leak needed to stop. I replaced my oil sump gasket and got that sorted. This will probably always “weep” but it’s not leaving a puddle and I’m good with that.
The last major leak is the coolant system. This is one you don’t ignore. You get an aluminum block too hot and you’re doing engine work. In this case I had my expansion tank finally give up. It had a slow leak in the seam. I sourced a new one and decided the coolant hoses were starting to resemble over-inflated balloon animals and needed to be replaced as well.
The filler tube nut was also past it’s life expectancy. I bought a brass one and another plastic one. The brass one was actually for my radiator but the plug there was soldered and would not be replaced. I used the brass one to clean the filler tube threads. That worked better than I expected.
I got the system filled and started looking for leaks. There were none in the things I touched. But I still had a leak from under the transmission. There are no coolant line back there I thought, “What the hell?”
I let the engine cool a bit while I solved all the world’s problems with Mr. Fisher. I then began what I hoped was not a leaking heater hose. The heater hoses that go across the top of the motor to the heater core are back there. That has to be where the leak is coming from.
You can see the offending hose there on the firewall. The hose clamp is the one. Turned out it was not tight at all. I was able to turn the hose with my hand.
Getting it tight required pulling it off and replacing the hose clamp and combining various combinations of socket sets to get the socket on the clamp screw. Eventually I got it tight.
I had to fill the system again so that process was followed again. Finally I got done and started the engine up to get her back to pressure and hot to look for leaks. I also moved the Big White Bus down the driveway to spot new leaks.
And to my surprise just as I expected there were no leaks. It was decided a maiden voyage to Hollywood Corners for lunch. On the way the coolant light decided it was going to notify me of a low coolant situation. I knew this wasn’t possible. Did I have an air bubble?
When I got the BWB back tot he hacienda I opened and saw the level in the tank was below the fill mark. I topped her off. I also decided to swap my cap for one I salvaged off one from the breaker’s yard.
So for the time being I’m leak free. And for the next 24 hours I’m going to be the only human on earth with a 23 year old Land Rover that doesn’t have any leaks. That feels good.
Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.
Why 24 hours? Because I’ll drive her again tomorrow and I’m sure I’ll be planning how I’ll stop the new leak.
Sometimes describing why you love something is difficult. Cal Newport nailed it in his book “Deep Work” when describing why the social critic Matthew Crawford gave up his job and opened a motorcycle repair shop.
“The feeling of taking a broken machine, struggling with it, then eventually enjoying a tangible indication that he succeeded (the bike driving out of the shop under its own power) provides a concrete sense of accomplishment he struggled to replicate when his day revolved vaguely around reports and communication strategies.”
Page 63.
That’s it. Exactly. There is a certain satisfaction when you succeed in fixing your car and you get to drive it another day. We are losing this as time progresses. The number of people who enjoy the intrinsic reward derived from working on something with your hands is getting smaller every day it seems.
Go out in the garage and do something, anything, you’ll feel better when you are done.
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 headed to work this morning as I always do. About two miles from the house I heard the “sound” again. This is the binding sound I’ve heard twice before. I thought for sure it was a CV joint going out.
The two times before I was able to make a three point turn and the sound went away. In my mind this seemed logical as if a CV was binding up it would be fully articulated across the axis and perhaps unbound.
Today, the sound did not go away after the three point turn. It also did not respond to a figure-eight turn in a large parking lot near Mickey’s Garage. As my friend JagGuy says, “if it explodes it’ll be easier to find the issue.” Determined to drive it until something catastrophic happened I turned out onto Flood avenue. About a mile later I got a very satisfying crunch sound.
“I guess its broken now,” I thought to myself.
I have a new CV on the shelf so I wasn’t worried about getting a part. My elbow has just now begun to recover from the severe tennis elbow I’ve been battling for 3 months. And wet weather was coming in today. So with those thoughts I dropped the Big White Bus off at Mickey’s Garage.
I went home to file my taxes, do laundry, and blog. He called me in the afternoon and sent me a picture. I was on the way home from physical therapy and stopped by.
I told Mickey I was 72% sure it was a CV but I was 28% sure it might be a differential. It was a differential.
Bolt Chunk and WasherBad Differential
You can see the bolt that is not seated. The top is shaved off. The missing bolt is the one that broke off. Several of the others were FINGER TIGHT, yes, finger tight. The oil in the diff and CV housing was a lovely shiny metallic mess. That metal was most likely in the bearings in the differential making it a total loss. We could have bolted her back up but it would have failed eventually.
Mickey said the bolts required proper torquing and setup with the pinion, etc, etc,… I’m taking his word for it that it would be an ordeal to put right. I can get another used differential for 150$(US) from Rover Cannibal.
We could speculate for days about why it failed like it did. Suffice to say there is a lot of “slop” built into the axles of a Range Rover Classic. This is good and bad. Bad because it causes things like this to happen. Who knows, perhaps someone in this Rover’s past rebuilt it and did it WRONG.
In any event, I’m driving my son-in-law’s Audi tomorrow and will be back behind the wheel on Wednesday. Considering the Saturday afternoon I spent with Mr. Fisher and with JagGuy on the phone trying to find my problem in the ignition that was keeping the engine from starting, I’m getting a little frustrated. I know its a rolling restoration, but damn it, I need reliability. You can laugh at that if you like, but the Big White Bus has been pretty good to me for all of 188,000 miles I’ve put on her. Land Rover and reliable? Say what you like, but they make a purpose built vehicle.
Funny thing, Ehimare, a young man from Brooklyn NY that drives a 1993 RRC and occasionally calls me for help, had his break a half shaft this week too. He’s looking for a differential as well due to his shop’s inability to get the chunk of shaft removed. Must have been a rough week for 1993 RRC drive trains.
I got together with some fellow Oklahoma Land Rovers Owner members and went on a tour of the Oklahoma Adventure Trail. If you haven’t looked this up on the internet yet, you should. It will be the source of several trips for the Big White Bus in the coming year.
Nathan brought his “new” Range Rover. I was in my Range Rover Classic. John and Jayden were in their Discovery. And Erik and David were in the Defender.
John planned our trip and did a great job of mapping out some fun places to see and giving us a great tour of the back roads of Logan, Lincoln, Creek, Payne, and Osage counties. You will find the links to the map used to guide us. There were deviations from these maps but once you are out there you’ll realize why. Fair warning this is a picture heavy post.
One of many trestle bridges we encountered.
We drove along the Cimarron River for a good stretch.
Supports for a bridge that is no longer present.Along the Cimarron River
This is where we learned Erik lost his gas cap on his Defender. He made a “field expedient” cap out of some duct tape.
We detoured as suggest up to the town of Ingalls, Oklahoma. The town was the scene of what is called the “Battle of Ingalls”. The fight was between U.S. Marshalls and the Doolin-Dalton gang. You can read more about it on Wikipedia or on Legends of America. We stopped and took pictures of some seemingly old buildings, one of which seemed original to the time. We went down the street and to the site of the fight. None of the original buildings exist today.
Monument to the Marshalls
Detail of the monument to the Deputies.
Map of the fight.
Perhaps original to the town
We headed down the road and eventually turned North toward Osage County. The Oklahoma Adventure Trail lists the roads and the detours. Those detours were often buried in posts and therefore sometimes we didn’t know of a bridge out. Of course when you are driving a Land Rover a detour is not always a detour. In this case it was, the bridge was out over a very deep creek.
The signed seemed a bit too temporary for a bridge that didn’t look like it was going to be rebuilt.
We didn’t bring the “General Lee” so jumping it was out of the question.
There were no shortage of bridges to cross. This one was a Works Project Administration job from 1940. They provide a nice break water that had a waterfall.
We stopped in Cleveland for lunch and fuel. We pulled into town on Hwy 64 and stopped at the Dollar General next to the McDonald’s. There was no way I was eating McDonald’s unless there was nothing else. Thankfully we saw Rosie’s Tacos when we crossed the lake south of town on Hwy 64. Yes, that’s a car port. Yes, that’s a trailer parked under it. Trust us. Erik made the first suggestion that he was going to take the gastronomic adventure and get some chow there.
That was all the suggestion I needed. I didn’t have tacos. I had tamales. Delicious. Their verde’ sauce was just the right amount of hot with flavor. I’d drive back there again just to eat the tamales.
Rosie’s Tacos. Yummo.
My odometer rounded out to 237,000 as we pulled up for petrol.
My plastic needs a clean and a new coat of paint.
So with both our tanks and our bellies full of goodness we headed for the Osage Tallgrass.
We got to Barnsdall, Oklahoma where we encountered the only oil well in the world located on a city street. You can see it if you navigate here. 36°33′41.93″N96°9′56.57″W
I was a little surprised it didn’t get rammed by cars more often.
We knocked around a few more locations. Coming out of the Hulah Wildlife Refuge, at least I think it was the Hulah WR, John and his Discovery started having death wobble. We limped along until we got back to the highway going into Bartlesville.
Once stopped, we tried to sort out the issue. At one point John explained how we could deviate our path and call it a night.
John, “We can stay on the black top roads.”
David, the single gentleman of color in our group, interjected, “Why do they have to be ‘black’?”
I couldn’t help myself and had to add, “Because black top roads matter.”
Everyone laughed. It was the levity the trip needed after a long day on the dusty back roads and an unfortunate break down.
Death wobble west of Bartlesville
We tried swapping John’s spare when I noticed that one of the balancing weights was missing from the last stop. Getting the tires balanced is the first thing done to solve an issue with death wobble. Unfortunately that didn’t work.
With the daylight quickly waning, we decided to get the Disco into town. John knew of a grocery store at the bottom of the last hill going into Bartlesville. Once he hit the hill he put the Disco in neutral and coasted her down. We did some additional investigating which did not result in a solution to the problem.
Field repair in a grocery parking lot
We decided to head for the camp site as it began to get dark. When John was planning the trip he remembered a Boy Scout camp and lined us up with one of the cabins. Camp McClintock BSA.
Camp McClintock “Cubs” Cabin. They even provide cots for those of who didn’t bring one.
Once we got the fireplace glowing it took the edge off the night and made for a very tolerable sleeping experience. David was the man when it came to getting the fire going, well done sir. Each person was responsible for their dinner and those who were cooking got started and we had a great discussion.
We spent the evening discussing cars we’ve owned, some sea stories from serving the Marine Corps, and even politics. That may have been the most civil political discussion I’ve ever been a part of. I pretty sure both ends of the political spectrum were represented. One theme emerged, no one was happy with how the country is being governed by the legislative and executive branches.
The next morning we cleaned up the cabin and went for a short hike to the suspended cable bridge. Very interesting.
Cable Bridge
Big Sandy in the other direction.
Big Sandy Creek
We went across the creek to a pond on the other side. It was partially frozen. It didn’t take us long to start skipping rocks and sticks across. The ice and the debris we tossed across it made one of the coolest sounds you’ll ever hear in nature. You can read about it here and see a video about why you get that sound.
We hiked back to the cabin where we decided to part company. Erik and Nathan would take off for OKC and I would take John back to his Disco and get it up on the trailer his dad had left that morning to assist in recovery. After we got her up on the trailer we decided to take in a bit more of the OAT on our way home. we weren’t to adventurous being as we were alone and had no hope of a timely recovery if we got stuck.
Gate on a horse farm
Brick arch in the middle of a field no house in sight
We couldn’t get the frozen springs in the picture
We took a detour off the OAT to see “Frog Rock”. It over looks a nice valley and was in a very remote location. When I climbed up behind the rock to take a picture of the valley I accidentally found a Geocache. We left a note that we were there for the next person to find. We didn’t take anything and we didn’t leave anything either.
Geocache
Frog Rock
Cimarron Valley below Frog Rock
I’ll leave you with a gallery of the better shots. Click for full size.
Chicken Art
Ruins
Water crossing
Ruins
Tressle bridge
Convoy
John leading the way
Imagine the dust after three Land Rovers
Cub House
Ingalls again
Sad, really
WPA waterfall
Youth
Fording
If you are interested in driving where we drove John provided the following maps. We must say we didn’t follow them “exactly”. We took the roads that interested us the most and if there was water crossing we took it.
