Doesn’t the Big White Bus look good all washed up parked in the drive. Well she looks better with a little mud on the tires and traipsing up and down the hills of Barnwell Offroad Park in East Texas. Yes, it’s close to that time of year again. Its time to prepare the Range Rover for the South Central Area Rover Rendezvous aka SCARR.
Once again there is lots to do. A short list…
Transmission Rebuild
Plugs, wires, and cap
Tie-rod ends
Oil Pan Gasket
Power Steering Leak
Its a short list but an expensive one. Getting the transmission done will be somewhere in the 2000$(US). I’ve known this was a problem for a while now. I’ve turned 220,000 miles and I think it’s time for a rebuild on the transmission. I have a plan for this. Continue reading “Time to Prepare for S.C.A.R.R. 2015 (Post #524) 2/16/2015”
The Big White Bus has been idling a little rough lately. I will look in to that a little more as we get closer to S.C.A.R.R. This year I plan to swap my spark plugs, wires, and my distributor cap. Getting the correct cap is 99% of the maintenance. Some of the pattern parts are not very well made.
I also still have the torque converter issue. I’m not sure what I’m going to do about that yet. It will be a very expensive repair.
I need to correct the oil leaking from the engine. I will order a gasket set for the oil sump (pan) and for the tappet covers in the coming week. I bought a set of ramps so I can clean off the bottom of the BWB at a car wash.
I also have what is possibly a bad tie rod end. I hit a seam on the highway and the shaking from the front tires was very, very bad. I had to slow down and get off the highway to get the truck back under control. I will be looking in to that this weekend for sure. I’ll need to get Mr. Fisher to assist while I investigate under the Rover.
I’ve gotten a lot of emails and messages this and last week. I really love to help when I can. Unfortunately sometimes I don’t have the answer. That really bothers me because I like to know as much as I can. So if you’ve contacted me, and I couldn’t help, please send me an email back so I can learn how you got it fixed.
I want you to plan on going to SCARR if you are able. I promise you will have fun.
This has not been a very fun couple of weeks for Big White Bus. My all time favorite thing on an automobile to work on is the electrical system. /end sarcasm.
I live by five simple rules.
I don’t play with electricity.
I won’t live any place I’m not the tertiary member of the food chain.
I never get less than twelve hours sleep.
I never play cards with guys who have the same first name as a city.
I’ve never gotten involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body.*
There it was in black and white. Knocking or rattling noise. It doesn’t get more obvious than that. The picture above is from the RAVE CD. It clearly describes the problem I was having.
With my new job providing a minor amount disposable income once again, I was able to do a small landscaping project this weekend. I took Mr. Fisher with me on Saturday to Lowe’s to pick up some pavers, gravel, and a flower requested by Mrs. Okierover.
We got to Lowe’s and loaded up two push carts. I got it all paid for and then we took it out to load. Mr. Fisher thought that if we loaded it all in the back that the front tires might not be touching the ground when we were done. I didn’t think it would be quite that bad, but why risk it.
15 Pavers, 1 Geranium, 15 bags of gravel
So we loaded it all up. We put the gravel in the floor board between the seats. We put all the pavers in the back. My before and after pics of the load change on the springs don’t really show the inch it dropped. As I said to Mr. Fisher, Bill Burke said this is a 3/4 ton truck so we should be good.
Mr. Fisher loads the Big White Bus.
I have medium duty springs and once you add a few hundred pounds the BWB really rides nice. We got home and we both shared stories about over loading pickup trucks we owned back in the day. His a Chevy S-10 with way too much gravel in the bed and my Ford Ranger with way too much lumber loaded in her. In both cases driving home at a crawl because every bump caused the front tires to leave the ground. Stupid is as stupid does.
We got the BWB home and began the project. The first task was to clear the material from the area. With this I uncovered one of the biggest “wolf spiders” I’ve ever seen. The website says up to 1.38 inches in body size. We were all of that if not more. That is a standard size spade shovel.
Effin’ big spider.
A storm front was bearing down on us and we worked quickly to get the rock down and the border. I decided the western most portion of the bed had to be tiered. The water is carrying off the dirt at a high rate.
I didn’t take the recommended before picture but you can see the after…
Looks a lot better than the trench that was there before.
Another great use of a luxury SUV. I often see Jeff Aronson load up his Series II with firewood and people with dirty boots. You have all seen the pictures of Land Rovers “working”. Just because I have carpet and leather does that make it any less of a workhorse? Who knows.
To me my Range Rover is a “truck”. I’ve said this many times,
“I’ve never owned a car I was afraid to drive through a barbed wire fence.”
I mean that. Scratches, eh, dents, eh, what ever, it ain’t a beauty contest. Well it’s not with me anyway.
I was grounded this weekend with what is probably bronchial pneumonia. Lots of coughing, a very high heart rate from the medications, and an overall very tired feeling. Being relegated to the couch and bed all weekend, I watched a lot of television. I watched an entire afternoon of Star Wars movies. Episode 4 and Episode 5 mostly. I’m not a fan of The Muppet ShowEpisode 6 due to the ridiculous effort to cutesy-fy the franchise and merchandise the crap out of it. Okay back to the main point I came here to write.
