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”
It was another hot Saturday in Central Oklahoma. The temperature made it to 102 F in Norman. Even with the temps as nasty as that we don’t stop work because we might get a little sticky and sweaty. We just turned on the fans and opened up the doors.
The Evil German Dude had us all over for some electrical fun. I know you’re thinking, Land Rover…Electric…sweet! Well not this weekend. The modifications were for Magnum Mike and Paparazzi Ford. Both of them had some seriously unimpressive factory wiring.
First was Magnum Mike’s Dodge Magnum. The work was to upgrade the ground. On this model of Magnum the battery is located in the trunk. That’s Mike sitting and sweating in the back of the very impressively modified Magnum. It is a true hot rod. He drove us to lunch one day. I’ve never been so scared and excited since Eric Kammerlocher took me for a spin in his Corvette back in the 1980’s.
The standard from the factory ground wire was a very small wire maybe 8 AWG. Compared to a normal battery cable the ground is about a fourth of the size it should be. The battery terminals are a simple flat metal. Not nearly the beefy terminals EGD uses normally.
You can see the flat metal and small wire in this image.
So the plan was to swap out the cables. EGD doesn’t do anything “half-assed”. The new cables were 2/0. Yes…two aught.
This wire chart should give you a great comparison.
We tease EGD but he knows his electrics. He has all the tools and always has the fittings, connectors, and heat shrink wire just about anything. The hydraulic crimping tool is pretty impressive too. So when you hear me talking about upgrading my battery cables you know why I am taking the Range Rover over to the evil lair.
The crimping dies had to be modified. Here EGD makes another minor correction to the tool’s die.
You can see in the next picture that they got the cables in place and the battery strapped back in.
Paparazzi Ford brought his Jeep Commander over with a very persnickety start problem. Basically something was wrong with the battery cables that would disable the vehicle. He would futz with it, the Jeep would start for a few days then quit him again.
He drove to EGD’s evil lair but when his turn came up the truck would not start. He popped the bonnet and I simply twisted the positive battery cable just a bit and the Commander started. Being as Jeep is now owned by Chrysler/Dodge the same type of battery terminals are being used.
Upon further inspection it turned out to be a very corroded connector. Swapping the terminals out had to be done. Here the crimping tool is used to marry the cables to the terminal.
Heat shrink is moved into place.
And here the heat gun heats the shrink wrap.
I couldn’t stay longer. JagGuy promised to take a look at my air conditioning. As you have no doubt read or have seen in my video blog my A/C is out. I’ve been chasing fully functional air conditioning in my Range Rover for years.
So JagGuy mentioned at lunch on Friday that he had a freon sniffer. Such a handy device.
He was keen on my idea to swap the AC compressor for a more common unit from a Chevy. The hoses would need to be custom-made. Before making all the effort to reinvent the system he said we should find out what has failed. Is the hoses? Is it the compressor? Is the radiator leaking? The only way to find out was to test for leaks.
I didn’t take a picture of the sniffer in action its sensor is an audio one. We sniffed the system and found that the front seal on the compressor had failed.
Freon going in.
JagGuy suggested I go to the company that bought out Oklahoma Auto Air. They do all manner of compressors and hoses. The compressor on the Range Rover is basically a Sanden 709. So next week I’m going to drop by their shop and get the details. Hopefully I’ll have some air conditioning the week after I get back from my 25th wedding anniversary trip.
The weather is going to cool off this next week so my daily commute won’t be the 35 minute drive in an oven. Mrs. JagGuy has told JagGuy that she wants to drive a Land Rover Discovery II. They are looking for a good one. I can’t wait for them to go with us on a jaunt.
EGD is working with a company that has some pretty cool lighting solutions. I’m looking at them for some possible trail lighting. I’ll get back to that when I investigate further.
And in other news…he was only kidding about buying a Dodge.
Here is what will pass for a how-to video on the CV Joint and axle seal replacement. I had trouble videoing it with greasy hands. I also had trouble because the phone ran out of disk space.
That let to some choppy video and you didn’t get to see the assembly. What I do hope you get from this is that it is not as complicated or difficult as it may appear. Take it one step at a time and it will become really easy to understand.
On the Okierover Difficulty Scale this is a solid 3. You’ll need more than your average tool kit. You’ll need some help with the brake bleeding. It is a technical job but relatively straight forward.
I hope you can get something from the video. It was not what I wanted to present. But I also didn’t want to waste all the video and effort.
Thanks for watching and thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.
I was reading the Roadtrippers blog and saw a post on “The Greasy Hands Preachers”. The Greasy Hands Preachers is a feature film documentary shot in 16mm in June August and October 2013. To be completed early 2014. The film explores the values and the benefits of manual work amongst motorcycle enthusiasts. They have a nice teaser video.
http://vimeo.com/88659057
I totally get what he’s saying at 2:05 in the video.
“There is a great satisfaction when you know how to work on your motorcycle even a little bit….I find some paper clip and some gum and I’ll get home.”
I can’t be the only person who gets that special warm feeling inside when all the tick boxes are filled in on maintenance. I love it when I’ve gone over my Land Rover and done all the maintenance.
Fluid and filter swap for the transmission. Also a fluid swap for the transaxle and viscous coupling this weekend. I bought 20 quarts of Castrol® Transmax™ High Mileage – Automatic Transmission Fluid. I had never heard of it until I went to research my options.
It was cheaper than the first fluid I was considering. Royal Purple MAX ATF® was 14.99$(US) a quart. Royal Purple got rave reviews online but at twice the cost I don’t believe it will be 100% better than Castrol. I’ve never been let down by Castrol and I will continue to use it until someone can give me a solid reason to stop. The Transmax was just 6.39$(US) a quart from Advanced Auto Parts. O’Reilly’s did not carry it even though the Castrol’s website said they did.
My new oxygen sensors should also be in today so I will be putting those in as well. As near as my crappy record keeping can determine the last time I swapped O2 sensors was 6 years ago. So with 205,000 miles on the clock it’s time.
I am also installing the new power steering pump this weekend. This is going to be a very busy weekend. I should have probably scheduled a Garage Day with The Evil German Dude and Paparazzi Ford. Paparazzi Ford’s dad is not well and this was EGD’s “on weekend” at work. I don’t have any more time before S.C.A.R.R. so I’m going for it.
This is part four(-ish) of my Mega-Maintenance Month. I’ll pop some pictures up on the individual jobs as I have time to complete blog posts.
A big part of not breaking down on the trail or on the highway for that matter is maintenance. Most Americans neglect maintenance. It’s easy to forget about maintenance. You go out to the driveway you jump in you turn the key and you drive. Our Land Rovers become “magic boxes that take us places”. If you don’t see a light blinking nothing is wrong, right?
Well partly, nothing is wrong most of the time, but that doesn’t mean something isn’t GOING WRONG. Let us take tonight’s maintenance. Grease zerks needing grease. If you let these go dry you lose your drive train. Universal joints can fail and then you have large heavy objects spinning very quickly. JagGuy lost his Range Rover Classic due to a failed u-joint. The drive shaft went through the side of the transmission. You don’t want that. Thankfully I have a storm shelter drive bay in my garage now and that should make greasing an easier task and it did. There’s more after the jump…
