restoration – OKIEROVER.COM

September 18, 2023September 19, 2023

The Big White Bus Will Not Start (Post #624) September 18, 2023

Well, awesome. The Big White Bus won’t start.

I have fired it up once since I parked it in my newly constructed shoppe 5 years ago. I guess I should have expected there would be “issues”. But I wasn’t expecting the issue to be this one.

Mr. Fisher came over and we diagnosed the issue. We started with checking the power at the pump. As you may be aware, when you turn the key over it powers the pump briefly. So if you just “turn on the key” and go back there to check the voltage you won’t find any. That’s why it takes either some seriously creative use of a volt meter or you get one of the bestest friends to come over and turn the key for you. We had voltage all the way through the wiring harness.

We then confirmed we have spark from the ignition system. I pulled the number 1 plug and with a screwdriver I grounded it and watched for spark. You can buy a fancy spark tester, matter of fact I think I own one. I have no idea where it is though. Spark confirmed.

So we have two of the three things (Meatloaf would say that “ain’t bad”) to make the vehicle run. Air and Spark. Now why aren’t we getting fuel.

I pulled the gas line off at the regulator on the back side top of the engine and had Mr. Fisher crank the ignition. We should have had gas squirting out if it worked. It did not. This fit with me NOT hearing the pump run when the ignition was turned over.

The only thing left was to pull the fuel pump and do a visual inspection. What I found was not expected. I said, “Wow.” a lot in the video. There were several parts that were obviously degrading due to being submerged in petrol for so long. There was visible rust on the steel parts as well. Generally the pump was in a terrible state. I was not aware that petrol would do that to those parts. The only gas I ever put in my Classic is 100% real gas, unless I am in Texas where they only sell ethanol (at least the last time I was buying gas there). You would expect ethanol to eventually separate and turn to water. You can read all about that on the Road Guardians website.

I will be replacing the fuel pump and have ordered the part from Atlantic British. I found some that were cheaper on Amazon. But my skepticism and need to have it delivered before next October weighed heavily on my decision where to purchase. The pictures all looked like the pumps were manufactured in the same place. Same white plastic. Same blue plugs.

If you look on Amazon you’ll see the pumps look like the same ones. If I had unlimited funds or sponsorship, I’d buy one from everyone and do a side-by-side comparison.

All this “BUY IT NEW” has me thinking about what this would cost if we just fixed the pump. All you need to do is replace the pump in the collector can (that bottom part). I’ll do a post about that in the coming weeks.

So…do I drain the tank too? If the gasoline HAS turned to varnish I should probably put some treatment in there. I’m thinking I’m gonna add a silly amount of STP Fuel Injector cleaner in that tank. I can say, WHEN I get it running It will run for quite a while before I shut her down. I want to give the truck plenty of time to dislodge any crap in the fuel lines. I’m also guessing I’ll need to swap the fuel filter too.

If its not one thing, its another. It really, never ends.

Mr. Fisher also brought over his Viair Compressor. We spent some time looking at it and checking out all its features.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

September 5, 2023September 5, 2023

Fender Repair Part 5, MORE Crappy Welding of the Large Fender Patch (Post #622) September 2-3, 2023

In this installment I finish the left rear fender panel. And by finish I mean I had to completed replace the outer fender I had previously welded up. I added a strap to attach the inner fender to the outer fender.

The outer fender’s welds were compromised because I ran out of shielding gas halfway through. The panel was 16 gauge and I swapped it with an 18 gauge. The right thing to do was replace it and “do it right”.

Now, I’m no body man and right to me is probably not right to someone who actually knows what they are doing. As I mentioned in the video I need another 10 or 20 years of welding experience to be “competent”. Over all I’m a lot happier with this replaced panel. The 16 gauge panel would not have worked. It would not have been watertight no matter what I did.

I covered everything with yet another coating of primer. I also put seam sealer in the appropriate places. This only seemed prudent as I am almost certain this will rust again. My hope is it will take at least 20 years to rust out.

I thought some of the welding went a lot better than the previous attempts. I want to say, “I’m getting better.” but I’m pretty sure I’m fooling myself. Most people could probably weld if shown how and a little practice. Welding WELL however is really hard.

So add to the fact I’m saying welding is hard…and welding UPSIDE DOWN is another level. We did not go over this scenario in my class. I’m half tempted to take the class again and do the entire class upside down. I finally figured out the I could weld sideways that worked pretty good. Even with my new sideways technique it didn’t stop me from getting some new holes in my PPE and my skin from hot slag dripping down. My grandson Grady was horrified by the scab in the crook of my elbow. The chunk that got me on the chest made a similar hole there.

I also did quite a bit of cutting and the sparks flying back on me warmed me up a bit. Thankfully my Round House Overalls¹ deflected the sparks and only “warmed” my family package. If you remember this post from December 2010, “The one where I catch myself on fire in the furtherance of Land Rovering” [Okierover] I caught myself on fire cutting the passenger side floor panel. What I learned from that was:

Blue jeans are not safety gear and are a sad substitute for PPE.
Longjohns [IBC] (aka long handles [Collins], thermal underwear, etc…) will keep the flame off you for a brief time.
Your best friends don’t want you harmed, but also want to take videos of you when you are on fire so they can tease you later.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering

¹This is my unsponsored review of Round House Brown Duck Overalls. It is a solid 10 out of 10. They are made in Shawnee Oklahoma (Home of Brad Pitt) and at $60.00 a pair (on sale at the time of this posting) a real bargain.

August 17, 2023August 17, 2023

Fender Repair Part 3, Welding of the Large Patches (Post #619) August 12, 2023

Folks…its hot outside.

It is not uncommon for Oklahoma to have temps over 100°F for extended periods of time. Even when I was a kid this happened some summers. The hottest temp I ever remembered experiencing was 125°F during the Combined Arms Exercise (CAX) in August of 1985 while I was serving in the US Marine Corps Reserve. We spent 14 lovely days (without a shower) in the high desert of the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, also known as 29 Palms [Marines.mil] or “the stumps” as many Marines sometimes fondly remember it.

I recently got to catch up with one of my friends that I had not seen since February of 1986. We talked for hours and brought up that summer and our exploits in the desert several times.

I know we are supposedly experiencing “never before” (not since records have been kept anyway) high temps across the entire earth. I heard a guy offer an alternative theory to the climate warming crisis. He said, “What if we have been living during a historically cold temperature all this time?” That does make you think a bit…

I work in the shoppe as long as I can during these hot days. The GoPro camera usually signals that I’m done when it over heats. The last few videos I have taken the GoPro it has prematurely quit and had to be set on the portable air condition to get it back to operating temperature.

After I’ve had enough with the heat, leaving the shop on these days in July and August on the Southern plains with triple digit temperatures has me feeling a bit like Sir Alec Guinness when he emerged from “the oven” in Bridge Over the River Kwai (1957).

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkxpvg6PJsI2cItxKk5YIs2Qaf_1TQReYl5

For some stupid reason that video will not embed.

I’ve shown the shoppe temp in previous videos. When the outside temp is 100°F plus. The shoppe temp can easily be 110° to 120°F inside. It’s basically a giant tin oven. It desperately needs an exhaust fan to pull the hot air out. I will be sourcing one and getting it wired in as soon as my budget allows.

I’ve learned four very important lessons in my 58 years of life, that the wisdom of which needs to be passed on to others:

Communism doesn’t work.
Never get involved in a land war in Asia.
Never cook bacon naked.
And not the least of which is, don’t use an angle grinder with a cut off wheel to cut steel plate while wearing shorts and a short-sleeved t-shirt after you’ve had a couple of Cuba Libre’s.

While taking care to follow the “Safety Second” mantra, I cut the steel the night before after a crappy day at work. At least I wore my protective face shield and moved the steel stock away from flammables and the Big White Bus while I ~~showered the entire area including my arms and legs with blistering hot sparks~~ precisely cut the two patches.

I remembered to pack a pair of gloves and to place the fender patches in the Ford F-150 after I cut them Friday night. I was worried that in my haste to get to OKC to eat BBQ and see Mike (who is perhaps my oldest friend), I would miss out on my opportunity to manipulate steel plate using tonnes of pressure with the English Wheel because I left the steel at the Okierover Base Camp. Its happened before.

Thankfully I have awesome friends that have skills and tools I have yet to acquire. JagGuy has an English Wheel in his shop.

Image from TheShed.NZ How to Build Your Own English Wheel

An English Wheel [TheShed.NZ] which if you know anything about its function makes flat stock, curved. For the left rear fender, the last two pieces to weld up are two large arches. The first of which is the big hole in the wheel well, which is where one of the seat belt mounts (which I will have in place but will not use) go. The other is the outer wheel well arch against the outer wall.

I’m going to use his English Wheel to give my patches some curve (parabola) so they are easier to manipulate and weld into place. I’ve never used an English Wheel but am not afraid to try.

I know using the English Wheel is an “art” and people who can produce panels this way charge premium prices due to this highly skilled and labour-intensive production method. I’m not highly skilled and I don’t plan on doing anything that might pass for “labour-intensive”. Just a few tugs and pulls to get a curve. The wheeling will hopefully make my welding and fitting of the panels easier.

The temp actually cooled off for Saturday, apparently the “heat-bubble” popped. We had rain and temps in the 80s. You can watch the video of the wheeling process and the welding of the fenders.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

Mmmm welding

August 23, 2022May 16, 2023

Shipwright’s Disease (Post #598) 8/23/2022

I need to add a “Mad Max Edition” badge.

Take a moment to consider the tragic condition known as Shipwrights Disease:

Sailor owns boat.
Boat has burned out light in galley.
Sailor decides to replace bulb.
Sailor notices socket is corroded, decides to change socket.
While changing the socket, sailor notices wiring is frayed.
Sailor decides to change wiring.
While replacing the wiring, sailor finds galley ceiling slats are rotted.
While replacing the galley ceiling slats, sailor notices …
… And so on, and pretty soon, the boat is in dry dock undergoing a major restoration because of a burned out light bulb.
Source: Robert Couse-Baker, flickr.

I‘m OFFENDED!

Wait, no I’m not, maybe I’m guilty. My best friend JagGuy diagnosed me. He’s probably right.

So let me defend myself. Why did I pull the Range Rover into my shoppe and park it four years ago? I had two major problems when she was parked:

Ignition system became entirely unreliable

The heater blower motor let some of the magic smoke out of its wires

Were there other things that needed some attention when I parked her. Yes, yes there were. I’ve listed them in another post. We can add rusted panels to that list.

In my defense, I believe it was time for the Big White Bus to get another restoration. She has 280,000 miles on her clock.

Do I want her to be a show queen? Not by a long shot. I’ve never owned a car I was afraid to drive through a barbed wire fence. But the interior is looking pretty rough. The condition of the interior and exterior directly affected the insurance pay out I received when that idiot was reaching for the jar of spasgetti (that’s how my grand kids say it) and slammed into the left rear. If you missed that post from 2016, you can read about that here [Okierover.com].

So I’d like to fix some things on the dash that failed after 30 years (she shipped out of Solihull in October of 1992) of sun and cold and sun and poor application of paint at the factory and the sun. You know what I’m talking about. Plastic will eventually break down if exposed to the unforgiving southern plains sun.

Air conditioning…does it make sense to fix the AC? Well hell’s bells I have the bloody dash off why not?!? Have you ever sat in bumper to bumper traffic on I-35 with 110F August heat? I can tell you it will make a man of you, well what’s left of you when you get home anyway.

Rust, I took a welding class just so I could fix the panels…

The paint on the outside is losing it’s clear coat and is badly oxidized….

Seat covers…definitely should be replaced…

Those D pillar vents are looking pretty bad…

Okay. I admit it, it is likely Shipwright’s Disease.

In all honesty, I don’t have the money lined up right now to fix everything and make the Big White Bus my daily driver again. Makin he my daily again makes moderately economical sense because I could drop the 2014 F-150 off my insurance, sell it for what I’m being told is north of 20,000(US)$. (The used auto market at the time of this post is incomprehensibly over blown.) That’s more than half what I paid for her 5 years ago. She’s been a good truck. The reason for her was to pull a camper we bought that my wife later decided was not going to be in our future plans for weekends. Cash out, spend some of that on the BWB, am I right?

Probably won’t happen. More likely the BWB will be my weekend overlanding vehicle. That works too. I miss driving her. I digress.

I’ve said this many times. Every job on the Range Rover becomes three projects. Every bolt you touch either needs to be replaced with stainless, or de-rusted, painted, and the panel you pulled it from rust abated.

Is this Shipwright’s Disease, probably. Am I going to change anything to cure myself? Nope.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

January 20, 2021May 16, 2023

The Current State of the Big White Bus (Post #589) 1/20/2021

Overlanding in my F150, nice, but not my Range Rover

It’s been a long time since I have posted. I don’t have to tell you what a weird world this has been the last year. It’s still not “normal”. Maybe it will never be again. Who knows….

Let me catch you up. The house is still being remodeled. That has consumed quite a bit of my personal time. We’ve lost some cherished loved ones this last year. We’ve added a new grandson. Mrs. Okierover and I have been blessed that we still have jobs. There is something about being an “essential” employee that has its blessings. Banking and nursing have been good career paths for us.

The Big White Bus is in a state of disassembly.

In January of 2020, I started on the heater box. Then my funding dried up. We have had to replace the heat pump and the roof on this house all in 2020. We’ve tried to be careful with our money too with possible job uncertainty lurking around every corner.

I’ve been taking stock of all the things I need to repair at this stage. I’m probably leaving something off but here’s a list of what I can come up with off the top of my head:

Heater Fan. I have the fan installed. I need all the ancillary gaskets.
New heater hoses. I’ve got it apart, might as well do them now.
Air conditioning hoses. There’s a leak somewhere and these hoses are original OEM from the factory. No way they are still good.
AC compressor, dryer, everything. Tired old components need to be replaced.
Clunky steering column. The bearing is shot I guess but it needs to be pulled and sorted.
Battery drain. I suspect it is the alternator again. I get replacements free for life from NAPA. I’m not sure I won’t go with something else more “sturdy”.
Ignition system. I need this system to be bullet proof. I’m going to replace the distributor and all the components again. I haven’t decided on which one yet.
Power steering leak. Still having issues with this. At least its a slow leak.
Left front brake caliper. There was wetness on the inside when I parked her in the shoppe. Investigation is needed.
Gas gauge uncertainty. The new fuel pump install has the gas gauge reporting varying levels of petrol. I can drive 150 miles on the second half of the tank. The float needs to be adjusted.
Radio and sound system. I’ve sourced a unit that I will be able to tie my phone to that won’t break the bank.
Seat covers. The leather is toast. This could be expensive. I’m thinking a waterproof replacement like what Ford is delivering with the new Broncos.
The D pillars need to be stripped and repainted. The vinyl is toast, too much Oklahoma sun.

I could probably list half a dozen “upgrades” like skid plates, lockers, new carpets, refurbishing the plastic bits. I still haven’t replaced my rear bumper from the last time a jackass distracted driver hit me. I’m sure I could list a dozen more. The Big White Bus is really showing her 250,000+ miles and she needs a facelift.

I’d like to say 2021 will be better than 2020. But honestly, I don’t have a lot of hope for any sector. Funding will improve this year I’m sure of it. We have major repairs required in the guest bathroom. The drain line under the tub has to be replaced. The master bath still has not been remodeled.

First world problems right?

Thanks for Reading and Happy Rovering.

August 12, 2015May 16, 2023

Too Hot to Land Rover (Post #542) 8/12/2015

Blasphemy! you might say. So I’ll qualify that to it’s too hot to wrench. It is the height of summer here in Oklahoma. Temperatures while they haven’t been anywhere near the lovely year of 100’s, they have been close. Our exiting of the drought in such a dramatic way this year (2015) has the humidity up to the levels I remember it from before the drought.

So your greasy fingered blogger has not put much effort into much of anything Land Rover. That is not to say I don’t have a handful of project to do, I do.

Continue reading “Too Hot to Land Rover (Post #542) 8/12/2015”