Range Rover Classic

Yeah I'll do that. I would like it to go to someone who's going to look after it if possible. As you say, these are thin on the ground already and survivors are either being turned into offroaders or broken up for defender projects

It passed its MOT today anyway, albeit with a list of advisories but I will sort all of them before it's sold

Today's efforts


Started off with the thing that's been annoying me most, which is the wipers don't park and intermittent doesn't work. The car came with a spare wiper stalk so took the old one out for a look.
Contacts where pretty minging so cleaned them up and put it back in. Still no play

Tried the new one

Which fixed it! Nice easy fix and old wiper stalk in the bin


While I was there I removed the switch for the old LED lightbar, which ad been roughly fitted to the steering column cowling

I'll try and get hold of a new one
Whoever had done this had sliced off insulation on the original loom and soldered these wires to it, badly. At least it was easy to remove


I ended up removing the relevant pin from the plug so I could use heatshrink over the exposed wire


And then a bit of self amalgamating tape


Better


The next bit I didnt take any photos of because I dropped my phone and smashed the glass on the screen and rear cover
Which sums up how the rest of the day went
Removing the stainless exhaust was an absolute pain in the A**E!

Stainless exhaust with mild steel clamps which all had to be cut off. I also had to remove the throttle linkage, LPG vapouriser, MAF and air box to get out the LH manifold
Anyway, Its all out without any damage to it and just needs the heads cleaning up prior to the standard system going on, complete with catalytlic converters and lambda sensors

I also had a go with my new polisher

Could have gone better, could have gone worse

The original paint beneath the damaged paint is very thin and I just went through to primer in one bit. Ill just have to lightly polish the rest. Its just to risky to go through to the original paint and it'll look a lot better from a meter away than it does now

Thats it for now. Hopefully more tomorrow

Cheers!

Managed to grab a few hours before work to make a start on the bumpers

After sorting a wire on the LPG vapouriser I got onto sanding down, treating surface rust and giving the bumper a skim of filler


Followed by a coat of red lead


Filler primer


and a guide coat


That just needs to cure now. I do want to go and get some dolphin glaze, just to sort some minor imperfections and then it should be good to paint


On a side note, I have been running on petrol and it does seem to be improving slowly. Maybe its just that the injectors are gummed up

My 4.6 was hesitant when I first got it, but new plugs and leads sorted that. Not likely to be your issue as you say. as if it were, it would be worse on LPG.

Sounds like a good old Italian Tune-Up is necessary.

Anyway, it's scrubbing up nicely now.

That front bumper - er - looks like a professional job - might just have to stop giving the tips out - next thing is you will kitting up in competition against me !

Check the fuel pressure at the rail, there's a shrader valve on there for the purposes of. I've used tyre gauges to check it in the past with good sucess.

It should be about 4 bar at idle.

Timing works best about 6° Before for running both petrol and gas, and best set dynamically with a timing light.

The idle control valve is also a possibility as they can gum up, and will eventually get bored of backfires on LPG and fall apart.

Well its all gone a bit tits up

I've been driving the disco to work on petrol hoping that it would magically fix itself. It didn't. Its been getting worse. And then it refused to start on petrol or LPG after work. Eventually after a lot of faffing about, I found a few issues with the ignition side of things. The old coil from the Range Rover had died and the leads were of poor quality and were falling apart. The plugs where black from it running rich and also very wet from all the cranking. Dizzy cap was carbon'd up too. Anyway, fitted new plugs, leads, coil, cleaned dizzy and it fired up on LPG but ran curse word on petrol. I was low on LPG so went to get some more. When I got back I noticed the oil pressure light on. Checked the dipstick and it was way above the max. While I'd been cranking it over trying to get home from work I'd very much flooded the engine and filled the sump with fuel  Entirely my own fault. The new MAF had turned up so fitted that and changed the oil. Started up, revs freely but now knocks with no oil pressure. FFS!

So I've lunched the engine

I'm ready to cut my losses on this thing and sell it on. I'm having the 2" suspension lift kit, wheels, stainless exhaust and LPG kit but then I'll have to sell as spares or repairs....with 12 months MOT. Today however I found out that there is a 3.5 Rover V8 sitting about the motor club. The bloke who owned it moved away at least 3 years and I'm pretty sure he only removed it to put a 4.6 in as the car was being used for competition. So what to do? Leave as is and sell as spares or swap in the free engine and sell as a runner? I suppose it will depend on the Engine. I have no idea what the differences are if its an early 3.5.

In the meantime I've made a start on swapping the bits over, which has gone really badly. A running theme of this brilliant idea of mine.
Started swapping the exhaust over. The manifolds went in OK but the Y-pieces are different for manual and auto cars so that bit doesn't fit. Also the hangars are different.

Fannyhair!

Slightly deterred but given new confidence with a fresh brew, I decided to tackle the 2" lift kit and wheels.

The idea was to swap the springs and dampers from the Disco to the Range Rover and vice-versa.
Starting with the rear, the springs came off lovely. On the dampers, however, there is no way holding them while you undo the 19mm nut on the bottom other than a 8mm flat, which has splayed open my 8mm spanner. On the disco I couldn't get them undone and on the Range Rover, the nut sheared off. Good start then.


Swaps


Bin!


Tarted up the spring seat and strap on the Range Rover and Spent an inordinate amount of time with the tin of waxoil chassis paint going over all the areas I could get to with the suspension out and exhaust off. It really is very good underneath and I want to keep it that way. Not showing off my new banded GT6 wheels off at all   Cheers smith4 !


Fitted


And down


Rake!


Ill have to leave the rear dampers on the Disco as to get them off I'd have to cut the bottoms off which defeats the point. New set for the RR then. Another Expence. YAY!

Onto the front. Surely the front dampers can be as stupid a design as the rears....

Oh they are

Tried gripping the damper body with various medieval methods but I've been defeated....for now. I've ordered a reciprocating electric saw

To take my mind off being mentally and physically broken, I thought some relaxing therapeutic polishing might be the answer
And I have to say its coming up very nicely


Even with the coarsest pad and cutting polish, it still wont cut through the underseal overpsray


I think that leaves me with the safe option of lots of time with a clay bar or the dangerous option of colour sanding. Unless anyone knows a better way of getting off overspray?

It's not something I like to agree with but I have recently come down to 3 cars from 6 and it is just so much easier to stay on top of things, not spreading yourself so thin. Some people comfortably manage several at a time but for me I'm trying to remain at 3! Good luck attempting to choose which of the fleet to cull, never an easy decision.

this was my method, ring spanner on the nut, then a stilson wrench on the body of the shock, and turn the body of the shock to undo the nut. (with bit of tube over the handle)