Three month anniversary

Posted on October 6, 2012 by Charles

I recently took a job which requires me to go into the office every day which is new for me as I haven’t commuted in years. It’s roughly 13 miles each way and takes about a half hour depending on traffic.

I’m happy to report I have been using my series as my daily driver for over three months now (sans any top) and couldn’t be happier.  In that period there were two or three days I didn’t drive it because it was raining when I was leaving, or the prediction of rain was near or at 100%. I got rained on a few times on the way home but don’t mind one bit! It seems to lose (I think primarily burn) about a quart of oil per tank of gas which seems a bit excessive but otherwise has been flawless.

It’s starting to cool down so I’ll probably put the hard top on in the next month or so, but plan to continue driving it over the winter, despite the horrible road salt they use here.

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Lucky Eights

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Charles

I took a picture today as the odometer click over to 88,888 as I thought the great Land Rover parts and accessory vendors, Lucky 8, might get a kick out of it. I then realized I haven’t posted lately.

88,888 miles
88,888 miles

Recently I replaced the brake shoes all around, replaced the front drums and had the rears turned, and also replaced the front wheel cylinders with 1.25″ ones since the current ones were only 1″. The rears were lucas and looked fine so I left them. I didn’t install the springs properly the first time and it took a few attempts to get it all right but I think I have it sorted now (although the fronts make some noise under light braking).

A few weeks ago I took the soft top off since I really like driving it without any top and I have the luxury of not needing to drive it in inclement weather. After removing the top I realized I didn’t take a single picture with it on.  Oh well, maybe next year.

Today I put on a new silicone valve cover gasket and adjusted the valves while I had the cover off. I saw some gunk at the bottom of the fuel pump sediment bowl so I cleaned that out.

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Some much needed TLC

Posted on August 31, 2011 by Charles

I week or two ago decided to put the soft top on in anticipation of needing it for a potential trip to New York next month. Since I had never installed it I thought it would be wise to make sure I had everything, as well as knew how to fit it. Everything went smoothly, although I don’t have any pictures yet (I’ll add them here later).

Then my friend Pedro goaded me into buying a spin on oil adapater and since I had to change the oil I figured what the heck, and my friend Jason picked one up for me so I didn’t even have to order it myself :). That went smoothly as well, but I forgot to take pictures. Not much to see, but it looks like this.

Also my friend Dave recommended I try British Starters for an improved aftermarket starter when I mentioned mine had shorted again and I hadn’t gotten around to fixing it and hand cranking it was getting old.  The install was nice and easy other than having to remove a heat shield to access the top bold from above since the shape of the new starter made it really hard to get a socket back there.  I did have to make a short jumper wire to bypass the solenoid but that was easy. It works great with a few test starts and I highly recommend it. Again I was too excited when it came today to remember to take pictures, so I took a picture of the box afterwards. The second photo is a stock photo from their site, which is extremely accurate.

Lastly while using a magnetic pickup to coax a washer and lock washer onto the top starter stud, I noticed it stuck to the exhaust! Isn’t stainless supposed to not be magnetic?

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Exhaust: 6 month review

Posted on June 29, 2011 by Charles

I was reminded recently I had not made a post in a while, so here is a weak attempt at something constructive.  After 6 months the exhaust is still functioning nicely but after the winter salt on the roads you can barely tell this is a stainless exhaust. Yes apparently stainless steel rusts 🙂  I don’t have any pictures handy but will try to remember to update this sometime.

In other news, she’s been humming along nicely as my primary daily driver (not that I drive daily).  The brakes started to squeak and pulling the drums revealed my axle seals are leaking and the left front shoes are wearing pretty thin so she’ll be getting new brakes as soon as I finish up the brakes on the defenders.

Oh, and the starter failed 2 days ago so I now need to hand crank it to start.  I can see this getting old too, so I’ll be pulling the starter soon too 🙂

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Exhaust installed

Posted on December 9, 2010 by Charles

I installed the exhaust last weekend.  While under there I noticed the main cable to the starter was loose so I tightened it. I didn’t realize at the time but this cause the terminal to touch the housing internally and therefore break it. So after the exhaust was installed I had to drop the header pipe again so I could remove the starter, take it apart, figure out what was wrong, add a non-conductive spacer to the stud, re-assemble, re-install, and finally re-install the header pipe.

Easy! 🙂

Oh, one of the exhaust studs’ threads are a bit stripped, but is holding. Hopefully I won’t be posting about how my exhaust is leaking at the manifold anytime soon.

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New exhaust

Posted on November 16, 2010 by Charles

I have not had time to fit it yet, and my patch is holding up fine, but on my recent GWNF trip the exhaust broke off on the way down.  I just removed it for the rest of the trip, but when I got back I sleeved it with some slightly larger exhaust pipe as a temporary measure. But the rest of it is looking pretty rusty and the root cause of the failure was a hanger breaking, so I decided to get a complete replacement system and splurged on a stainless steel one (which hopefully will never rust out).

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Hard top back on

Posted on November 16, 2010 by Charles

It’s getting pretty cool so I put the hard top back on last week. I had to order the top seals as I dismantled it completely for storage this time, and they were shot. Although next year I’ll be able to keep it complete for storage.

I haven’t taken any pictures but it looks just like last year 🙂

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I lost 10 pounds in my rear

Posted on October 30, 2010 by Charles

10 pounds per square inch of air pressure that is 🙂

The ride is surprisingly stiff and bumpy, and so I tried lowering the tire pressure from a whopping 45 PSI to 35 PSI. This feels like a good pressure, although I might try 40 in the front to ease steering (and it shouldn’t affect the bumpiness as much as the rears)

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GWNF Fall Foliage run

Posted on October 30, 2010 by Charles

In mid October I took a trip down to the George Washington National forrest with my local 4×4 group.  It was a beautiful day for 270 miles of top down driving!

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Seat belts!

Posted on September 18, 2010 by Charles

I finally got around to installing some seat belts (3 front seats). My wife would not drive in it, nor allow my kids to drive in it without them. I got some betls and brackets from a fellow LRO member who had been using them on a series 1. Not sure if the brackets a rover or not but the belts are GM.  The truck came with two new lap belts so I used those with the brackets I got for the sides and used one of the GM belts for the center seat. Will take pictures sometime.

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