digger9523
Well-Known Member
Been the happy owner of a Defender for a few weeks now. The last owner had used it for a trip round Africa, went across the Sahara in the old girl apparently! But since he got home she was mostly stored and slowly stripped of all the expedition gear. After some time it came up for sale, enter Me stage right.
As you can imagine, a long hard trip followed by a period of storage can take its toll, so some TLC has been lavished on the old thing over the past few weekends. I've got a mate who was in the REME and was a Land Rover chief engine tech for some years, so not much he doesn't know about them. Works for Vauxhall now.
One fine Saturday morning we had access to his bay at the garage he works in, so with Isobel (now named after my battle chariot in Iraq) on the four poster we did all of the fluids, engine/gearbox/transfer box and diffs, and the fuel and oil filters.
When the rear filler bung was wound back in it was found to be quite loose from previous people's services, they'd wound it in too far and nearly pushed it through into the diff! Paul said that what can happen is the bung gets caught by the diff and sucked into during travel!
After this was all done we went out and gave the underside a good wash off to get rid of all the salts etc in prep for a thorough waxoyl. While we were reversing into the wash bay, K-clunk! "WTF was that?" Says I, "Dunno mate, did the low box jump out of gear?" says Paul. While in the bay, a quick look around showed that the diff bung had been sucked in! Worst part was that as we drove out, the garage shut (1300hrs closing on Saturday) So we had to nurse Isobel 3.5 miles to Paul's workshop, 3.5 miles of fear that my rear diff was about to destroy itself!
After one more clunk and much twitching of derrières, we limped into the workshop. Orf with the diff pan to find a nicely chewed up bung, but a perfectly fine diff!
With that potential coronary behind us, a new gasket was made and the diff put back together.
Meanwhile, at the other end of ze vagon, I was distracting myself by changing the turbo hoses for my boy racer blue Sillycone ones and changing a rusty egr blanking plate for a shiny new one with a gasket.
Sunday we looked over all four brakes and cut off those stupid single steps by all the doors!
Some pics from the weekend, starting with me old mate Paul and his little pocket tool kit:
Isobel on the four poster:
While we could put her in the air we did all fluids. Note my battered sump pan! That's on the to do list:
Some previous grease monkey had used the wrong oil in the gear box it seemed, luckily only recently, and the axles hadn't been done in a long time! But they're all done proppa now.
Engine bay Pre fettle:
Note the air filter housing is skew whiff (all four mounts had broken!) and the skabby old turbo hoses.
The bottom intercooler hose actually had an inch long rip in it where it had perished around the jubilee clip, so i was glad I'd got the new hoses which at time of purchase were just a childish attempt at blinging my engine bay!
Here's the new hoses in place and the new EGR blanking plate:
Next thing for me to do was re fit the air filter housing:
It was a bugger getting behind it to disconnect the air intake hoses, but she's all done now with four new mounting rubbers:
While changing the fuel filter we discovered that the fuel lift pump is long past its best:
I've had Paul down my end this weekend doing all the bits we couldn't do after the drama with the rear diff soaked up time that weekend!
The mrs has decided she doesn't like the seats in the wagon, so she's blown her bolt on some Exmoor trim, which I thought was a waste of money, but she's paying!
The driver/passenger seats are in, just need to do the rear passenger seats.
As you can imagine, a long hard trip followed by a period of storage can take its toll, so some TLC has been lavished on the old thing over the past few weekends. I've got a mate who was in the REME and was a Land Rover chief engine tech for some years, so not much he doesn't know about them. Works for Vauxhall now.
One fine Saturday morning we had access to his bay at the garage he works in, so with Isobel (now named after my battle chariot in Iraq) on the four poster we did all of the fluids, engine/gearbox/transfer box and diffs, and the fuel and oil filters.
When the rear filler bung was wound back in it was found to be quite loose from previous people's services, they'd wound it in too far and nearly pushed it through into the diff! Paul said that what can happen is the bung gets caught by the diff and sucked into during travel!
After this was all done we went out and gave the underside a good wash off to get rid of all the salts etc in prep for a thorough waxoyl. While we were reversing into the wash bay, K-clunk! "WTF was that?" Says I, "Dunno mate, did the low box jump out of gear?" says Paul. While in the bay, a quick look around showed that the diff bung had been sucked in! Worst part was that as we drove out, the garage shut (1300hrs closing on Saturday) So we had to nurse Isobel 3.5 miles to Paul's workshop, 3.5 miles of fear that my rear diff was about to destroy itself!
After one more clunk and much twitching of derrières, we limped into the workshop. Orf with the diff pan to find a nicely chewed up bung, but a perfectly fine diff!
With that potential coronary behind us, a new gasket was made and the diff put back together.
Meanwhile, at the other end of ze vagon, I was distracting myself by changing the turbo hoses for my boy racer blue Sillycone ones and changing a rusty egr blanking plate for a shiny new one with a gasket.
Sunday we looked over all four brakes and cut off those stupid single steps by all the doors!
Some pics from the weekend, starting with me old mate Paul and his little pocket tool kit:
Isobel on the four poster:
While we could put her in the air we did all fluids. Note my battered sump pan! That's on the to do list:
Some previous grease monkey had used the wrong oil in the gear box it seemed, luckily only recently, and the axles hadn't been done in a long time! But they're all done proppa now.
Engine bay Pre fettle:
Note the air filter housing is skew whiff (all four mounts had broken!) and the skabby old turbo hoses.
The bottom intercooler hose actually had an inch long rip in it where it had perished around the jubilee clip, so i was glad I'd got the new hoses which at time of purchase were just a childish attempt at blinging my engine bay!
Here's the new hoses in place and the new EGR blanking plate:
Next thing for me to do was re fit the air filter housing:
It was a bugger getting behind it to disconnect the air intake hoses, but she's all done now with four new mounting rubbers:
While changing the fuel filter we discovered that the fuel lift pump is long past its best:
I've had Paul down my end this weekend doing all the bits we couldn't do after the drama with the rear diff soaked up time that weekend!
The mrs has decided she doesn't like the seats in the wagon, so she's blown her bolt on some Exmoor trim, which I thought was a waste of money, but she's paying!
The driver/passenger seats are in, just need to do the rear passenger seats.
. Am not a Landie fan although I did look at getting one a few years back. Quickly decided that I could get a Jeep cheaper so did that. It was good for our needs and use.
