Life changed 😭😭😭

 Sadly life changed on me and I was never able to get my beloved Rusty back on the road.

I am going to be 100% honest here, it was a rather unsettled period in my life and I had to come to terms with far more than just getting rid of an old Land Rover.

A beaver tail recovery truck picked us up from the petrol station and dropped us back at home.

Needing to be mobile and back at work on Monday morning I had to find something that started, ran and had ability to tow a caravan.  So enter the "temporary" Ford Maverick 2.7TDi.

Great truck for a bargain price, did everything I needed it to.

The Maverick stayed and the Discovery was sent to Grantham and laid up in the back of the yard until I had time, or so I hoped, queue the Nissan Navara works truck and I barely used the Maverick, it needed work as well, new ball joints and bushings on upper and lower wishbones and the front wing crumbled in my hand when I was going through it for the MOT.

Then on that fateful Tuesday morning the now ex texted to tell me that after 13 years and a baby, she didn't want to be with me anymore, turns out she's just a lying cheater who was shagging around behind my back while I was working my arse off 😒😒😒

The Maverick still wasn't road worthy and that ended up joining Rusty in the back of the yard.

I rented a house and moved, bought Rusty and the Maverick home to Melton and started to figure out the future.

What was the outcome?  The list of jobs on Rusty had grown, it was already a gearbox and transfer box but he needed a power steering box, pump and all the pipework, I noted a lot of play and backlash in the front diff too!

In short, the cost and time necessary just said no and I made the tough decision to let him go and do the cheap and easy repairs on the Maverick.

Waving good bye to Rusty was hard after the break up of my family.

I want to thank you all for following our journey and reading to the end of this sad chapter, I never thought it would end and certainly not like this.

The Maverick needs welding, maybe Mavis needs a blog of her own 🤔

Gearbox or Transfer box?

Pulling on to a roundabout today and pop, we lost drive.

Rolled across the exit and pushed it into a petrol station forecourt. 

The AA have been summoned and we are awaiting recovery. 

Let's see what comes next....... 

Tow bar fitting.

When I bought Rusty it was my intention to build and off road him to be enjoyed as a formidable machine with all the bells and whistles.

Well a winch and HD low line bumper were added along with a second alternator, life kind of got in the way of diff locks, now life demands more of Rusty than off road toy and now he must earn his keep with a tow bar, I never liked a tow bar, they always get hung up on rocks and act as a plough in mud, but needs must.

First the jate rings for recovery have to come off, these can be awful as the bolts rust in the tubes and can be a real pain.

My bolts came out no problem at all, I left the nylocs a little loose and the rings could swing freely and so never seized thankfully. 

I fitted a heavy duty galvanised steel tank guard yonks ago, it needed a little trim to let the bracing arms into position to be bolted up.

Grinder out to slice and dice. 

Tow ball time, this tow ball has followed me from my old red V8 petrol Discovery from 2010, about time it got put to use. 

All the bolts were torqued up and then it just needed me to fit the lighting socket along with some extra reversing lights, the Discovery is plug and play with a purpose fitted plug in the loom and you just feed the cable up and plug it in, reversing lights will be on a switch at the instrument binnacle when I have a bit more time, but I opted to fit the tow socket to the bumper to keep it up out of the mud and spray that is the cause of so many problems with towing electrics. 

I calls that done, thanks for looking. 

Power Train Fluid Refresh.

 I try to keep on top of the oils and fluids, makes things run smooth it does.

I will be honest though, with it being stood for a year while I welded the whole thing back up, some things got neglected.

So my mission was to get it all squared away asap and back to firm base to build off.

With great thanks to Dave Harrington over at Hampshire oil and grease I got me 20 litres of Dexron 11D transmission fluid and 20 litres of EP80/90W hypoid gear oil.

Lots to do and I had very little time to do it!!!

Well that wasn't supposed to happen, the little square topped plug is the level plug for the swivel housing and I always found it easier to pop the steering stop out to do the swivel housings as it's a ball ache otherwise trying to get the plug out.  Ping goes the steering stop 😠😠😠

Oh well, drain at the bottom and level plug in the middle.

Up here at the top is the filler plug.

Front axle housing, clean the crap off and always, always pop the filler plug out before you drain the housings, that goes for everything really, if you can't get fluids back in then it's not a good idea to empty out what you got in there.

LT77 main gearbox runs a Dexron 11D ATF transmission fluid and NOT EP80/90 gear oil lol.

The super strong LT230 transfer box does run a hypoid EP80/90W gear oil however, although I do know people running EP140 extra thick oil in there as it tends not to leak out as easily, mine has the very common intermediate shaft O ring leak, really lets the box down as it seems a very half arsed way to seal that shaft in particular and it can also destroy casings if the bearings wear and the shaft ovals out the hole in the casing.

The back axle oil got swapped out too, very easy, drain plug and fill it up.

Wheel nuts on the road wheels, for goodness sakes, just buy a torque wrench, torque them up to 95lb/ft or 129NM and check after 50 miles driving, no you do not need a scaffold pole on a 3/4" breaker bar, just do it properly and they come off easier in the future as well as not stretching your wheel studs or stripping the threads out your wheel nuts.

All buttoned up, had to address some loose drive member bolts and reseal the drive member on the drivers side, likely I will need to renew the front brake pads before winter so I will pop the hubs off and regrease the wheel bearings and reset them.

Thanks for looking.

New Power Steering Pump.

Power Steering Pump Died.

Driving back South on a dark and bleak Sunday night, it was weird coming off the motorway for the A road home and the steering was very heavy, thought it was a maybe a puncture but I pulled up and all the tyres were hard so carried on and it seemed as though the PAS had failed, but it was still running, albeit with a swirling in the PAS reservoir, so I carried on only for the pump to seize solid and snap the belt.

It was late and I was tired, called the AA road recovery service and about an hour and a half later a guy turned up and fitted one of those "cut to fit" get you home V belts that connects in the middle and needless to say, it didn't last more than 10 minutes.

Lets pop the hood and dive straight in.

The humble shoe lace that kept the water pump spinning over to get me home. 

This  is the pulley that powers the PAS pump and transfers power to the alternator, it got very hot when the pump seized and damaged the alternator belt.

Damage to the alternator belt can be seen here, I wouldn't risk running this belt again, it's been compromised by heat from the PAS belt slipping and ultimately snapping.

Brand new pump £200, another £30 for belts and £40 for fluids, dear old game this lately.

 Not sponsored so all my own dollar 😒😒😒

Alternator off first to gain access to the pump, remembering to pull the battery clamps off, the alternator wire is live so when it's hanging free it's dangerous.

The pressure feed off the pump is 16mm and usually a pain to get off as it will have been on there a long time.

Make sure the oil drain pan is under there to catch the oil as it flows out the pump and reservoir.

Make sure you realise that the reservoir is still going to have fluid in it and it will need emptied out.

Next to remove the PAS pump, the pump is mounted to the plate that adjusts the tension of the belt, 3X M6 flange headed bolts hold the pulley to the flange and 3X m8 flange headed bolts locate and tension the adjuster plate, 4X M6 flange headed bolts hold the pump to the back of the plate and it's a wriggle and a wiggle to get the flanges through the plate.

Swap over the reservoir feed pipe, it's a ball ache trying to undo the clips with the pump in situ so it's easier to leave it in place until you get it out.

I opted to pour a litre of fluid through the return line to at least flush some of the bad fluid out of the steering box.

Fitting the pump back in place.

Pulley replaced and alternator put back on and wired back up, new belts fitted, fluid all topped up and bled through.

I have now done 360 miles on it and it is great, no more groaning and whining with actual power in the steering, so much better.

I still need to drain and replace the fluid at least two more times and to fit an inline transmission filter to filter out any remaining debris in the system, I couldn't get one fast enough for my trip at the weekend so I had to take the gamble.

Thanks for looking and please feel free to comment.

Diesel Bleed Off Pipes.

 After blowing the head gasket and the extensive dismantling to repair that I had to disturb the diesel leak off pipes on the injectors, I had replaced the small rubber pipes years ago, probably back in 2014.

I got a whiff of something as I drove through the New Forest and stopped to find diesel spraying out one of the pipes.

No drama, had some washer jet pipe in the spares and put it on as a temp fix.

You can see the new braided pipe and new clips just under the oil catch cyclone, job done in about a half hour.

Thanks for watching....

Blown Head Gasket

Blown Head Gasket Replacement

My Saturday went well after fitting the new alternator and belt, but my Sunday didn't work out well at all.

Went something like this.

So that will be coolant all over the forecourt of the garage, not good, get her home and start stripping it down for investigation.

Second alternator off and the coolant hoses away along with the intercooler pipes it was time to strip off the inlet and exhaust manifolds.

Mustn't forget the thermostat housing and as they are getting quite a rare commodity they have to be treated with respect.

Exhaust manifold coming off now.

Now there's a bit of space, time to get the rockers out.

Rocker box cover off and injector pipes disconnected, pulled the rockers off and out with the head bolts, pop the top and see whats in there.

Oh dear.

Not surprised to find a cylinder full of water but it was far from a welcome sight.

The gasket had rotted out between cylinders 3 and 4, I would say the head is scrap.

Lots of cleaning and scraping to clean up the deck of the block and make it clean and ready for the next step of fitting the new head gasket and another head.

Found me a secondhand head, turns out I had to remove it from the engine myself, not what I had planned but hey ho.

Not in bad shape, nothing a good clean won't solve.

Head laid on the bench and I just couldn't get the third injector out, had to leave it with the seller to get it removed and popped back a few days later to pick it up.

Head finally home for cleaning and inspection.

Uh Oh, valve stem seals at the top of the valves means that the oil was working it's way down, not great and needs to be sorted.

 My goodies were amassing to facilitate the rebuild, Elring head gasket, top end gasket and seal set and a full set of silicone coolant hoses.

One of my best investments, valve spring compressor, couldn't have done it without this.

Injector puller to get my injectors out of my original head, popped straight out, doddle it was.

So the new head had issues, stem seals being one, but the carbon build up on the exhaust valves was horrendous and the worst I've ever seen.

Wire wheel cleaned them up and away we go for cleaning, lapping in a new sealing face and reassembly.

Friday night sat in the kitchen lapping valves, magic.

Now the valves are lapped in it was time to fit new valve stem seals, nothing fancy just a 13mm deep socket and a hammer to knock them on.

All fitted and on to the next bit.

Oiled the valve stems prior to fitting in the guides, fitted the springs and washers and used the valve spring compressor to help fit the securing colletts, great tool and worth every penny.

Head is now fully assembled and ready to go on.

Used a product called Well Seal to coat the head gasket both sides before fitting it and the head bolts went in good and easy, new set of head bolts as I didn't know how many times the others had been used, max 5 times, all torqued down and set with the angle gauge, happy days, injectors fitted with some copper paste and clamps torqued down.

Valve caps fitted with a dab of fresh engine oil, the rocker shaft was fitted and torqued down, the valve lash was set using the rule of 9, main reason for leaving the glow plugs out until the last was to allow the engine to run easily for the valve lash setting.

In my collection of new bit was the blue silicone hose set that I really liked, the originals had perished a little and needed replaced anyway and these were an expensive upgrade but they do look cool.

Brand new Bosch water pump going in too as I didn't want to risk the old one failing me after having gone to so much trouble with the head gasket.

And that's a wrap, all buttoned up and filled with coolant, injector unions fitted and the bleed off pipe banjos got new copper washers, glow plugs in and wires connected, hoo ya, time to start it up and get a test run out of it.

Test run successful and I will admit that I was nervous.

So far I've put close to 1000kms on it and it hasn't missed a beat, although some other things have happened lol.