Lovely clear night. Spent an hour of quality time with my land rover. Replaced upper steering column Ujoint. Butt simple with no engine in the bay. I sat there feeling small. How is it that the engine is only 2.5 litres and, fully installed, it takes up the whole engine bay when I'm 6'4" 200lb and can sit in there with room to spare? Guess I'm not as big a hoser... Looked around when I got finnished. Counted FIVE hammers! FIVE! What could I be thinking of. Decided to put some tools away. Had to lift the bucket from the bottom... afraid the handle would pull off. Guess it was about time. SUN FM was playing some good tunes tonight. Station comes in better in the eves when Vancouver gets the rain. Playlist used to be better but still good listening. Climbed in and out of the engine bay so many times the bumper is getting shiny... time for the black spray bomb again. Need some power steering fittings. Off to Coast Industrial to get some that likely won't fit. I never seem to be able to go there only once. Hope someday to use all the extra that I seem to collect. Didn't lose any parts tonight. In fact found some I'ld lost last night..
All and all a good night to go wrenching.
So in the words of Dave Harmer
JD
OUT
Island Blogging
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JD
Blogging
It's Saturday. No doubt every other sane land rover owner is in Vancouver at Founder's day. Having fun, bums up, heads down, bonnets up swapping beers and lies about trucks and trails. I'm working on my Defender. Again. For the third straight year in a row. Determined to have a running Defender before going to a Founder's day. Bad enough going up to the Valley Ralley in the Ford Pickup. Not this year by gum!
Raining. Hard. Wind whipping in under the tarps. Trying to fit an air inlet pipe to the inlet side of the turbo. Elbow to turbo 1/4 inch too small. Pipe from elbow to air cleaner smaller yet. Now Sunday on the fourth trip to the parts store. Looking for any two pipes that fit each other that in the end, have some hope of connecting the air cleaner to the turbo. The helpful young man behind the counter at the local Perogie's Performance Parts store suggests the use of exhaust pipe. Yup, he says, just get one close enough then whip down to Speedy and get them to flair one end and squeeze down the other. It's 5PM on Sunday. He looks knowlegable.I have to go to work tomorrow and won't get such an opportunity until Saturday next. I'll want a video crew standing by whilst I hold out a grubby Safeway bag full of test pipes, mangled nipples and other creatively buggared bits to a bemused and presumably interested Speedy muffler supervisor. I'll look him hard in the eyes and try to explain what it is that the nice young man at the parts store suggested. Shown on YouTube the video would bring tears to a glass eye factory.
So by late Sunday eve I sit down on the bumper of my other truck (which shares the same tent - otherwise known as the Big Top), crack a beer and ruminate on the strange apparitioning of Land Rover humour. Is the truck metric or SAE? Ha! Fooled you again. It's both … kinda…. Why does a 15/16 wrench fit on one side of a bolt and a 24 mil fit on the other? But not visa versa. As for buggared bits; the Wikipedia etymology on bugger makes better reading than Haynes. Land Rover humour must be a lot like Cat humour. Good thing the Defender can't dance on my key board.
And that's the way it is. This day of 20 January 2008
Cheers
JD
Raining. Hard. Wind whipping in under the tarps. Trying to fit an air inlet pipe to the inlet side of the turbo. Elbow to turbo 1/4 inch too small. Pipe from elbow to air cleaner smaller yet. Now Sunday on the fourth trip to the parts store. Looking for any two pipes that fit each other that in the end, have some hope of connecting the air cleaner to the turbo. The helpful young man behind the counter at the local Perogie's Performance Parts store suggests the use of exhaust pipe. Yup, he says, just get one close enough then whip down to Speedy and get them to flair one end and squeeze down the other. It's 5PM on Sunday. He looks knowlegable.I have to go to work tomorrow and won't get such an opportunity until Saturday next. I'll want a video crew standing by whilst I hold out a grubby Safeway bag full of test pipes, mangled nipples and other creatively buggared bits to a bemused and presumably interested Speedy muffler supervisor. I'll look him hard in the eyes and try to explain what it is that the nice young man at the parts store suggested. Shown on YouTube the video would bring tears to a glass eye factory.
So by late Sunday eve I sit down on the bumper of my other truck (which shares the same tent - otherwise known as the Big Top), crack a beer and ruminate on the strange apparitioning of Land Rover humour. Is the truck metric or SAE? Ha! Fooled you again. It's both … kinda…. Why does a 15/16 wrench fit on one side of a bolt and a 24 mil fit on the other? But not visa versa. As for buggared bits; the Wikipedia etymology on bugger makes better reading than Haynes. Land Rover humour must be a lot like Cat humour. Good thing the Defender can't dance on my key board.
And that's the way it is. This day of 20 January 2008
Cheers
JD
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JD
It was snowing....
It was snowing as I started up the Baja Buggy for the umptyumph time today. Lynn calls the Defender a Baja Buggy if the top is off. Top is off. The snow falkes weren't cold or wet or even very white. Kindof pink actually. Pink clashes with Baja Bronze green. It was a good day. No gooey leaks, go green leaks. Pan was clean clean clean. Then as I was crouched down looking at the pan (again) there was a liquid cascade splattering the whole drip pan. Heart in mouth (again), panic immediately near, as the foamy splatter blew back from the radiator fan, I leapt to the wire on the fuel solenoid. I pulled it off just in time to see the last of my beer pouring down the front of the engine. Ah. Christened. Cool. Sticky. Dried beer is sticky. Drove the BB up and down the driveway several times. Clutch, trans, LT230, engine... all did what they were supposed to. Cool. Whoop Whoop. Even the new bomb proof clutch fork worked perfectly on it's first real run. Nice to know that the clutch fork will NEVER punch through at the fulcrum!
Lynn is busy recovering the dash board with the blackened hide of the great Nauga Beast, there is an IRON GOAT Defender Dash ready to install and it isn't raining.... it's snowing. Pink flakes. Brakes work, lights work, and new power steering feels really good. One of the best I've ever handled. Now for some sorely needed chrome to give this thing some horse power!
And in the words of the imortal Moose: Rally-in-the-Valley ... this time for sure Rock!
JD
10-8, 10-10
Lynn is busy recovering the dash board with the blackened hide of the great Nauga Beast, there is an IRON GOAT Defender Dash ready to install and it isn't raining.... it's snowing. Pink flakes. Brakes work, lights work, and new power steering feels really good. One of the best I've ever handled. Now for some sorely needed chrome to give this thing some horse power!
And in the words of the imortal Moose: Rally-in-the-Valley ... this time for sure Rock!
JD
10-8, 10-10
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Greg S
- Spanner Man
- Posts: 844
- Joined: Sat Feb 28, 2004 9:00 pm
- Location: Duncan
- Contact:
JD, you're making me jealous. I've spent some quality time with my dear sweet mobile as well. Not as quality as your quality maybe. I haven't got mine running but I do have a drivers door installed. One down, four to go. Last night I almost finished re-fabbing the bottom of the passengers B post. Then I can think about installing a passenger door.
A bit of wiring, a radiator and bolt down a carb and she should run if I were brave enough to pour gas in her newly welded gas tank. Time sure flies by. It seems like only 3 years ago I started a little repair job.
Greg S
A bit of wiring, a radiator and bolt down a carb and she should run if I were brave enough to pour gas in her newly welded gas tank. Time sure flies by. It seems like only 3 years ago I started a little repair job.
Greg S
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Greg S
- Spanner Man
- Posts: 844
- Joined: Sat Feb 28, 2004 9:00 pm
- Location: Duncan
- Contact:
More quality time with the 109 (I really should name her but nothing seems right.) I got the other B post installed so things should go quickly now. I also got an incentive to hurry from going for a drive in Victors 109 to Nanaimo to pick up my youngest son from the ferry. A couple hours of driving time and I feel the need to drive my own again. What a comfortable enjoyable ride. Quiet too! At least in Victors 109 it was quiet. I only wish mine could ever be so quiet.