Learning curve ahoy!

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It's insured, I've put ten miles on it now, and the MOT is booked for Thursday.

The clutch bites VERY high, and it won't idle when it's warm. But - apart from that... It's slow, noisy, bouncy, cramped, uncomfortable... and I bloody love it.


Sounds like everything is good then and working as it should. You only need to worry if it doesn't make a noise at all.

You should try a 2.25 diesel - pipe smokers pace and foundry like decibels of noise!

Good luck with the mot.
 
And the MOT man, he say... "Bugger off".

Two things I knew about or was expecting :-

* Outrigger - I'd taken it for the test BEFORE getting that welded in, to see what else needed doing.
* Emissions - CO 0.15, HC ~1500. No great surprise - it's not idling once warmed up and off the choke, but idles sweet as a nut with the choke out a tidge - so, to idle for the emissions test, the choke needed to be out...

Now the embarrassing omissions...

* Brake lights - I could have _sworn_ I'd checked them and they were working. But I'm either doubting my memory or the brake light switch has seized solid in the last few days...
* Ball joint gaiter. Wheel end of the relay-to-wheel link. The smallest of rips in it, but it's definitely a rip. Don't know how I missed that.

And now the "Wha? Are you SURE...?"

* Speedo illumination. No, I didn't know that was a fail, either. But it is...
m4s06000701

(And, yes, I had figured out there's an additional switch for the illumination!)

Ball joint and brake switch are on the way. Actually, a pair of ball joints are on order, because the weather's too manky to get the spanners out and figure which thread it is and get it ordered before the end of the day.

It's clearly not as slow as I thought it was, because the speedo's obviously having a bot of a sulk. At one point, I was tonking along merrily in 4th, and it told me I was doing 20mph! Mileometer is correct, though...
 
What carb have you got? Sounds like you should be able to fix it by winding the mixture screw out a little. Best "guess" point is to set mixture to fastest idle, reduce idle speed to about 800rpm and repeat until you find the sweet spot then wind back in a quarter/half turn. (It may be a blocked idle jet though)

Brake light switches are utter bastards! I've been through a good number of replacement ones - the only ones that seem to work consistently are genuine lucas ones pattern ones have all been erratic and let me down on the test.
Ball joints...I always slart them in grease to cover any cracks...

You may find that your illumination problems are down to a combination of rusty bulb contacts, blown bulbs, poor earths and the illumination switch being broken - I bypassed the switch I can't think of a situation where those dials would blind me...you'd be hard pressed to startle a pit pony with them buggers.

Check to see if you've got 3.54 diffs fitted when I started out I thought mine was slow until a mate followed my and I'd been driving everywhere 25% faster than I thought I was...
 
What carb have you got?

Zenith, with fuel cut-off solenoid and EGR (blanked off).

Brake light switches are utter bastards!

The little moving contact in the end of this one is rusted absolutely solid!

Check to see if you've got 3.54 diffs fitted when I started out I thought mine was slow until a mate followed my and I'd been driving everywhere 25% faster than I thought I was...

Definitely the speedo! According to one of those handy road-side speed-check signs, 30mph is just where you think you might want to change down from 4th to 3rd. Keeping up with other cars was much easier than I expected, even in 60 limits, and even when the speedo said I was doing 30 whilst revving merrily in 4th...
 
Brake light switches seem hopeless. I assume yours is the same type as mine - brass Lucas item on the servo. I went through 3 switches in as many weeks. The modern Lucas items poor quality. I had to source a genuine old stock Lucas.
Problem with the modern Lucas item is that the contacts seem imprecise .....adjust it so when you press the pedal it goes on, release the pedal and it stays on! Adjust the switch so it just goes out, press pedal again and it won't go on....screw in a tad....and repeat!

Good luck with the other repairs. At least you know where you stand now.
 
I notice it has an after market steering wheel of small dia....if it where mine that would go and the correct larger dia wheel to replace it....you may have noticed that it make the steering even harder to turn as you loose leverage with the smaller type,

I have owned my S3 from new 40 years now...built up a good tool set over the years when you could still but good British spanners...an A/F set...cant remember when LR went over to metric but worth having...theree are also some unusual whitwort sizes on older LR so look for some of those,

A good trolly jack and most important if you dont already buy a Mig welder and learn how to use it...min 130amp pref 150amp...you can then keep your LR going forever.

I know you prob already have some of this eqip so apologies....

Yes avoid Brit Part...some bit are ok but generally avoid.

Not used them yet but hear lots og good things but LR Direct let you choose your part supplier but you need to know the part number...there is a parts list to be found on site...see link.

http://www.lrdirect.com/

Land Rover and Range Rover Part Numbers

If the petrol gets to thirsty for you dont forget you can LPG it.

Good luck and many good years of LR ownership to you.

Nick.

P.S. Sorry only just realised this is an old thread.
 
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I notice it has an after market steering wheel of small dia....if it where mine that would go and the correct larger dia wheel to replace it....

<grin> Already done.

I have owned my S3 from new 40 years now...built up a good tool set over the years when you could still but good British spanners...an A/F set...cant remember when LR went over to metric but worth having...theree are also some unusual whitwort sizes on older LR so look for some of those,

When did they change? The week they built this! There's a surprising amount of metric on it, including brake pipes with one imperial union and one metric...

P.S. Sorry only just realised this is an old thread.

Very much still live! In fact, I've just put it back into the garage ready to start this pm on some of the MOT fail points and a couple of other niggles. Outrigger welding and retest _should_ be Tuesday, if the parts arrive on Monday.
 
Good stuff...do you do your own work???

90% of it, yes. And much of the rest is on my "learn soon" list (including welding), now that I've got somewhere proper to work in - the garage has only just been built in the last couple of months, and there's a lift going in it by spring.

If I wasn't fortunate enough with that, I've got a good mate with a pro workshop not far away, and whilst he doesn't know anything about Landys, he is an excellent welder, fabricator and restorer.
 
The speedo illumination is definitely just a dead switch - it's bypassed for now, probably for ever. Am I _really_ going to want to have a dark dash with lights on...?
 
It's now idling, and seems much happier on mixture. I've not got a gas machine, so it's a bit guesswork - mix screw fully in, out 1.5 turns, set idle speed as low as it'll idle at (still sounds a bit busy, but...) then mix screw out until it sounds happier. It's still not perfect, but somebody with a better ear than me (or a gas machine) will make short work of it, I'm sure.

It wasn't quite as easy it sounds, though - the idle speed adjustment screw (well, the throttle stop screw - I _presume_ this is what's meant, because I can't find anything else) wouldn't go far enough in. I've had to remove the locking collar nut, and put it on the inside of the throttle arm. Then the mix screw seemed to make precisely zero difference. That turned out to be because the air groove down the screw was utterly bunged with old varnishey muddy gunk...

Still, most of the bolt-on EGR rubbish is now removed and Placed Safely On One Side...

And, just for giggles, the brake light switch decided that today would be a permanently-on day.

The starter's going to have to come off and be cleaned up - it's had to be thumped a few times. But, right now, the exhaust pipe is rather warm... Apart from that, it's about there until the ball joints and brake switch turn up. C'mon, Mr Courier!
 
That was... interesting.

I'm still waiting for the balljoints and brake switch to turn up (there's been a cock-up, and they only had one hand of balljoint in stock, it seems, despite still showing both on the site - then more of that same hand were delivered...) - so, since the starter's been sticking occasionally, thought I might as well pull that and clean the bendix.

I'm very glad I took the EGR off. With the starter out, it was a bit sticky, but not too bad - a good clean's got it smooth as silk. BUT... I'm glad I took it out with the live feed attached - turned out it'd been chafing on the exhaust heat shield, and had shorted quite a few times in the past. There's a nibble out the corner of the shield, and a few strands of the cable are severed, whilst a lot more are corroded.

Meanwhile, the steering rod is off, at least.
 
Meanwhile, the steering rod is off, at least.

Blimey, that wheel-end joint was corroded into the thread of the rod... Eventually, it succumbed. Both ends replaced, rod back in, brake lights working, and ready for the outrigger to be welded in on Monday. Hopefully, we'll be able to get it retested Mon or Tue at the outside.
 
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