Freelander 1 Buying a Freelander - question on MOT advisories

• Brake pipe corroded, covered in grease or other material ALL (1.1.11 (c))
• n/s/r park brake low on efficiency
• heavy brake imbalance across front axle 25%
• heavy brake waiver both front brakes but especially n/s/f just within MOT criteria
• o/s/r park brake not as efficient as n/s/r -- o/s very low on efficiency--

andyfreelandy said:

Sounds like replace all brake pipes, front discs, calipers and rear wheel cylinders and service rear brakes plus new pads and shoes.

All covered on this site and all fairly straight forward if you are able.

Say £500 all in tops I'd say if you do it yourself.

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Jordann said:

Hi Everyone,

I'm finally in a position where I don't live in a city centre and I'm looking to buy a car again and I really want a Freelander.

I'm looking to buy a Freelander 1 that isn't too expensive and if it needs repairs I can either do them or go to a mechanic.

I've been looking on this forum a lot and it has been super helpful with what to look for and the advice is great. I've now found a car I like the look of but I am unsure about the MOT advisories and how costly they would be to get repaired. I don't mind spending a bit to get repairs done or doing some work myself but don't want to be spending £1000s on repairs as it doesn't make sense and there are other options.

This is the MOT advisories and any help you can provide, I'd be really grateful for and appreciate:

• Brake pipe corroded, covered in grease or other material ALL (1.1.11 (c))
• n/s/r park brake low on efficiency
• heavy brake imbalance across front axle 25%
• heavy brake waiver both front brakes but especially n/s/f just within MOT criteria
• o/s/r park brake not as efficient as n/s/r -- o/s very low on efficiency--

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• When unlocking a freelander, one press of the plip only unlocks the drivers door, to unlock the others you need to press the unlock button a second time, however one press of the lock button locks all doors
• The brakpipes on a freelander use a weird mix of flares, mixing single flare iso with double "bubble" din flares, as you replace pipes check which end flare is on the pipe
  • Also note that there are special nuts used for some of the flares with different mating faces on them
  • Because of the pick'n'mix of brake pipes used you need a decent brake pipe flaring kit, with a selection of dies and mandrels, not a £9.95 eBay special
    • I'll lend you my Sykes Pickavant kit with all the dies, but I'd want a £300 deposit before sending it, and I'll return you £290 after receiving it back, with the tenner deduction being to cover the postage I'd have paid to send it to you
  • Andyfreelandy started a thread on this a year or so ago, very informative and worth digging up and reading through as it's got a lot more information in it than I'm going to smash into a couple of bullet points
• The brake pipes on from the ABS modulator on the inner wing to the rear axle are a pain to do, best to do them in two sections, so buy joiners and or a mix of male + female flare nuts
• The handbrake efficiency could be simply down to a sticky rocker arm, the clevis that the cable end goes into has a habit of sticking to the linkage it's attached to, this should be spinning free as a bird, it can be freed up but it takes a bit of faffing about with the part in a vice and lots of WD40 or similar.
• While you have the brakes in bits, it's a good time to replace the wheel cylinders on the back, they are inexpensive, but a pain to get the bolts off, brutalize them with a grinder either by using a dremel / die grinder with a carbide burr to remove the bolt heads at the back, or by attacking the cylinder at the front
• The front callipers slides tend to fail as for some reason one set of slide pins has a rubber seal on it that swells with age, but at least one set of new slide pins and refit the vehicle with two of the solid pins on each calliper as either one solid slider from the new kit and one from the original set or as two new solid sliders
• Replace the brake hoses while you have it all in bits, I'd suggest you get a set of braided stainless extended hoses from the likes of muddymods, not only will this ensure future reliability, this will also pave the way for doing a lift kit on the vehicle in the future
• The brake pipe clips for the pips running aft to feed the rear pistons are brittle AF, and almost certainly will fail when you go to replace the pipes they contain, best to have other pipe clips in hand
• Paint the brakes while you are going over them, painted drums and callipers looks a lot better in the gaps between the spokes than rusty ones. Simple hammerite paint works well as it is surprisingly high temperature capable. I say surprisingly as it's not marketed as such but trust me, it works on brakes.
• Similarly, while you have the back brakes in bits, clean, kurust and hammerite the inside face of the brake back plate, this will help control corrosion in future and make the shoes and associated linkages last longer.
• Be mindful that the adjusters for the brakes are "handed", with left and right threads, meaning one side tightens when the thread is turned clockwise and the other loosens when turned clockwise, and if you cross them up the brakes will be forever adjusting themselves off of the drums and you won't have back brakes. So when you have the brakes in bits, mark the adjusters up to keep them on the correct side of the vehicle during reassembly.
• Fit new bleed nipples to the callipers while you are at it, and grease the holes with copper clip.
• DO NOT use copper slip on the wheel cylinders as they are aluminium and copper + aluminium has a severe bimetallic reaction and corrodes the aluminium into a crumbly white mess that is very like stale bread. You can get either an aluminium grease for the bolts and nipples on the wheel cylinders, or ceramic grease.
• While you have the wheels off, in reassembly, grease the spigots where the centre bore of the wheel sits, normal, ali or ceramic grease, although I've seen people use copperslip with minimal consequences, but I wouldn't recommend it. But trust me, if you get a puncture, it makes a world of difference having the spigots greased as the alloy wheel almost falls off after undoing the wheel nuts, rather than having to lick lumps out of it to try and dislodge it.
• Do not grease the wheel studs as this can cause wheel nuts to rattle off
• Paint the wheel nuts while they are off the vehicle - Freelander wheel nuts do tend to rust up like crazy and look skanky on the vehicle, scrub off the rust with a wire brush ( or a wire wheel on a grinder) and ku rust them, then black hammerite them
• While you are under the vehicle doing brakes, look at the diff mounts, the front mount on the back diff is a favourite for cracking causing loud banging noises when transitioning from on to of from being on the throttle.
• Similarly, eyeball the rubber elements in the bearing hangers for the viscous coupling in the middle of the prop shaft, they tend to fail and can cause banging noises
• Bleeding the brakes on these vehicles can be a bit of a nightmare, I found getting a chinese clone of a delphi diagnostics tool from ebay allowed me to hook up a laptop and use the ABS modulator to bleed the brakes on my one first try. If you get one of those things I'll give you a heads up, it works the pump in the modulator hard and makes alarming sounds, but it's all good, although the first few times you use it like that it is rather nerve racking.

• Nearside Front Brake pipe corroded, covered in grease or other material (1.1.11 (c))

andyfreelandy said:

Where is the leak? Most common one is the incorrect fitting of the fuel tank sender in the tank top.

Not sure how it got into the tool store though?? Usually this is full of water from the tailgate seal leaking.

I'd double check it is diesel in the cubby box.

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andyfreelandy said:

Plenty of threads on here, search for fishtank!!! Can't see diesel getting in the box. The wet underneath is the underside of the so called fish tank.

Some leak into bad weld around the box, others come in from tailgate seal. Mine leaked through the trim at top of tailgate door, down the sides and into car under carpet.

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