Well, this is turning into major works now, so thought I'd share.
I had a few jobs to get done before we go up to Scotand for a week. Starting out in Kent, the plan is zigzag up there past all the pretty bits, camp in the peaks, then just over the border, and then on to the Cairngorms, where we will generally tool around, petting reindeer and the like.
The clutch was feeling iffy, and gave up the ghost about a week ago now. Fine. I'll have to put it in, since I work on it on the drive, and don't have the space and equipment to drop the gearbox. No problem. Some jobs are best left to the pros.
I also had a worrying clunk on heavy braking and acceleration. Setting aside my fears about axle suspension mounts, but having a spare front axle left over from cannibalising swivels and calipers, I ordered up a set of bushes, bolts, and towers, resolving to fit these before taking it in for the clutch.
And I've been meaning to see to the cam belt since I got the truck nearly a year ago.
Still with me?
OK.
So I bite the bullet and buy an 18in "power bar" (Luckily, this turns out to be a large piece of metal which gives good leverage, and not a bit of candy which gives you the energy to strain harder at tough nuts) and, having made appropriate use of a range of jacks, chocks, and axle stands, set about wrenching the radius arms off the truck.
Fine.
Removing the first of the bushes with a clamp and cold chisel could have gone better, but worked. Attempts to replace it with a similar OE bush (not poly ones, which would have gone straight in) revealed a weakness in the planning phase. These bushes are tighter than what I'm used to, and won't just hammer straight in. Several searches and one panicked cry for help on the forums later, I call up the garage, and get a price for replacing the bushes. Using this new palming-off-responsibility method, replacing the shocks and towers will be much easier too.
A portion of my call to Des follows, paraphrased :
Me : By the way, when you do the clutch, will you pull the engine or gearbox?
Him : The gearbox. It's much easier.
ME : Oh, that's a shame, because if you were pulling the engine, that would make it a lot easier for you to do the timing belt, which, if it wasn't going to cost too much, you might as well do while you're there, since I can't get my bloody wader plugs out to get the timing pins in, so I'm not feeling too confident.
Him : Well, I can do that for a oner.
ME : OK, go ahead.
Him : OK.
Me : Thanks, bye.
Him : Later ****lord.
So I'm late for work for a week because I have to drop mrs off in the bumpercar before I can get off to work. Understanding boss says no problem, so we proceed.
The arranged time arrives, and I limp the disco up to the garage, where my boss (also my MIL, who drives a JEEP) picks me up. Cringing as hard as I have ever done in my whole entire life since the day I was born, I make myself as small and inconspicuous as I can, climb in and arrive at work in short order. Des looks on bemused, and I can tell that today, even more than any other day, he's glad to be himself, and not me.
Well, so far, so.. I don't want to use the word "good" here, but I'm still alive.
Saturday morning. I'm up to my elbows in an unruly hawthorn hedge when the phone rings, and a conversation follows, wherein Des informs me that while everything is going fine, the condition of the suspension mounts on my disco may soon become cause for concern if not seen to. I reply that I understand the risk associated with not having anything holding the round-and-round bits to the uppy-downy-bouncy bits which connect the sitting-in-and-making-brum-brum-noises bits, and have a spare big banjo bit in the shed, which I can deliver to him at no cost. He replies with his now familiar "I can do that for a oner.".
Good. At this rate I will have a brand new Land Rover, and won't have to bother with any of that annoying route planning, since I won't have any money left for fuel anyway.
Sunday morning, oh-****-hundred hrs. The shed has been fully disgorged, and lying on a flattened cardboard box, draining, is a shiny axle casing, freshly separated from its final drive unit. A Peugeot 107 stands nearby, similarly emptied of all contents. Parts are loaded, sheds given new shelves and tidied back into themselves, and way is made up to the garage, where I am informed that a new master cylinder now operates my new clutch.
Giving up all hope of ever working on my own vehicle again, I ask my mechanic (I have one of these on my permanent staff now, apparently), while he's picking up the new seals for the axle, to get me air and fuel filters.
Tea is drunk, animals roasted, merriment variously had, and stories told around a proverbial campfire.
I had a few jobs to get done before we go up to Scotand for a week. Starting out in Kent, the plan is zigzag up there past all the pretty bits, camp in the peaks, then just over the border, and then on to the Cairngorms, where we will generally tool around, petting reindeer and the like.
The clutch was feeling iffy, and gave up the ghost about a week ago now. Fine. I'll have to put it in, since I work on it on the drive, and don't have the space and equipment to drop the gearbox. No problem. Some jobs are best left to the pros.
I also had a worrying clunk on heavy braking and acceleration. Setting aside my fears about axle suspension mounts, but having a spare front axle left over from cannibalising swivels and calipers, I ordered up a set of bushes, bolts, and towers, resolving to fit these before taking it in for the clutch.
And I've been meaning to see to the cam belt since I got the truck nearly a year ago.
Still with me?
OK.
So I bite the bullet and buy an 18in "power bar" (Luckily, this turns out to be a large piece of metal which gives good leverage, and not a bit of candy which gives you the energy to strain harder at tough nuts) and, having made appropriate use of a range of jacks, chocks, and axle stands, set about wrenching the radius arms off the truck.
Fine.
Removing the first of the bushes with a clamp and cold chisel could have gone better, but worked. Attempts to replace it with a similar OE bush (not poly ones, which would have gone straight in) revealed a weakness in the planning phase. These bushes are tighter than what I'm used to, and won't just hammer straight in. Several searches and one panicked cry for help on the forums later, I call up the garage, and get a price for replacing the bushes. Using this new palming-off-responsibility method, replacing the shocks and towers will be much easier too.
A portion of my call to Des follows, paraphrased :
Me : By the way, when you do the clutch, will you pull the engine or gearbox?
Him : The gearbox. It's much easier.
ME : Oh, that's a shame, because if you were pulling the engine, that would make it a lot easier for you to do the timing belt, which, if it wasn't going to cost too much, you might as well do while you're there, since I can't get my bloody wader plugs out to get the timing pins in, so I'm not feeling too confident.
Him : Well, I can do that for a oner.
ME : OK, go ahead.
Him : OK.
Me : Thanks, bye.
Him : Later ****lord.
So I'm late for work for a week because I have to drop mrs off in the bumpercar before I can get off to work. Understanding boss says no problem, so we proceed.
The arranged time arrives, and I limp the disco up to the garage, where my boss (also my MIL, who drives a JEEP) picks me up. Cringing as hard as I have ever done in my whole entire life since the day I was born, I make myself as small and inconspicuous as I can, climb in and arrive at work in short order. Des looks on bemused, and I can tell that today, even more than any other day, he's glad to be himself, and not me.
Well, so far, so.. I don't want to use the word "good" here, but I'm still alive.
Saturday morning. I'm up to my elbows in an unruly hawthorn hedge when the phone rings, and a conversation follows, wherein Des informs me that while everything is going fine, the condition of the suspension mounts on my disco may soon become cause for concern if not seen to. I reply that I understand the risk associated with not having anything holding the round-and-round bits to the uppy-downy-bouncy bits which connect the sitting-in-and-making-brum-brum-noises bits, and have a spare big banjo bit in the shed, which I can deliver to him at no cost. He replies with his now familiar "I can do that for a oner.".
Good. At this rate I will have a brand new Land Rover, and won't have to bother with any of that annoying route planning, since I won't have any money left for fuel anyway.
Sunday morning, oh-****-hundred hrs. The shed has been fully disgorged, and lying on a flattened cardboard box, draining, is a shiny axle casing, freshly separated from its final drive unit. A Peugeot 107 stands nearby, similarly emptied of all contents. Parts are loaded, sheds given new shelves and tidied back into themselves, and way is made up to the garage, where I am informed that a new master cylinder now operates my new clutch.
Giving up all hope of ever working on my own vehicle again, I ask my mechanic (I have one of these on my permanent staff now, apparently), while he's picking up the new seals for the axle, to get me air and fuel filters.
Tea is drunk, animals roasted, merriment variously had, and stories told around a proverbial campfire.
