What an f'in day so far.

So ordered lots of bits and pieces to give new car a through service, car was in manchester at parents so jumped on a train this morning ready to do the following jobs over the weekend:

1. Air filters
2. Pollen filters
3. Fuel Filter
4. Drain gearbox, fit new filter, lucas atf and transmission fix
5. Replace tranmission oil cooler (leaking)
6. Remove and flush radiator
7. Remove and clean intercooler
8. Drain oil, flush and change oil filter
9. Drain and refill transfer box
10. Drain and refill diff oil
11. Fit new compressor pump seal kit
12. Fit hot fix kit
13. Fit 4 new air bags
14. Get new road tax

OK so slightly ambititious plan for a weekend and then have to drive back to London but had 2 mates lined up to help.

Got home and checked the parts I'd ordered, first error realised I'd ordered an engine oil cooler and not transmission oil cooler, damn :doh:, rang local LR shop and luckily they have the tranmission cooler and pipes in stock so I'll drive down and get it after getting tax.

Arrived at car (been stood for 4 weeks) and fired her up, no problem, drove to post office got tax (£190), no problem, got back to car and tried to start and nothing......... battery is as flat as a pancake, looked at battery and earth terminal is correded to buggery and swivvels, reckon it's goosed. Ring round 4 mates till find one who's in and can take me to get the parts in town. £380 and a few hours later swap battery and it starts up hurray .

Go and buy the neccessary fluids etc (£100 lighter wallet) get home and it starts chucking it down, great!

While waiting for rain to stop recheck parts ordered and realise that the air bags haven't been delivered :doh: this is turning into a farce.

So it's now 5pm and have achieved absolutely bugger all for today except spending almost £700. Now going to go and drown sorrows and see what can be done tomorrow.

I hope I can get all the fluids done tomorrow and might fit the surplus engine oil cooler and pipes as well since I've got them already, been reading through RAVE and now see I need a special tool to viscous coupling, hoping that a big flat spanner will do instead.

Oh the joys of owning a Land Rover

Oh and I've got to try and find 2 Take That tickets for the Mrs birthday as I promised and I forgot to get them when they went on sale and they're now £200!!!

preperation is key!!! have you checked the coolant????

I plan to dump the f'in coolant all over the drive tomorrow and replace with lovely new 50:50 antifreeze coolant (least I think 50:50 is the mix).

Would have been more prepared but got everything delivered to my parents as was going up by train and so couldn't check till i got here, oh well next time I'll be more organised.

Thing is I have to do all this work tomorrow and have it ready to drive back to London and hope that it makes it in one piece, fingers crossed i don't put it all back together and find I have a load of spare nuts and bolts.

Oh I forgot, driving off the drive this morning and the front reg plate fell off, lol

i would prioritise, air bags, oil coolers first, any underneath work like draining oils to be done last, anything you can do from top then you can do on the road/drive at home i.e pollen filters.

An interesting and rather long day spent lying on my back looking at the underneath of my car.

Started with engine and radiator flush and while that was heating up did the pollen filters which looke3d like they had never been changed.

Then dropped engine oil, gearbox oil and front diff oil.

Removed gearbox filter (after spending about 45 mins trying to find a T27, if only the manuals told you what sized tools you needed).

Removed tranmission cooler and pipes. Refitted pipes and this is where the troubles started. The oil cooler was Britpart and when pulled off one of the caps I could see that the top 5mm of thread was gone, tried to put pipe into the hols and it would only go in half way, measured the gap and the original cooler was 11.9mm and the Britpart one was 11.4mm and would not go in.

What I think has happened is that someone tried to fit the part and put pipe in half way then tried to screw on nut and use it to force the pipe into the hole but because only half on it just stripped the threads (i'll add a picture later if I can).

So effectively wasted an hour or more trying to get the the old cooler off and fit new one with all sensor connections and had to put old one back on :frusty:

Not sure I want to replace the cooler with a Britpart one but now having difficulty getting Landranger in Stockport to take back the blatantly 2nd hand product (although i expect this was someone at Britpart not Landranger) and not sure I want to risk another Britpart.

Then fitted air and oil filters and refilled all the oils and moved onto coolant.

Flushed the system through a couple of times, checked the pipe from radiator to filler tank (as explained on here) filled her up on a 50:50 coolant mix and put all remaining bits on.

This was now 9.45pm and afterscrubbing the oil off every bit of me set off for London at 10.45pm.

Everything went fine and it seems nice and smooth but might be imagination, however the biggest surprise is how cool it is now running, the temp needle hovered around the first white mark on the gauge +/- a few degrees (I guess as the thermostat opened and closed) but was fine the whole way down. I guess I'll have to see how it does ona hot day in rush hour traffic (keeping 5 ltr of coolant in the boot just in case) but so far so good.

A very satisfying day of work by the end but the airbags, intercooler, compressor, rear diff, transfer box and hot fix kit will have to wait till another day.

did you get the take that gig tickets?

Ha ha, no not yet, they're going for like £250 - £300 a pair which I'm reluctant to pay to see 4 blokes prance about the stage but it should win me a years worth of brownie points if I can pull it off.

where do you want them?

Wembly 4th July

There's 5 on here for £83 each....if you're quick

Take That tickets at Wembley Stadium in London on 04/07/2009

Cheers for everyones help with this, have managed to get 2 tickets and so will be able to play with my car for many weekends to come with the extended brownie points this will earn me.

I just feel bad you actually have to go and see Take That!

he doesnt, the car will breakdown enroute and he will send the mrs in a taxi while he waits for the AA

Ahh I see, a cunning scheme!

I feel bad that you have to get brownie points to work on your motor. Just get her chained back to the sink and be done with it. Just make sure her chain is long enough for her to use the cooker an all.

Well I don't have to but for peace in the house and a happy wife, a few hours of pain can be endured

With any luck one of them will fall off the stage or something, give you a bit of a laugh