Masochistic Early Midlife Crisis - Old Land Rover Content

I suspect that the blocked radiator may have caused issues elsewhere. Had that on my Rover 3500. Blocked radiator left crap in the coolant pathways. I had to have the engine flushed out and the head gaskets replaced to fix it.    

Head has passed pressure testing and only needed the smallest of skims. £90 from the very nice people at Cleasby Engine Services in Meadowfield, Durham.

I've got all the new gaskets required and I'm also going to swap the brake vacuum pump as it's knocking its tits out. It does still produce some vacuum, but it's on its last legs. Replacement is difficult at best with the head on as the air filter bracket is in the way. This has to be the stupidest piece of design ever. Holding the air filter bracket to the engine using the head bolts. 🙄

Yes, in an ideal world, the bracket would be cut and extended with another couple of bolts.

A great result.

Yes the current Navara is nice, but both my neighbours have had electrical issues with theirs and I like being different.

The new DMax looks dear and I'm not a fan of the gutless 1.9 they use.

I like the look of the Ranger, but they are expensive in comparison to the Hilux, which is a little plasticky in full Toyota tradition.

I love my Defender, but I'm getting marginally tired of constantly spannering my daily driver so a contract hired, fully loaded pickup appeals.

No low range, which is a deal breaker for me. They are a very good vehicle though.

My biggest gripe with a lot of the pick-ups is that they only have part time AWD systems. The websites and brochures are very opaque about it in many cases, which always makes me suspicious. Unless the latest ones have all been upgraded, I'm pretty sure a few years ago only the Merc and Amarok (with their biggest engines) and L200 were available with available full-time AWD systems that could be driven in AWD on the road all the time.

Do they still do a V6 in the Navara?

^
.... but you're living the dream ...... ??

Discs and pads done.the kit comes with new hub seals too.

The rear wheel bearings were pretty manky, but they cleaned up fine and didn't need replacing.

The three flexi lines have been replaced with Goodridge items. Luckily, santa brought me a brake pipe flareing tool, as I had to make up four new hard lines as well, as they sheared off when I removed the calipers.

Initial impressions are that they work. This is good, as the old discs and pads had seemingly no friction at all. The discs were very blue and the pads were like glass. Not sure how that happened, as I'm not hard on my brakes at all.

This was very definitely down to overheating.

No calipers were fine. The fronts are 4 pots and the rears 2 pots so no sliders to stick and the pistons wound back without force. All four are under two years old. I suspect the discs were slightly glazed from the previous calipers and have got worse due to me having to press harder than I should have to get stopped. Add hills and towing into the mix and I think that is the cause.

What is it Mark? My adblocker stops links unfortunately.

My driveway needs some attention if you can help?