Masochistic Early Midlife Crisis - Old Land Rover Content

Good luck!

Time to start making some good progress on the V8 then.

Quote of the day ?? 

It could be worse, I could have said I’m doing sheep! 😂🙄

😀 I saw the photos on Facebook. Vague steering is fairly normal as it’s a steering box and lots of ball joints rather than a rack. Basic steering check is as follows:

Get someone to wobble the steering quite hard and check track rod ball joints (the long bar behind the axle), drag link ball joint (the bar at the front attached to the drop arm and steering damper), drop arm ball joint. Any clunks or side to side movement in the ball joints and they need replacing. Bushes in the panhard rod can wear - movement will show up when the steering is rocked. This is the bar attached to the axle on the passenger side and the steering box tie rod on the driver’s side. If the box is leaking, the ATF absolutely kills the bushes.

Next check the UJs in the steering column for wear. Lastly check the steering box adjustment. There should be no more than 1” of free play when the steering is centred before the wheels move. While checking this, it’s a good idea to make sure the drop arm is well attached to the sector shaft. Slack can be taken up in the box to a certain extent by adjusting the backlash via the top adjuster.

Front control arm bushes can also cause vagueness. A combination of all of the above will add up to quite a bit of slop. Mine is now fully poly bushed, apart from the panhard rod. Poly bushes don’t work on that link as they pop out of the rod to an extent and allow movement. This is what caused my death wobble.

Its also a good idea to check that the nuts and bolts holding the steering box to the chassis and tie rod are tight too. 

It will be the tyres if there is no play. I don’t what size he has on, but 265/75R16 tyres on mine have massive tread and big sidewalls.

The dreaded death wobble keeps returning. It really isn’t very nice when it occurs. This isn’t my video, but gives you an idea of how unpleasant it is. Mine isn’t this bad as it only does it when hitting a pothole rather than just reaching 50mph.



I’ve taken the top swivel pins out and removed shims to add some more preload which sorts it for a while before it returns again. Unfortunately, I’ve had to do this two times now. There’s is no play in any of the steering components at all. I’ve got a new steering damper (Old Man Emu - much more heavy duty then the OEM) but am reluctant to install it in case the wobble wrecks it as the oscillation is quite severe.

I’ve bitten the bullet and ordered new swivel repair kits to replace the bearings in them as the LR forums suggest that losing preload is down to worn bearings. The pins are included and mine look quite badly scored which may be the issue. Kits are only £18 each side with bearings, gaskets and seals. It needs pads and discs too so I’ve ordered those as the hubs have to come off in any case. The pads are down to a few mm and the discs are 2mm under specification.

Not an ideal job on the driveway in poor weather so here’s hoping for a dry sunny day.

Isn’t that just ‘character’?

Ugh. When I serviced the Defender a few weeks ago, I noticed that the front brake pads were getting low and I also measured the discs. Minimum thickness is 12mm and these were 10mm. OK, they've had their wear - I've not put front discs on in my ownership and I think the pads have done about 20k or so, so I can't complain.

As usual, a really simple job of pads and discs turns into a ball ache. I did the driver's side disc - they are inboard so the hub has to be removed which means removing the drive flange, wheel bearing nuts etc. I was at the stage of putting the new pads into the caliper and the pistons refused to move. I even took the caliper off and it bent my pad spreader tool trying. Luckily, I have a LR specialist just down the road in Tow Law who carry a massive amount of spares and they had callipers on the shelf for £60.

Changed the caliper without and issue and bled it using the wife method. Moved onto the other side and got the hub off to discover it had a blown seal - there was wheel bearing grease everywhere. After an age with loads of brake cleaner, I cleaned it up and popped in a new seal (I keep a couple of those spare) and put it back on. New caliper and pads and the wife method for brake bleeding. I could not get a good pedal. I thought the missus was ignoring my instructions so I dragged out the eezibleed and bled the system again and no air, just clean fluid. A few pumps of the pedal had a nice hard feel, but it went away again. If the pedal was held then it slowly dropped to the floor.

I was working today so haven't had a chance as I was low on fresh brake fluid, but tomorrow the master cylinder is getting swapped out. Apparently, using the wife method on an old master cylinder can blow a front seal as it moves past where it usually goes as there can be lip in the bore. I'm not losing fluid so it isn't leaking into the servo thankfully.

I am sure it its just preparing me for the Series rebuild.

New master cylinder has sorted it. Went around and bled it twice and all seems fine.

Just a thought:

What does SJ stand for? Sawn junk, seasoned juniper, suicide jockey?

Land Rover has been pretty good lately. It broke down this morning. It managed to keep running, but wouldn’t rev and there were clouds of smoke from the exhaust. I managed to limp it back home at tickover and went to the farm in the MX-5.

I went and got a new fuel filter and fitted it. The old one was full of water which would have been ice at 7:30 this morning. Bled it up and took it for a run up the road and it felt fine.

Won’t be buying Tesco diesel any more. 😡 Fuel filter service interval is 12 months or 24k miles. It shouldn’t have needed doing until April and I do drain it when I do the 6k mile 6 month service which was done in October.

I was fed up of stuff all over in the back. I had my tools and recovery gear in two ammunition cases strapped down. Everything else was in a boot tidy type thing, but it slid about and the two boxes left not a lot of room for other stuff.

I had seen some metal toolboxes, but they were hugely expensive. I did some research and a smaller company near York makes toolboxes for vehicles amongst other stuff so I placed an order. 

It took a while (a month), but it arrived a day or two ago.  I had to trim the van lining as it interfered with the lid opening.  I’ve got one side all trimmed out and one left to do. 

I’m very happy.

MOT passed this afternoon with no advisories.

I am waiting on a filter kit and various oils so I can do its 36k mile service. I have ordered a new water pump gasket set as the rear one has gone again. I don't recall using RTV on it the last time (advised not to) but I will this time.