From my house I headed up into the mountains and the shifting was a little notchy at first. I went about 10 miles and figured I needed to look under the rig and see if anything was leaking. So I pulled over in a turnout overlooking the Monterey Bay and looked under. Only to see a drip, drip, drip coming from the drain plug on the Xfer case.
Since I had reused the crushwasher I figured that was the culprit. A quick turn with a wrench showed no improvement so I decided to head home. It would have to be drained to replace the crush washer.
I got home and put a bucket under then went insearch of a washer. I didn't have one!!!!
Using my motorcycle, a 2008 Vstrom, I headed the 13 miles into town, stopping at the FLAPS with no luck, to The Hose Shop which I figured surely must have the right washer. But no joy. Next I headed over to the local Brit car repair shop and after and extensive search by 2 employees, no joy. :-(
Lastly I headed over to my friend Mike who owns Andy's Auto Supply. Mike found a washer which fit from the master brake cylinder for some car. I bought 2 and went home to see how much oil was left in the case.
To my surprise not much had leaked out. Maybe enough to cover a dollar bill was in the bottom of the bucket. But not for long! I opened the drain plug and let the oil out, while that was happening I installed a different drain plug with the new washer. Then put the oil back in the Xfer case. By now it was close to dark.
The next day I went out and there were no drips on the drain plug! YAAAY!!!!! I hopped in and started my break-in drive over. Once again stopping at the same turnout to check for leaks, there were none, I was so chuffed!!! I commenced up Hwy 9 to Hwy 35 and turned left towards San Francisco just crusing thru the redwoods and open spaces on the ridgeline all the way to Hwy 92.
At 92 again a left turn and I was on my way to Half Moon Bay. The Roamerdrive was shifting well and quieter than the Fairey it replaced. In HMB I went to lunch with friend Brian then hit Hwy 1 South back towards Santa Cruz.
This was a little faster road being mostly rolling terrain with a posted 55 speed limit. Fine for me I am not a speed demon anyway. The 2.5DT pulled the hills well even in od, there was no problem keeping up with traffic and noise level tolerable with out earplugs, but I do have bad hearing to begin with........
After a brief slowdown at Pigeon Point(I forgot my camera) I was cruzing past Ano Nuevo and Big Slide in Santa Cruz.
I passed a truck at one point in a passing zone, my gps showed my max speed there to be 67mph. Then I came into Santa Cruz. As the 109 rolled up to the second stop light I pushed in the clutch to shift out of od and this terrible screeching noise erupted! It was like fingernails on the blackboard only 30 times louder!
Quickly thinking the worst I moved towards the shoulder, as the rover slowed the noise stopped. While sitting awaiting the light I checked the od--yes, out--mainbox--yes, in gear---let out clutch---car moves forward. So the tranny still works and no noise.
Still not convinced when the light turned green I made the right turn. Drove to the first left and went down the street. Every thing shifted fine and there was no noise. But I did decide to take a slower street thru town. So I made another left and headed for it when the noise came back,,,,,Horrendous screeching!!!!!!!! But it stopped when I went to neutral. My thoughts went to the tranny again.
Still deciding to go home, after all the motor and gearbox seemed to work fine, we headed down the slower street. At first there was no noise again then after a mile or so it started to become intermitent. It continued in this fashion up Hwy 9 thru Felton and there I could see the needle on the speedo dancing in time with the noise. So I figured either the speedo was going or the cable. Around 3 miles later in Ben Lomond the noise stopped, a look at the speedo showed the needle at 0.
Once home the dash pulled and the speedo removed showed the cable connector to be frozen. So I removed the innards from the speedo and using some Triflow and leverage on the magnet I got the connector freed up.
Top pic shows the cable connector.
I hooked an old bit of speedo cable to my drill to make lubrication easier and check function.
Next up was checking the cable. This has to be the most miserable job on a Landy! Oh, you can get the 3 screws off easy enough, showing the broken cable still stuck in the speedo drive.
It is putting it all back together that is frustrating, must have taken me a half an hour just to get the first screw in, my hands are just too big(short fingers and wide palms). Eventually it was done though. The dash put back together and a test drive done, all's well again. I wonder if the curve in the cable by the oil dipstick on the Xfer case had anything to do with it.
I did refuel and doing the mileage check showed that I got 22.3mpg.
No comments:
Post a Comment