Took another test drive in the Land Rover 109

Arghhh!  Took another test drive yesterday afternoon. I drove a whole 6 miles and pulled into a gas station to fuel up. When I stopped there was steam rising out my bonnet.............. I popped the bonnet open and coolant was everywhere.............after a couple of seconds I saw that the top hose had popped off the top of the thermostat housing. Good easy fix.

   I had been watching the temp gauge the whole 6 miles and it was doing it's thing. I must have popped the hose within the last couple hundred feet as it only lost about a 1/2 gallon of fluid. Soon it was refilled and I was on my way to finish the test drive.

   Drove another 6 miles into town and showed the vehicle off to Daren the welder at ARC-TEC. he was suitably impressed and recognized the stuff which he had done.

    After that I got on the freeway to come home to see what the higher speed would do. And if it would do it. The outside air temp was about 60F and on the way into town the temp gauge would go up to the red mark and then the fan would kick in and the temp would drop and a few minutes later it would do it over again. Well at least I knew the fan was working. Now on the freeway at around 60mph on an slight uphill over 5 miles the gauge went into the red and just sat there until I got off the freeway. Concerns me somewhat but the fan kicks on at  210F  so I know it's not overheating unless the needle gets buried in the red.

    I stopped and had a cuppa joe and did some grocery shopping then went home with no further incidents. When I arrived home I found that oil had been seeping out from where the cyclone plugs into the valve cover. I pulled it off and cleaned everything up and siliconed the face and put it back together.  Update on that I drove 6 miles today and not leak from the cyclone/valve cover connection.

Today I went out and cleaned off the oil and the coolant then got busy with a rag and cleaned the green moss growing on the roof of my 88. It was a dreary damp day but I took advantage and built myself a portable firepit out of my old rim.

    When at the welders I picked up a flat piece of steel and today I welded it into the rim. Then I built a small fire in it to check it out.

This I can take on the 109 and have ground fires where one needs to have a fire pit to do so. Like Death Valley.

Land Rover 109 coolant hose issue and PS pump adjustment

Ohhh another fly in the ointment!

    So you know I did around 26 miles on Monday to the store and back. Very thrilling! Of course I got up Tuesday morning wanting to show it off, but I wanted to check for leaks and stuff before I took off. Well, upon inspection I found that the lower coolant hose had kinked/collapsed.

I'm not enamored of these hoses as they have a wire coil in the inside to hold shape and it rusts out. I don't know if this rusted out or just bent but it needed to go. I thought I would just put on my spare but I just couldn't bring myself to put on another one.

   I also found that my used power steering pump was leaking by getting a drop on my glasses!

    those are expensive so I'm going to try some transmission leak treatment by Blue Devil first. I'll let you know how it goes.

   The fan belt and power steering belts were loose too.

Back to the coolant hose;   Setting about with draining the coolant I looked around. I have some old hoses but nothing quite fit. I tried an old trick. I cut 2 hoses and spliced them together with a piece of 1-1/2" steel tubing. with some trial fitting I finally got something that worked and I was OK with. Not happy with putting steel in the tube for the splice, but it was all I had. After I had it all on I decided not to put the antifreeze back in. Instead I would wait until today and try to find a piece of stainless tubing.

With that done I started working on the belts. The fan belt was easy enough but the alternator belt is tough due to the tight space. One of the bolts I can only turn about 1/8 a turn at a time so it takes forever and my hands barely fit. I finally got it loose and put the pry bar on to take up the tension but I couldn't get it to move far enough!  %^&&**!!! Puzzling it out, the tensioning link was too short. I needed to make a longer one. First I had to take off that bitch of a bolt holding it on. Probably took a half an hour to get the 1" bolt off. By now it was dark and the mossies were out so I quit for the day.

Today Wednesday;

While I was doing that my mind was working....thump....thump....clunk...there has to be an easier/better way!  Then whilst under the front I saw it! EUREKA! I could make a longer one and run it off the bottom of the power steering pump bracket instead of the top. It would be a straight shot and much easier to adjust.

Using a piece of 3'16" flat plate I had I drilled some holes and marked out a slot and cut it out with me Dremel and filed the sides for the 5/16" bolt to fit.

You can see the wrenches on the bitch bolt.

Flat plate work;

I know it's off center and I'm not sure how that happened but it should work. Here's the old and the new.

Test fitting showed I needed to put in a slight offset

And the final fit.

I waited until around 1000 to go in search of stainless tubing and rode down to the Daren at ARC-TEC. We gabbed for a bit and he came up with a piece of stainless perfect for my need.

The stainless and the steel tubes

Stainless on the left

It was fairly easy and quick to remove the steel and replace it with the stainless. What happened to my text??

This is the approximate position it needs to be in. On the 200 the outlet is more vertiacle than the 2.25's.

But I got it on. Here's how it looks on Thursday morning,

About that time I decided to rid myself of the top hose with the wire in it. So I removed the 200 t-stat housing and hose.

Look at the rust!!!!

It was replaced with on older 2.25 model and a 90 degree hose was put on.

I filled it with coolant and ran the engine and so far there are no leaks, well other than the power steering pump. Fingers crossed!

200TDI in Land Rover 109, driving impressions

Ok, so while not a long drive, only 26 miles round trip, on a windy valley road and over a small pass of a couple hundred feet elevation and a posted speed of 45mph over the pass.

The 200 feels slightly more powerful than the 2.5DT but the extra power means staying in fourth gear or third overdrive at around 35mph. Fourth over lugs it too much at 35, my 2.25D 88 will run 35 in 4over just fine.

The turbo lets the transmission wind out more, increasing road speed between shifts. It's been awhile but it seems not unlike the Chevy 6 I had in another 109 years ago.

Easy enough to take off in second gear and eliminating the unsyncro'd shift of first to second.

I'm not a lead footed driver and I'm still being careful so I didn't try and speed related manuvers.

I really couldn't tell you which modification transforms the 109 the most. The power steering is wonderful, effortless turning, the wider tyres make it feel glued to rails on the turns, an engine that while not resembling Hermes, will pull you along nicely, tons better than the 2.25P it replaced, whilst sipping at the food trough and the disc brakes...Powerful stopping when you need them!

I think if I could do just one............disc brakes, the rest I could live with but the brakes can save lives.

Land Rover 109 Back on the road!

Ta-Dah!

   Well the new rim arrived at OkOffroad on the 18th of Jan, it was shipped to me on the morning of the 19th. Then it arrived at 1900 on Sat., Jan 23. All the tire shops are closed on Sundays so I had to wait until Today to take it down with the bad wheel and get the tire swapped.
   One way to the shop is thirteen miles and there was no waiting in line for service so it was done quickly and then I drove home and removed the spare. That's when I found that the block of wood the jack was on had compressed under the weight and now the bottle jack was at a dangerous angle. I wasn't too worried as I had a jackstand in position all these last 2 months( Really? 2 MONTHS!).

   Out from the depths of the garage came the floor jack and I put it under the axle housing and brought the axle up enough to where the bottle jack fell over. It was pulled out and the crushed wood. Because the ground was so soft from the recent rains, 2.5" yesterday, the floor jack just kept sinking.

    This time I got a larger footprint piece of 3/4" plywood and put the bottle jack on it and jacked up the axle so the wheel would go on. I spun the new lugnuts on the new wheel studs pulling the new rim to the hub and tightened them so they wouldn't be loose when I set it down.

   That is what occurred next, the red floor jack was removed and the yellow jackstand, then the pressure valve opened on the gray bottle jack allowing the black tire and rim to sink into the soft brown dirt which surrounds the chunky white limestone rocks which makes up my sloping driveway.

   The tyre place had put 60psi of nitrogen and I had to measure my other tyres to set it the same. They were at 40psi so after a minute or so I had all 4 the same.

    With the engine running I pulled it forward and removed the blocks from behind the wheels. I left it running with the defroster going as all the rain had left much condensation in the cooler temps. While this was going on a transfer of tools progressed from the 88 to the 109. The spare was put back on the rear door. Once the migration was complete I thought I would have lunch prior to a test drive.


MMmmmmm Lunch..............

   I had noticed some oil on the bottom of the mainbox/xfercase/OD so I wanted to investigate that first. I don't need to blow up my tranny on my first test drive!  Pulling the Roamerdrive dipstick showed no oil so I looked around and couldn't find any extra(?). I changed out of my dirty clothes and put on some clean and took my motorcycle the 6 miles to the FLAPS and bought some and came home. It sure felt good to be out of the house and on 2 wheels :^)

   The cubby box and center seat cover had to come out and the fill plug removed and then I put in 2 glugs and glunk and checked the dipstick. Now it was over full so I know it's not leaking badly.

   By now it was 1500 and I hopped in and went 13 miles to the shopping center where I had a cuppa joe and watched the birds. Pigeons, ravens, 1 seagull and some red wing blackbirds. After coffee I ambled next door to the grocery and picked up a few items. Then returned home.

   Both at the shopping center and when I got home I popped the bonnet and checked for leaks. None to be found! The head rebuild seems to have worked.  BIG sigh of relief!

   Now a few more test drives to lull me into thinking all is good before Murphy strikes again.

Locking up the Land Rover, bonnet and fuel

So a few months ago I was reading an Overland blog ; http://www.overlandhb.co.za/home , In it they state that they have some 40 locks keyed alike to prevent theft. It got me to thinking.....I just have the stock door locks.

   I purchased a bonnet hasp and turnbuckle and 2 fuel cap lock hasps from Craddocks. When they came in they were installed between the raindrops.

   Starting with the bonnet I figured out where to put it and drilled a pilot hole and then a 3/16" for the pop rivet. Putting this in located the second hole and I drilled that out for the rivet too. They were both tightened up and the fit on the bonnet to radiator support was tested.

With the hasp part installed I could locate the turnbuckle and 1 by 1 I drilled pilot holes and centered the 2 upper holes, mainly for access, and finally 3/16" holes. These I filled with tapered phillips head machine screws 10-24 and nutted with nylock nuts.

That was when I discovered that the turnbuckle would not drop to the bottom, due to interference with the hasp.

At first I was disappointed, but once I put on the lock I discovered it was good because the lock would not be bouncing on the glass!

It was different with the fuel caps. On those I had to remove the screws and nuts on the original RHD side. Because it is a 3 door 109 soooo much easier than on an 88 due to the seat bulkhead being in a different position.

First the before pics;

Then checking for location;

Next removing screws and installing bolts 10-24x1"

And finally, the lock shackles were larger diameter than the cap holes so they were all drilled out. That had to be rust preventative so the caps were painted. Staying with my motif I used flat black. Then the locks installed, again keyed alike.

They do stick out more than I would like, I looked at mounting then on the top but the recess has a different shape than the hasp so it wouldn't go. Plus this way the hasp just falls out of the way when fueling.

     Now I have both fuel caps and the bonnet locked, the sand ladders are locked and block the side windows. I have seen some solid locks to put on the doors but they are expensive; http://www.masterlock.com/personal-use/product/M736XKAD

Land Rover LED fog lamps

Boy, I'm frustrated with this whole rim supply thing. Oklahoma Offroad still has no idea when they will be made. Makes me feel like going back to a more standard rim when I wear these tires out! If it hadn't been my fault at not tightening the lug nuts.........

Anywho on to the topic; LED fog lamps


    If you are a regular reader you know I put some white LED lights from KC Hilites(Cyclones) on the rear for back up/work lights. So I had the idea of using the same lights for fog lamps on the front. At 1100 lumens each that would give me 2200 lumens of close in front lighting.

Here's how I did it;

    First there was sizes to know like diameter 2-1/8", thickness  1/2". Then I knew if I just stuck the LED's on the front of the bumper they would get smashed at some point so protection was needed. I went to Daren the welder at Arc-Tec and he had a piece of pipe as scrap that fit perfectly and another of flat bar for a backing plate.

Making a circle on the flat bar with the inside of the pipe and then cutting out the 2 circles(2 lites) for backing plates for the light "cans". Very time consuming without the proper hole saw. I used a jigsaw and a sanding disc on an angle grinder to make it fit the inside of the tubing.

Next was drilling holes for the central mounting bolt and the wiring and putting the plate in the tube. I recessed the backing plate so to make room for the weld. (Move along, these are not the welds you are looking for...)

So the inside looks like;

The wiring is epoxied into the side of the LED so the wiring hole has to be at the edge.

I wanted to have a beveled edge to the front for a hood type styling feature, but the cans were too short to give the effect I wanted.

So I started over........

Using some 1-1/2" wide painters tape I set up the bevel I was looking for and using a dremel tool with a cutoff wheel I scored the edge enough all the way around so the hacksaw would follow the groove. Twice..

 Then followed cutting 2 more backing plates out of the flat stock. and recessing and welding and drilling and shaping the bevel with the flap disc on the angle grinder. The results;

And with the LED's in;

The holes had to be drilled in the bumper(I hated doing this!) So using common techniques I centered the mounting holes and drilled them and mounted the can, sans LED and drilled the wiring holes.

I then heated them up with a propane torch as it was in the 40F's all day and sprayed them with Duplicolor Truck Bed liner.

I let these set overnight to cure and the next morning(Well, midday after it warmed up) I put the cans and LED's in.

Fastened with button head socket screws for theft prevention. That done I pondered the wiring and decided to run a hot and ground across the bumper on the inside held on with clips. The ground I connected directly to the battery. The hot I am going to wire a switch in the dash with power from the fusebox not controlled by the ignition key.

So what's it look like;

I ran a temp wire up to where I could get power from the battery to see how they looked powered up. In the various configurations;

I have only tried them once at night in the drive, here are my observations;

Very bright, much whiter than the headlights or running lights, light pattern is broad as you would expect and really lights up the area of the road in front of the bumper and to the sides. KC also makes these with a diffuse lens which would make a brighter replacement for running lites and reds for brakes and amber for indicators? My fear is they would overwhelm the oncoming traffic at night.

In the event I do get to take my 109 to Europe I installed a red fog lite in the rear. Switched from the dash a simple installation. It looks "whiter" in the picture.

I am awaiting some pull switches from the UK to finish off the installation. These switches are like the stock pull switches found on the Land Rover.