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.