Land Rover Jaeger speedometer repair

 26 Sept 2023

   I got in my 109 yesterday for a Dr appointment, a few miles into the drive I noticed the speedo was not moving. I figured I knew what happened, the input bushing froze up .....again, for the third time.

   So today I set out to at least change the busted cable if the bushing wasn't the issue.

First thing was to drop the dash and see if the cable had just fallen off.

No such luck!  I put the end of an old inner cable in the input and tried to turn it.. Frozen solid! So I pulled out the speedo and took it in my shed and tore it apart, thinking if I couldn't get it unfrozen I could swap parts from a couple of my spares.

    Mine has a trip meter so it is a little more complicated. I/you can get a lot of good information from;

http://triumph.daveola.com/NOTES/Speedo_Repair.pdf  I read in many years ago and only screwed up a little. But I got it apart.

   The input shaft had near solid paste on it and took some working back and forth to remove from the main frame. I also had to remove 2 brass screws holding it by the mounting flange. You can see the input shaft and main frame in these images.

   At first I thought the easy way would be to just swap parts, so I looked at my spares, One wouldn't work at all as it was for a Series 3, so I took apart my other. Here I found another difference, the mounting plate was riveted on not screwed on so I was back to trying to fix my original. I did drill out the rivets to see if I could use that input and to be able to test and find out where mine was binding up.

  Access to the back of the rivets;

During dismantling I discovered 2 hairsprings which control the motion of the trip reset and the odo timing. The 2 brass screws are for the mounting plate.

I cleaned the old grease off my original(rt) and compared it to the spare(lf) with flexible grease and did some testing by spinning them both in each others mainframe. I figured that there might be some wear on the original as it kept binding going in and out. I used some 1500 grit sandpaper to clean it up, yet the binding was still there.

The binding was only with the original mainframe. I had to figure out how to sand inside it! What I came up with was wrapping 1500 sandpaper around a small drill bit, putting it in my drill. Then with the drill held firmly in a vise I had 2 hands free to control the speed and the movement of the mainframe. I lightly reamed it, rinsed it with acetone and tried the input shaft. SUCCESS! It spun freely!

    I used Phil grease to lube the input shaft. The speedo pdf just calls for light grease.

Then unbeknownst to me came the hard part! Oh, no problem putting the input shaft and mounting flange back on the mainframe. It was those tiny little hairsprings! Remember them?

I tried this way and that and couldn't for the life of me get the first one on, then it took a flier and I didn't see where too. No problem I have a spare, right? My tools were too big and unwieldy. I finally decided I needed something like chopsticks only toothpick sized. I went in the house and got chopsticks and toothpicks. Toothpicks did the job, I was able to hold the spring on the toothpick and set one end, then using another pick I held the end on so I could mess with the hook end. On 1 spring I was able to use the toothpick to set the hooked end, on the other I had to use a dental pick to lift it into place and slide it into the hole with the flat end of the toothpick.

   Ok so that was the first one, time for the spare spring,..........wait it doesn't have any springs, different model, I'm screwed.......getting a powerful flashlight I started a search through the crap in my shed looking for a tiny spring........After about 3 min, lo and behold I found it next to my grinding wheel stand. And using my newfound technique with toothpicks I re-installed it. You guys with nice workshops and garages don't know how nice you have it!

 In this last image you can barely see the hook end of the spring in the hole by the #7.

Despite my best efforts I got it done. I finished pulling the outer cable and getting the broken end out of the speedo drive and re-installing my spare complete cable. Then put the dash back together, I moved the 109 in the driveway enough to see the needle move.

So I'll see how well I did and how long this one lasts! I'm getting too old to do this.......I'm sore an tired!

Rocky Mountain window latch repair

 10 Aug 2023

     " Long long time ago, I don't remember when..." I installed Rocky Mountain door tops and when I did the plastic outer part for the window latch broke. At the time my solution was to make a flat bar of aluminum and drill and thread it to hold the latch in place. This worked, BUT, it was indeed fugly.

 

So along comes 50wulf posting on the Guns and Rovers forum about this time last year with a better solution that even allows the window to slide further open,

https://www.gunsandrovers.com/forum/guns-and-rovers-main/tech-tricks-and-common-fixes/204877-rocky-mountain-window-modification#post214823

I FINALLY bought 4 of the low profile machine screws from McMaster-Carr

https://www.mcmaster.com/91223A332/  and after a couple of days they were in my grubby hands.

Today I put them in, not without some trial and tribulation.....

I wanted to make them as waterproof as possible and still look nice. I didn't have any rubber washers so I thought o-rings.....

 Turned out the hole in the glass is so big the o-rings just fell inside. What to do, my grommets were too thick,....I dragged out an old bit of innertube, you remember them? and set about to make 4 rubber washers. First I needed a punch for the outer dimension, which I didn't have. So I made one using 5/8" stainless tubing, I used a chamfering tool to sharpen the end.

Next with a tubing cutter about 4"'s was separated from the scrap piece;

Now I had the OD and I had a 1/4" hole punch already. Using these I set out to make my washers. Using a block of wood for a backstop.

Grrrrrrrrrrr! I couldn't get the center hole centered enough, mainly because I couldn't see down in the tube. I finally made several blanks and got out my hole punch for leather and after a bit I made 4 good enough to use.

From then on it was straight forward to replace the old with the new.

Until;

The right side wouldn't clear the front pane.  Investigation shows the glass has room to flop back and forth and partly compressed the top seal. the following pics show(poorly) the gap at the top.

Since I don't use that window much I just opted for a wooden wedge slid in between the seal and the pane. It still allows for the front glass to slide, but I figure eventually it will fall out.

Anywho, the rear glass slides past the front so I am calling it good!

Land Rover horn button bracket respray and clocking the steering wheel

 12 July 2023

   A couple of days ago I finally decided to clock my steering wheel. It has been 1 or so splines off since forever. Just annoying when I want to see the temp gauge whilst driving. It is a minor thing to do. 

     First taking off the steering wheel center and using a hole punch I marked where the current position was. Undo and pull the clamping bolt out and wiggle the wheel off. Set it aside.

    This is when shipfitters disease sets in. I've been wanting to respray my horn push bracket part # 271496 for about a year and now looked like a good time. Soooooo, it takes a 7/16" wrench to undo the clamping bolt on the rear, but very tight quarters so I used a folding ratcheting wrench to work around the wiring and get it off. That is when I found out the wires went through the bulkhead and an easy disconnect  I was hoping for, well, wasn't.

   I had to find a tiny screwdriver and undo the clamping screws on the side of the button which held the wires.

 After that I decided to disconnect the battery to prevent accidental grounding. The simple job kept growing. Once the wires were out I pulled the bracket out and going into the "shop" removed the push button.

  Here i realized the button was held on with machine screws and nuts. To me it made sense to tap the holes and just use machine screws. So I found that my 10-32 tap would fit and I did the job.

 Are you ready? The job got bigger... I had to drill the holes in the button larger, to 3/16". 

When I test fitted the button base the screws went in but it was so tight it was slightly cocked so I redrilled 1 hole to 7/32" . Now it would screw down evenly.

Since it was opened up I took the opportunity to wire wheel the copper connections inside the button.

After that I set about cleaning the bracket, first with a wire wheel and ending with a hand sander. That was followed by 2 coats of Permatex rust convertor and 2 coats of Duplicolor Granite as I did not have any black.

Some day it will get black.

Once dry it was time to shut this complicated job down! I decided to make the job grow again....using spade connectors I hid them behind bracket for a quicker removal next time(for paint remember?) I set them up so the wires won't get mixed up. Then I set the button in place and found out the new screw heads were too large to go past the "button" part.....The solution was/is to take the button apart by accessing the screwnut on the underside and loosening it enough to wiggle the screw head past the button. Argggh, it was at this point I realized I needed to drill out the other hole in the button base to 7/32". Retighten the center screw and line up the mounting screws and I found out I have an uncle Robert.

Following that the steering wheel was aligned, hopefully in the right place, and the clamping bolt in pace, battery reconnected. I'll find out how I did the next time I drive it.

Land Rover Tex Magna indicator bulb replacement---LED

 17 Jun 2023

    A bout a week ago I noticed my Tex Magna indicator lamp was out. I checked it out and it was indeed the bulb had given its everything to help me safely motor about. I didn't have a spare at hand so I put it back together and commenced a Worldwide search!

   Looking on the usual suspects websites I couldn't find one. So I went to the Series 2 forum that most excellent resource! A search there turned up thread which called for a BA7 lamp. When I looked online for one I saw that it was different than the one I had. A query to the forum showed mine was a BA9. The difference being the 7 had locating lumps and the 9 has locating pins.

  Deciding to go with LED's I searched the Superbright led website; https://www.superbrightleds.com/  my go to for LED's. I didn't find the 12v 2.2w that the TexMagna takes so I asked and was pointed to the BA9 they have.  https://www.superbrightleds.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=BA9

I bought a couple since I didn't know the height of the bulb and thought the diffused bulb might be too tall. I got a green and clear in 2 styles.

They came in the post today so I carefully removed the indicator switch from the steering column.

Here's a look at the top where the bulb shines thru, until it doesn't.

The top on mine comes off with 3 slotted screws. You can see the bulb towards the top of the triangle shape.

Speaking of bulbs, here's a look at the 3 types; diffused led, incandescent factory, clear led.

Simple to replace, really. MUCH HARDER to get a picture of them flashing............

In the end I went with the clear green one and I'll see if I notice it enough to change at some other time.

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