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.

Thanks for watching, like and subscribe! ;^)

Land Rover tie rod end, How is it made?

 10 June 2023

   No I didn't go to the factory. I've been doing inventory and cleaning parts. I found a couple of frozen tie rod ends and got to wondering how they were made and if I could free them up.

    The short answer is no.

  I tried to free 1 up and it was pretty solid. I tried a BFH and it wouldn't budge so out came the angle grinder and a cutoff wheel. I was a lot more complicated than I thought.

   It reminds me of the human hip, a ball and socket joint.

I had no idea there was a spring in the bottom, you can see what's left of this one after the rust in the smaller cut away portion. Notice there is no grease at all. Above the spring sits a cup shaped plate to cradle the ball on the threaded bit.

   

also in the ball end is a conical steel piece that holds the rubber boot in place and appears to be a press fit. I had to cut this off to separate the ball from the cups.

   There was no boot on this end and no grease fitting. So it rusted up. I shows the importance of the boots and the newer greaseable style of ends. I wasn't until I cleaned up the spring side cup that I saw it has a hole in it for the grease to migrate through.  These ends must be assembled and then powerfully crimped to stay together. Amazing!

Now we know!

2.5DT parts for sale, 19J engine

20 May 2023

Hi,

If you have followed my blog about getting and building Serenity, my 109, I've had 2 other engines in it. The first was a 2.5Dt. I have a bunch of parts off that engine and since I have the 200tdi I don't need them or want them hanging around waiting on your 2.5DT to go bad so I can sell them. I also realize that 2.5DT are rare in the US. That and at my age I could go at anytime and my kid will probably just recycle it and they will be lost forever. So I am doing a list of what I have and would like a single buyer if possible, Say, $1000 for all. Plus shipping.

1 timing belt new etc7333
1 crankshaft pulley erc4640
1 7 blade fan etc7554
1 thermostat housing erc8758
1 thermostat water outlet etc9567
1 set cam bearings, new 90519055
1 cam bearing, new 90519054
1 side cover 541010
1 fuel plate cover erc9073
1 camshaft pulley etc4014
1 injector pump pulley etc5717
2 water pump stc635
2 viscous units ROW etc6841
1 CAV injector pump diaphram
1 crankshaft bolt etc7934
1 crankshaft pully w/damper etc4077
2 manifold gaskets etc7750
1 head w/ valves and springs etc4649
1 camshaft bolt w/retaining plate bx110071L, erc8847
1 set head bolts
1 set waterpump fittings
1 waterpump pulley
4 hot spots- used err1223/erc8699
1 timing cover non-A/C etc4421/etc5672
1 timing cover front etc4422/etc5675
1 flywheel housing etc7336
1 cylinder pressure testing gauge
1 dipstick tube erc8980
1 pipe-oil feed to rockers 275679
1 pump distributor (injector pump) etc7136
1 lever throttle assy etc6675
1 drain plate etc4058
4 injectors err1266
2 piston coolers(jet assy) 1&3cyl etc6531
2 piston coolers (jet assy) 2&4 cyl etc6532
1 oil pan(sump) err4716
1 flywheel assy etc5780

Totally forgot about the injector pump and stuff! Added that into the list along with the flywheel and upped the price to an even grand. All this for that price is a steal, if you need it. Try pricing it through the usual suspects.

All Items are clean and ready for use. Pics available on request.

The end of Land Rover

 April, 19, 2023

JLR has announced they are dropping the Land Rover.

In an article from The Times, UK;  https://archive.is/Nldxc

---

Jaguar Land Rover is to drop the 75-year-old “Land Rover” brand in a reboot of the automotive giant, which will also include a relaunch of Jaguar as an electric marque whose models will start at £100,000 a time.
The group’s first all-electric Range Rover, built in Solihull in the West Midlands, will also launch in 2024 as the company doubles its investment plans to £15 billion over the next five years as part of a strategy of to end all internal combustion engine models by 2036.
The company has, however, declined to explain from where it is going to source the batteries for its electric vehicles, other than to say that Tata, its Indian conglomerate parent, will build a gigafactory somewhere in Europe.
In the interim, batteries will be sourced from unnamed overseas suppliers. Those batteries appear likely to be brought into the UK, where they will be assembled into battery packs at the group’s Wolverhampton plant, which formerly made diesel engines, and at another facility at Hams Hall near Birmingham.
More than two years since the heavily loss-making and deeply indebted Jaguar Land Rover launched its “Reimagine” programme to revolutionise the company and plot a path to zero-emission automotive production, the group said it was now also going to reinvent itself as a “house of brands”.
Thierry Bolloré, who launched the programme, left the company at the end of the last year, citing personal reasons. The group has been silent over its progress in finding his replacement.
It has now decided to drop the Land Rover name — the holding company will become JLR — and it will split itself into four brands: the top-priced Range Rover; the off-road-capable Defender, built in Slovakia; Discovery, planned to be used as a family brand; and Jaguar, which is dropping its entire model line-up and starting again with three new vehicles.
The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh driving through Wellington, New Zealand, in a Land Rover in 1981
The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh driving through Wellington, New Zealand, in a Land Rover in 1981
ANWAR HUSSEIN/GETTY IMAGES
That will start with a £100,000 four-door high performance GT model, or grand tourer, to be built in Solihull. The company declined to comment on the other models but one will almost certainly be an heir to the two-door E-type sports car of the 1960s.
Gerry McGovern, JLR’s chief designer, said that Sir William Lyons, Jaguar’s founder, had originally demanded that the brand “will be a copy of nothing”. McGovern said that his role has been to take the marque back “out of the mainstream” and to once more produce vehicles that “will give a sense of never having been seen before”.
Adrian Mardell, the group’s finance director who has taken over as interim chief executive, admitted that the group has gone through a complete change of strategy and will reposition itself as a stable of “modern luxury” brands.
He conceded that a reinvention of the Jaguar brand was an attempt to complete “unfinished business” after the marque appeared to be in danger of falling into obscurity in the face of an assault on the electric market by Tesla and others.
Mardell said the group had financially turned a corner. Having gone back into profit during the last financial year, which closed at the end of last month, Mardell said that in the past six months it had harvested £1.3 billion of cash. That level of cashflow in the coming years, he said, will underpin investment of £3 billion a year over the next five years.
The cashflow has been created by the average price of JLR models mushrooming over the past four years from an average of £44,000 to £71,000. They are set to go even higher in the future. Four years ago the company needed to make 660,000 vehicles a year to break even, but that has now been more than halved to 300,000.
Mardell said the company will be net cash positive by 2025 and will have double-digit operating profit margins in the year after that.
The company declined to comment on what its reinvention means for jobs — it has an international workforce of 40,000 — other than to say that 29,000 staff are having to be “upskilled” to build, sell and service electric vehicles.
In addition to the first new electric Range Rover and Jaguar being built in Solihull, its Halewood factory on Merseyside, home of the Range Rover Evoque, will become an all-electric facility from 2025

Transmission and transfer case storage stands

 6 April 2023

      After I built some storage shelves for my "garage", I reorganized the crepla I had all over the place. I got my gearbox and xfer case up off the floor and onto the shelves.

    I didn't like the rolling around that they did and how they could leak if set in wrong. So I decided to make some stands for them.

   For the transfer case I used the brackets to the rubber mounts and built a simple stand. Using inch and a half 1/8 thick strap I just bent it to fit on the right side and bolted that on. Next I had to bolt to the left side a piece which went backwards so that it made a 90° with the crosspiece. Prior to welding those together I made a support for the front output. You can see it in the pictures below,

The central support is made from a section of 1/2 x 2" tubing I have left over from my shelf build.

 

Once the center stand was figured out and the unit level I welded the cross piece to the left side rear protruding section.

For the main box I utilized the studs in the rear for the transfer case connection and just used some bolts in the front through the holes in the bellhousing. At which I had to sculpt the ends of some 1/8 x1" angle iron and drill some holes in it. Then I welded a piece of the 2" tubing across to brace it all.

 At the rear I just went with 2" tubing everywhere. I can't connect the front to back as the back needs to go over studs.

The shafts outside the cases are heavily greased and a waterproof cover is over the main box. My garage is unheated so winter condensation is an issue.

Land Rover speedometer cable replacement

 2/18/2023

   My speedometer stopped working a week ago. I had a hunch as to what it was, broken inner cable. But why was the question. 

   To find out I had to open up the dash and test the speedo. Once open I put in a 6" section of old drive cable and connected it to a drill and spun the drill. It didn't turn....that meant the bushing in the drive had bound up.

  It took me a couple of days to get ready to do the job mainly due to rain and the 109 being outside. When the day rolled around, I knew exactly what to do since I had taken the original speedo out and unseized it in 2012.

   This time I removed the speedo and had to totally take it out of the housing by removing the faceplate. At this point I wanted to check it against my spares to see if the gauge with the trip meter was different from the ones with out a trip meter. What I found was the frames are the same, so the trip meter could be added to any other like model. Not sure how the tire size affects the trip meter so would have to be like for like in that respect unless I find out differently.

Here are some pics of the inner speedo bodies;

   After cleaning things up that's when I discovered I was out of graphite, so I had to make a trip to the store on my V-Strom, It was very chilly! I bought some lock ease. Back at home I used acetone to clean the head bushing and with some gentle persuading I managed to free it up. I plugged the drive cable back in and with more acetone had a run to get things moving and clean. After the acetone dried up I did the same thing with the graphite, soak and spin!

   Uff Da then came the hard part. Crawling under the 109 I removed the 2 easy to get at bottom screws holding the cable to the speedo drive on the back of the transfer case. I used my prototype valve adjuster tool to stay on the screw. Due to the tight conditions I had to cut the handle off and make it longer to clear the Roamer Drive.

   There isn't the right curse word to describe getting the top one out. I'll just say it took me 45 min to remove it, finally by needle nose pliers. And that was easy compared to putting it back on, more on that later.

  Finally I had it off and I could see the end of the cable sitting in the drive, barely showing. I know it's a crappy pic, but there it is;

I freaking managed to hook it with an ice pick and get it out. I avoided having to pull the transmission brake!! YAY!!

   I tried pulling the inner cable out through the top, but it wouldn't move. That meant 2 things, it was bound up somewhere and I would have to remove the outer cable housing also. I could see the inner where it broke inside the housing.

    Then the nightmare began.

    I offered the spare up to the drive and put in the 2 easy screws and partially ran the cable to the engine bay. So far so good.

   It took me around 2 hours to get the top screw in. I have short stubby fingers and wide palms, I just could not wedge my 2 fingers down there(working from above at this point having pulled the cubby box) with the tiny screw and fit it in the hole let alone try to turn it. I'll not go into the failed methods. What worked for me was pushing a flat screwdriver head(1/4 drive) into a 1/4"id plastic tubing and then fitting the head of the screw into the tube. With the tubing around a foot long I was able to reach around the overdrive with my right hand and with a custom bent bicycle spoke around the screw part of the tubing center the screw with my left hand, and turn it to get it started. 

    Sorry no pics, I was kinda busy....

   Then I finished off with the needle nose pliers to tighten it to spec.

With that done, I washed my mouth out with soap and ran the cable through the bulkhead and hooked up the speedo, reinstalled the dash, reconnected the battery and called it a day.

   Today I went to the hardware store to get some tools and screws to make a kit for next time. Instead of slotted screws I bought some allen screws in regular and button head. The screws are 10-32 x 3/8". I also picked up a couple of flexible thingies to hopefully help with access, a 1/4 drive universal and a Dewalt wobbly magnetic(!) pivot holder. The 2 types of screws take different size allens so they are also included.  Now it's all in a bag waiting to go in my spares case.

    During todays drive the speedo was smooth and functional!

The inner drive cable part # 270718 G