Shackleton

Thanks J, next instalment will be the start to finish of the Vogue all in one, and it's been a mammoth edit. The raw stop motion footage came to 6.5hrs! I'm now thinking that presuming the much reduced edit still won't be to everyone's taste, I might hold off just a little longer and bring a second episode with a return to the Esprit in tandem to the Vogue end of story. Just realised that the test result here is a bit of a scoop [outside of the patron behind the scenes videos], hope it wasn't a spoiler

Haven't driven it since really, our tax starts on the first of the month and is ludicrously expensive so I'm waiting for July 1 to tax. Will have a good rummage around in the meantime, haven't heard of a few of those things so thanks for all the steers. Hopefully it just needs a good blow out. Thanks for the congrats too, was a big day. Might have gotten a bit of a shaky bottom lip when I was in the queue for the retest and realised it was just a formality. Been a journey.

I dropped my 3.9EFI RR in for it's test [it passed] and when it came out it was much more responsive and powerful. I mean night and day different. I needed to go get a bulb for a visual retest and the service station is 1km from the test centre. Went there, stopped the car, got the bulb, went back, got my test cert. Somewhere in between the car went back to performing like it had before the test. Just to say that the test here is carried out by dedicated test centres. There's no work done on cars, it goes in one side of the centre, is tested for the usual stuff and comes out the other side of the building almost like a production line. You sit in a waiting room in the meantime and you can see the test floor. I figure whatever happened happened when the car was being revved for emissions testing. Why!? And how do I make the regained performance permanent? I initially thought MAF replacement but if that was dodgy surely it wouldn't pass emissions.

Have a prob with the driver's door that I'm sure is just wear, but thought I'd ask here rather than start a new topic. I've just fitted a cheapo eblag central locking control unit and it works fine. The linkage in the door isn't playing ball though, there's resistance in it. It's enough resistance that even manually gripping the bar that would normally attach to the actuator with your hand [actuator removed], it's very difficult to operate the system. You'll see I've white greased the linkage but it didn't make enough difference. Have a look at the vid... RRC CL Prob 480.mov

Hi Jordan, That's my video above, chuffed to see it thanks lads. It's all been said already but to expand - start at the front and look up behind the front air dam under the light boxes and around the four forward body mounts. Looking for rust obvs ;). Check the top of the bulkhead from inside the engine bay, so just over the engine under the overhang of the scuttle. If there's any sign of rust water or scabs there it's a scuttle off job and if you ask me to do it nicely it's an engine out one too. Inner arch stuff should be fairly obvious but pull out the driver and front pax carpets and sound deadening and thoroughly check the footwells, all the way in to the trans tunnel. Bottom of A, B and C pillars don't fair well. There's an L shaped flange that runs under the floor on both sides carrying the brake lines, it's a stupid design and a trap for rust. Then the rear inner arches, especially the outer edges of them where they meet the inner side body panel. The rails that carry the boot floor, the sides and rear of the floor itself and the rear cross member. If you've still got energy try and inspect the tiny gap between the top of the windscreen rubber and the roof gutter. I'm not even sure that with a torch you will be able to see in that gap it's so tight, but that was rotted out badly in there on mine. Oh and check the door spines and bottoms, the fuel tank cradle, the cross bar of the rear goal post and the bottom of the alu outer panels where they fasten to the bumpers/mud flaps. The chassis as Bowie said are hardy, built to last and can be fairly scabby around the axle upsweeps and still come back up fine. Have a good look at the diff pans, make sure they're not held together by underseal. Ask me how I know Engine and box wise, well like Bowie also said the V8 needs looking after but is great. My car despite what it might seem, was a one owner and cherished. It runs like a Swiss watch despite having travelled 210k miles. The box shifts smooth and the interior, well you wouldn't know the seats had seen that much use. Quality leather! But it cost to have it in such good mechanical condition. How's £48k in maintenance over the 25 years before I got it! That's more than the top spec car cost new, and that's what it took to meet the service schedules and never let the slightest thing go wanting. Two scheduled services were late in that time, one by 500 miles, the other by 40. The rest were generally a few miles early. So having gone through the bulging service [box]file I'd say make sure the car you get has plenty of paperwork. BTW the autobox has a dipstick in the engine bay, you check it while running but while everything's cold. When the car starts first it'll take the revs to something like 1500rpm and drop them fairly quickly in increments of a couple of hundred rpm at a time, settling at 800 or 900rpm [I can't remember exactly] but this is normal and a good indication of the idle air control valve operating properly. The '90 model will have the Borg Warner transfer case, not sure there'll be much you can do to check it while viewing but if it's not making funky noises it's a start. It's not known for being the greatest TBox ever but seems ok if maintained. I'm sketchy on that. Just to say, they're beautiful machines. Enough time has passed that the tech in them is old school simple and all potential probs are well documented. They're also every bit a LR and massively capable. One of my favourite things is either reminding or informing people that the RR was the first coil sprung LR and essentially the Defender was developed off that platform. The RR may tip it's hat to comfort and style but it's no pansie.

Hopefully next week it'll be a road legal lawn mower What I've found is the D2 is actually a better mower tow-er. The dulled throttle in low range makes all the difference. 1250rpm, A/C and some tunes... it's lovely. Having said that I may have adjusted the throttle linkage on the Vogue a little tight, but it's a bit decadent to be mowing a few acres with a V8. If I can figure out how to build a little box to trick the D2's cruise into working under 30mph it'll be perfect.

Thanks Ben, the test is booked! Fingers crossed.

Def a full cut of all the work, that's always been on the cards. Just those last few jobs to do. Still raging I never took any footage of the car before really, I was just too eager to get into it. Thanks Peter, as I was doing the windscreen frame repairs I all of a sudden stood back and realised I was doing stuff I'd never have guessed I'd be doing. I mean skills wise rather than the surprise of the rust No drone, much as I'd like one I asked a pal [and LR guy] would he come over and give it a go!

Thanks a mill lads, pretty happy with this one and really motivating to see all the progression in the footage. The completely ripped apart rear end felt like a suppressed memory FF I actually cut a short section out of the old rubber to show a H, and was hoping Anthony would bring an S section with him and when that didn't happen I was going to show an on screen diagram. There's always something that gets left out in the rush to release an episode and unfortunately that was it in this one. Plus some key bits of the Vogue montage, but hey... there'll always be time for directors cuts when I'm rich and retired Top and bottom rows are S rubber and the second row are all H's. Basically the S places the glass outside the car body aperture/frame, while the H places the screen in the aperture. The notch in the H at 6 o'clock is for the locking trim. @Blanco It'll be classic for tax in '21 and I'll put it on the road hopefully before the end of the month so I have it for the summer. Want to get a test for it this coming week, early next week at the latest.

I can finally see the end with the Vogue! And btw it's a flipping gorgeous machine

Nope, you're right. Absolutely useless. The v notch it speaks of is showing so everything is aligned it seems. I'm stumped. The sunroof goes back no prob, but unless I help it coming forward it wants to tilt back up before it's even half way forward and pins itself against the actual roof. Could that be just the worm drives needing lube?

I've never thought to use this official workshop manual. It's a new day!

Yep ended up with silicone spray because I couldn't find the other stuff. Well I'm updating my attitude to these things. Basically don't f with the sunroof. Drop the whole thing out, clean, grease, retrim, whatever. Just don't take the motor out if you can help it. My worm drive is completely out of calibration now it seems, and I've no clue how I'm going to figure out resetting it all. There's a black box which seems to be a kind of mechanical sensor so stop the motor when the roof is fully open or closed, I'm guessing I've knocked that out of calibration too.

Well I have to go and get some ATF because the simple act of turning the wheels [vehicle off] a few weeks ago resulted in a seal on the steering box letting go, so I'll ask for some white grease and redo the sunroof tracks. Thanks for all the uncompromising peer pressure to do everything right

lifted from Google Has anyone actually seen a can of that in the wild?

I noticed a few feel that way about them. Having had to get fairly personal with these two I don't see any prob. With a little maintenance [and lets face it, no one ever maintains them] there's no reason they should cause trouble. The drain tubes have a big ID so you'd have to be parking under a tree or a mossy overhang and not using your car for months at a time to block them I reckon. I see the glass seal as more of a catch for debris and to stop the sunroof tray from getting swamped. I say that because the tray is literally a big gutter system, and it's quite deep, that drains into the tubes. But lets say the gullies in the tray did get swamped, there's a soft rubber seal that runs all the way around the periphery of the tray, this is outside of the gullies in the tray, and meets the roof. All in all unless the tubes get blocked, and even if the outer seal was leaky I'd say you'd need prolonged and heavily torrential rain to overwhelm the whole thing. I've learned from a Jag I was gifted recently, and that'll need some welding to the roof because the sunroof drains were blocked, that thick strimmer cable makes a nifty and easy tool to rod the full length of a sunroof drain. Accessible by just opening the roof. I'm no expert but the internet seems to agree that white lithium grease is the best and silicone grease comes in second. I've used normal lithium grease because I wasn't paying attention but I may well go back and redo it. Best practice is to fully clean the runners before re-greasing but it's tricky to get to every inch of it even with the sunroof out of the car so I wouldn't fancy your chances with it in situ. I saw that WD40 do white lithium in a can with a lance just like the conventional penetrating fluid so maybe that's the thing. I've never used it btw. Careful where you spray, you don't want to catch your sun shade.

For anyone searching a sunroof prob later; turns out there's a part that goes in between the motor and the worm drive that had fallen out while in storage. It's marked 3. in the schematic below. It's a small alu casting with a metal spring in it that stops the worm gears from moving away from the worm wheel when drive is transmitted. Whatever you do don't operate the roof without this item in the mechanism. It took half an hour of ball ache getting the two worm gears even again, moving them with the blade of a flat screwdriver, refitting the motor to test, removing and adjusting again ad nauseum, to sort it out. Other things that might be of help - worthwhile pulling the sunroof seal [the rubber around the glass] off to check the condition of the glass frame for corrosion. I just caught my new [second hand] one which has started to surface rust under the seal, and have been able to paint it to future proof. I also put the seal into a bucket of soapy water and used a soft tooth brush to clean it. It came up really well. I'll be using a thin bead of windscreen bedding compound/sealant called Arbomast to seal it to the glass when replacing. Lastly the whole reason this sunroof had to be replaced was because the old one's glass frame had rotted out. Not from exterior moisture, from interior condensation collecting on the glass and running forward where it rusted the front edge of the metal frame. If you have yours out, prep and paint that part of the frame for longevity too. Btw when I say frame I'm talking about the thing marked 8. in the diagram, and not the main assembly 13. which was perfect on both my old and new assemblies despite the bad corrosion elsewhere, and 13. is the bit that channels the water out to the drain tubes!

I've two complete sunroof here on the floor and have found the lug for manual operation and gotten the sun shades out to retrim them. Just noticed the good roof [not rusty] has obviously hopped it's runners on one side so it's opening unevenly. Going to go at it tomorrow but after a quick glance I couldn't see how to get in under the glass/frame to disassemble it. Any ideas? George

Amazing @FridgeFreezer Doubt I have anything to input but I did get those in line brake unions from Automec if the details of those are any use

glad I asked. Well first phase of operation windscreen is complete. 8hr round trip and the second half with a screen standing in the boot of a Volvo shored up by two old tyres donated by the seller. Home safe. The screen is great save for one of the little connector plugs having torn from the metal ribbon. Tore at the base of the plug though so plenty of leader and all I hopefully have to do is open up the plastic grip on the plug, little solder and maybe some heat shrink to seal again. Otherwise it's in great nick and came out of the LSE especially for me. Will try and get a continuous signal from my multimeter in the morning, both leads are dodgy on it you see Edit; lest it seems I skimmed over it, very interested in all the physics above and will be digging into it and consigning to memory once understood. Thanks a mill

That's deadly Peter thanks. So Resistance is Voltage divided by I. I know 'I' is the fuse rating but what does it stand for? The screen has been taken out of an LSE for me so it's '92 or newer and hopefully is at least partially working. I've no idea whether the old screen worked well or not. Will report back once I've got the glass and have done a few tests. I've been kicking around the idea of putting a webasto, or custom hard top over the load area of my two door. They're a fantastic camera car and I've long wanted to be able to shoot from it standing up.

There are four connectors on it. So are there two sides/elements in it? The connectors are one on either side, and on the top edge on either side of the rear view. I'm not well up on proper testing with a multimeter. I've only every tested for continuity with a beep or a light. If I can coax my multimeter into actually working, what should I be turning the dial to, and am I right in saying you mean so long as it doesn't read zero, there's some life in the screen? Latest episode just went up. There's plenty I didn't do well in this one but I'm chuffed with the new windscreen frame.

Well Michael the patron was given the wrong screen, I found out when I called to complain about the condition of it. It was delaminating and one of the connectors had been knocked off the glass, and just shrugged off. I'm getting a refund. Came home empty handed. Luckily found another in Ireland and I'm off to get it tomorrow. At this stage it'll be a massive bonus if it actually works but I just need to get glass back in the car and get it done. Can only tax it until August anyway so I'll hardly need a heated screen. Won't stop me being up at stupid o'clock like some sort of sex pest heavy breathing inside the car to get it steamy

It had three stone chips in it too, part of the reason I wasn't too scared of giving it a go myself. I hadn't really considered the full implications though. Well a patron is picking up the ebay one for me tomorrow and I'm buying him a drink on Sat eve before carrying it on the ferry [foot passenger] on Sunday. The seller says the screen was tested before removal and was working fine. They don't have perfect feedback but it was the only one and I don't have €530 for a new one. I've also found a brilliant glass guy who's going to come to have a sit down chat about the whole subject, and bring his best guy to fit the screen. I'm covering the fitters hours and the [2nd] new seal, which is a bit pricey but he tells me it's made by the company LR had them supplied by so it's genuine.

I'll call them in the morning, if there's any chance of bringing it back on Sunday I'll be all over it