JeffR

Darwin Awards 1. The Petrol Tank Accident/Incident (you decide which) Mid January, the petrol tank springs a leak, two, or three, so orders another one. Not a hard job thinks I. Shiny new tank arrives in big box on the Friday morning. Digs landrover out of snowdrift and sets about removing old tank. Big front bolts come out no prob. Anti-roll bar bolts come out no prob. Rear crossmember bolts appear to have been tig/mig/brazed and glued in place, then I had a Darwin Award moment and grabbed a blowtorch, figured a bit of heat wouldn't do too much harm...... Yes, I had remembered to drain the old tank, and fill it full of water, I may be blond but I'm not stupid... Of course it hadn't entered my tiny little mind that the leaking would petrol would have filled the void between the tank and the cradle...... Sparks up blowtorch. Carefully applies generous amounts of heat to recalcitrant nylock F%$£%ING WOOF! the petrol in the void instantly turns to carbon, carbon dioxide and water vapour; so do my eyebrows, eyelashes, nasal hairs (you just can't get away from that smell, can you) most of my beard ('tash survived though - can't fathom that one out), a goodly proportion of my fringe and all my street cred. The snow did prevent the conflagration from spreading too far though. In addition, the flash fire removed the flaky paint from the rear crossmember.Still, it's an ill wind so they say. Tells children not to eat the yellow and brown snow underneath the landrover! Retires to the kitchen, picks wife up from the floor once she had stopped laughing her tits off, stops child number one from calling the fire brigade. No sympathy there then. Has lots of coffee and shaves remnant of beard off. Puts on clean underwear. Explains to children 2-4 that only adults are allowed to use those words. Back to removing tank fortified with dutch courage/bravado and a great deal of crass stupidity. Used an angle grinder this time, only two rusty/seized 13mm nylocks to remove, should take thirty seconds each. Shame I forgot my goggles...... Now that stung a wee bit. Still, I'm a hard Geordie. Puts goggles on. Fires up grinder again. At this point, I must remind everyone that I am lying underneath a tank full of about 18gallons of water that is held in place by a single 13mm nylock. I'm also partially blind in one eye and simply cannot get away from the stink of burning hair. Nut gone, tank drops a couple of feet. Luckily, my head, neck and chest prevented it from hitting the ground too hard. Children 1-4 learn a whole new range of words that only adults are allowed to use. For once, my wife responds to the screams of agony and comes out to see what I'm up to. Between her and the next-door neighbour, they managed to raise the tank up high enough to drag me out. Job stopped. Quick trip to Carlisle casualty, really glad I put clean underwear on (damn it my mother was right you know). Ribs are only bruised a wee bit. The right eye mind you has enough scrap mental embedded in to be worth weighing in. Wife still pi£$%^g herself laughing. 4 hours later, scrap metal removed. Go home, get Mildly miffed. Saturday cancelled due to lack of interest. Well apart from giving the new tank a couple of coats of black Hammerite, putting fuel pump and sender unit in. Sunday dawns, notices that my ribs are actually blacker than the petrol tank and my right eye has swelled alarmingly. Takes painkillers, lots of painkillers. Not interested in working on landrovers. Monday arrives and I'm full of vigour (well codein/asprin/paracetomol and ibuprofen). Heads out to put new, very shiny tank in. Takes less than half an hour. Dead chuffed. Puts key in ignition, turns it. Nothing happens. Battery must be flat. BUGGER. Puts jump leads on, still nothing. BUGGER BUGGER BUGGER. Starter clicks, must be jammed(actually frozen solid, but lets not quibble over minor details for now) Taps starter solenoid with big bit of metal and small hammer. Still nothing. Gets bigger hammer from garage. Smacks big bit of metal with really big hammer really hard. CRACK The wretched solenoid housing parts company with the starter. Lots of sparks, bad language blue smoke and bad temper. Contents of toolbox sail majestically into garden undergrowth. Orders new starter motor over the phone. Gets Mildly miffed and has more painkillers. Tuesday arrives, new starter motor does not. Spends the day recovering toolbox contents from undergrowth in garden. Very impressed with how far I had flung my half-inch ratchet. Wednesday and the starter arrives. Sets about removing the old one. Finds that previous owner had no brains, the two bolts that hold the starter in place are: 1.Non standard and different head sizes (alarm bells begin to ring very loudly). 2.Torqued up to about 4000000ft lbs. 3.Brittle as hell due to the cold weather. Snaps both of them. BUGGER BUGGER BUGGER BUGGER Never mind at least the bloody thing is out. Top mounting bolt fragment comes out quite easily with a pair of mole grips. Thank you GOD. Bottom one is cross threaded, I HATE YOU GOD Three hours later and this fragment too is removed (don't ask how, it really would give you nightmares), it was only in by about 10 threads. Runs tap down hole to clean the threads and goes to find two new, correct, bolts. Fits motor. Connects motor. Puts key in, engine turns over at about 3000rpm. Job DONE!!!!! Wife goes to work in it. AA brings it home on a low loader. F**K F**K F**K Nice AA man reckons the wiring to the fuel pump is not well. Actually fried to buggery if you want the truth - I wonder just how hot a blow torch/flash fire flame gets. Orders necessary wiring and connectors. Refuse to pay for wife’s taxis to and from work. Buggers’ not laughing now is she. Friday and the wiring bits arrive. Installed in less than half an hour. Engine starts, but won't run. too many BUGGERS to type Out with the trusty multi meter. Got electrickery at the wiring to the fuel pump, but the pump is not pumping. more BUGGERS than you can imagine Contemplate buying a Jap four-wheel drive. Have minor heart attack when I find out how much landrover want for a genuine fuel pump. Order cheap one. Take petrol tank out (much easier this time and no personal damage) How I love copper slip. Find out why pump failed, when I stopped the old petrol tank from hitting the ground, by using various parts of my anatomy, the live wire had broken at the point where it enters the fuel pump and is sealed with what appears to be acrylic of some sort. Therefore, it was occasionally making contact, but not all the time. Never mind new pump installed, tank back in, Landrover works. More or less. The fuel gauge took to telling bigger lies than a MP trying to get elected. Flash forward several months and more electrical gremlins with the fuel gauge/sender and everything more or less works, fuel gauge still tells porkies, but I now know why, the float is catching on an internal baffle (borrowed a bore scope to work that one out). But for some odd reason I really can't be arsed to take the tank out again to rectify it. Beard, eyebrows, nasal hair has grown back (can still smell burnt hair though) So all in all it effectively took 7 months to swap out a leaking petrol tank. 2. The Sunroof Affair This one goes back a couple of years and involved a different landrover to the pig I now own. At a Landrover show I spotted a rather fetching roof console, in a moment of madness I bought it. It wouldn't fit due to the internal roll cage. Never mind I'll put it in the family 110 Station wagon, thinks I. It would kill two birds with one stone - the sunroof would have to come out, but as that had more leaks than the Exxon Valdez.... Then work got in the way and the roof console sat in my office for a year or so. House mice really like electrical insulation. And the wife turned the V8 into a V6 (quote "whats the red oil can mean on the dashboard"), still she managed to drive it 20 miles or so. In the mean time I took the sunroof out anyway and sourced a new headlining. Then the wife hit a tree branch, which popped half a dozen rivets out of the alloy plate that filled the sunroof hole, but a quick squirt of silicon sealant slowed down the inevitable inundation that occurred every time it rained. Could live with it for a while. It was a very wet spring that year. The 110 quickly resembled a cross between a fish tank and the Kew Garden fungus collection. Time to put it right, and I could fit the roof console/headlining at the same time. One bright Sunday morning armed with a Black and Decker Drill some pop rivets and a hammer and punch I set about the job in question. Now at the time we were living in a cottage in Devon, on a hill with a 30-degree incline. So working on the roof of a landrover was somewhat precarious given the amount of green algae that grew on the roof. Soon had the old plate off and the rivets drilled out. Now I ran into another big problem. The only pop rivets I had were huge, the stem was about 5mm diameter (buggered if I know where I got them from, but what the hell they were in the tool box). Retires to my tool boxes to find a heavy duty rivet gun. All I could find was a wee one (never did find my big one, must have lent it to someone) so that would have to do. Had a flsh of inteligence and thought that if I drilled out one of the mandrels the rivets would fit. So I did it. And it worked . Now another problem arose - I was only just physically strong enough to set these rivets stood on the ground, so how was I gonna manage at a 30 degree angle stood on the bonnet of a Landrover. Easy I'll get on the nice slippy roof. The next bit is not for the squeamish. 25 rivets to set. First ten or so weren't that bad. Forearms ached a bit, but what the the hell- no pain no gain so they say. Then I jammed my finger resulting in a blood blister the size of an inner tube and the children adding new words to their vocabulary. I Should have given up at that point. Didn't though. I can be kind of pig headed at times. Usually results in lots of pain and bad language. Next rivet didn't go that well really. Well it sort of did and didn't. I squeezed the rivet gun with all my might and it snapped easier than I expected, which caused me jump, only problem was that I was 2 metres up in the air. When I came down I sort of managed to miss most the landrover. Admitedly I did not miss the open door (broke a rib), the front wing (bruised my hip), the tool box (broke another rib) or the ground (broke my shoulder). Only took a year of physio to recover For a long time after that, the local Landrover garage made a lot of money doing my repairs Never mind the surgeon who repaired the damage was restoring a 1949 Series and he nearly cut his hand off with a Stihl saw.

Got mine from here - http://www.landroverweb.com/Land-Rover-Range-Rover-manual-pdf.htm

Did a tank on my 110 earlier this year. The cradle is only spot welded in about three places at he front of the tank and two at the back. Drill out the spot welds and hey presto no need to buy another cradle!!!!

After the winter we've just had my wife and kids simply refused to go any where in my 110 V8 without wearing thermal undies. Even a new matrix has failed to help. Not saying that the heater was useles, but at one point this winter the door windows froze shut, there was a half inch layerof ice on the inside of the entire vehicle and I got stabbed (drew blood too) in the head by the icicles that formed on the sunroof. Yrt my 110van has a heater in it gives out hot air that's hotter than the surface of the sun. My experience suggests that the heaters in Landrovers vary from vehicle to vehicle.....

Better get a new gas bottle then! The tought of lying underneath the landrover welding bits on just didn't appeal to my sense of humour. Still we live and learn. Cheers Chaps

Been spendind a while lokking at the 110's rear crossmember recently and had a thought. At some time in the future it is going to need replaced. Now could I buy a crossmember, with extensions, tremove the extensions and replace them with 5mm plate, box in the the chassis ends and bolt the bugger on. It would have to have anti-crush tubes welded into both the crossmember legs and the chassis, but that's not difficult. So two questions: 1. would it work and be strong enough 2. would it be legal It would be a hell of a lot easier, given the propensity for rear crossmembers to rot out, to simply unbolt it when it rots.

Vehicle wiring Products used to do em

Had the bloody tank out again over the weekend (now takes less than 10 mins to drop the tank). Float arm is hanging up on an internal baffle. Mind you had to borrow a bore scope to work this out as you cannot see the baffles properly from the fuel pump aperture and short of drilling a bloody great hole in the sender unit..... Now all I need is a 2 foot long hacksaw blade that I can shove through the sender hole to create a bigger slot for the float arm. Might do that later on in the week. To top it all the wretched beast decidded to die on me half way across the A69 today (smell it madam, I was sitting in it!) - easy fix, it was the petrol cut off switch on the gas conversion having a hissy fit, now completly bypassed. Thank God I don't use the gas system - just out of interest can anyone recomend an autogas installer in Northumberland who can give the gas system a once over??

I had a similar problem a few years back, and it was the master switch (which was only a few months old too)replaced it and all was hunky dory. When I took the old(new) switch apart I could not find any obvious problems with it.

So did I

Just waited an hour and a half for a very nice man from the AA to find me with a gallon of petrol!!! Both f£$%^&*g sender units tell more lies than a politician. Half tank of petrol indicated actually means you are running on the petrol that is in the carb float chambers. Sod it, this weekend the bloody tank is coming out its a Britpart unit - hopefully it's just the float catching on one of the internal baffles. At least with the tank and fuel pump pulled I should be able to see through the pump aperture just where it's catching. Watch this space........

Well the new sender unit arrived today. 10 minutes of bad language later and it's in and wired up. Turns ignition on and guess what. It don't f"£$%&g work. Nothing no needle monvement what so ever, blood pressure reaches new all time high, hammer and drift fly majestically into the shrubbery.Squaddies blush at the frequency, amplitude and range of bad language. Gets gallon of petrol, check that box of matches works(the way my luck is going I'd have a bought a box of non flammable matches), rings fire brigade to let them know that the soon to be occurring conflagration is deliberate, wife and small children exit stage left. Wife suggests that we take the bloody thing out again and put it back in "give it one more chance", she says.Half an hour spent So out the bloody thing comes, youngest son hands me sender unit, back in it goes........ Turn ignition on and EUREKA needle moves and low fuel light goes out IT LIVES!!!! Then youngest son says "what you gonna do with the new one daddy?". He'd given me the old unit. The bloody old unit has had a Lazarus moment; in the words of Mr.V.Meldrew, I DON'T BELIEVE IT. So in the interests of my sanity I put the new one in and that works too. Heads to local filling staion, puts petrol in and the gauge appears to be telling the truth. The most annoying thing is that I still do not know just what the hell was wrong, that's a month of my life I will never get back, never mind got lots of new wiring in place, all earhts are cleaned up amd most things seem to work only got to sort out a leaking steering box, ditto swivel hub, put new back door on, put new door seals in, replace buggered heater matrix, replace second row sates with nice Trakers reclining jobbies, rebuild battery box and get gas conversion checked out, not a lot really.....

Just out of interest, what the hell is the third (bottom) terminal for on a 110 Sender unit?

Sorry I was having a blonde moment. I've been trying to sort this out for too long and getting very frustrated. If you bridge the two wires that go to the sender unit the gauge needle moves to full and the low fuel light goes out - a function that would suggest to me that the wiring to the gauge is fine , after all it is merely simulating a full tank. The dash wiring is as per the book,now that umpteen metres of assorted cable have been removed (must admit to putting a spare fuel gauge in the water temp hole - that caused some confusion) Beginning to think that the sender unit is cattle trucked (even though it is new), will try yet another one next week. Quite frankly I am about up to my t£$s with the wiring on this thing. Earlier this month I thought I would fit a set of NAS lights I had kicking around, should of taken about half a day, took 3 days and a complete re-wire. But I did cure the very slow flash rate of the side repeaters - some half wit had re-wired them using 50 amp cable of assorted colors and clearly couldn't be bothered to use bullet connectors when twisting the wires together was quicker, would have been nice if they'd wrapped the twisted ends in insulating tape though. They also created an ignition controled live feed for the radio by tapping into the brake light cicuit, again who needs to insulate a soldered joint (makes a change from twisting the wires together though) definitely a blue smoke, brown trouser moment. That one resulted in a melted fuse, after all we all know that if a fuse blows one replaces it with a chunk of copper wire. To top it all the they had forced imperial thread screws into the metric thread captive nuts that hold the fuse/relay housing to the bulkhead, and they used stainless screws - still got that to sort out. Have rivnut gun- the best tool in the world. Cheers folks will let you know if a new sender unit works, actually if it don't the cloud of oily black smoke that will appear over Haltwhistle is me setting fire to the tw£t....

Been there done that! If you short out the gb and ws wires with the ignition on you get full deflection on the gauge and the low fuel light goes off. There is definitley a float on the sender unit, when the tank was replaced I also replaced the fuel pump but managed to trap the float down as the filter on the end of the pump was 90 degrees out. Suprisingly if you take the sender unit out (guess what I've been doing this afternoon) and attach the wires the gauge works, manually moving the float up and down results in the needle moving up and down!!!!!. The only time it doesn't work is when the wretched thing is in the f$%£"*%g tank. I am now thoroughly convinced that this bloody thing hates me with a passion - it's getting personal. Mind you I did fix the heated rear window today and removed about 30 foot of 50amp cable that wasn't attached to anything other than a switch! The previous owner of this vehicle was not the worlds greatest auto electrician!!!!!

I apologise for being dense, but would this conversion work for a 1991 110V8 SW?

The plot thickens, but still no functional fuel gauge. Now got 12.5 volts input (engine off) to the fuel gauge and 7.5 volts at the sender unit. Re-earthed the sender unit directly to -ve terminal of the battery so no earth problem. Low fuel light still on, but as it must be getting low on fuel by now, it is probably telling the truth. I am assuming that the low fuel light works by sensing the variable resistance in the sender unit, or am I wrong in my assumption? This is driving me absolutely nuts - all the components seem fine until they are attached to each other. Or is it that I have missed something?

Thanks chaps - guess I'm just going to dismantle the dash again to see what I can find, gonna be a fun weekend!

Sadly yes! Also if one unplus everthing the wretched low fuel lamp merrily shines brightly!!!

A question (or two) for the collective mind. replaced the fuel tank and pump on my 110V8 earlier this year. Prior to change, the low fuel warning light was always slow to react, but did actually work, as did the fuel gauge. When transferring the sender over I cleaned the terminal back to metal. Every thing worked, then the devil got involved. Now nothing works (other than the low fuel light never goes out)- ever tried living with a V8 when you've absolutely no idea how much petrol is in it, rather play russian roulette with a Glock. Went back to first principles - first thought was cattle trucked sender unit, took out said unit, checked that resistance changes when float was moved and it did. Not sender unit then, replaced it with a new one anyway. Same with gauge - can get full deflection if put power across, also tried another gauge,still no joy. Removes tank (again!!) and attacks wiring - continuity tester says wiring fine where it comes out of chassis to rear loom (and if bit of wire added all is fine from gauge to sender). Added extra earth to sender unit, replaced RISTS connector with one that is splash proof - even cleaned wires back to shiney copper (earths and supplies) still no working fuel gauge. Am I missing something?, I've run out of things to try (and to replace). I give in, is the bloddy thing merely possessed or does it want me to kill it with a big stick - come to the conclusion that Landrover are living, sentient, though not necessarily inteligent, organisms. And this one don't like me. So in a nutshell HELP!!!!!