Range Rover Blues

Akmost certainly metric, the last wave of big changes were '91 (other than the softie) but metric brakes might have been '89.

Lr products from the mid 90s seem to have the worst problems for rusting. late RRC are often far worse than cars 10 years older. I think it was the BMW years.

My LSE has an interesting tweak by the tuning company that fitted the engine. The coolant temp sensor had another resistor fitted in parallel with it. By adding a second resister you can fool the ECU into thinking the engine is hotter than it really is (or cooler, not entirely sure) and access the leaner fel map earlier. IIRC the Lucas 14CUx system has either 6 or 8 fuelling points as the engine warms up, the highest is around 80 degress (82 springs to mind) below which it is still "choking" or over-fuelling. The V8 is most efficient at around 75 degrees IIRC, the higher temp of late engines is indeed an economy/emissions issue

If it's the male thread which is dameged perhaps you can redress it with a needle file?

The cowling is secured to teh column so it shouldn't matter if the column has moved slilghtly. It is however fasten to 2 strips of steel, so it could be out of position slightly, IIRC it also secures to the braket that holds the stalks, but it's been a while since I stripped out a hard dash, we only have one left now and it's been stood unloved for far too long. If the shroud has been stripped and re-assembled badly in the past that would do it, there should be a decent gap all the way around.

Other than perhaps your insurance company running and hiding if you had to make a claim. The ENGINEERING solution is to do the job properly! Propshaft vibration is another issue, best sorted with a TD5 prop, budget allowing.

Swings and roundabouts. On a Rover diff it's an afternoon's job to swap it when it goes, how much work is there that you are simply putting off? How much pitting? as a percentage of the contact face say, a tiny but won't do much, a lot will eat the other gear very quick.

Nominally hey are the same. If the splines are hanging out then it's too long. As a guide the rubber collar pops off if they over-extend.

There are several things to do. Obvious one is check or swap the lambdas, i fitted fuel part ones for about £80 and when I unwrapped them they were NTK parts anyway (That's NGK's trade brand). You can dissable the lamdas and go closed loop, it ignores the lamdas and runs from the Mass Air Flow meter instead. Change the oil, I'm not kidding. A mate of mine did his and checked the oil filler with the MOT test probe before and after, as well as the tailpipe. You get oil in the cylinders and exhaust gas in the crankcase. Check and clean all the breather filters. You can adjust the MAF, but as above with Lambdas it's set up to £ignore" the MAF once it's running.

Hmmm, towing, auto or manual, hmmmm. Difficult choice, not. Auto=easy on the legs, smooth, great in traffic, easy manouvering, bit thirsty manual=lots of clutch, dead leg in traffic, transmission shuffle and clutch fade. Typically an auto these auto boxs are either fine or FUBAR, there's no middle ground and behind a TDi it wil last quite well. Mine failed due to the hoofing big engine and changing gear at high revs.

BPR6ES are fine, but with a decnet set of surpessed leads a resisted plug is uneccessary. If the ignition system was sending out a bolt of lightening like a modern system that would be ok but the Lucas sustem sadly doesn't. As LPG is much harder to ignite (it's octane rating is around 115) a resisted plug can make a differnece to LPG. that said I run the iridium plugs and they are ok, hardly worth £8 a plug (but I didn't pay that) but supposedly so good you don't have to close up the plug gap. If you only change to oil once a year use a quality branded oil, on an older engine perhaps a 20/50 would be better but in cold weather it take far longer to get the oil around the engine. later V8s ran closer tolerances to cope with thinner oils, these supposedly deliver better economy but more worryingly is that modern oils only delivery higher viscosity through the use of additives which break down with use, so after a while you aren't using the oil you think you paid for! The best oil would be a high ratio semi synthetic or full sysnthetic. be careful with the semis as some are only 5% synth.

How long have you been doing this? I ask because mine came with a B***part flex plate and I'm wondering whether I shoud upgrade it now before I finish fitting the 'box.

I might be wrong but I think the later cars had metric bolts which are about 1mm bigger, by klater I mean 90s ish, I know my '99 RRC had smaller bolts even though the brake lines are metric the axle casings aren't.

This is all very interesting. Is hydraulic oil fully compatible? what do you use for an oil cooler and how does the steering box stand up to the extra pressure?

Persoanally if you don't know how often the gearbox has been serviced I'd say if you have to change it then do it a couple of times in quick succession, ATF is a detergeant oil so will lift old deposits and carry them to the governor, a sort of centrifuge. That age of V8 would have recomended 10/40 in the handbook but you can run 20/50, I buy mine form a Lucas ils agent, £25-30 for 9 litres and it has an oil stabiliser to protect on cold starts and high temperatures. The EFi can be diagnosed with a multimeter, get the haynes manual, it;s not that bad other than everything you need is in the supliment. If you have an issue the engine EFi will reset if you disconnect the battery, the fault light will only come on with emissions faults though. ABS if fitted can be interogated using the blink test, special equipment required, a paper clip. The only twidling you can do on the gearbox is to adjust the kickdown, don't run with it disconnected though. No airbags so unless you have air suspension then TBH you should be ok. I'd agree with fitting NGK plugs but ask for BP6ES, without the resistor or if you feel flash BPR6EIS, iridium plugs. Close the plug gap up to 26/27thou. If the gas conversion has an ECU you should be able to get a lead and software off the bay for about £40.

I've used chrome spray paint and it looks nowt like chrome, though it's a good finish it isn't shiney. Is this perhaps the reason the grille was only £50

If you do the doughnut you need to do the support bearing inside it otherwise the doughnut fails quite quickly. I had mine done 4 years ago and it's been fine since.

As a comparison I used to run a Vauxhall with the 17dr engine, it was ex lease car. I found out that the fuel pump timing was retarded when I replaced the belt, it was suggested to me that leasing comanies do this on purpose to "protect" the engine, though how much more they get thrashed because of it I can only guess. I bought the timing pin and reset the timing, it wasn't really loads faster but if I overdid it the car was really noisey and gutless, it was a Recardo head. Correct timing should give peak pressure at 10 degrees ATDC but compared to a petrol engine I think Deisel burns slower, so how important is it?

And not fall over, a lot.

I wouldn't drive one with slotted holes on the swivels, that's asking for trouble. Without fitting a 3-link system the best solution for flexibility is Defender rubber bushes in castor corrected arms. Of course it won't handle too well.

Sounds too good to be true. I like the bit where lowering the burn temp to say 200 degrees allows you to burn off more carbon and increase efficiency, when normally it;s the opposite that's true. I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand but I'd want independant proof. The reason I say that? during the 1940s we shipped Spitfires and Hurricanes with Rolls ROyce engines to Russia, in the uk they ran on the highest octane fuel, perhaps 5 star say but in Russia they didn't have access to it. What they did instead is add a fual caalyst, it contained tin and other stuff and lowered the burn temp which had the effect of protecting the valves. It also had a similar effect on engine knock as tetra-methyl lead. In the 1990s as lead was withdrawn from fuel this "technology" resurfaced and several companies started selling fuel catalysts that either dropped into the tank or sat in the fuel line. Either way I recall they need to be in the presence of some steel, say a steel mesh or steel tank. One of the most well-known in the classic scene was Black Cat, though I have used others. These have had a positive effect on older engines, prolonging their life or allowing them to run on low-octane fuel. I would not claim however that they will make a 30 year old car do 50+MPG, that is quite clearly tosh.

You're looking for a RRC or Disco from aboyt 1992 onwards. My '93 RRC had it and all soft dash RRC or 300 series should have it fitted too. Later steering boxs so equiped also have a 7mm hole behind the output shaft that lines up with a notch in the drop arm when the box is in the straight ahead position, but AFAIK the drop arms are interchangeable.

I understand he's been barred fom a funtera forum for this.

I don't know about the ins and outs of stripping the pump, though I believe that some makes of pump can be rebuilt I don't know about the one LR fitted. Pehaps someone reocnditions them? Anyhoo, inside the steering box near the top where the steering wheel input is there is a valve that controls the flow of fluid under pressure to the piston which provides the power. When there is no input an equal pressure flows to either side of the piston, the valve has to be callibrated during manufacture, get this wrong and the car will pull badly to one side. The bit of interest to you though is that any input to the steering is made against a torsion bar inside the valve, it is there to provide steering feedback (feel) and ensures that the valve only moves small amounts (ignoring the fact that the whole valve is inside a rotating assembly). If the steering input reaches 4 degrees a mechanical link HAS to take over, so there is often a dog between input and output for this. But the key bit is the torsion bar, if it is reduced it will transmit less steering feel and allow the valve to turn further, providing more power assistance. At least up to the point where all the power assistance is not enough.

I used to use Paddocks all the time, but has anyone noticed they aren't the cheapest any more?