Tanuki
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Posts posted by Tanuki
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6 hours ago, elbekko said:
What on earth is going on under that rear bumper?
Indeed! It should have a towbar rather than that silly shiny bit of metal.
I'm wondering, too, about the location of the rear number-plate: a proper-height towbar would probably cause a visibility-obstruction and incur the wrath of the Carabinieri/Polizei when they find the towbar makes it harder for their speed-cameras to get a good view.
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In the 'old days' [the 1990s] sticky valves/lifters were a bit of a recurrent problem with the first-generation Zetec-engined Ford Escorts/Mondeos: the standard first-level fix was to add a litre of ATF to the oil then give the thing an 'Italian Tune-up' - get the engine nicely warmed-through then repeatedly take it to the rev-limiter through the gears.
Do this a few times, drain the oil and refill [remember to use a nice thin oil as specified: we found some cars [that had been serviced by backstreet garages who thought they were still servicing Morris Marinas] with nasty mineral 20/50 in them when the book specified fully-synth 0/30 or 5/30. -
38 minutes ago, steve b said:
One of my more stupid oil moments was not putting the drain plug in and then trying really hard to fill to level on my Trans-am 455 absolutely years ago , boy did I feel stupid .....
My "silly" moment was refillig the sump and starting the engine, not seeing oil-pressure, then noticing the new oil-filter sitting in the footwell...
The pressure-switch - yes, in the absence of pressure it connects the single wire to ground, so there's a current-path from the battery through the bulb - which lights to tell you there's a problem.
Fit a new switch - they're cheap to buy and easy to install.
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I'd say that it would make more sense for Ineos to partner with one of the large agricultural/industrial-machinery manufacturers so they can piggy-back on an existing service/support-network that already understands the needs of commercial customers.
John Deere? Cat? JCB? They've all got the sort of global reach and established infrastructure needed. -
To me, the thing that matters most is what taxation-class it falls into.
'Cars' worth over £40K get stung with swingeing VED for the first few years; they're also subject to CO2-emissions-based VED thereafter.
Vans/Commercials don't get hit by the first-years luxury-tax and pay a fixed VED irrespective of the CO2 emissions.
This can make a difference of at least £4K to the running-costs in the first four years!-
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What about the Nikola Badger?
https://nikolamotor.com/badger
Battery/Fuel-cell hybrid, 8000-pound towing-capacity, 0-60 in 2.9 seconds....
Shame they called it the Badger though. I guess it's partly because US Badgers are feisty vicious beasts, whereas UK Badgers are slow bumbling worm-eaters who live in holes in the ground.
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Easily user-tweakable aurobox shift-points [I *hate* autos that insist on shifting into 9th gear at 40MPH meaning the thing''s numb as a badger's bum] and/or really-sensitive kickdown.
24-volt electrics and a properly engineered dual-battery option.
21st-century soundproofing/waterproofing.
Heated windscreen/mirrors [why are these not required as standard safety-features on all new cars?].
Decent corrosion-protection.
Reversing camera [turns hooking-up a trailer from a 5-minute job to a 30-second one]
Top-quality, hack-proof security/immobilizer [this is one area that JLR seem to have got right on their current models].
And:
A credible service/support/dealer-network with decent coverage. Remote-diagnostics will help here, but if you're broken-down in Didcot and the nearest dealer's in Darlington..... -
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/07/07/jim-ratcliffes-ineos-mulls-making-land-rover-rival-france/
Who cares where it's made?
I guess that since it will be sold as a commercial vehicle rather than a car, it will escape the EU's per-vehicle punishment for cars emitting more than 100grams/Km of CO2: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/12/29/car-giants-face-billions-fines-eu-emissions-rules-take-effect/
I wonder how it will be treated in the UK: here, "commercial vehicles" have a lower dual-carriageway speed-limit than passenger-cars. There has been argument in the past as to whether a Defender-with-rear-seats is allowed to do 60 or 70MPH on a dual-carriageway.
Will the Grenadier have a factory full-rear-seating option, I wonder? -
Superglue the sheared terminal back in-place, then use the damaged alternator as the trade-in to get a new one at your local auto-electrical-parts-place!
The replacement will at least come with a warranty [under the Consumer Rights Act 2015].-
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Aston-Martin - in their 1950s "Superleggera" alloy-over-a-steel-spaceframe - historically used tallow-impregnated hessian.
The 'modern' equivalent is a horribly-slimy thing called "Sylglas" tape, as used by roofers and aklso used to bind-over exposed welded joints on underground oil-pipelines. It's utterly-gross [wear gloves before even looking at it] but is really good at protecting dissimilar-metals joints.
http://www.sylglas.com/products/wptape.htm -
The 'lump' behind the ladder on the nearside - from a techie perspective that would be a great place to stash the rear-screenwash bottle! [And fit it with an external filler-bung so you can easily ship another 5 litres of water - I'm fed up of draining the Defender's combined front/rear washbottle on a 100-mile winter salty-slushy-motorway trip then having to do the next 15 miles to a service-area at 60MPH and peering through a semi-opaque windscreen].
Still not tempted to buy one though, even though virus-induced shutdowns in Japan now make it look like it'll be next year before I get to take delivery of my LWB LandCruiser 'commercial'. -
A Disco3 is - compared to LR's later offerings - relatively simple!
Though there can be some nasty snags: replacing the drive-belts can be murderously-expensive [the rear one that drives the HP fuel-pump *officially* requires the body to be lifted from the chassis, and it needs doing every 7 years/105,000 miles].
Personally, I *like* modern electronics in vehicles - they can give you a good guide as to where the problem is when things go wrong, so your mechanic does not spend hundreds of Pounds/Euros/Zlotys/Roubles replacing parts in the hope that 'it might be the part that fixes the problem'. -
I'm currently running a pair of 265/85 BFG KO2 on the rear of my Defender, and a pair of Avon Ranger ATT on the front. They work well, after 30000 miles of 'fast road' Motorway- and A/B-road-use they're about 60% worn, which I consider to be OK.
Biggest issue I found was getting the pressures right: running the 'official' LR pressures from the book-of-lies gave a rather squidgy, wandery ride and started to wear the edges of the tyres: adding an extra 5PSI improved stability and made the wear-pattern a lot more even. -
39 minutes ago, Anderzander said:
Everything less than 2m is a single seater ? 😊
Pretty much so, yes - if ia SUV/truck wants to get anything above a 'marginal' 3* classification in the driver/passenger-safety rating in the Euro-NCAP tests.
You need the space for the door-intrusion bars, steering-wheel/passenger-fascia/screen-pillar/B-post and footwell-space airbags, along with seatbelt pre-tensioners.
[NCAP tests let small/light cars get away with less protection - which is deeply strange to me!]
Personally, I'm all in favour of lots of structural-safety-stuff in cars, having seen what happens when someone barrel-rolls a Defender down a Welsh hillside.
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The 'rock-crawling' stuff is rather far-removed from anything I'd be likely to do in practice. I'd be interested in seeing some videos of it doing the "Moose Test" swerve [we don't have Mooses? Meece? round here but there are quite a few Roe/Fallow Deer who wander around the roads at night and not far away we have free-range Wild Boar too, so plenty of things to need a swerve. We don't swerve for Muntjac].
Some videos of it towing a loaded twin-axle trailer would be nice to see as well. Particularly an uphill start on gravel/shingle while towing a heavy trailer. Doing this in my Defender, it just burrowed all four driven wheels into the gravel then sat there looking silly. I suspect an automatic would have done better.
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1 hour ago, Waldorf said:
They don't have a dealership network. How are Ineos going to sell these things? Let alone service and repair them?
That is likely to be a big problem for commercial/business purchasers: it's no good having a broken vehicle in Finland if the only spares-holding is in Birmingham. And with the Grenadier's "low-ish tech" approach I doubt it will support much in the way of remote diagnostics either.
[Perhaps Ineos should try to do some sort of 'piggyback' deal with a company like Caterpillar or John Deere, so their global dealer- and logistics-network could be used?]
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1999 - TD5?
If so, run the "fuel system purge cycle" as detailed in the manual. Do it 2 or 3 times, then try a start.
If it starts after a purge-cycle, #1 thing to check is the copper injector-seal washers. I treat these as 60,000-mile service-items. -
Why not give Merlin Motorsport a call?
They have a vast range of obscure and unusual fuel-system connectors.
https://www.merlinmotorsport.co.uk/s/carburettor-parts/carburettor-accessories -
In the 80s and mid-90s when I used to be a rally comms-person/marshal we often used to have, at the end of the main rally, a few teams from BAMA (British Army Motoring Association) come through in Land-Rovers; one year we also had teams participating in "Cop Drive' (which was a motorsport event for Police forces).
This was back in the 90/110 days - though one team did appear in a nearly-new LHD white Discovery V8 complete with UN markings, and there were still a few 'leafers entered by the Army teams.
Lowered ride-height was normal - remember you're driving on rally stages which have to be passable by a Peugeot 205 or a Ford Escort. 15-inch wheels and 'soft' rubber were ubiquitous [alas Fred Henderson and his Colway Competition Department are no longer with us]. Go-to shock-absorbers back then were the orange-bodied gas-filled Konis, which could be adjusted "to account for in-service wear" according to the blurb-of-the-day. I guess gasfilled Bilsteins would be the modern equivalent [I've got them on my 90TD5 and they really do work well when hustling it down twisty lanes].
Brakes were always a problem: when your two driving-positions are full-throttle/max-revs-in-low-gear, and stand-on-the-brakes-to-get-controlled-wheel-lock-to-put-you-into a slide you soon find that drums are *not* your friends. Various 'kludges' to provide dashboard-controllable front:rear brake bias were tried, but the mechanics of Land-Rover brakes don't adapt to this as easily as the classic 'bias-adjustable pefal box' of the Mk.2 Escort days.
110s tended to do better than 90s; the extra wheelbase means that power-on slides are more controllable. Even so it's kinda fun to see a 110 hardtop powering through a gravelly bend under just a touch of opposite-lock!
Even the Marines thought a 110 Ambulance could fly!
https://youtu.be/33LFWliJ1Zo-
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Big thing about beam-axles at the front is the 'unsprung mass' - the combined mass of the wheels/tyres/discs/calipers/suspension-swivels/halfshalfs/CVs/diff/axle-casing and a proportion of the propshaft-weight - which gets slung-about whenever the wheels hit bumps/potholes.
The suspension-damping/steering system then has to handle a couple of hundred Kg mass that's now moving in something other than a nice predictable vertical up-and-down motion. Hence the dreaded "Death-wobble" when you drop a wheel into a pothole while going round a corner.
Try catching an entire LR front-axle, complete with wheels/tyres when it's thrown at you to understand the 'unsprung mass' issue.
Proper independent front-suspension means that the suspension only has to handle the oscillating mass of the tyre/wheel/hub/hub-carrier and half the mass of the driveshaft. So it can react much more effectively to road-events that cause wheel deflection, largely because it's not having to calm-down the bouncing of a load of lumps of iron.
Same goes at the rear: lots of 'rough' roads in US/Australia have ridges that trigger oscillations between the vehicle-mass and axle-mass at certain speeds: back in the days when RWD US 'estate-cars' were still popular some of them had four shock-absorbers - two vertical, two at something like 35-45 degrees to the horizontal - to try and control the axle-tramp on such roads.
Independent suspension - with intelligence - reduces unsprung-mass and allows the computer to tweak the damping in real-time to 'catch' a wobble/tramp before the driver gets to know it's happened. -
Yes, I've used Magnecor leads on loads of things - mainly because they provide better HF ignition-noise suppression than the 'carbon string' leads of old.
NGK are also good - they were my go-to leads for use on turbocharged Ford Cologne V6 lumps in the 90s - everything else used to melt or catch fire but the NGK ones [with the translucent blue cable jacket] never did. -
Don't be in a rush! Stick a normal screw-up puller on it, wind it up nice and tight, then leave it for a day or so.
The sustained pulling-action will work its magic. Same goes with ordinary taper ball-joints: Don't mercilessly screw up the puller until something breaks - just do it up 'tight' then leave it for a morning.
Too many people are in a rush and expect to see instant results with pullers etc. Give them time - let the joint 'relax' and it will pop.-
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Given the load you're lugging, paradoxically you may find you get better 'highway' mileage from driving in 4th rather than 5th.
An engine spinning freely at relatively-high RPM can be more thermally-efficient than one 'labouring' against a large load at low-revs. And, mechanically, the gearbox in 4th is 'straight through' with minimal friction whereas in 5th the intermediate-shaft is involved, which must mean extra power-wasting drag.
In my 90TD5 even when running 'light' I don't ever use 5th below 55MPH. The TD5 has BMW heritage - designed to rev! -
Get the engine really-hot then put a drift down the centre of the bolt socket and give it a good hard whack with a lump-hammer.
Then douse with Plus-Gas or similar.
Repeat this for a week or so.
The drift-and-lump-hammer treatment helps to micro-fracture the inevitable 'growth' between the bolts and the manifold-threads that have developed over the years/repeated heat-cycles.
If the socket-headed bolts shear when you apply serious torque, drill them out using a smaller-than-bottom-thread-pitch 'anticlockwise' drill-bit. You'll often find that once the bolt-head's been sheared off and there's no longer any clamping-force, a reverse-thread drill-bit in a hammer-drill will bring out the remains of the bolt surprisingly easily.
Freelander 1.8 54 plate creaks from rear when turning right or left but no creaks while reverse turning.
in Freelander Forum
Posted
Check the rear diff-mounts.
On old Hippos the VCU between the front and rear diffs was known to seize - this then caused the transmission to 'wind-up' and the persistent torque-overload caused the rear diff-mounting-points-onto-the-body to fracture, causing creaking.
The diff-mounts can be welded, but if the VCU has locked-up and isn't replaced it will just crack the diff-mounts again. VCUs should be considered a service-replacement every 50,000 miles or so.