Cleaning our 90 - general good housekeeping

[JonJon]

Afternoon

We have a new (oldish) 90 that we've recently bought as a tool for a new project we're starting out at; this involves a fair bit of muddage, 1km of rutted farm track to get to our site, through large areas of standing cow-muck and forage/silage run-off; a saturated gateway and trailer loading/unloading point, plus general haulage of acidy cow manure and alkaline lime. But for only about 4 days per week.

Any handy cleaning tips or general advice on good maintenance and housekeeping (bodywork/chassis wise I was thinking) to help us get the most out of the vehicle, or rather to try and prevent accelerated rust/decline in the long term? I guess it's standard farmer wear and tear, although we're not farmers. For example, how often should we be jet-washing the underneath?

Any advice or links to similar threads appreciated! Hope everyone's enjoying the sunshine today.

Jon

[FridgeFreezer]

Ideally you should be jet-washing the underside and indeed the rest of it at the end of every day, and probably greasing everything & checking fluids once a week. The green bible gives service/maintenance intervals for working in harsh conditions and they're amazingly short compared to normal work.

Of course not many people bother with that level of attention, but then a lot of people wonder why their vehicles keep wearing bits out so often

Worthy of particular attention from the pressure washer are:

Brakes (calipers & discs) and while you're there generally removing mud from the hub area gives oil seals an easier ride.

Propshafts including UJ's and sliding joints (and don't forget to grease)

Handbrake drum & linkage (or buy an X-Brake)

Steering components including PAS box (and give the steering joints & shaft UJ's a squirt of spray grease)

Also your alternator won't mind being flushed out with clean water and then squirted with WD40 but it will grumble about being left full of mud.

Mud-traps in the chassis, if you let mud build up it will hold moisture and accelerate corrosion.

If you can get the thing very clean, and then nice and dry, before you start using the vehicle and give the chassis a good coating of something (waxoyl, dinitrol, stonechip, zinc phosphate, etc.) it will help - prevention is better than cure.

[JonJon]

"probably greasing everything & checking fluids once a week".

Cool! We're trying to do that, though it's been a bit miserable in the cold and dark and I don't know the difference between grease and WD40 yet.

"The green bible gives service/maintenance intervals for working in harsh conditions and they're amazingly short compared to normal work."

Is that the Haynes manual?

"Handbrake drum & linkage (or buy an X-Brake)"

What's an X-brake?

And can all of this be done with the 4 wheels on the ground?

"If you can get the thing very clean, and then nice and dry, before you start using the vehicle and give the chassis a good coating of something (waxoyl, dinitrol, stonechip, zinc phosphate, etc.) it will help - prevention is better than cure."

I've been reading about this; how do we know if this has already been done?

Cheers for your help!!

[Gromit]

(your quoting is a bit funny, or there's a post missing)

Green bible is the Haynes. Not always 100% correct, but a good intro to your truck

X-Brake is a disk brake replacement for the handbrake drum.

More info from X-Eng. Be wary of inferior copies.

Yes, all of the above can be done with the vehicle on the ground.

Waxoil probably needs to be done every year or 2, preferably on a warm still day.

I'd also be careful about using the washer on seals, especially the swivel seals, as you can force water past them, into the oil.

[FridgeFreezer]

Cool! We're trying to do that, though it's been a bit miserable in the cold and dark and I don't know the difference between grease and WD40 yet.

Grease is very thick, like caramel (mmm, caramel) and is usually injected into things through a grease gun which attaches to a grease nipple on the vehicle. There are a few about the place, usually one on each propshaft UJ (although some types are sealed-for-life) and one on each sliding join on the prop. You may have them on your track rod ends too.

A good grease gun, preferably one that takes grease cartridges, is a wise investment.

Here's where to find a couple of propshaft nipples, where the rear prop attaches to the transfer box output flange / handbrake drum:

(This is a Series one but yours will be very similar)

Spray grease is good for keeping bits like steering UJ's lubricated as they are too small to have their own grease nipples.

WD40 is light oil, good for repelling water and such like but doesn't stick round very long in water/mud.

Is that the Haynes manual?

No, the genuine parts LR service book.

What's an X-brake?

X-Brake replaces the land rover drum-handbrake with a disc, and it actually stops the vehicle from moving even when wet / muddy which is more than can be said for the standard item. Don't forget Simon offers a forum discount.

And can all of this be done with the 4 wheels on the ground?

Yep. The greasing you will have to lie on your back under the thing, how akward that is depends on how far off the ground your vehicle is and how covered in cow sh*t it is under there

I've been reading about this; how do we know if this has already been done?

I assume you mean how do you know if the chassis has been painted - in which case the easy answer is you have a look if it's all shiny and pristine and without a spec of rust or bare metal showing you can assume you don't need to paint it. If it's not, then choose your weapon and get stuck in.

Waxoyl is good for rusty bits and hard-to-get-to nooks and crannies, as the name suggests it's kinda waxy and will soak into rust, and creep into cavities and small gaps, you can just sort of slap it over everything. The downside is it doesn't really set like paint would and is a right PITFA to apply with the sprayer thing, if the paint's a bit scabby on your chassis it'd be better to wire-brush it back to bare metal and paint with something, then use waxoyl to reach cavities and mud traps.

There is a very good guide to this in the tech archive: MOG's guide to waxoyling or of course there's the all time classic Nige's guide to Waxoyling your cat

Personally I'd avoid hammerite as it never seems to perform as it should. I used industrial Zinc Phosphate primer to paint my chassis.

[Gromit]

Personally I'd avoid hammerite as it never seems to perform as it should. I used industrial Zinc Phosphate primer to paint my chassis.

Seconded. Used hammerite to paint my wolf rims. 3 months later and they're rusty

[JonJon]

Sorry about dodgy postage; I monkeyed about with the tags; god knows what's going to happen with our truck. . . . .

Once again; really useful advice all round; many thanks.

(Right, my wife is much smaller than me; she'll fit under there far better than I will! . . . . .)

[nicks90]

as a side note - most chassis rust from the inside out, so its the rust you cant see that is the major problem.

you are exposing your chassis to some seriously corrosive conconctions, so i would personally get some brass hose connectors brazed onto the front and rear of each chassis leg and possibly widen all the chassis drain holes along the bottom rails.

that way, once a week you can simply connect a standard hose to each hose connector and let the water wash all the cow muck out from the inside for a couple of minutes, then repeat on all 4 corners - checking underneath to make sure none of the drain holes are blocked by straw and big bits of pooh.

and then as everyone else has said - give the underneath and axles/hubs a good jetwash as well.

( i only did 4 RTVs and 2 play days last year in my 90, and the entire rear quarter of my chassis was FULL packed solid with mud. Its surprising how quickly it builds up. So well worth doing)