DARWIN AWARDS

[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.

[western]

Jeff how you survived that lot I'll never know. glad your OK now, but don't try anything else or you'll go

[Mo Murphy]

Are you related to Nige ?

Mo

[Retroanaconda]

Doesn't fill me with confidence with regard to changing my 110's tank in the near future...at least it's a diesel!

Good read though, hope you have recovered now

[elbekko]

Oh my. I haven't laughed that hard in a while

[martifers]

ha ha brilliant . Thanks for sharing! I hope you don't have to many more days like that still. What other hobby's do the enthusiasts put up with so much and still love it!? Owning a Landrover, there's nothing like it!

[JeffR]

Sad thing is they are the edited highlights! I've done a lot worse, one day I'll tell the story of how I fractured the front of my skull on a cylinder head one Christmas Day.

Mind you I am now firmly of the opinion that my landrovers have had so much of my blood sweat and tears that they constitute relatives, at least a the level of DNA!!

But I still cannot answer the key question - Just why on earth do we like the bloody things???

[Holyzeus]

[ThreeSheds]

JeffR - Awesome writing - thanks for sharing... PMSL and ROFL and LMTO...

Roger

[Hybrid_From_Hell]

Suddenly I feel I am not alone

Nige

[Maverik]

Brilliant, Now I'm getting funny looks for laughing out loud in our rather open plan office

[fozsug]

You should write a book, it would be a best seller, make you millions from the film rites and give you the funds to pay the garage to do the work to save you and you're family from more pain and suffering...... but thats why we do it, we are all sadists at heart!

Fantastic read brightened up my dull morning!

[steve b]

Haha do tell more , very well written Jeff and equal to the waxoyl incident of HFH .

Glad you are ok after all this!

cheers

Steveb

[Gromit]

:lol:

Brilliant, Now I'm getting funny looks for laughing out loud in our rather open plan office

ditto

[RichardAllen]

Marvellous.

It makes me feel rather churlish being all serious about sticking an angle grinder in my leg.

Regards

Richard

[bishbosh]

Well that has well and truly thrown down the gauntlet to Nigel.

Fantastically well written - I feel like I was there watching (and pointing and laughing! )

I certainly feel that there is a book in this - "Tales of Land rover Ownership - the dark side" By Jeff "charred" R & Nigel "scampi" B. :lol:

[errol209]

I certainly feel that there is a book in this - "Tales of Land rover Ownership - the dark side" By Jeff "charred" R & Nigel "scampi" B. :lol:

Don't forget the chapter "Collected Forum Angle Grinder Incidents"

[Guest]

I think what makes it even more funny is most of us have been there...... I once got stuck on the drive for over 1/2 an hour with a Mini engine on my arm....... until someone came to help me..

[Lara]

What makes a Darwin award good I always think is the culprit doing something anyone with any sense "just knows" it's going to end in tears!

Like this retard! Although almost 30 years ago!

at college in metalwork lessons,

Because the culprit was in his second of a 4 year apprenticeship, the first two years at a dedicated Engineering training college working solely with machines, machine techniques, milling, turning, welding, fabrication and theory etc, all day every day, he was also sent on one day day release, and to evening college 3 days per week for "further education" felt important by training management, he thought he knew everything, and he didn't take kindly to being taught how to weld in evening class by an idiot who couldn't weld (not properly anyway) so he decided it was better to mess around and show off

So, during said welding class one evening, the tutor decided that they should practice gas welding for their course work.

Well, Mr showoff then cut out six equal 5" squares to weld together, and cut a round hole in one piece so as not to make a "sealed box" which would be a hazard!! so he commenced and made a wonderful box, welded to perfection on all sides with no filler rod what so ever, Looking very tidy and allowing him to be a big headed thwack and show off!! So now he needed more attention, and started to fill the box with oxygen and acetylene (I don't think he intended to light it as that would have been crazy) But he didn't need to!!! one corner was still hot! and still hot enough to ignite said Oxyacetylene mix and KaBooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooM Blew the box to bits, deafening the whole class for about two weeks and luckily not hurting someone as the box was opened like a cartoon cigar, hurtled across the classroom, and actually tore the steel rather than the welds!! Got banned from practical classes at the day release college (that was good cos they were worthless anyway) and got sent back to his sponsoring company to report his foolishness to the Human Resources manager who was not as impressed as his mates were!!

Total Moron!!!

I won't do that again

Not "that" is a Darwin award!

Lara, and I am not proud

[martifers]

Sad thing is they are the edited highlights! I've done a lot worse, one day I'll tell the story of how I fractured the front of my skull on a cylinder head one Christmas Day.

Mind you I am now firmly of the opinion that my landrovers have had so much of my blood sweat and tears that they constitute relatives, at least a the level of DNA!!

But I still cannot answer the key question - Just why on earth do we like the bloody things???

I can't wait to hear this story....

[gibbon]

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.

very very funny, you'd make a lemming proud, maybe you'd be safer with one of these though.....

[Gunny]

"Tales of Land rover Ownership - the dark side" By Jeff "charred" R & Nigel "scampi" B. :lol:

I would buy this book if it was ever published. I have never laughed so much for ages, Jeff if the Christmas Day story is written as well as this one please do tell.

Hope you are all in one piece now.

DON'T YOU JUST LANDIES...Always bring the best out in us.

Cheers

[Adam001]

thank you for that!! Absolutely hilarious!

[Exmoor Beast]

Brilliant, we've all been there, I've done some really stupid things that have been quite painful in my years of Land Rover ownership. The most painful was either the hi-lift smack in the face or the removing the propshaft on a sloping busy road with two broken ribs and a brain dulled by drugs incident.

Will

[jbs]

What about getting smacked in the nose with a foot long 1/2 inch extension bar whilst lying underneath my 90 using the air impact tool to tighten up the bolts for the nato hitch-which made it bleed and broke my nose again? Said to myself ooh that's going to hurt

John