JFuller

Last chance before I toss them.

I had the opportunity to take a bunch of parts off a D1 and recycle the rest. I pulled the sunroof cassettes out both front and back. The appeared to work just fine. My D1 has no sunroofs. Free to anyone who wants them. If no one claims them they are going in the bin.

Wow, what sort of vehicle are those parking spaces designed for? Did he park in motor cycle parking? No idea who it is but looks like he's ready for the alpaca-lips. Hatchet to get the work done, maxtrax to bridge between the piles of the undead and a shower to wash off all the zombie squeezings when you're done.

you installed rear steering?!? Awesome!!

This time of year bring a chain saw or two and some gas. Typically you will find some wood unless you're camping in the most popular spots.

I've seen people bring them before as well as inflatables but I never have brought one. Considering the size of the group on this trip and the pace, I'm not sure you're going to have much opportunity to use it. Personally by the time we make it to camp I'm more interested in setting up camp and opening a cold one and relaxing with friends. But it stays light late these days and a nice paddle around after dinner would be fun. In the morning you're going to want to be moving early to avoid the traffic so probably not much time there. If it's short you probably wouldn't notice it but I wouldn't bring an overly long one. if paddling is your thing then bring it.

An orienteering pub crawl. Genius!! How have I never heard of this idea before?

Doesn't anyone use a paper map anymore? Is using one a lost art? Perhaps we could have a class on orienteering and map reading at one of our MORGs or around the campfire. Wish I could join on this one but we are already committed that weekend. Bummer b/c this is always a good time.

Being alone is the reason I go out on trails like this. Some people want the "Con" experience with all the rowdy, loud excitement. To me it spoils the beauty of the place. I would encourage you to head out early and find a spot near the lake and take in the scenery, have a brew and a lunch while you wait for the rest of the wagon train to catch up. You wont regret it. Loon has some nice browns in it if you're so inclined.

I did the Highlanders rubicon poker run, scheduled for fathers day, in 2011. It was a big snow year, not unlike this year. The slabs were clear but here is the road into Loon Lake. They actually re routed the poker run that year due to the snow. We still had fun with some deeper water crossings.

The Rubicon is always fun. I would like to join this trip but if I do I will have to catch up with you guys at some point as a 3 day trip isn't something I'm thinking I'll get a hall pass for at this point. I wouldn't be surprised if you come across plenty of snow in June. Yesterday Squaw and Alpine announced they will be open until July 7th!! I know there is a significant elevation difference but... And don't forget, sierra's before August = mosquitoes. Love me some rubicon though

only when it's raining or snowing. In the summer, suns out guns out.

Sweet, I still think you should have some drop down sides made for it. Make it look like a series with the rope tighteners.

No Photos of the wind deflector? Are we talking some sort of canvas structure?

Used it. Got out in the snow for a weekend of camping and some fun.

Wow. This sounds like a great trip. I don't think I can make it work. A week on the trail with a baby would likely make this trip not so much fun. And no way the Mrs. will sign a week long hall pass. We spent a few days in Moab in 2006 while we were passing through. We loved it there and I have always dreamed of going back. I'll wait until the boy can better tolerate long car rides. Hopefully in the 109

Well it wasn't today but it was over the weekend so I think it counts. Disco got a little love after the carnage it suffered on fordyce a week ago. Thanks to Mr. Scully, and in a round about way Mr. Terry, I was able to pick up a used tail light assembly to replace the one I smashed while stuck and partly broken. Replacing a disco tail light assembly isn't too difficult but it is an exercise in flexibility and dexterity if you don't remove the jump seat. I would probably have saved plenty of time removing the seat, but hindsight and all that. I did have to play body shop for a bit as it wasn't just the lens that suffered my wrath but the sheet metal too. All in all it took about 1.5 hours to get it done. Then I moved onto the axle. One thing that I didn't mention on my write up from the earlier was that when installing the replacement rear axle shaft one of the bolts snapped off with surprisingly little force, or perhaps all those days in the gym have paid off. Regardless, I made it home with 4.5 of 5 bolts installed. I had hoped that it would have broken high enough to leave me a little bit to grab onto but upon removal of the axle shaft the break was about 1/4" inside the hub. Dang. Out came the drill and easy out, and for once, it was easy. That is after I located the correct sized drill bit for the easy out. I was using an impact to remove the bolts and the truck was on a bit of a slope and didn't notice that the full weight of the rig was on the one axle that I was removing so when it backed out the threads on the bolt got all munched up. So I replaced two bolts. To for the price of one right? I figure I got a deal. Finally it was onto the P38. The disco tucked away the dog guard in the P38 had been flopping around. Assuming you aren't familiar with dog guards from 18 year old vehicles this one was not a stock item and neither were its mounts. It mounts from the roof by the way of two plastic blocks that screw to the roof structure via some rivnuts. A rivnut is a cobmo of a rivet and a nut used in a place where a blind inside thread is needed in a thin material like sheet metal. Basically it's a nut, made of in this case aluminum, that is designed to crush in a predetermined spot so it holds like a rivet. Whoever originally attempted to install the dog guard obviously didn't know how these things work. There is a very expensive special tool that can be used to install these things and it works great bit that previous owner didn't have one, and neither do I. What the owner did have was some epoxy, which they used. I suppose at least it wasn't JB weld although that's been holding Don's transmission together so if they had it could have saved me a little time. Anyway, a quick youtube search revealed an easy way to install these things without the aforementioned expensive special too. After digging through the spare nuts and bolts drawer I found a nut and some washers that would "work". I was able to install one of 4 rivnuts before destroying the nut I had found but I was on my way to the local Ace Hardware anyway so i picked up the right stuff and the other three went without incident. It all went back together and cleaned up quickly. Hopefully the rest of my rover projects go this well. Happy wheeling.

Which impact wrench did you put that on. Break out the old 3/4" and step it down to 3/8". Looks like some of my rear axle shafts.

Did you install the direct tv or was that a factory option?

That sure looks like a nice way to work on a rover.

Had to spend some time giving Mr. Lucas some love on the P38. It's the wife's daily driver and we were getting some error messages on the dash that were intermittent and troubling. Gearbox fault, traction failure, airbag failure... To make matters worse on wednesday afternoon Ted was at my place and as we were walking by the car the electric brake booster pump cycled. I thought that my wife had left the key in the ignition again, she has been known to do this. Upon inspection i found no key, but power to a few systems, the SRS light illuminated and the Air Suspension lights on the dash (i'm running springs and the air suspension has been disabled since we bought the vehicle). At first I thought it was the fuse box in the engine compartment, as they are a known failure point on the P38 due to heat and placement directly behind the battery. The previous owner had replaced the fuse box with a gently used unit years ago and when I removed all the relays and fuses it looked in good shape. Ted was kind enough to lend me his fuse box out of his P38 and when I plugged it in everything worked so naturally I thought the problem was isolated to the fuse box. I removed the fuse box and completed the repair procedure I found online which involved pulling the fuse box apart, cutting all the connecting pins between the two haves of the board, re-flowing some solder on some joints that had cracked, then removing all the connecting pins I had cut and replacing/resoldering them. The whole procedure took me about 4-5 hours and I had the whole thing back in the car and out for a test drive by 11:30 pm. Sadly, about a mile down the road all my issues came back. This was Wednesday night. I went to work, very tired on Thursday trying to imagine what could have gone wrong. Thursday night I got home and started tearing it apart again. I hypothesized that I had an ignition switch failure allowing some of the accessories to stay energized. So i tore apart the steering column cover and unplugged the switch. But, as you may have guessed, nothing changed. I still had power to a few systems which should have been off. Notably, when I pulled the relay for the keyed accessories out of the fuse box all power was removed from the offending system. So I thought a bad relay. Tried a new one, nope, same issue. So I took to the internet to begin the electrical troubleshooting procedure I found on Range Rovers.net. My battery is less than a year old and hasn't ever showed signs of slowing down, no corrosion noticed on the terminals, it multimetered out fine at 12.6V and was load tested at my local NAPA autoparts a month ago when the faults arrived and showed good. I tested the alternator and it was running bewteen 14.1 and 14.4 V so I figured i had good charging. The trouble shooting procedure recommended that I check voltage drop along my power and ground cables and nothing should be more that 120mV. I found along my ground cable a drop of almost 0.4V. Hummm. Perhaps some dirty connections? I was under the impression that it connected in three locations, at the battery, at the shock tower and at the alternator case. I began to systematically remove and check them. Battery looked good, alternator looked good, shock tower looked good. I cleaned each one and put them back together. As I was reconnecting the shock tower location i tugged on the ground cable a little to align the holes and I heard some relays in the fuse box cycle very quickly. ??!!?? So I tried again, and sure enough cycling relays. As it turns out, there is another ground location, mid span on the ground cable. Its on the fenderwell and behind the battery box, under a wire loom and the horn. The nut at that location had become loose, The ground stud was rusty so the nut couldn't back off but connection was very poor. It had caused enough heat to melt the insulation on some adjacent ground wires and the ground cable was pretty crusty. EUREKA!! I couldn't find a replacement cable at my usual local parts houses so in the interest of time I went to the dealer, because they could get it by saturday and it was the same price as the one offered on amazon. Interestingly only ground wires were affected. I inspected all the (+) wires and they were undamaged so I wasn't getting any sort of short. I replaced the ground cable, retouched the insulation on the other damaged ground wires and added some old garden hose as a chafe guard to the wiring loom. Torqued down all the ground points and, wouldn't you know, the P38 is happy once again. Electrical problems suck.

Finally got around to changing the Oil Pressure Relief Valve o-ring which I think is the source of my leaking. It was definitely in need of replacing but not sure if it's the actual source of leaking. If you intend on doing this job, plan it at a time when you are doing an oil and filter change. It will make your life much easier. Or do it when you have the front engine cover off (but how often do you do that?). It requires a 17mm x 1.5mm o-ring (Thanks Ted!!). This o-ring isn't one you're going to find a your local parts shop. If you have a hydraulic shop nearby it's possible. They can be had on the internet for not that much but usually you need to buy in bulk. To make your life easier, drain the oil and remove the filter, remove both hard line oil hoses from the filter housing. These hard line hoses also have o-rings. They are probably in need or replacement as well. I used some SAE ones I had on hand. They were close enough to do the job. once all that is out of the way there is an inside snap ring that needs to come out. A set of snap ring pliers with 90 degree tips will help here. Once the o-ring is out, on my truck, the lightest touch caused the cap to shoot out along with a surprising amount of oil sludge and oil. From here it's easy, relatively. Replace o-ring and re-assemble. The most difficult part is getting the cap back in against the spring pressure. This is where having the filter and the hard pipes off really helps. With them off you can get both thumbs in there and get a good push to push that o-ring past the snap ring groove. I wasn't able to do it with only one. While I was in there I noticed that both engine mounts were broken all the way through. I wanted to get a quality set from RoverWare but time is short as I am leaving for a snow wheeling trip on friday morning so I had to get some locally as I couldn't be certain that they would arrive in time for me to install and hit my departure deadline. It always surprises me how high you have to lift the motor to change a motor mount. But it made it to work this morning which is more miles than it has seen in at least 3 months.

Or get some soft shackles...

Nice pictures Bear. Yours is the first spare tire grill dohicky that I have ever seen that actually looks used!!

Yea, I was wondering why the valve covers were on backwards. Going to make filling the oil more challenging.