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1992 Range Rover - the economy vehicle


N Dentressangle

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I think it's the same Valeo switch as the Peugeot 405 one.

 

The wonder that is Joseph Lucas on mine.

 

Anyway, Joe's switch tests ok, and the issue is with his dodgy connector blocks: the big blue feed in to the switch, and most of the other pins of the connector, weren't being gripped tightly enough by the female part of the plug. A bit of squashing things with a small screwdriver and all seems to be wiggle-proof again.

 

I actually remembered that the previous owner had had a new column stalk fitted to try and cure the same fault - his mechanic obviously didn't diagnose the problem correctly and went for just replacing the part rather than finding the actual fault, which was what let me to suspect the connector. It seemed unlikely that a second stalk would be failing in the same way as the last, and that the fault must lie somewhere else.

 

Changed the bulb in the fibre optic illumination for the switches too, so they should light up again. Proper posh.

 

Anyway, this is all very convenient as I now have nearly 100 litres of apple juice in the cellar and picked up these off Gumtree for free at the weekend:

 

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Now need to nip to the homebrew shop to pick up all the rest of the gear to start cider production!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Another 200 miles covered (don't think about how much that's cost in petrol), and all is good.

 

Time to fix the bits and bobs left over by the neglect this poor thing's had over god knows how many years. First the heater controls weren't fully lit - the bulb illuminating the hot / cold slider was out. The heater controls on a classic Range Rover are pretty inaccessible anyway: hidden underneath the dashboard at the front of the centre console, and they're a fumble in the dark to adjust at the best of times.

 

Taking out the panel was easy enough. Just pull the knobs off the sliders and undo a couple of screws, but then the fun begins. Land Rover didn't really design the bulbs to be replaced, and the tails on the bulb holders which the wires attach to break off when you look at them. I ended up separating the backplate and bulb holders from the illuminated front panel, re-soldered a couple of bulb holder tails, and manage to fix it all back together:

 

rA0ENLE.jpg

 

Result! This thing must have been looking seriously old fashioned in 1992 - the heating and vent controls on my dad's 1990 Peugeot 205 were far better.

 

All the dash lights work too, as well as the incredibly cool illuminated column stalks, which you can't see in this pic anyway:

 

HzlOHiT.jpg

 

Today I thought I'd sort out the oil in the front swivels. They're supposed to be full of EP90, but Land Rover never could get the swivels to seal properly on the chrome balls so the oil leaks out eventually, especially if your balls are less than perfect like mine (fnarr). I've seen far worse, but the pitting on my swivel balls meant they'd never hold oil, so I bought a couple of sachets of 'One Shot', a black, liquidish grease you'll recognise instantly if you've ever replaced a CV boot. It looks like very similar stuff.

 

There are 3 plugs in the swivels of this year of RR: a top filler plug, a middle level plug and a lower drain plug. Cleaning them up it was obvious that they were last disturbed many years ago. Some brilliant mechanic had all but obliterated the square shank of the level plug, so I needed a bit of heat on it plus molegrips to make it move. As expected, all was dry as a bone inside - no hint of oil, grease or anything else.

 

The One Shot went in through the top filler easily enough, and soon enough all was cleaned up and sorted:

 

sUJrELO.jpg

 

That big bolt head on the centre right of the hub is the lock stop. I had to take it out to access the little level plug, which is hiding underneath it. You can re-set the lock easily enough by trial and error - it clunks the axle tube when the steering's turned hard left. All cleaned up and generously copper eased. The brake back plate seems to have gone missing at some point - there were some twisted remains on the lock stop locknut. It's still there on the n/s hub, which was more straightforward.

 

I bought a couple of s/h halogen light units in August, but only just noticed that they sent me one lh and one rh dip one. Rh dip lamp has been removed and posted back to them for a swap, but I put an old sealed beam I had on the shelf in its place for the moment. The difference between it and a standard H4 lamp is quite something:

 

PglLF7q.jpg

 

Ah, the good old days! 

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I made the mistake of using LED's in the heater control chunk and it give bright spots and dim spots on each row of controls. I should get around to fixerating mine at some point.

 

Swivels +1 on onestop BUT if you wade and any water gets into the swivel housing via either the big ball sweep seal or the axle breather then it is a right royal pita to strip down the hub, remove the CV and clean all the contaminated onestop out to replace with oil.

 

If you do not wade then don't worry about the front swivels ever again

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Yeah, no plans for wading in this one, so I thought the One Shot was OK. I have the Series 3 for that kind of work, but even then I try to avoid it - wading seems to fuck up many things very quickly, as I found out on Salisbury Plain a couple of years ago.

 

Couple of cheeky questions:

 

Do you remember what type of Bosch Super 4 plugs you used?

 

Is there a good way to clean the MAF (or Hotwire, as they call it) and idle air control valve (something else again in Roverspeak, but you know which bit I mean)? I've been looking at http://www.britishv8.org/articles/rover-14cux-efi.htm and it all seems pretty straightforward, but I wonder whether these would be a good couple of jobs to get done.

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More petrol burned today, but we're now up to the dizzying digits of 17mpg! Those climate protesters in London would be well impressed, I reckon.

 

All despite today's action including plenty of this kind of low box mullarkey setting out a trial:

 

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That's very kind - oddly enough this otherwise neglected old thing came with a full set of owners handbooks (describes the RR as a 'highly mobile aristocrat'. Yeah, if you say so...), as well as a Haynes, and the strangely expensive (and fairly useless) Haynes Restoration Manual. So I think I'm sorted, thanks!

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This morning's funjob: sorting a blow somewhere around the exhaust downpipes, or 'headers' if you speak Septic.

 

There's been a little blow noted on the last couple of MoTs (and not fixed, unsurprisingly), but it turned into a full throated Ivor the Engine impression after I grounded the exhaust out setting out last weekend's trial. The downpipes run quite low under the gearbox, and it's quite easy to clout them.

 

LH pipe was blowing at the slits joining the centre and downpipes, so that responded to some sealant and a re-seat of everything. Bigger issue was the RH downpipe to manifold blow, which turned out to have lost the front one of the three nuts supposed to be holding the two together. Nut replaced, all tightened on both sides whilst I'm under there, and Ivor has been sent to Woodhams. Woohoo!

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  • 2 weeks later...

The speakers in the rear headlining above the tailgate have only ever produced a horrible fuzzy buzzing noise. I had to set the stereo fader to full front to stop them making a din. In reconnecting the heated rear window wiring and tightening a tailgate hinge I had to drop the headlining a bit anyway, so I thought I'd investigate the speakers.

 

They're easy to remove, and I used a Stanley knife to take off the grilles which Land Rover had helpfully* glued to them, being careful not to smash them to crap like someone had already done to the front lower door grilles. The reason for the awful soundz became clear:

 

SViGbwI.jpg

 

They're just standard 4" speakers, so I trotted down to Halfords for a pair of these:

 

AyY1A0t.jpg

 

They fit perfectly behind the factory grilles, and choonz are once more mine.

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  • 2 months later...

The steering has always been on the vague side - think sawing at the wheel like you're driving in a movie. On the motorway it's especially disconcerting, and slightly beyond the usual vagueness I would expect from a qualitySolihull product such as this.

 

Investigation revealed a bit of play in the drop arm ball joint, but even more waggling under the beast suggested that the drop arm was actually loose! I bought the puller anyway (ever the pessimist), and took things to bits.

 

Ball joint splitter did its business on the, er, ball joint, then it was time for the drop arm nut. It wasn't especially tight, and the drop arm also lived up to its name by dropping off. Total win - the internet war stories of the battles to persuade these to let go of the steering box are epic, and many people just cut them off with the grinder.

 

Brand new drop arm complete with ball joint was cheap as chips, so that's what I fitted, slathered with plenty of my favourite copper based lubricant. Tightened to 125lb/ft, we now have reasonably accurate steering. Result!

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  • 4 months later...

aaaaand it's knackered!

Gearbox has lost the will to live, especially in reverse. See my 'wanted' thread here:

Bollocks.

Will be paying some other mug to fit this, so definitely working box needed rather than wasting tons fitting a 'yeah m9, it was woking luvly last tim i used it'. 

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7 hours ago, N Dentressangle said:

aaaaand it's knackered!

Gearbox has lost the will to live, especially in reverse. See my 'wanted' thread here:

Bollocks.

Will be paying some other mug to fit this, so definitely working box needed rather than wasting tons fitting a 'yeah m9, it was woking luvly last tim i used it'. 

bugger, try filter and fluid change maybe?

what fault do you have? what mileage is on the running gear? these boxes are pretty tough

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Yeah, I just tried the oil and filter change gambit, but no dice. Slightly worse, if anything!

It's not taking up drive properly in reverse. It'll judder backwards very weakly, and then if the revs are increased to about 3k eventually 'catch' and shoot backwards. My LR-friendly mechanic has tried it and pronounced it fucked.

149k on the clock, so deffo still under warranty ?

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  • 5 months later...

So, gearbox finally replaced with a good used one. Not by me - even if I had the desire, the lack of a lift, transmission jacks etc makes it a garage job.

Time to start on the irritating bits again. Like why the heated rear window won't bloody work. I have 12v at one side of the window, and a decent earth on the other. Opening gambit was getting @Nibblet round to solder new connectors onto the screen to replace the glued on wires:

H2epSIf.jpg

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Mission accomplished - thanks Jim!

However, still no heat. Direct approach tried:

EFDOjNJ.jpg

Still no heat.

OK, we have 12-14v at the feed on the LH side of the screen, and about 0.05v at the RH side of the screen, with voltage dropping across the wires. We have continuity across the screen wires, with a resistance of about 300 ohms. The earth wire is well earthed.

Any ideas why this thing doesn't work?

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Probably the elements have degraded so have a higher resistance than expected.

300 ohms will be carrying 40mA (so about 0.45W) per element.  Not sure how many there are, but the Lada has ten.  So you'd be looking at a total of 45W.  Not having compared to a good one...that seems too low to me.  I'd be expecting north of 100W given the way the revs drop noticeably in both this and the Xantia when it's switched on.

This is what the screen on the Saab had done...the elements had continuity across them but too high resistance to work as intended.

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Thinking about it... that's a reading for the whole screen...not per element as they're in parallel.
 

So yeah... it's only pulling half a watt.  Not going to do anything useful I'm afraid.

Could be worth seeing if you very carefully masked things up and painted the elements with conductive paint...not much to lose at this point.

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It was a first for me on the Saab too.  Have had cars where the odd element was dead, but never one where the whole thing was knackered.  If you looked closely though you could see where the whole lot had been eaten away though.  Just the backing was left on the glass, all the copper was gone.

Thankfully the heater was good enough in that that having it on full blast demist got enough air to the back that it cleared pretty quickly.  Wasn't a bad car for water ingress either.

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One of my previous job's was a window tinter,  on new cars tinting the rear heated screens was no problem,  on the older cars we found that the elements would be furry with green electrical corrosion,  

Always advised the customers that the heated rear screen may not work after tinting due to the corrosion,  to clean the elements up we would use 00.0 wire wool and glass cleaner,  some would be ok others would not, so corrosion on the elements is a thing, for the range rover I would purchase a new window as trying to get all the elements painted with the repair stuff would one look hideous and two probably be a complete waste of time and money,  start lubricating the fixings on the rear screen frame now to give yourself half a chance of splitting the frame apart if you decide to go that route 

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I'll probably go for one of those stick on kits from Holden. Sod's law says that a used window will be no better, and at least the kit's likely to work.

Helpfully the alternator now seems to have packed up, so I'll be having a look at that today, as well as trying to work out the mystery places where Land Rover hid different fuse boxes on this thing. It would be nice to get the electric mirrors & heaters working - there's no power at the switch, so I'm tracing things back.

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Alternator extracted:

OUKcQnM.jpg

d6CqTbC.jpg

 

Seems to be a Lucas A133 - obviously been 'reconditioned' before now, but with a post fitting for the battery connection rather than a spade block.

There's a guy in Gloucester who fixes them, so that's probably the better option than an allegedly new one. Of course, it's one of the more expensive of the many types (why, FFS?) of alternator Land Rover fitted to these cars. The A127 is half the price, although I don't see why a RH one of those wouldn't fit...

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All fixed by this chap:

https://thestarterbay.webs.com/

Burnt out diode in the rectifier. This alternator cost the PO £105 4 years and 18k miles ago as a supposedly recon unit. The chap who just fixed it said he thought the rectifier was original, and all they'd done was clean it. They'd also glued on a post for the charge light connector, so he fixed that properly too.

Got a Holden electric rear screen heater on order, and back to trying to sort the sodding electric mirrors now!

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Honourable mention too for:

http://www.avenger4x4.com/

Supplied a decent autobox for a good price, very easy to deal with and delivered to my garage, really well packaged on a pallet.

We had some issues getting the flex plate to mate to the torque converter, and the guy at Avenger was really helpful with phone advice, and eventually turned us up and delivered a different flex plate to suit. Would happily buy old Land Rover bits from them again.

The old autobox was truly shagged. Bands breaking up, semi-shredded and welded together with heat and abuse, so all was full of shards of metal and headed for the bin. Guess someone had run the poor thing low on oil at some point.

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  • 2 weeks later...

With the alternator fixed, my thoughts returned to try and mend the electric mirrors, which are completely u/s.

In trying to find the right fuse, I moved the (working, electric) drivers seat forward, which got about half way then packed up. Fuckin great.

So, in fixing the seat, I found the answer to the mirrors: both them and the seat are controlled through the memory seat ecu, which is underneath the drivers seat. The battery for the memory leaks onto the circuit board with time so you end up with one of:

1. No moveable seat

2. No moveable mirrors

3. Both

4. A randomly self-moving drivers seat which might jam you against the windscreen at any moment

A good poke under the seat revealed I had previously had all of these, and a PO had re-wired things so the seat worked. They hadn't done a fantastic job, so one of their spade connectors was pulled out when the seat was moved a bit too far forward. Hey ho.

The ECU can be fettled, sometimes, but I decided to call it a draw and settle for working seats - at least I know why the mirrors don't work.

 

More pleasingly, I did a trip down to Exeter today - 209 miles - and managed 23mpg!!! Embarrassingly, this has made my day.

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