Blake's Den

A bit of an update on the Ranger. I was invited by the Minikits group to display it on their stand at the NEC classic motor show. When I was prepping it I thought that I would tighten the hand brake up a little as it would help me with loading it onto my trailer. Long stroy short - the transmission brake caliper was half missing! Therefore I had to instigate a bodge to get it ready in time for the show. You can still get a replacement caliper, it is actually off a go kart. However I didn't want to pay the £80 postage from the USA.... Luckily, we made it to the show and I got to meet some great people. I event met someone who used to make these on the production line in the factory! The ranger had lots of interest and I was pleased to show it off. At the end of the show I filmed this video. Warning - it contains about 2 minutes of horns being sounded to mark the end of the event. I then captured my drive across the NEC site back to my car and trailer. I saw some great cars along the way - it is not every day that you see a Ferrari 348, a maestro camper, a SD1, a Fiat Coupe and and MG Xpower SV in a line of traffic.

Video of my recent exploits with the Turner Ranger I've got her running quite sweet now. I even tried a cold start this morning and she fires up straight away. I think that I will try swapping the spark plugs to a hotter runing type. Due to the low gearing the engine is never really under a hard load, particularly when I'm just bombing around the garden. I think that this is one of the reasons that the plugs keep fouling up. All being well and if the moon and stars align then my Turner Ranger should be making an appearance at NEC classic in a months time.......

I decided to do some work on the Turner Ranger this weekend. The first job was to try and get it running! It keeps fouling the plugs but it will run, just not very well. I rebuilt the carburetor a couple of years ago and fitted an electronic ingtion kit. I suspect that it is over fueling as it will start without the need to use the choke. But before I start messing around with the carb I want to make sure that the ignition system and timing is all good first. There are no external timing marks on the egine. They are hidden behind a plate and can only be seen with a mirror. I've yet to see them! A bit more investigation required to see if I can get it running smoothly and reliably.

Floor first as you need that to attach the inner and outer sill to. Get the strength back into the floorpan then you have a good starting point for the rest of it.

It is good to see another mini on these pages. I've got a thread for my 1989 Austin Mini Designer project. It all looks saveable to me, every panel is available but the price soon ticks up. I've used heritage panels where they are on show (sills, wing, wheel arch) but for the floor and inner sills I used the magnum ones. I just couldn't justify hacking a heritage panel in half given the cost of them. Not sure about the rear subframe, it looks like it came off the titanic! I agree with keeping it standard, thats what I'm doing with my '89 Designer and '97 Cooper. I really enjoy seeing the original cars at the mini shows. Yes, you could put a 1380cc A series in it or a fireblade engine but that has been done many times before by nearly everyone. The number of unmodified mini's is actually quite small and I believe that they retain their original ethos of cheap but fun transport. Good luck

You can't park there mate!

Another year's MoT has been achieved on the Defender. I put it in for the test expecting the inevitable fail which is what happened! I was expecting it to fail on a rusty rear cross member but it actually failed on excessive play on the front axle. When I spoke to the tester they explained that a bush had failed on the panhard rod. My local land rover parts place advised to replace the the entire rod as it can be difficult to get the bushes out. They also advised new fasteners which turned out to be very good advice. Once the bolts were undone it was an easy swap. The steering now feels a bit sharper but it is no mini!

A bit of a long video this one so you might want to grab tea and biscuits before you press play! In short the battery was not charging. I have now got it charging but I think that the positive and negative battery leads are the wrong way round. From the factory this should be negative earth. I have two cables, one black which I assume is negative and one green which I assume is positive. The green cable however is an earth. A previous owner could have swapped this the positive earth for whatever reason or it may be the case that someone just wired it up wrong!

I finally found the time to do some more on Project Designer. To be honest, I had been putting this job off for some time as I expected it to be hard work, whilst it wasn't easy it wasn't as hard as expected. Using the CJ autos tilting lift really helped. I could sit under the back end of the mini and work quite comfortable on the floor. I reckon that I could have got it cleaner if used a rotisserie but that would have meant stripping the car to a bare shell. Onwards on upwards, I can get the rear valance on now and a load of gravitex.

A busy week for the Santa Fe. Since getting it back on the road I have always had a whiff of fuel near the fuel cap. I replaced the fuel filler pipe as it had been chewed by a rodent and I remembered that the vent pipe also looked a bit iffy. Well after two years I decided to fix the vent pipe to make the smell go away! Sure enough, the vent pipe was also chewed so I splice it with a pipe connector and the smell is gone. I'm doing this I needed to remove the nearside real wheel. In doing so I noticed that my tyre was worn out 😕. I was running some Event ML mud and snow tyres which were great in mud and snow but absolutely rubbish in anything else. I replaced them with the finest ditch finders, I chose the tyre type that you don't know what you are getting until the day of fitting. I've ended up with Delinte SUV tyres which actually feel really good, the ride is much smoother. I treated the new tyres to a 200 mile motorway trip and averaged 27.4 mpg on the return which I don't think is too shabby for a 2.7 V6 and a body which is as aerodynamic as my house.

Thought of the day....we know that speedometers have a -0/+10 % tolerance on them so does that also mean that the odometer does too? So 40000 miles could actually be 36360 miles?

So this happened today, 40000 miles. Possibly the lowest mileage Mark 1 Santa Fe in the UK?

Thanks for the advice! Yes the bucket does have silage fork tines on it, I'll be careful! As for the inner tube, I did fancy giving it a go myself as I have never done one before. But I already know that getting someone in to do it would be much easier

A bit more progress has been made. In the latest video I decided to wash the tractor. I'm guessing its 40 years since it was last done! Whilst I did not get it remotely clean I did discover that the fuel filters have fuel bowls at the bottom and the diesel pump is silver and not black. I've got three big jobs that I need to tackle next: Sort out the charging system. It runs a dynamo but currently isn't charging the battery. I need to investigate the wiring and control box, it should be an easy fix (I hope). Replace one of the rear inner tubes. This has the potential to be a pain of a job, I might get someone in for this. Make the brakes work. They are rod opperated drums on the rear axle so there isn't much to go wrong. A quick look has revealed some siezed linkages. It also has a handbrake which operates on the transmission but this is stuck in the off position. After that, I can get the loader on and start using it to tidy up the place. In other news - I now have had sufficient watch hours to become a YouTube partner! That means that I get paid for the adverts that the viewers watch and also it unlocks some additional features such as channel memberships. Whilst I've never planned to be the next HubNut or Grand Thridt Auto, it is rewarding to see my channel grow. Everything that I have recorded is stuff that I needed to do anyway so it isn't really a lot of effort to make the videos. Onwards and upwards!

That's great! Thanks for sharing it.

That looks like a pair of fake legs!

More progress has been made on the old Ford. It is alive! In actually started up fairly easily once I had a good battery on it. I was expecting it to fire up as I knew that it was working when parked and wasn't run out of diesel. It drives backward and forwards too. The brakes work in the same way that brakes work on any neglected old tractor - that is they don't work at all! I think that they are actually binding a bit. It uses rod opperated external drums so it should be easy enough to free up. I also need to look at the charging system as it is not charging. It has a dynamo on it and it appears to be the wrong one as it has no tacho drive. It also came with a spare control box which suggests there may have been problems in the past. The steering is very heavy with no power assistance. I noticed that the front wheel that I didn't replace is rubbing against the king pin. The wheel is well bent and you can see it wobble when you move forwards. I need to swap that wheel out and give the steering system a good oil and grease. Overall I'm happy with it. A bit of fettling then I can put it into use.

Without being too much of a pedant, the photo is from Gateshead not Newcastle!

Thanks for the info. Yes I am planning on using the hydraulics for a log splitter. I've also got a front end loader that I'm going to fit to it. The hydraulics were working fine the last time it was used......

I've recently started my first foray into blue oval ownership. The stats are as per the title, but what is it? A Sierra, a Granada, a Scorpio? Nope it is something completely different.......It is a Ford 3000 tractor from 1965. So yes, its a 2.9 litre, three cylinder, direct injection diesel engine. Rear wheel drive with (I think) a three speed gearbox and a two speed transfer case. For those who know their tractors, this a 'pre force' model and dates from the summer of 1965. Production started in spring 1965 so it is a very early model. I haven't been able to locate the serial number yet, the whole machine is covered in 40 years of grease, oil, diesel, straw, hay, cow muck, pig muck and rat muck. A date with the power washer is in order. I've also got a Quicke front loader to go on this which came with the deal. The tractor hasn't really been used for the last 10 years and for about 10 years before that it was used solely to power a PTO driven power washer. It was parked up in a shed (a real barn find!) with a damaged front wheel, apparantly it was driven in there with a flat tyre and the wheel ended up getting destroyed. So the first job was to swap this over with a 'new' wheel and tyre. Here is the video: The next job is to get it running. I have heard it run before but that must have been about 15 years ago. Being an old school diesel it should fire up straight away. If you like watching videos that are out of sequence then check out this video from earlier in the year when I recovered the tractor back to my home. I have already posted this in my Land Rover Defender thread but for completeness I'm posting it here now. And sorry for the click bait forum post title!

The Santa Fe is still doing its job of being my daily driver. I'm really surprised my air con 'fix' is still working! Which is pretty cool (pun intended!) I'm this weather. One thing that I have spotted is that the air con is colder on fan speed 2 rather than 4. It's almost like the condenser can't keep up with the increased air flow. Also, on idle it's is a little asthmatic but above 2000 rpm and it's fine. There is a whine with the AC on but that is fixed by turning the volume knob on the radio..... I'm other news I have decided that I'm going to replace the Hyundai with something else, just not sure what yet. Ideally I could do with something that provides more than 23mpg on my commute. But actually, I don't think that 23mpg is too bad considering its a 2.7 V6 petrol, it has a four speed slush box, is awd and has the aerodynamics of a snail.

Interesting photo. I'm guessing that is post 1974 and therefore Northumbria Police as Washington was no longer in County Durham by then.

I don't think that this is an aluminium bodied Audi. But obviously there are aluminium bits in the engine bay.

Good point. I did hose quite a bit of it off but there is still some lingering around. Impressive was not the word that I used at the time!

Exactly!