mouseflakes

This is my most recent purchase - a 26-year-old Range Rover turbo diesel.
 

 
To be honest it hasn't got off to the most auspicious of starts.  I picked it up from the seller's house about 35 miles from mine, and after about 15 miles, with no warning at all, the water pump seized solid.  Fortunately I was right near the Asda in Norwich at the time, so I was able to pull on to the car park and spend the 3 hours the AA took to send a tow truck reading car magazines in the supermarket.
 
Next morning I set out to try and find a water pump.  Ebay wasn't a lot of help - there was a pump for the later 2.5 VM engine, but the outlets were in completely the wrong place.  I went to my usual motor factor and the pump they listed for the car bore no resemblance whatsoever to the one that was fitted.  The assistant dug out an old QH catalogue and we painstakingly went through every car I could think of that used the VM engine - eventually he found a picture of a pump for an Alfa 90 diesel which looked spot on.  He couldn't get hold of one, but he Googled the part number and found one for sale on the Bay, so I ordered it.
 
Much of my Bank Holiday weekend was spent trying to change it.  The old pump actually came off reasonably easily, but getting the drive pulley and viscous fan off was a completely different matter.  When I did eventually manage to get everything off, it became apparent that not only did the Alfa pump not have the mounting for the viscous fan (which I knew), but the impeller shaft was about an inch shorter, so the pulley sat an inch too far back.  Other than that it fitted perfectly, although the other difference was that the bottom outlet, which was blocked off on the original RR pump, wasn't on the Alfa one.  The new pump did helpfully come with a couple of little brass discs, which baffled me initially but which I eventually worked out must be for blocking off unnecessary outlets.  So I tried the smallest disc in the bottom pipe and it fit perfectly - so perfectly in fact that I couldn't get the bastard thing out again.  So it's now sat blocking the hole, but as it's just metal to metal the seal isn't perfect and there's a drip when the engine is warm.
 
Anyway, that was a minor problem - the major problem was how to spin the pump with the pulley in the wrong place.  It was actually closer to lining up with the power steering drive pulley than the original water pump pulley, but it was still a bit out.  Various people (including some on the Stupid Question Amnesty thread on this very forum) advised that a fanbelt probably wouldn't last that long being forced to cope with that much of an offset.  Then my neighbour came up trumps with one of those temporary belts that joins together in sections and appears to be made out of some kind of rubberised foam.  So I fitted that to drive the water pump and PAS pump, and a separate shorter belt to run the alternator, which was originally run off the water pump belt.
 
It works, sort of.  The temporary belt can't really get enough grip to run the PAS pump properly, so the steering is rather heavy, but the water pump seems to be doing its job - I've done about 40 miles in the car and it hasn't got hot.
 
It has a variety of other issues too.  The extra lights, which worked fine when I picked the car up, have all died for no apparent reason.  I lost the clutch on the way to a mate's the other day - it seems to have a slow fluid leak, as topping up the fluid brought it back, more or less - although it still needs bleeding.  The driver's door internal release doesn't always work, and on Sunday whilst winding the window down (keep fit windows FTW), the glass fell down into the door.  Removal of the door card revealed that the glass cradle thingy was completely rotten and sat at the bottom of the door bent almost double.  I don't know whether that had just happened and caused the window to drop, or whether the window had been precariously balanced on the mechanism itself and simply fell off.  Either way, I've wound it back up and it's staying there for now - at least with the door card off I can pull directly on the release cable to get out.  And it's scruffy as anything (although at least that means I don't get cut up).  The paint on the sides was even more faded when I bought it, but I went round a mate's on Saturday, and he had his 10-year-old nephew staying the weekend who decided he wanted to polish the car - I wasn't going to stop him...
 
Other than that it isn't too bad.  All the original electrics work apart from the stereo, the interior's in good nick (and a stunning shade of light brown velour), and the engine seems healthy enough.  There's a fair bit of transmission whine and the brakes feel very vague, although they do stop it OK, but I suppose that's par for the course with an old Rangey.  The engine is typical VM - comedy turbo lag with no go at all below 2,000rpm, interminable preheat time, hilariously unrefined and vibratory, but more than adequately punchy when on boost and bloody good on fuel for such a big beast.  Here's a picture of the engine bay - note the stylish bright orange fan belt.
 

 
So overall it's probably not my best eBay purchase ever.  I'm a realist, and I wasn't expecting a sub-monkey T&T'd Rangey to be in concourse condition, but it would have been nice if it was a bit less fucked...

Go on - finish the story. You're an undertaker aren't you? No wonder it drew attention - I'm guessing you had to put the little hatch in the tailgate to use to accommodate the long load.

People who buy cars with paddle shifts use them probably about 5 times over a 3 year ownership. Twice when they buy the car and the other 3 times when they're showing off the fact they've got flappy paddles to someone who's just got in the car. The rest of the time they just leave it in drive.

Go on - finish the story. You're an undertaker aren't you? No wonder it drew attention - I'm guessing you had to put the little hatch in the tailgate to use to accommodate the long load.

Let me put it this way: The one on Ebay more doesn't exist than it does.

I've been wanting to do a spot of 'Woollarding' for ages but never found the opportunity.
Until today !!!
I realised that I've reached that age where I am subconsciously dressing myself in 'sports casual' beige/grey clothing.
I'd popped round to a mate's house today and realised I still had the camera in the car from the Knebworth House car show on Monday.
He thought it was a strange request but took the photo for me
 

Is this the same thing? On t' bay right now,,,
 

LOL!
 
Big Chief Grumpy Bollox says: "Only when the lacquer peel reaches the ear of the wolf will my people know it is time to give up their struggle"

LOL!
 
Big Chief Grumpy Bollox says: "Only when the lacquer peel reaches the ear of the wolf will my people know it is time to give up their struggle"

RIP bucket seats thread  , it was a good place to not care about grammar or spelling 

one things for curtain, i aint gunna start a new topic about my seats again, no way! 

I am reminded of the wise prophet Dylan Moran, who said "German is a horrible language. It sounds like typewriters wrapped in tinfoil being kicked down stairs".
 
Bizarrely my one and only attempt at German came about after I blocked a dunny in a service station about 50kms from the Czech Republic with the most ferocious length of faecal cable I've ever laid. My attempt was to try to apologise to the cleaner, who saw the toalie rise like a phoenix from the pan, went berzerk, and followed me through the service station and into the car park before attempting to beat up my Fiesta Courier, all whilst shouting something about shizen.
 
True story.

Hope this isn't a repost. Seller has a limelight-seeking finger and patchy feedback.
 
I also recall M. Bollox picked one of these up for less than a tenth of the start price - it turned into a major weldfest I think?
 
So it could be a risky purchase 'unseen' - doesn't it look lovely though? Has full MOT, so surely can't be that bad?
 

 
God, I hope that's his finger  

Hope this isn't a repost. Seller has a limelight-seeking finger and patchy feedback.
 
I also recall M. Bollox picked one of these up for less than a tenth of the start price - it turned into a major weldfest I think?
 
So it could be a risky purchase 'unseen' - doesn't it look lovely though? Has full MOT, so surely can't be that bad?
 

 
God, I hope that's his finger  

Hope this isn't a repost. Seller has a limelight-seeking finger and patchy feedback.
 
I also recall M. Bollox picked one of these up for less than a tenth of the start price - it turned into a major weldfest I think?
 
So it could be a risky purchase 'unseen' - doesn't it look lovely though? Has full MOT, so surely can't be that bad?
 

 
God, I hope that's his finger  

Not a problem, but I couldn't think of anywhere else to put this.
 
I love the fact that Pogweasel is still in the top five posters of all time.
 
Makes me laugh every time I see that.
 
That is all.