JT’s fleet: Range Rover’s burst it’s bag

[J-T]

8 minutes ago, Crispian_J_Hotson said:

Well, I've just compared them and there are some close readings. The biggest difference I can see is your at operating temp and the intake air temp is 25, mine is 43.  These cars do experience heat soak and pulling in hot air at idle and that's why you have that doobry with a wire coming out of it at the bottom of the air box, it actuates a flap to close off hot air from the engine. I would suggest that either mine isn't working (likely) or you were in the cold on that day. These solenoids appear to be rocking horse shit... great*. This is the reason why cone filters are no good on these cars.

*writes on mile long list... need to improve cool air intake.

 

 

 

Cheers for looking man. Air temp was about right, it was a warm day so you may need to check your flap (ooof).

I can’t think of anything else to eliminate now, other than trying to get the manifold heat shield off and get an endoscope down there to check for a manifold crack. But it doesn’t sound like a leaky manifold. 

 

47 minutes ago, Dave_Q said:

It sounds like that could be your leak, doesn't quite match if its leaking enough air to get to +25% trim but then it's not sucking enough juice in to send it miles the other way but if its making any difference to the trims and nothing else is probably need to make it not leak to rule it out.

It’s the only thing I’ve found that’s made any difference to bank 2’s trim at idle. Spraying the other potential leak points made no change at all. However I couldn’t get any smoke to appear when I smoke tested it (although I was pissing about with a jam jar, smoke pellets and tyre pump rather than something actually credible).

It just means taking on a likely 10hr plus job to remove the supercharger on a ‘maybe’ but it’s looking inevitable! If I do, I’ll just change every bastard gasket along the way. There’s a coolant hose underneath the charger that likes to split so I’d do that as well.

[Zelandeth]

14 hours ago, J-T said:

Cheers for looking man. Air temp was about right, it was a warm day so you may need to check your flap (ooof).

I can’t think of anything else to eliminate now, other than trying to get the manifold heat shield off and get an endoscope down there to check for a manifold crack. But it doesn’t sound like a leaky manifold. 

 

It’s the only thing I’ve found that’s made any difference to bank 2’s trim at idle. Spraying the other potential leak points made no change at all. However I couldn’t get any smoke to appear when I smoke tested it (although I was pissing about with a jam jar, smoke pellets and tyre pump rather than something actually credible).

It just means taking on a likely 10hr plus job to remove the supercharger on a ‘maybe’ but it’s looking inevitable! If I do, I’ll just change every bastard gasket along the way. There’s a coolant hose underneath the charger that likes to split so I’d do that as well.

What's the manifold pressure at idle on one of these? 

Given the blower is always running, I've no idea whether to expect the same sort of vacuum as on a normally aspirated or turbocharged engine.  Afraid my only experience faffing with superchargers was on a Detroit Diesel so not much use...

My thought though is that if there's not actually much vacuum there it may only be drawing a tiny amount of the brake cleaner in.  It's obviously getting in somewhere in that vicinity though as it's having an effect.  You've surely got to be in vaguely the right neighbourhood it seems.

[J-T]

Looks like I never brought this ungrateful Jag tale to a close. In brief, I fired the fucker through an auction. Got most of my money back so all was not lost. It looked increasingly like it had a warped manifold and I didn't have the space/time to get involved with that.

So, after having so much trouble with the 4.2 Supercharged V8 donk, what was the sensible thing to do? Yes, that's right! Purchase an 18 year old Range Rover with the same engine. Enter @Wack's old one.

Well, I've always wanted one, I need something for shifting shite as I'm renovating a house and selling another and this cropped up 2mins from my Mum's house at a price I couldn't refuse. As in I couldn't find one cheaper that ran and had MOT. Of course, any 18 year (or month!) old JLR product will not be without issue and this is no different. It's the full fat fancy pants Vogue SE which I think was top dog in 2006 when this was new. That means it is loaded with equipment, much of which no longer functions as intended. Here's a list of character features off the top of my head:

DVD player - missing

TV - inop

CD Changer - inop

Parking sensors - inop

Harmon Kardon Logic 7 sound system - sounds like a fart in a tin due to a blown door speaker

Rear wiper - inop

Rear view camera - missing & therefore inop

Spare wheel well - water receptacle (have landrover ever made a car that doesn't leak?)

Heated steering wheel - inop

Driver's heated seat - inop

Diffs - whining

Prop - clunking

Glass - covered in a clear film that's gone weird so some windows are like looking through a jam jar. Think it might be UV protection. Or was.

EML - glowing brightly (believed to be a code for a downstream O2 sensor. Not again, arrrrgh)

Rust - present in the usual places

Driver - wafting about like the lord of the manor and couldn't give a flying shit 

 

I should clarify this was all made clear in the advert! I proper love it man. You feel more like you're captaining a ship than driving a motor vehicle and it's HUGE and so tall, but I find it 100x easier to park than pretty much any modern because you can actually see out of it properly and can tell where the corners are. And I just love that woofly noise it makes as you waft about.  There's a trip computer display on the centre screen that shows a readout of MPG, so that's been turned right off, don't need a constant reminder of that, cheers. And I've already done a fix; it recently had a new battery and the key had lost communication with the car, so had to be inserted in the lock and turned like some kind of tradesman, which would then set the alarm off until it was started. Most unbecoming. Thankfully, I've managed to pair it again so remote operation is resumed. It clearly likes me. Other good points, it's in my favourite colour. The aircon works. It's been well serviced. The air suspension is wor...I'm not finishing that proclamation.

It's currently sporting a set of 21" wheels from an L405 Range Rover with 4 Pirelli Scorpions which are in great nick but they're a bit big and it doesn't really need making taller. It think it needs to come down a tyre profile but there's no way I'll be doing that. I might keep an eye out for some 19/20" wheels with good tyres and flog these as they seem to bring good money. I may address some of the other bits over time, but really I'm wanting this as a bit of a workhorse and I've proper skinted myself this month buying it, so don't hold your collective breath!

 

 

[J-T]

Phwoooar etc

[J-T]

On 04/01/2019 at 20:45, J-T said:

I recently bought one of these as my 'sensible' modern, so thought I'd document my exploits with it and give you a bit of review type nonsense...

 

As a bit of background, I've had a company car for years and have always had some chod alongside to mess about with. However, I made the decision to leave my job and go back to uni which meant all the chod had to go and I needed a sensible modern for the next couple of years. Initially, this took the form of an E39 530d Touring, which i liked very much. Unfortunately it was doing about 25mpg on my horrible new commute and had a few jobs needing doing, so employing my best man maths, the clear solution to this problem was to sell that for less than I paid for it after spending a few hundred on it for good measure and buy a dearer car that was more economical to *save money.... With me?

 

After the bimmer I decided I wanted something smaller and sportier but I still needed derv for economeee. I drew up a shortlist of a few motors and kept my eye on the usual sites. I was looking at Seat Leon FR+ (the ones that look like a Cupra R but have the 150PD engine), sort of looking at Golf 150PD but I had one years ago so didn't really want another. I did briefly consider a Renaultsport Megane DCI but that didn't last long (other than the obvious, I bought a Megane F1 R26 brand new and a DCI was never going to be as nice). So what did I end up with?

 

 

 

To give it its full title, it is an Alfa Romeo 147 JTDM 16v Q2 Ducati Corse. What that is, if you were not already aware is basically a special edition, run-out model 147 diesel that gained an extra 20bhp (taking it to 170bhp), a limited slip diff, 18" wheels, the black-with-red-stitching leather interior out of the GT coupe and fetchng go-faster stripes. They were available in black, red or white and about 250 were made, so they're quite thin on the ground.

 

Values for them, if you can find them, are a little all over the place. This one was advertised privately on autotrader for the least amount of money I had yet seen and looked nice enough in the pics, with a fairly average 98k miles on it, so I drove down to Hinckley in the bimmer to check it out.

 

And it was....ok. Clean enough, but had seen some paint, the guy seemed genuine just not really a car guy. It needed disks & pads, the tyres were all good in terms of tread but all shitty no-names and the rear silencer was rotten. More pressing at the back of my mind was that I would be buying this at pretty much the worst possible moment - it's a 9 year old diesel, on its original clutch (which was fucking heavy) & turbo that was due a cambelt change. So what did I do? Kindly decline and carry on the search? Did I fuck! I knocked a good deal of money off and bought it anyway!

 

I've had it for a few months now and it hasn't been without issue. I shall type it up and give you my learned thoughts on it in a bit...

I also saw this 'previously featured', advertised as spears or reapers the other day, apparently running like a bag of shit. Still looked quite arousing though.

[Dave_Q]

We had a 147 with the poor persons 120hp JTD and it ended up getting punted on due to Old Diesel Malady. 

Ran a bit shit, slightly better with the MAF unplugged but sometimes just died when the wife was trying to drive it out of a junction. It had no codes and the injectors seemed OK from a leakoff test so it was either a lengthy course of parts darts or punting it on so we went with option B.

Not sure if JTDs are especially worse than any other similar age diesel, but once they start playing up it's bad times.

Well played with the RR and sad to hear you never got the Jag running right, but it's good news that you didn't lose out on it too much.

[Back_For_More]

I was drooling over this from Wack too..... Cancellation of my contract means I'm forcing a no buy rule so kept schtum. 

Will keep an eye on this - see how you get on. Keen to see how this pans out. 

[stuboy]

43 minutes ago, J-T said:

nice beasty

[Wack]

It's a very handsome looking car, especially in the green 

I had the oil changed in the rear diff when I got it so don't do that again, the oil was expensive , I thought it was the centre bearing that was noisy 

[J-T]

57 minutes ago, Dave_Q said:

We had a 147 with the poor persons 120hp JTD and it ended up getting punted on due to Old Diesel Malady. 

Ran a bit shit, slightly better with the MAF unplugged but sometimes just died when the wife was trying to drive it out of a junction. It had no codes and the injectors seemed OK from a leakoff test so it was either a lengthy course of parts darts or punting it on so we went with option B.

Not sure if JTDs are especially worse than any other similar age diesel, but once they start playing up it's bad times.

Well played with the RR and sad to hear you never got the Jag running right, but it's good news that you didn't lose out on it too much.

In that incarnation they had gained a plastic inlet manifold which did the usual thing of gunking itself up with shite from the EGR valve and featuring misbehaving swirl flaps so it was probably that. Can’t remember the last time I saw a 147 in the wild now, or a Stilo (which we also used to have) 

 

49 minutes ago, Back_For_More said:

I was drooling over this from Wack too..... Cancellation of my contract means I'm forcing a no buy rule so kept schtum. 

Will keep an eye on this - see how you get on. Keen to see how this pans out. 

I should make clear, I’ve a company car so it’s probably only getting used about once a week. Hopefully it’ll tolerate this inconvenience.

30 minutes ago, Wack said:

It's a very handsome looking car, especially in the green 

I had the oil changed in the rear diff when I got it so don't do that again, the oil was expensive , I thought it was the centre bearing that was noisy 

Noted on the diff oil, I don’t think the noise is anything to worry about it might even be the tyres or just general transmission noise at 140k miles!  

[Wack]

5 minutes ago, J-T said:

In that incarnation they had gained a plastic inlet manifold which did the usual thing of gunking itself up with shite from the EGR valve and featuring misbehaving swirl flaps so it was probably that. Can’t remember the last time I saw a 147 in the wild now, or a Stilo (which we also used to have) 

 

I should make clear, I’ve a company car so it’s probably only getting used about once a week. Hopefully it’ll tolerate this inconvenience.

Noted on the diff oil, I don’t think the noise is anything to worry about it might even be the tyres or just general transmission noise at 140k miles!  

I had intended to get Ian bodsworth to flush the gearbox this summer, he quoted me about £300, comes highly recommended on the land rover forums, goes under the name of bodsy 

 

Mobile, comes to you to do it 

[J-T]

That’s a good price, I think I paid £350 for just a fluid change on the same gearbox on my 335d at an auto transmission place in Leigh. It made a noticeable difference as well.

[Wack]

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/755333805963838/

These look OK age of tyres dependant 

[J-T]

6 hours ago, Wack said:

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/755333805963838/

These look OK age of tyres dependant 

I’ve actually got those saved 😄

I need to put a halt on spending now though for this month, especially on something that doesn’t really need doing 

[andy18s]

19 hours ago, Wack said:

I had intended to get Ian bodsworth to flush the gearbox this summer, he quoted me about £300, comes highly recommended on the land rover forums, goes under the name of bodsy 

 

Mobile, comes to you to do it 

He did an egr delete/remap on our Disco 3 when we had it,really transformed it into a much better vehicle. 

And he moved the clock from the radio display to the dashboard..

[J-T]

Ive been working this thing hard these last couple of weeks. That’s about 12 sacks of rubble it swallowed in one go. Started it up and the air suspension did as it should and didn’t explode so I’ll take that as a win. You could feel it rising up and levelling itself. It swallowed an (admittedly small) kitchen, gas oven and extractor in one go the day before.

It may cost about 80p a mile in fuel but it definitely saves on skips!

As expected, I’ve dealt with precisely none of its issues and worked it like an old pit pony, which is likely to continue for another month or so. I absolutely love driving the thing, I had a brand new MG4 XPower company car delivered in December and that’s done a total of 500 miles because, unless I’m going somewhere for work, I pick up the keys to this every time.

[J-T]

There haven’t been many updates on this Rangey because despite me basically abusing it with endless tip runs and shit shifting, it’s just got on with it (albeit with the EML on and various knocks and bangs). I’m actually quite impressed with how much reserve I’ve managed because I’ve spent absolutely nothing on it, I’ve treated it like an appliance and just put fuel in it (lots). I’ve never even washed the thing; we’ve just come back from a week away in Yorkshire in it (it managed 18mpg rather than it’s usual 14mpg, so an official economy run) and it’s now pretty bogging 

I may grant it a reprieve and wash it tomorrow.

I’ve really fallen for these things though, so much so that I want a nice one. I’ve been half looking on & off and they’re just all over, price wise. I want a petrol and people are asking £8-9k plus for a clean, low mileage one (usually an NA V8).

Which has got me thinking. This particular example is the exact colour/spec I would want and I’ve always said it’s a bit too far gone to make really nice and sink money into.  But on the other hand, I could be spending £9k to get a lower spec car in a colour I would less prefer that isn’t supercharged.

I reckon to properly go through this thing would end up costing in the region of £6k: both rear arches and probably rear sills want doing so that’s gotta be £2.5k done properly. All suspension arms, bushes etc - I could do some of that, let’s say £1.5k ish. Then it’s a case of maybe a supercharger rebuild, then general titivation and getting non-important things to work and making the interior a bit nicer. I paid £2.5k for the car, so doing the above would take me to £8-9k anyway. Granted it wouldn’t be low mileage but I don’t really think that would matter.

Can someone talk me out of this road to bankruptcy because it won’t leave my head

[Dave_Q]

That is a tough one, I would have to admit the sensible thing will be to BUY A LOVELY NEW RANGE ROVER MMMM SHINEY AND VROOM AND LISTEN TO THE SUPERCHARGER WONT IT BE GREAT FOR BLASTING PAST PEASANTS AKSHUALLY ITS PROBABLY GOING TO BE CHEAPER THAN THE ONE YOU HAVE REALLY SO WHY HAVENT YOU BOUGHT A NEW RANGE ROVER YET if I'm totally honest.

[J-T]

20 minutes ago, Dave_Q said:

That is a tough one, I would have to admit the sensible thing will be to BUY A LOVELY NEW RANGE ROVER MMMM SHINEY AND VROOM AND LISTEN TO THE SUPERCHARGER WONT IT BE GREAT FOR BLASTING PAST PEASANTS AKSHUALLY ITS PROBABLY GOING TO BE CHEAPER THAN THE ONE YOU HAVE REALLY SO WHY HAVENT YOU BOUGHT A NEW RANGE ROVER YET if I'm totally honest.

You’re probably right. I just have visions of me sinking 9 grand into another one that then shits its gearbox or something, at which point I’m having to fix it. Obviously that could happen with this one too but at least I’d know the rest of it had been gone through. 

[Dave_Q]

It's hard because there is no guarantee that a nicer one will have been looked after and won't expensively shit itself, but all that must also apply to this one it's just you'd have the option to call removemycar and not be too upset about it.

When I get my house move sorted I've thought about getting a newer S3, it's the same sort of scenario where I'd be buying something for £10-12k that if it shits itself in a big way you're stuck with the bill otherwise your investment* is worthless.

I'd probably still go for it like, it's only money and life's too short to worry about this stuff.

[J-T]

Indeed, it’s academic anyway, we are trying to sell our house for various reasons, one being there’s nowhere for shiting activity, so nothing would really happen with it until I get a garage.

But you know how it is when you get a daft idea in your head 

 

[J-T]

I took another load of shite to the tip in this the other week and the suspension seemed to have a bit of a fit with the front end skyward and the arse sat down. Sorted itself after 5 mins or so. When I got it home I decided to run it thru low to high. It managed low well enough. Unfortunately high only resulted in a loud hiss from the offside front and ‘suspension rising slowly’ message on the dash. It would appear I had ruptured my bag so to speak.

Since then, it’s adopted the traditional L322 stance of sat prostrate on its bump stops as it evacuated all its air.  I had a peek behind the wheel and it’s on its original strut. They do sell airbags on their own but I did not relish the thought of stripping all that down after 18 winters worth of corrosion had done their worst, so I’ve bought the full strut, bag n all. Cheapest I could find from a known brand was £300, gulp. I’ve ordered an ARB link as well in case I need to go medieval.

I’ve had the wheel off tonight to see what I was up against before battle commences tomorrow.

As expected really. My tin of plus gas has decided it will no longer spray, so I’ve left them all soaking in 3in1 overnight.

That’ll be my leak then.

The arch liner was the usual war to get off but after dremeling a screwdriver slot in a rounded off torx screw and getting my Irwins on most of the fucking horrible 8mm corroded mounds that were once bolt shaped I wrestled it off. To be continued.

Incidentally I’ll probably be moving this on soon once it’s working again, if anyone is after a cheap one.

 

[J-T]

Range Rover - 1

James - 0

I had a blowtorch on the top one for about 5 mins then hit it with this big bastard which spins hub nuts off for fun and still nothing. This was after attempts with a weedier impact and a breaker bar and scaffold pole, which was going to break the bar.

I’m going to have to order some new bolts and get cutting. So I’ve another week of looking at this:

Stanced on 21s Yo!

[J-T]

Bolts came, so I decided to have another go after work. I’d also ordered a bolt splitter, which I decided to try on the smaller bolts on the drop link. It was shit, blunted almost instantly and just made a mess, so I ground the fucker off, take that you bastard!

That must have relieved some pressure on the strut because I could now get some movement on the hub bolts with a 1/2” breaker bar and scaffold pole. A few minutes later I had those off and a quick blast with the impact unseized the bolts so they could be knocked out.

It was plain sailing from there, I was a bit concerned about the air line connection but it came undone easily. New strut went in ok and jacking up the hub got the new drop link in and it was all buttoned up.

Longest task was putting the sodding arch liner back in. Anyway, started up, did the steering lock to lock so the steering angle sensor didn’t get upset and put it in high…

Im calling that a win, no hissing and it’ll cycle through low to normal to high and back down. Hopefully it stays up over night!

How long before the other side pops? Place bets now!