Saturday, January 15th

opps blew a half-shaft


broken half shaft

First major repair on landrover. A half-shaft in the axle broke. Seem that this is a common issue. Will not be able to get a new one until Tuesday, but they are pretty cheap and straight forward to refit.

Not so straightforward to remove the broken splined end. Knocked it out from outer side of axle and plop it fell down inside the differential (someone forgot about the magnet on end stick to stop that happening!). Had to slacken off one end of the prop-shaft and unbolt the differential from the axle to retrieve the item and clean out any debris.

Just as well I had to do the job the long way around as I found some loose fixings on the prop-shaft which needed tweaking.

Found an amazing place today "Mitchells Wiltshire Landrovers, 329 Snarlton Lane Melksham Wiltshire SN12 7QP", the yard is full of military hardware, landrovers, trailers, artillery canons, tanks, fire engines... a real playground!
stonefisk on 01.15.05 @ 07:05 PM GMT [link]


Sunday, January 9th

Landrover Photo


We had a mooche up around the Imber Firing Range Perimeter Path today. Batteries in camera where flat but managed to get one snap.

Landrover on Imber

So there it is, my 1953 SERIES I LANDROVER 86" SWB currently with a "Truck Cabin" fitted and pickup rear. It is a Hybrid as it has a Series III military engine and other non Series I running gear (all to our advantage).
Would like to put on a Station Wagon hardtop sometime.
stonefisk on 01.09.05 @ 08:02 PM GMT [link]


Saturday, January 8th

New headlamp lasted all of 3 hours!


Since the recent headlamp project on the Marlin I had left over (as spares) one brand new halogen and one slightly grubby halogen headlamp.

These headlamps are the same size as what is on the landrover (and in my austin mini van). And the landrover was fitted with the old dull yellow sealed beams. So, yeah, I changed them over to the halogens today and they worked very well, big improvement.

Drove to Wales this evening and somewhere/sometime between me fitting the lamps and arriving in Wales the brand new lamp had been smashed with a ruddy great hole in the glass. Common sense would tell me I must of fitted them wrong, put a stress point by mis-positioning or trapped a piece of grit etc but I had checked both lamps by pushing them onto their sprung seatings and was happy with the fitting. Not loose, not jammed in wrong alignment, not about to pop off onto the floor...

So it comes down to either someone smashed it or it got hit by something like a stone enroute. How unlucky is that? why couldn't the slight grubby one get nuked as I was going to replace it with a new sometime. Now I have to re-fit the sealed beams and look for a pair of halogen bargins on eBay.

Will try to get some photos tommorrow.

stonefisk on 01.08.05 @ 11:40 PM GMT [link]


Wednesday, January 5th

KNOBS! Red, Yellow n Black?


Thx first to my mate Phooey and then this webpage I now know what all the knobs do on the landrover. I was told about the knobs when I picked it up but it didn't sink in... information overload.
I hadn't previously noticed the yellow one depress as its movement it pretty slight, all sorted now though.
Getting used to the double clutching. Still no photos taken yet though.
stonefisk on 01.05.05 @ 09:01 PM GMT [link]


New Toy


Sunday night browsing the 4x4 section on eBay we hit upon a new auction for a 1966 series 2 LandRover, looked great and had a "buy now" option, the price was very good so we bought and paid for it via paypal there and then. Crazy huh?
Monday we took the 5 hour journey across the U.K to pick up the thing, only to find that its headgasket had blown that morning and was no longer drivable! Total bummer as we had no way of taking it back home and the cost of commercially low-loader doing the job was quoted at £500 plus VAT !!!! The guy kindly refunded the money there and then and we made our way back home trying not to dwell on things that could have been.
Tuesday.. paid a visit to a 4x4 garage in wales one at which a relation works at. And...wow relation has a really good Series 1 1953 Landrover for sale.... ZONK...we bought it.
Funky thing to drive with doubling of the Clutch for 1st and 2nd, but goes like a bomb. Think I have gone slightly deaf in my right ear from the side window rattle whilst driving down motorway last night.
Photos to come soon and probably gets it own section on the website.

stonefisk on 01.05.05 @ 09:02 AM GMT [link]


Saturday, January 1st

Seperated at Birth


Gary Button...

gary lounge lizard

and Buddha...

buddha

The bedding, colour of clothes, the belly, the hair, the cheeky chappy smile... it is all there.
stonefisk on 01.01.05 @ 09:36 AM GMT [link]