Andy Cunningham

“Stay turned for part two, where I saw off the prop-shaft bolts to get the drum out!”

Well some more thought made me realise that the bolts weren’t the problem, the shoes and other gubbins inside the drum were the problem.  A number of suggestions from various forums and mailing lists included partly dropping the gearbox, cutting part of the floor away, and cutting the drum apart.

I decided that dropping the gearbox was the easiest way, but it would only move about 1/4″ before the gearbox hit the cross member below it.  To be honest, I think it pretty much dropped vertically, compressing the engine mountings on the way.  The next step was to slacken the handbrake adjuster as far as possible to minimise the shoe spacing.  This didn’t give me enough clearance to get the drum off, but I could get enough clearance to start attacking the innards of the drum with a selection of screwdrivers and long nosed pliers.

After a certain amout of brute force and ignorance, I was finally able to pull the drum and shoes off together.

The spring that runs fore and aft at the top of the drum caused a little consternation for a while, and I came close to dropping the whole thing on my head when it finally came loose!

I’m also firmly of the opinion that it took sweat (it was hot on Saturday) tears (dust in my eyes, not frustration, though it was a close thing), and blood (when I caught my thumb between the drum and backing plate) in that order to appease the gods of Land Rover maintenance.

But it’s off, I’ve test fitted the X-Brake, and it’s starting to get dark so I’m off to get a celebratory take-away. I might need to whip it out again and just trim a few mm off the top of the lever (on X-Eng’sadvice) to get enough operating clearance.

Thanks to all who offered suggestions and assistance.  I just need to order some bits and pieces since I want to replace some worn bolts on the way, and bolt it all back together.  Oh, and I need a bigger spanner to do up the M16 bolts on the X-Brake – the largest spanner I have is 22mm, and these are 24mm.

Timing!

Wow!

Scott Adams, comic artist extrodinaire keeps an offbeat blog, The Dilbert Blog

He writes that “This week in the Dilbert comic, Alice discovrs she has a bad case of chair butt. United Media, the company that syndicates Dilbert, rejected the first version I submitted.  My editors thought the pose looked too provocative. They requested I redraw Alice in less of a “mount me” position.”

Now, what I want to know is what kind of pervert works as an editor for United Media to think this looks provocative?

Well, after a peek inside the rusty innards of my handbrake today, I’m convinced the investment in an X-Brake was worthwhile.

I say “a peek”, because I discovered that the first part of the installation isn’t as easy as it says in the instructions.

Remove propshaft. OK. 8 nuts to undo. Except one of them is jammed solid and eventually gives way to some serious exertion. Then make sure the handbrake is off and remove the drum. Well that’s where it gets interesting: there isn’t enough clearance to get the drum off.

Stay turned for part two, where I saw off the prop-shaft bolts to get the drum out!

Something that’s annoyed me for some time is the fact that I can’t seem to find a decent wallet that will hold what I want (mostly a collection of about 5 bank cards and a dozen or so membership cards, because I’m too disorganised to remember to check I have the right ones when I go out).

Well, I finally discovered the http://www.all-ett.com/, via a link on Lifehacker. And it does what it says on the tin. It’s a bit odd having a wallet made of crinkly sailcloth, but it does lose it’s crinkle after a few days use. Mine holds about 20 plastic cards, plus space for notes (bills if you’re American) and receipts. And it’s the right size for UK banknotes, too! Definitely recommended. The only downside is that it’s so slim I keep thinking I’ve left my wallet behind!

With all the anti-4×4 sentiment around, I wanted to relate this tale of what happened to us on Saturday.  We were visiting my family in Wales, and we decided to spend some of Saturday exploring the Brecon Beacons national park.  There’s a lovely drive from Pant, near Merthyr-Tydfil, across the hillside emerging in Talybont-on-Usk, and a nice stop near some waterfalls along the drive.

As we’re heading up this road, we come up on a group of cyclists straining up the hill.  I pull wide (as wide as I can on a road that barely allows two cars to pass), and drive carefully past.  When one of them pulls out in front of me to overtake another cyclist I hit the brakes and give him the benefit of the doubt.  I’m sure he must have heard a Td5 Discovery uphill, but it’s a nice day and I’m being generous.

We pass the cyclists, and I miss the car park I wanted to stop at.  Bugger!

Heading down the hill the other side at between 15-20mph because it’s too steep and twisty to go faster, I spot an access to a gate that’s perfect to turn around.  I stop.  I check the road is clear, and reverse into the gateway.  As I get back, two cyclists shoot past the front of my car, one of them yelling what I generously choose to assume was a warning to the folllowing cyclists, and not abuse at me.

I complete the maneuver, and start to drive back up the hill.  Now, I know the cyclists are coming.  I’m doing 10mph, hugging the grass and risking a £500 (or more) repair bill on every corner if I hit the stony hillside that’s inches from the car.   Before I’ve gone 200 yards, from around the bend in front of us comes another cyclist, doing 40mph or more, on a trajectory that will barely miss the car.  I brake.  We see the handlebars wobble.

The next thing I’m aware of is seeing him, in my rear view mirror, in the air,  going over both the handlebars and the bank at the side of the road.  I simultaneously swear and hit the brakes. We stop. I make sure the car is secure while I explain to Yvonne what happened before running back down the road, expecting to see him wrapped around a tree or worse.

No, the ground levelled out  about 6 feet below the road, and Mr. Cyclist. was picking himself up and catching his breath. Not a scratch.  Bike in working order. He was sodding lucky to have not gone a few feet further and landed on a barbed wide fence, or a few feet beyond that and slid down a tree.  I was seriously expecting to be sending Yvonne back to the car for the first aid kit.

He apologises profusely for scaring us, we ensure he’s not injured, and then head back to the car which is causing problems for other motorists.

As I said, there’s a lot of anti-4×4 sentiment around, so I’d just like to point out that I knew the cyclists were coming, I did everything I could to not impede their way, and when one of them came off I stopped and went to help.

Most 4×4 drivers are kind, helpful people.  The 4×4 enthusiast community is one of the friendliest I know.  Don’t tar us all with the same brush – the one I reserve for the driver of the Mercedes ML estate driving down the hard shoulder of the M4 this evening to avoid a traffic jam.  I don’t know who you are, but you’re the kind of person that gives 4×4 drivers a bad press, and I hope you got caught!

OK, not quite: almost a month, and over 1,000 miles later, including a 800 mile weekend in Wales, I’ve formed a more detailed opinion of the differentces between driving a Discovery and a Range Rover.

Bear in mind I’m comparing a 10 year old, 125,000 mile vehicle, with a 3 year old, 55,000 mile one.

The Range Rover handling, even with the Koni shocks, is barge-like compared to the Disco with ACE. I’d had some of the bushes replaced on the rangie, but I it wasn’t this tight even when new-to-me. At the other end of the scale, some local speed bumps that were smooth at 25-30mph in the Rangie feel like a real crash-bang-up-and-over in the Disco.

The other big thing is that the V8 in the Rangie was obviously very, very tired. The Td5 is tardy until the turbo comes on line at about 1,800 rpm, but is actually pretty snappy if you can keep it up there – actual driving response seems as good as the V8 unless you really were pushing along.  Another difference is that the Rangie, if you were pushing along, needed hard braking into the corner and foot to the floor once you got there to level it through the corner and beyond. The lower power, turbo, and better handling of the Disco leads to more of “keep it going, don’t brake more than you absolutely have to” style of driving – cornering faster but more smoothly.

In terms of comfort, they’re very comparable. The Disco has all the creature comforts, though I notice the B post is much closer to my right shoulder than I’m used to.

I think the way to characterise the difference is that the Discovery II is a nice, comfortable car. The Rangie is a luxury car.

Having said all of that, I had three choices open to me (assuming I still wanted a LandRover!):

1) Throw £5,000 and at least a week, full time, at doing everything I really wanted to do the the Range Rover: engine rebuild, new bushes all round, detail clean the interior, update the LPG to sequential injection, blend motors, trace the noise from the AC condensor, ….. the list goes on. And then persuade the company that the work I’d done basically made it a new car. And still be concerned about what I’d missed.

2) Spend upwards of £22,000 + trade in on an L322, Disco III, or Freelander. I could have done that, but it would have cleaned out thefinancial reserves.

3) Spend £12k + trade in on a Disco II Td5.

With those choices, I’m happy that I made the right decision. I like my Discovery, though I don’t quite have the big grin that I got when I first owned the Range Rover.

Well, I seem to have spent most of my spare time since Saturday with a spanner in my hand!

First of all, I discovered that the driver’s seat was broken – two of the fittings holding the seat to the slide base had come loose. I ended up swapping the seats and repairing the loosened interference fit with quiksteel. It seems OK so far. This involved an awful lot of awkward nuts and bolts.  Having done it once, I now know the “easy” way: remove the 4 screws holding the seat to the slide rails, and then remove the rails from the car.  I say “easy” in quotes, because it took 40 minutes to get all 4 screws back in place when I can neither see, nor reach what I’m doing.

I also got around to tackling the poor performance I’ve been seeing. According to the timing marks on the engine, it was running perfectly. Yeah, right: the marks were 20 degrees out. I haven’t done a proper road test yet, but a quick spin up the road suggested it will be much better.

I’ve got some new wing mirrors on order after smashing the passenger side one clean off it’s arm at at TV4x4 event.

I’m in the process of removing the propshaft to get at the handbrake internals to see what’s going on in there and why I’ve got no handbrake to speak of. While I’m under there I’ll pull the speedo cable so I can order a new one.

And that just leaves the windscreen washers and flasher relay so I stand a chance at an MOT this year, and the “optional” job of getting the winch fitted at long last.

I’m also wondering if I should replace the power steering box.  Paddocks have them listed at £199+VAT including a £100 exchange surcharge, so that’s effectivly only £120 or so to replace, by the time I add shipping charges.  At a fiver a go for a bottle of ATF to keep topping it up, it seems to make sense to replace it.

My confidence at doing this stuff is definitely improving!

I wrote a while ago about my decision to replace the dead iPod with a Creative Zen.  I think my biggest disappointment with the Zen is the lack of integration of the whole thing.  There are separate bits of software for podcasts, music, video conversion, and synchronising, and it’s not immediately clear whether the Zen software should be doing the synching or if Windows Media Player should be in charge.

If I can’t figure it out after 27 years of messing around with computers, a degree in Computer Science, and 15 years of IT experience, what chance does the average guy have?  Not a snowballs, I suspect.