Cool when you're hot

It's still very much summer here - no telltale drip of rain on the accelerator foot yet, and the firewall is a FIREwall after a mere half-hour's drive.  Aircon?  Nope.  Just these in the doors to make the feet breezy:

So yes, driving Olivia isn't exactly the coolest of experiences.

And yet.... it very much IS.

When your daily drive is a Series III that first saw daylight in 1976, you sometimes forget just what it is you're driving.  From the driver's seat the view is much the same as any other Land Rover - though mine of course has a split screen.  But now and then I catch my own reflection in a shop window as I'm zooming down the road.  Or I catch the look on the face of the other Landy driver waving as we pass.

And it hits me how very cool my daily drive is.  If you're headed toward me, this is what you see:

If you're filling my tank at a petrol station, you have a row of flags along her side to admire - the countries she's visited from here to the Sudan and back again.  Slowly.

  

If you're fortunate enough to be stuck behind her in traffic (and many are, on a daily basis!), you may get to admire the fact that she's (sometimes) pulling a 4m trailer filled with 2 literal tons of assorted computer parts, packed inside with another 500kg or so - and still going forward in a straight line without too much hassle.

Or you may just admire her rear end, with it's customized fog light, reverse light, and assorted other excellent mods, courtesy my Resident Expert.

In short, the bit of metal and fuel that gets me from A to B every day, she's very very cool.

Just saying.

Gearing up for trouble

I suspect Olivia doesn't like to be all fixed (my first car the Mini had the same problem years ago). 

Just yesterday we replaced a hub gasket that had disintegrated to the point where we couldn't actually find much of it when removed!  There's no more oil spatters on the rim, no leaks on the hub - the engine's going well, the brakes work, all's right with the world!

Or so one would think...

I had a bit of a day planned today - traipsing around greater Cape Town collecting over a ton (literally) of various e-waste items and running one errand on the way in.

The errand happened to be in the same spot where Olivia had a melt-down a few weeks back.  As I turned into that road, I was thinking "here's where Olivia broke down"...and whaddayaknow, all hell broke loose.

First indication of trouble was that fourth gear suddenly started to sound like it had run dry - and I couldn't get it out of gear.  Made it around the corner on a green light with no oncoming traffic, but suddenly third and fourth just didn't exist.  It was like trying to change gears into a brick - no gap to be had!  First and second worked without a hitch.

I stopped as soon as I could, got out and checked clutch fluid.  All fine.  Third and fourth were miraculously back - until I drove off.  Then they were gone again.  I stopped in a field next to a nearby petrol & service station, and went in search of EP-90 - just in case for some reason the gearbox and/or transmission had run dry.  A bit of a search and a card-swipe later, I hauled out my meagre emergency tool box, made do with a shifting spanner, climbed under the truck (on top of a thorny plant, a clump of dry grass and half of Cape Town's sand) and checked the levels.  All good - gave them a top-up squirt just in case.

And went gingerly off again.  2km down the road, third and fourth were gone again - I pulled over just as Favourite Man phoned.  He told me to "get thee to Roverland" - a couple of km's away - and beg for help and/or fixing.  Suddenly third and fourth were back - hallelujah - so off I went holding thumbs things would stay that way.  He phoned back to give some hints and tips as to what might be wrong - selector springs might be worn/gone, something could be broken, there may be air or dirt in the system... the list of possibilities wasn't terribly short!

Olivia behaved perfectly all the way to Roverland, where I hauled a very nice gentleman out of the workshop to see what was up.  He fiddled with the gearstick, took her for a quick dash down the road, and informed me (thankfully) that there was nothing wrong with the gearbox.  However, the gearstick is wobbling a bit - he reckons the selector needs tightening and oiling up.  What probably happened was that it didn't quite go out of gear, so wouldn't go into any others.  Or a spot of dirt got in the way.  Will be attending to those matters as soon as I can manage, but at least now I know what the problem is, and that it isn't going to gigantically deplete financial resources to fix.

Nevertheless, Olivia behaved herself for the remainder of the day, hauling a trailer tipping nearly a ton and loaded down inside with more stuff, all the way home against a bit of a stiff breeze.

Let's hope she decides not to scare us again anytime soon with any new tricks!

Carbed up

Olivia's been giving a few rather serious problems lately.  She started jerking occasionally a week ago, and it simply went downhill from there.

I did a once-over early in the week, but couldn't see anything wrong.

Thursday was the final straw.  She wouldn't go with any power in a straight line without excessive revving, and that caused jerks and jumps to the point where she'd randomly stall.  I made it through most of a day driving around, some of it with a trailer full of computer screens for recycling, and a 4m pole plus wireless antenna plus double 4m ladder strapped to the roofrack.  But on my final leg home, dragging the roof goodies and an empty trailer, she stalled completely and utterly.  On a blind corner under a bridge... just as a surprise hurricane storm started!

It was mere miracle that no-one hit into the back of me, and an absolute life-saver that a good samaritan and his assistant stopped in their Kia bakkie to tow me off the road to the shoulder.  At which point the hurricane/storm struck in earnest.  Gigantic gusts of wind were soon joined by stinging hail and rain, and we were completely drenched in seconds.  The gentleman asked if I could get the truck going again - when I couldn't and he heard I was trying to get him just around the corner, he hauled out a tow bar and chains, hooked me up with great difficulty, and off we went.

Back home, once I'd stripped off soaked jeans, shirt and takkies and let the rain subside, we got the truck into the yard.  Early next morning, with great difficulty she was started on full choke and I drove her gingerly down to our nearest Landy mechanic.

His expert eye revealed the shaft on the carburetor was worn and wiggling, drawing in too much air randomly, burning the points (with a cutoff rotor that does things when over-revved) and showing up as running lean on the back three plugs.  He filed off the points to give a decent new surface, sent me off to find the spare carb that had come with Olivia's current engine, and drop it off for examination.

This morning I had a call that it looked good - when could I come in?  Well, this afternoon was it!

With a little hard work, the replacement carb was put in, and proved to be tuned to perfection on firing it up.  The points are still good, she sounds like a new beast!  Goes brilliantly too.  The jerk and misfire is gone.

There's been one other issue though... for months now the engine's been squealing around the water-pump area.  We've been frantically trying to source a replacement, but they don't come cheap or easily available.

Today the Landy expert grabbed his oil can as soon as I started the engine, dropped a drop or two on the fanbelt.. and that expensive headache noise disappeared! :-)  Yup, it was the fanbelt, not the water pump.

This evening Favourite Man educated me as to the application of good old Sunlight Soap in a block to the inside of a fan belt.  Olivia is now running quiet and non-squeaky, growling her "V8" engine growl.  An absolute pleasure to drive.

Brilliant!

Of course, this is a Land Rover.  Our work is never done.  I'm now on the lookout for a new brake fluid container - Olivia's has been perished and cracking for years, held together with duct tape that today started to give way.  It's got a new layer now - but won't last forever.

Then there's the apparent leak on the back hub seal that needs looking at.  A drip on the gearbox / transfer box of more oil than is normal.  And the heater system to reconnect before winter strikes. 

When you own a Landy there's never a shortage of things to keep you busy!

How to use up a day

Nothing in Olivia is ever fast.  Here's how to use up an entire day in and around Cape Town.

We have a nifty little device called an FM Protector - it's not only a tracking device, but also does some pretty fancy telling of information like whether you've hit something or not :-)  With Olivia's speedo still awaiting re-installation (scratch that - we have a "new" one that's waiting to go in after the old one conked), we've had to find other ways to determine distance and speed.  This is it.  I can grab a map of where we've been, as above, or print out a summary of distance travelled - and then get horrified at how few kms we've covered vs fuel paid for...  See maximum speed achieved, whether your battery is holding charge, any funny incidents on the way - and all of it viewable via a live web interface in case Favourite Man wants to stalk me from home base and check where I'm at (in case I need to collect something nearby).


Nevertheless, today's travels were many, wide, and varied.  We saw opposite ends of Cape Town, some pretty cool sights, and spent the day trundling around meeting interesting people and collecting interesting e-waste.  And yes, it took the whole day because we're in a 35 year old Land Rover that doesn't break any speed records, not even downhill with a tail wind.

But hey, we did it in Olivia.  And that's very, very cool.

Zap

They say those who refuse to learn from history will be destined to repeat it...

Today I did so - and also came close to making history!

You see, I almost set Olivia on fire.

Post-engine-swap, we discovered Olivia's big spare back battery (truck size) was kaput, and it's come out leaving a battery box with insulated terminals lying loose, ready to pop in a new one.  While we were at it, we took out the bits that hold the battery in place and had them re- sandblasted and galvanized, as they were looking a bit grotty.

Now truck batteries are pricey, and thus far we simply haven't been able to afford a replacement.  So we've been travelling and doing all our electrics off the front main battery while those insulated terminals lie quietly in the back battery box.

Today Favourite Man and I had a bit of a tour of Cape Town planned for business purposes.  We got through a good few appointments before we had to load up Olivia with old computers.  One of which I put in the battery box so nothing else would fall in and short things out..*

5km down the road Olivia suddenly started jerking, something smelt like burning electrics, and then we started seeing smoke...!  Panic stations, everyone out.  Favourite Man grabbed the keys and headed for the fire extinguisher at the back - and then shouted "the fire's here!".  At the same time I was heading toward the bonnet, next in line for the keys to unlock it, shouting "the fire's here!"

Yup, that computer had positioned itself perfectly on top of the terminals, shorting out the live one onto the bodywork and metal computer case - causing a chain reaction all the way up to the engine bay, where one terminal of the battery was peacefully starting to smoke...

Oh crap.  In a word.

Everything checked and disconnected, computer REMOVED from battery box by Favourite Man, attempt at re-insulation without insulation tape (now inserted into vehicle for any future needs), and I gingerly turned the key.  She started.  Sjoe.  We limped to our appointment a few hundred metres away, then made an executive decision to cancel the rest of the day's stuff and head home.  Carefully.

On the way Favourite Man did some MacGyver stuff with a plastic Coke bottle to keep the live terminal off the metal of the truck, removed appropriate relays, and admonished me properly.

We were very lucky this time.  No fire engines or insurance claims were involved.  We may, however, need to replace the battery as it doesn't seem to be holding charge like it did earlier today.

And history repeating itself?

See here, here and here.  One would think I'd learn my lesson hey!

---

* Disclaimer.  Just because I can.  I honestly thought those wires at the back were dead, insulated beyond doing anything like this.  I'd seen things fall across terminals before when the back battery was in and uncovered, leading to sparks and horrible stuff, and in my inifinte wisdom had thought putting something IN the box would prevent anything else FALLING in.  Needless to say, the sooner I get a plank or other cover over there for the short-term the better...

Roadblock!

It being the silly season, the police are currently out in force with random roadblocks popping up everywhere - quickly moving on before the word spreads where they are.

Thus it was I was toodling home from the mall this week and a bloke with a reflective vest jumped out into the road to wave me over.  Along with a few other vehicles.

Normally we as drivers try to avoid police stopping us.  We change lanes, we turn off and go another route before we reach them, we generally expect much unpleasantness.

Well this time I pulled over, opened the window and greeted the obvious boss of the group who walked up to Olivia.  Large, white and Afrikaans, he looked like a typical traffic cop in South Africa.  But instead of asking for my licence etc, he started peering at, walking around and gesturing toward my Landy with a few people in tow!

I jumped out to see what he was up to - and found out he's busy rebuilding a Series vehicle.  He asked what engine I had - he's got the same.  Then it was a general look-in as I had to unlock the bonnet, show him what was in there - yup, same engine - and chat through the joys of replacing and fixing various bits, who to get them from locally, how it's hard to find some parts but not others.  He informed me he's redone the diffs, he's changed this and that, and it's nearly done.

Meanwhile his tiny, ancient, coloured colleague was doing the usual police stuff - writing down registration, make/model - and finally got a word in to ask for my licence.  When I handed it to him, he got this funny look on his face.

Oh dear.. I know it hasn't expired, what's the problem?

No, nothing - it seems we have the same birthday!  He's 48, I'm 39 (hmmm... he's not as ancient as I thought at first).  So it was handshakes and birthday wishes for last weekend all round, "and my name's Nick", "pleased to meet you!".

Final look at my registration, and an "oh, you're from here!  see you around", then it was a wave back on my way with smiles and greetings.

Now I know police are merely humans like the rest of us.  In fact I know quite a few of them pretty well as we provide wireless internet to the crime scene investigation unit's guys in their offices.  We're on first-name basis with the entire floor.   And by association, when we stop off at the police station for various reasons, the guys there know who we are too.

But guess what - my perception of roadblocks has been completely changed by this one event.  Traffic cops doing their festive season duty indeed, but with a lot more in common than we could ever have imagined.

Modern Machine

Olivia has decided it's time she did some social networking.  She's now on Facebook.  You're welcome to ask for her friendship - but I can't guarantee she'll add you! :-)  She has, however, friended a couple of other Landies, and they seem to be swapping hints and tips to sort out their humans...

Back where she belongs

Olivia's back on the road! Yay! Details to follow, but she's finally home... and Favourite Man convinced me that this should be the first order of business:

One quick trip to the beauty salon later and she's clean & shiny.  As far as I know, this is her first paid-for "spa treatment" other than a thorough hosing down with pressurized cold water before we started work on her three years ago.  Everything else has just been home facials.

Heart transplant

Olivia's in hospital - REAL hospital not the home-care kind. She's gone in to have her old tired 2.6 engine replaced with a better 2.6! In theory it should be an easy swap...

Let's hope so.

On again, off again

And it's back to off again. Off the road, that is.

I spent most of this past week "replacing the head gasket" - which, oddly enough, was in very good condition still. Gave the innards a good clean, put it all back together according to the manual - and then the trouble started.

First, both batteries decided they didn't have anough vooma to start her. So we tow-started. Or attempted to. Favourite Man finally got her going, only to have a stream of oil pour out the back of the engine. Back to the yard, tighten the banjo bolt, try again. Worse! And an extra leak at the front of the head too...

What came out wasn't the nice clean oil I put in - but some horrible mucky stuff that was still circulating the system. She left a huge trail of it all around our complex, which I still need to take a few truckloads of engine cleaner to...


And she sounded as if all hell was breaking loose in the engine bay.

There is nothing to it. It seems that cleaning up her head got rid of the soot that was holding the head together, and it's warped. So I spent the latter part of the week taking it all apart again. The head goes off to an engineer in the new week.

And Olivia, with only half an engine left under her bonnet, gets to stand once more until it's sorted out.

While she's stationery, I'll be checking a few other things as recommended by the experts. I don't know how long this is going to take, it just has to be sorted out properly.

Eish.

Seriously considering buying a horse, putting it in the engine bay, attaching a carrot to the bumper and going for one-horse-power mode...

Hybrid

It's been an absolute age since I updated this blog, but Olivia's been very busy. She's the workhorse that makes it up mountains to sort out high sites, the loader of e-waste, and transporter of large things like ladders.


All this with a sick mind. Or rather a problem with her head - gasket. She's taken to drinking oil along with her horrific petrol habit, then spewing oil and water out when she starts in a huge patch behind her exhaust pipe. The water level drops dramatically in a short trip, steam pours from the exhaust at times, and the oil filler cap has a nice coating of mayo. All indicators that there's a gasket replacement coming up as soon as I have a few days free to do so.


It's a measure of her ability to keep going that she's still trundling up the mountain and to Cape Town and around town. Granted, not smoothly, but going still.

Today she nearly had a major mishap. It rained overnight and was still drizzling when Favourite Man and I headed up the slopes once more. With her big mud-ready G90s, awesome torque and a steady slow speed, we were going well. Until we hit a dangerous corner with the middle of the road washed out. The soil on that mountain is clay - and her rear end started sliding out toward a very steep slope straight down. I managed to wrestle her back just in time. Coming down was even worse - we slid and slipped sideways and forward, way too close to the edge for anyone's comfort. And by the time we reached the bottom the gears in low ratio were sounding terrible. Favourite Man drove her later, but promptly turned back when the gears in high started sounding just as bad. Tomorrow sees me under her adding greases and oils liberally all over. All that dust has made things squeak and groan.

And then there's the hybrid thing.

Olivia has two batteries - an engine bay one to keep the essentials of forward motion going, and a large one (original to my ownership of her) as secondary for the peripherals. Well Olivia has decided that she'd rather be a hybrid. The front battery is now far from optimal, wears down in a day or two and doesn't recharge - she now does what some really fancy cars do, and gets plugged in to the C-Tek charger at night to feed off electricity! Meaning we can at least start her on one of the batteries come morning.

And then there's the electric gate that opened randomly and smashed two of the rear lights and surrounding protective cage as I was reversing...

The poor girl really needs a few weeks at the spa getting all her issues seen to. Unfortunately I don't have a few weeks to spare, but I'm determined to sort them out one by one. Starting tomorrow morning with the oily, greasy things and moving on from there.

Truth be told, I'm looking forward to getting down and dirty again - as long as I don't get rained on.



PS There's a new Landy Mag going around online... yours truly is now an e-editor! :-)

Photoblog: Working Girl

I can see clearly now..

It's been a while since I updated Olivia's blog. Here's the latest.

Today, while the rest of the country was lazing around with Freedom Day, Favourite Man and I put in a bit of work on Olivia. We sorted out new engine mounts with a bit of difficulty - one needed some engineering as only Favourite Man can do, but turned out perfect with an excellent fit all round. We attacked the final electrics work, inserted the lights into her new wing, and added the light guard.

Everything's working perfectly. Yay!



Tomorrow she's off to get her radiator seen to. Then it's full steam ahead and hitting the road once more.

Yay again!

(Dreading dealing with her drinking habit... must get engine tuned properly...)

----

I never did finish the tale of woe re the brakes blokes. We eventually got her back after nearly 2 weeks - only to find that brake fluid was streaming down behind the accelorator, eating away at the protective coating we'd applied in the footwell. Unfortunately she was required for work and we didn't have time to go back and beat people up over that - sometimes the effort to sort something out just seems too much, and not worth it. But she does have brakes that work well now. Which, on a Series Landy, is a very good thing.

Horn

Olivia has a new accessory! :-)

It will soon be supporting a couple of long bits of metal on a trip up to our high site. That front receiver is a very useful bit of kit indeed.

Slamming on Brakes

I'm really worried about Olivia.

In July last year Favourite Man took his Discovery II to Ferobrake around the corner from us in Strand to have the discs skimmed prior to fitting new shoes. When he arrived at the appointed day and time, he was told the mechanic was sick and he'd have to go to their branch in Cape Town. Which he did. Only to be turned away for some arb reason.

After Olivia's altercation with a lamp pole, we decided to have the brakes redone while we were killing time waiting for various other things to fall in place. Favourite Man contacted Ferobrake Strand and - you guessed it - was told the mechanic is sick, we can't bring the truck down.

Last week we called and made an appointment for Olivia to have her brakes done. Before we dropped her off, we popped in to make sure - and yup, we were booked in.

So we went the few metres down the road to where she was having a radiator redo, and fetched her.

When we arrived at Ferobrake - you guessed it - the mechanic had gone home sick and the rest of the "workers" were standing around twiddling their thumbs, picking their noses and scratching their gonads, waiting for (apparently) the only mechanic Ferrobrake possesses to turn up and tell them what to do.

Olivia has now been there for a week. Favourite Man has just phoned them to find out when our darling girl can be returned to the fold.

You guessed it - the mechanic is sick. ETA for finishing completely unknown. Should the mechanic die of his many illnesses, it's likely Olivia will stay there for the rest of her life...

Unless I take my largest wheelspanner and go knock someone over the head very very hard.

Step 1

Olivia's new / replacement fender has arrived. Complete with ex-army light bits. Nope, we're not going to leave it that colour - but work starts soon!

Love/Hate

Life with Land Rovers is very much a love/hate relationship.

When they're going well we love them to bits. When they're giving problems we want to kick their tyres and take a hammer to the offending parts.

Actually... the word "relationship" is kinda the root of the problem. We start to see these hunks of metal as "people".

Take Olivia for example. She's my girl, part of the family, and yup - the truck is a "she". When I slam my hand in the door it's "Olivia's way of reminding you she loves you". When something breaks "Olivia's being kak / moody / obstinate". She's taken on human characteristics for her mechanical quirks - and there's been an emotional investment from before she was officially mine.

But not all Landy drivers feel that way about their vehicles.

This morning on the way to work I passed another Series III. Usually us Series folk wave madly to each other, and we'll even wave at Discos - this bloke (and I've seen him often around town) just drives and ignores no matter what we're driving. I'm probably making snap judgements, but it seems his Land Rover is merely a tool, a vehicle to get from A to B that does what he wants it to do. There's no enthusiasm for the old beast, nor for other old beast drivers.

By contrast, I got a wave out of a fellow Discovery owner a few metres later...

And now I've gone off topic, but here's the thing. Lately I've been struggling with the love/hate balance vs Olivia. I'm really not lus for the hassles that await us as we fix her up post-lamppole-greeting experience. I know it's going to be a knock-on thing where we breadcrumb from one issue to the next - and we've been there, done that for many months last year as she was fixed up front to back. I've had some big anti-Landy moments in the last week or so.

But at the same time I still love my Landies. And Olivia particularly, which is why I'm going to be doing what it takes to get her not only back on the road but better than ever before. She's still my girl, part of the family, and in spite of the occasional love/hate battle it does lean a whole lot more toward love than hate.

Getting there

After Olivia's minor altercation with a lamppost thanks to horrific driving on the part of an old tannie who crossed her path (literally), the red-tape battle began. There was not a whole lot of real damage - not a single light broke in the accident - yet insurance wanted to write her off, stating that repair costs far exceeded the value of the vehicle. Well Favourite Man was able to cut that bill in half or more by speaking to the right people and getting the correct info on exactly how much it will cost to repair what needs it. And insurance has agreed not to write Olivia off.

Sjoe. After all the hard work we've put into that beast, it's a very big relief.

Now the repair work starts. Another learning curve, another little while off the road.

But we're getting there.

For the Record...

...I miss my Olivia.

She's still sitting quietly at the panelbeater. I'm still waiting for word from insurance. I know she hasn't moved, as I've geofenced the area and told her Protector unit to SMS me if she starts/moves/leaves/enters/stops in that area. Her battery is still fine, as is the unit's - so I can keep an eye on her.

But I miss her.

Oh Crap