Good ratio. I was helping my brother shift some firewood – went a bit off-line on one run and ended up in a bit of a bog. With all the weight on the right hand wheels (which were well stuck), the left hand ones had no traction. Much winching ensued…
Oily waxoyly goodness
A guy I used to work with once said that a chassis is practically a service item on a Land Rover. To an extent, he was right – there’s so much salt used on the roads around here in winter that rust is the no. 1 landy killer. Ultimately, any Land Rover used for long […]
Brake caliper replacement
Disc brakes are ace. They’re powerful, self adjusting, and they don’t fill with muddy water when you look at a muddy puddle the wrong way. They’re not flawless though. There are two issues that I’ve had crop up several times with Land Rover brake calipers. One is excessive caliper wear allowing the pads to fall down and […]
Canvas tilt re-proof
I quite like a canvas soft top (or tilt, in Land Rover parlance). They’re not nearly as bad for condensation as a plain hardtop, and they also seem (counter-intuitively, perhaps) to be quieter and warmer. Also, rolling the sides up on a warm summers eve is brilliant! Unlike a hardtop though, a tilt does need […]
New year, new camping setup
Up till now, we’ve had a sort of platform bed arrangement for grabbing some beauty sleep in the back of the 109 when we go away. It’s essentially three sheets of wood with a self-inflating mattress on top. It’s simple and comfortable, and it was cheap and quick to make. The platform is also just […]
Land Rover – 57 Varieties
This is not a Land Rover for purists. At some point in the dim and distant past, it was an 88″ series 1. Then it was turned into a hybrid – by someone with not very much skill, as I discovered once I started stripping it down… It seems that the series 1 donated (most of) […]
Propshaft Universal Joint replacement
Not the most interesting of jobs this, but I’ve been tripping over this propshaft in the garage for ages and it’s grim outside. One of the universal joints (UJ’s) had seized in one plane, meaning it (or possibly the whole prop) needed replacement. First thing to check was whether the telescopic splined section (which allows […]
109″ Station Wagon re-chassis
I’ve always had a soft spot for a Series II. The one I really, really wanted back before I was even old enough to drive was a 109″ Station Wagon. The idea of getting one didn’t really turn into actually looking for one until 18 months ago or so. I was mostly driving an ’86 […]
Bit moist out
I thought Scotland had escaped all the flooding of late – it appears not, with the local river bursting its banks. At its deepest this section was about axle deep. I wouldn’t fancy taking Kathryn’s Yaris through, no worries for even a stock Land Rover though. […]
Carport
It predates this blog by over a year, but the carport build was an important part of the 109 re-chassis so probably worth covering. We’d recently moved house, from somewhere with a double garage to somewhere with a single garage. The 109 (which I bought knowing the chassis was toast) didn’t fit in the garage, […]