Put some dehumidifiers in her while she has a kip over Christmas.
The battery is now charged and registering 12.7V. Amazing. I suspect it now has the capacity of a AAA but we'll see.

Agree with the above, in winter these cars excel, much better than similar vintage four-wheel drives and nowadays called "suvs". But is expected ... is a proper Range Rover, after all.

Mine, after a suspicious and persistent noise at cold start-up, I've identified the culprit in the idler pulley. I find it strange, and hope I am right, but I've ordered one (genuine of course), and related serpentine belt.
I've ordered the same that it was mounted on (Contitech 7K2337, Made in UK), but rummaging through some spares I've found I had a brand new Dayco 7K2335 (again Made in UK). Darn...
Now I wonder which one to fit. The Conti worked seamlessly for 30K km now, but it became noisy. Thoughts?

I've also found a weep in the top-hose, remnant of when the fan disintegrated and probably damaged it. Ordered as well (genuine, don't want to take no chances with the cooling ...).

I had a problem with the door locks automatically re-locking themselves, despite the inside lock release being pulled. The locks all re-locked themselves immediately they were unlocked.

According to advice given here, the latch was probably acting the bollix so I decided to strip it and give the whole latch unit a good dousing with Starrett M1 lubricant. I stripped down the door, removing the speakers and the water shedder [membrane], because there was an issue with the window, in that it had starting getting a bit jerky in the last 1/3 of travel going down.

I stripped the door internal a couple of weeks ago, when the weather was quite mild, but while getting the latch out the little pointy ended door handle arm broke the end off ! There was some corrosion around the narrow neck just by the pointy end, and I think that the piece had been removed before, damaging it. But either way, I didn't have a spare so I had to leave the door taped closed until a new one arrived from Classic Land Rover.

As it happened, this issue cropping up was useful because while I was rummaging about in the bottom of the door I found that the window seal that runs down a frame inside the door had completely dropped off. Again, with advice given here I was able to figure out where it went !!!

So the car has remained with no door handle for the last month, until the weather was good enough today to have a go at it. So, today I drilled out the window regulator rivets and pulled out the regulator. This gave me free access to refit the lower front window guide seal first. Then I was able to refit the door latch and test the operation of the various locking mechanisms, particular the inner cill locking knob jobby. I was pleased to find that everything seems to be working perfectly now. I was slightly worried that, having refitted the door handle and the latch etc. that the door might not open when I closed it, but I had tested it using a piece of metal bar to close the latch and then opening it again with the handle. But everything did work perfectly when refitted.

As it was getting a bit late, and the light was going , I decided just to refit the window regulator. Fortunately, refitting the regulator and the glass was pretty straight forward. I replaced the rivets with 6mm x 16mm stainless domed socket bolts with stainless steel nyloc nuts. Everything has been greased up and new plastic guides have been fitted. So, again, I am very happy that the window now rolls up and down perfectly, and the limits are now set again.

I need to clean up the inner door frame, to remove the remains of the old water shedder [membrane], and stick a new membrane on, I bought a new one a couple of months ago, and the job should be OXO. [For people who haven't come across the saying "the job will be OXO" it means the job is good !!! Just in case someone asks what it means.]

Pierre3.

Soo for the second time in 4 years the old girl stopped on the road. Like last time she had the good grace to do it within a couple of km of home (having just got back from a 1,000 mile trip earlier in the week). Going over a bridge, I instantly knew there was something wrong. All of a sudden, down to 6 cylinders. Right, turn around and head home. Got about 400 yards, all goes quiet. Bumped her into neutral and coasted to a halt in a roadside car park (as opposed to being stuck in a lane on one of Sydney’s busiest roads).

Cycled the ignition and noticed the check engine light wasn’t on, so no point in trying to start it. Had a look in the fuse box and found the fuse for the ECU blown.

Grabbed the phone and called Richard in the UK as a helpful, and quickest source of info as to what might be going on. Seems that the same fuse feeds the ignition coils. OK, replaced it, hit the key, she started right up, ran for perhaps 2 seconds and died again. Blown fuse again. Tried again, same result. OK, time to call a tow truck (at 6 AM).

Got her home, unloaded her, got my meter that I have set up to plug straight into a fuse socket to check the power draw. Sitting at less than an amp. OK let’s hit the key, this should be fun. Nope, power draw sitting at 1.3 amps and truck running, albeit on 6 cylinders.

So, a shift to the garage whilst things are running and out with the IR heat gun. All manifolds at 350+ degrees, with the exception of 4 & 7 which are at about 120. So that is where our miss is coming from. As one coil pack drives these two cylinders, clearly a failed coil pack. Looking through this with Richard, it was concluded that they normally fail open circuit, not short circuit, so why the continual blowing of fuses (when the engine was hot, but not cold) is still a bit of a mystery.

So coil pack off, replaced with a known good genuine s/h set and off we go, good as new.

On close inspection, the coil for 4/7 was “blown”. The plastic covering had expanded and distorted, so may have been going for some time.

For those with an interest, I checked the resistance of the various packs and found that the three good ones were at 1.8 ohm, whereas the blown one was at 0.8 ohm (cold).

This week was "Bolt Week" I finally got lucky with a breaker in San Francisco area and on a trip through, I was able to get a white lift gate with glass for 60 bucks!
The glass exploded on my original due to a bit of sharp grit getting down between the plastic trim and the glass.
Not wanting to spend $450 for a new glass, I went to nearest breaker, and got a hatch from a poor White Gold Rangie that some slob had used rattle cans to paint a hideous green. It was cheap and filled the hole.......
For the last year, I have had a distinctly green hatch on a white Rangie.....Soooo socially embarrassing!
Now, back to stock trim! Next was a new seat belt female end for driver as it had failed with a broken internal spring.
Modified the RT front new hub to allow ABS sensor to see the reluctor ring, thus restoring ABS and TC.
Next up is the coolant leak at the throttle body plate.
Of course, in the latest cold snap, the Zebra strip connector on the HVAC controller has come asunder.
Gotta get one of those and repair the display. Small but satisfying little fixes!

Bolt wrote:

Of course, in the latest cold snap, the Zebra strip connector on the HVAC controller has come asunder.
Gotta get one of those and repair the display. Small but satisfying little fixes!

Mine has done that too. We haven't had the same sort of cold weather that you have but it's been damp. Didn't use the car for a whole day and when I did half the segments were missing. After a few miles they all came back, but it just annoyed me so I'm going to have to do something about it.

Cold and VERY damp here as well....I did just take the heat gun to it and bathed it gently in warm air.....
Looks bright and new again........Until the damp gets it again.....
Where are Zebra strips coming from these days? I think I got the last one from Marty.....

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/234534597402 or, if you feel the need, https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/234363495056 and you can have a full set of HEVAC bulbs too. I know Marty had to get some huge number made so sold batches of them to a number of others who are, no doubt putting a huge markup on them and, selling on eBay. He sold a load to a guy in France but I can't find where he advertises them at the moment.

Wiped down the interior and got rid of the mould that had started to grow despite the dehumidifiers :( I suspect I haven't seen the last of that, but some mild Fairy solution seems to have provided a short term fix.
Stuck the Hankook back in the hole, rigged up another battery in parallel just for giggles and tried to run the EAS pump. Sadly the Nano just locked up both times I tried to get into EAS so I started her (first hit on the key!) and listened to the God-Awful chuff chuff chuff until she got back on her feet at standard mode.
So she's ready to go to the hospital for open engine surgery in the morning.

Hankook was still at 12.2V, charging at 14.2 (ish).

Bolt wrote:

Cold and VERY damp here as well....I did just take the heat gun to it and bathed it gently in warm air.....
Looks bright and new again........Until the damp gets it again.....
Where are Zebra strips coming from these days? I think I got the last one from Marty.....

TBH, I think it's just a weakness in the design. Even the one I got from Marty hates the cold and damp. It comes back to life eventually.

The hospital? I thought you were going to DIY it and give us all a blow by blow account?

Yeah, about that... NO :)
Having looked out of the window for the last couple of weeks I've decided that I'd rather go shooting and coach Rugby at the weekends, and it's too dark and wet to work outdoors in the evenings. If anyone would like to donate a dry and well lit space, I'd definitely have a crack.
Otherwise, I shall abuse the credit card and then work it off.
Sorry!

I do realise this will cost me many Man Points in the eyes of the forum :)

Even I will admit it isn't the ideal weather to be doing it outside but as I object to paying someone else to do something I can do myself, I would still do it no matter how unpleasant it may be. However, I can fully understand your decision and don't really blame you. We all know you are a dab hand at headlinings (and have photographs to prove it).....

HAhah, let's say I work well under close supervision :)

I've had problems with cars when they have sat for a while not being used with mould, and found a combination of cleaning (ideally a carpet cleaner type setup if the seats are cloth rather than leather works well) and then a treatment with a sanitiser such as https://www.eurocarparts.com/p/triple-qx-tqx-aircon-sanitiser-150ml-542772970 to have stopped it reoccouring.

Make sure to do the seatbelts as well, best to leave them extended (plugged in to the catch) when doing the sanitiser step as well.

I use extensively a „rental“ workshop with ramps/posts and it is heated and they have some tools, I otherwise have to buy. Since I found one very nice closely to my house, I do much more on my car (and the ones from fellows I take care off) For 12 €/h on a workshop place with a ramp post I will never, ever lay beneath my car again …

We used to have similar places here but most, if not all, have closed. When my local one was closing I was told it was because of insurance requirements. They would have had to have at least one mechanic for every customer just to make sure nobody did anything stupid, injured themselves, then claimed that the company had allowed them to do something stupid.

Did I mention that I dislike very much the paternalistic Nanny State zero risc attitude which seems to be fancy ourdays? rant over
OK, the one I use has a car „master“ (german title) and some mechanics running around doing their own professional work, it is a mixture of DIY and free garage. I learned a lot from these guys and they are very helpful …

KCR wrote:

Did I mention that I dislike very much the paternalistic Nanny State zero risc attitude which seems to be fancy ourdays? rant over

So do I but having seen what some people were doing I can understand the problem.....