Tie wraps can be OK if they are the right heavy duty type, not the ordinary electrical ones, and if you have the tool to pull them up properly. I have the tool and a small stash of good heavy duty ones as thats the only way to properly hold the rectangular chain gaiters of a rotary Norton final drive. But getting a few proper heavy duty tie wraps can be difficult. The tool will easily snap most ordinary electrical tie wraps. Even if not snapped it will generally pull them tighter than their ability to hold.
I really should get round to producing a carrier to take the standard import ram thread to go with the base unit I made. Easily loaned out if folk already have a ram, some 3/6 x 16 UNC studding and some suitable spacers to do the pushing and accommodate the removed ball joint. If I'd had brain engaged at the time I'd have measured the spacers I used so folk would know what to look for. Supposed to be an ex someone elses' scrapbox ram hanging around the workshop somewhere waiting for a re-fill, new seals or both. With that to hand producing a complete kit and caboodle would be little little extra effort. Add a few more bits and it could do the radius arm bushes too. But its at least 15 years since I saw that ram. Its around somewhere.
According to HerLadyship its against my religion to use the words "throw" and "away" in the same sentence for anything not obviously one time use.
When it comes to shifting the steering ball joints I'm now convinced that the only sensible approach is to arrange an equivalent to the proper land Rover factory tool using the short "10 ton" hydraulic rams found in the import hydraulic joint splitters and hefty puller sets. Naked rams can be got for around £30 via E-Bay, Amazon et al. The official Sykes Picavant spare is only 8 tons and three times the price!
The issue for normal folk is arranging a threaded adapter to fit the ram if you don't buy a full puller kit. Although the monster G clap thingy set managed two of mine, slowly and with much verbal encouragement and several hours of wait-a-bit with things under pressure, I had to fake up a hydraulic system for the stubborn pair. 20/20 hindsight says a leisurely day in the toybox making up a properly engineered version would have been much faster overall and saved me a fair bit of cash on not up to the job kit.
Clive
I think I used a breaker bar and either 6 point or wall drive socket on my carrier bolts the first time. But it was maybe 8 or 9 years ago so can't be sure. No issues since as I use appropriate amounts of coppaslip and a bit of loctite to seal things.
I also have one of the big Makita battery impact wrenches. Proper beast, more oomph than my old air ones or the mains electric job.
Pozidrive brake disk / drum retaining screws are the invention of Beezlebub!
Bought my first impact driver 49 years back to deal with them on the rear drum brakes of my first "car". The twist and belt with a hammer type. Still made I see and still a slippery plated body with grossly inadequate knurling to give not enough grip for oil hands. Every time I use mine I vow to fit a nice metal hexagonal sleeve so I can twist it easily. But always summatt else to do. Bit carrier sits nicely on the Makita anyway.
Clive
Generally things that are still in factory bolted up state seem to come undone quite easily however rough looking the bolt head might be. Virtually everything factory assembled on mine has come out with nice clean threads.
Impact wrench always seems kinder to corroded heads than heaving.
Separating closely fitted parts pushed together is a whole 'other matter tho'. Yes Mr Brake Disk I'm looking at you!
Meet Mr Slammy the club hammer for a short, but loud, relationship.
Clive
i'm no fan of ratchet torque wrenches, although I have a Norbar one. Never seem to have the feel that a classic Britool or similar has.
The one Morat linked to is very short for a high range torque wrench, barely 2 ft so will need a fair old heave.
Seems to be a good week for Britool on E-Bay. Choice of used ETV3000 around the £50 - £60 mark. Simple, robust and usefully longer. Push the square through and flip over to reverse.
My big one is a Britool HTV version, 3/4" drive and getting on for four ft long. Can be a cumbersome beast, light it isn't, but don't need to heave unless things are very serious.
Clive
The P38 is probably the easiest modern brake system to bleed.
RAVE makes it look a total faff but its basically painting by numbers.
Just follow the steps and it works, every time. If it doesn't you have a problem that needs sorting whilst the car is standing still and even then its about as straightforward as a full on power brake system with ABS can possibly be.
Concerning callipers my year 2000 4.0 HSE blew a seal on one front brake about a 18 months back. I said stuff it and threw a full set of new TRW callipers and flexi hoses on. Do it once, do it right being my motto. Extra cost over Britpart set, DIY new seal rebuild of the bad calliper or other economy options wasn't worth the potential hassle if things needed to be looked at again in short order.
So I have a set of 85,000 or so mile old original callipers sitting around in the "it might be handy" box that only need new seals and new bleed nipples to be good to go. I'd give them a quick trip through the sandblaster and a paint job too if I were ever to use them again. In all honesty they are just taking up space and ought to go to a new home.
Clive
Had a quick nooge concerning Jitsi on the Mac and there seem to be some reports of connection problems with it. Time to delve deeper.
Microphone on my laptop works fine with dictation, albeit with some sensitivity to audio level setting, so seems to be an issue with Jitsi not picking it up properly.
I'll see if I can find someone local who knows about such things to do same room set-up testing.
Clive
Looks like my mac microphone doesn't want to play!
Hafta sort out an external one for next time!
Concerning a hefty torque wrench for Morat I'm very happy with my Britool HVT5000. Under £70 delivered off E-Bay. Its something of a monster, 3/4 drive and over 3 ft long but it does 100 to 400 ft lb and no worries about things breaking as its old school without ratchet, reverse lever or any other niceties. Just a push through drive square to reverse.
Mine didn't have the adjuster widget which folks seem to set great store by when paying higher prices. Old knows why 'cos a screwdriver through the hole in the short sticky out shaft works just fine. Its not as if its like its smaller cousins of similar vintage where the adjuster slides down into a hollow shaft.
Clive
I don't think Blanco needs to be overly worried about the life of his air-spings yet. My Dunlops are approaching 10 years old and got their first advisory about minor perishing on the MoT last week. My inspection suggests they ought to be good for another year at least.
General consensus seems to be 60,000 to 70,000 miles or 10 - 12 years are reasonable expectations. Mine will age out rather than mileage out, maybe hit 25,000 miles at most. Seems logical that air-springs should age out at a similar rate to tyres so going much past 10 years will be pushing the envelope.
My 65 th birthday "me to me" present Yamaha GTS arrived on 2005 dated tyres with interesting (?!) effects on handling. The now sorted R75/7 BMW clogging up my bike lift wears either 1984 or 1994 dated tyres. Anyone who thinks I'm road testing that needs to stop taking the high test optimism pills.
Clive
Checking through my lists approaching £1,000 sounds about right to do everything suspension related at 2020 prices. Reasonable though most individual prices are all the bits do add up.
Wouldn't touch stainless steel steering links with a barge, let alone the pole. Stainless isn't a miracle metal and there are manufacturing and fabrication issues where dynamic loads are concerned. I'd need do be very sure that such items came from a proper maker with the needful design skills and engineering back up. Not a 2 man and a dog workshop producing a look-alike.
My list for "everything" in 2018 - 2019 comes to around £930 with Lemfoder steering links, ball joints, official Land Rover bushes, full set of Bilstien shockers and Bilstien steering damper. Paddock prices for the Bilsteins were good at £350 for all five. Still need to get round to actually fitting the bushes in the front panhard rod tho'.
Air bags were done several years earlier so they would be extra.
As folks here know my opinion is that its best to do everything in one hit as you get maximum benefit for your money. Although £1,000 always sounds expensive you are really comparing cost against depreciation on something new enough not to need such work. Which will be lots more even though you don't crystallise the cost until changing the vehicle.
Being charitable we should spare a tender thought for those unfortunates who have an L322!
Clive
Price for FTC2249 looks to be outrageous. Twenty drinking vouchers (ish) for a plastic bush!
Tempting to dig out some Delrin and make up a batch when I have some spare time (that'll be never then).
Clive
Theoretically the copper mesh behaves like a tolerance ring. Less area of contact but more pressure to give the right amount of grip. The relatively large contact area of the sensor body makes getting the right grip an exercise in inconveniently tight tolerances if plain holes are used. Most especially with the plastic bush as plastics are not known for super accuracy and dimensional stability with temperature.
Pity they didn't use the same system at the front. Then it might be possible to get the darn things out in one piece after a decade or so.
Clive
I have my doubts about modern Boge dampers. Put OEM Boge, the right numbers at half the Land Rover cost, on mine and got perhaps 10,000 miles out of them. Maybe less, usually I'm anal about recording servicing and spares costs but that one slipped through. Front ones gave up worst wth bump steer symptoms close to the death wobble. Changed everything else first 'cos I knew it wasn't the dampers!
Bilsteins all round now. Including the steering damper. Paddock were doing them at acceptable prices so I went for the name and reputation. A little stiffer than standard but I'm happy. Monroe would have been about half the price but we already knew they are OK so I figured first hand experience with another brand might be interesting.
I've got a set of fully refurbished front radius arms sitting around. Factory bushes and a half decent coat of paint. I really need to do something with them.
Made up the gubbins to convert one of the small "12 ton rams" used in import puller sets and hydraulic ball joint splitters to a look-alike of the Sykes Picavant 18771100 tool officially recommended by Land Rover. Got one of the big G-clamp style first but it wasn't up to the job. Only managed two out of four. The Laser version will be a waste of money. Seriously under strength. But after discovering Lasers version of the radius arm bush tool doesn't actually fit the P38 despite what it said on the box I'm done with their stuff. Flat out refusal to give a refund for a tool that doesn't, and cannot, work is no way to win customer loyalty.
Clive
Morat wrote:
Don't cut the new headliner material flush with the front of the shell, you want to tuck that back up over the front or it'll be untidy at the top of the screen.
Or so I heard ;)
Proven.
Allow plenty to pull over and shape round. I didn't allow enough on mine and it settled with a soft crease up round the interior light.
Unless you are experienced with such things P38 head lining replacement is best tackled as a three person job. Two to hold it up and one to smooth it into place. Just the two of us doing mine. Found it quite difficult to do my part of the holding clear as well as the smoothing into place. In retrospect I might have done better to make up a support kit for the unfitted trim and done the whole job solo. But would have taken ages to sort support that I'd have been happy with.
Martrims adhesive doesn't take prisoners. One touch and its grabbed. Absolutely not coming off again!
The Martrim products are good but is probably a good idea not to breathe adhesive fumes. Inspector Wasp came to look at mine whilst we were clearing up ready to re-install. Perfect 6 point landing. Three twitches of the proboscs .... and .... Ex-Wasp. Fat on its back stone dead.
Clive
I've given up trying to clean up calliper pins and the like beyond removing dried oil or grease gunk. Never seem to stay clean and smoothy moving once the first signs of corrosion have arrived.
At todays prices, under a tenner for each end, its the sort of thing you order on spec before hitting the spanners so you have them if you need them. Bit different from back in the pre 'net days when such were manufacturers spare parts starting at "how much!" prices with main dealer special order loading.
Clive
With the strip under the reed valve its natural position is slightly open so its feasible that this arrangement leads to faster opening and more time / area for the inlet valve so you get more air in than you lose by the valve being slightly open for the initial phase of the compression stroke.
If I recall correctly reed valves of this sort are quite slow in operation under inlet pressures, primarily because you need to have enough pressure differential to actually bend the thing so it opens. Only 14 psi max available and you want it open at the lowest possible differential pressure to maximise cylinder filling. With the small gap air will start flowing immediately after TDC. Flow through the small gap will be quite fast reducing pressure significantly in that region and to some degree reducing it over the whole port area which will help the valve open. Given that inlet reed valves usually seem to operate with restricted openings I suspect that air flow speed related pressure drop is a fairly important factor in helping keep them open and maximise efficiency.
No doubt there is some maths somewhere.
Clive
Last spanner I thinned down went on the shaper.
So relaxing in a Victorian type of way and awsome finish is easy.
Agree that strap wrench is best for the accumulator. The type that wraps a webbing strap round a thick rod to tighten it is probably best in this case.
Clive
PS How do normal folks manage without machining facilities!
Its sensible to have a small table or similar set up next to the car to put the battery on and get it twisted the right way before moving it into place.
Although you can just muscle them into place those batteries are getting close to the size where you have to think things through and make reasonably proper arrangements.
Most drop / knock disasters I've seen when humping heavy things into restricted spaces have been when folk have tried to do the lift'n twist bit from floor to fitted in one go. I finally learnt my lesson in that respect when nearly tripping over my feet in the turn with over a hundredweight of 12" rotary table cuddled up to my chest when shifting from bench to Bridgeport.
Not a bad idea to put something solid over the vulnerable areas just in case.
Hafta say I cheated and just took mine down to the local tyre'n battery place. They made it a two man job. And disposed of the old one. Win-Win.
Not a Hankook but the first "house brand" one lasted about 7 or 8 years and the second has 2 or 3 years under its belt. My car doesn't do enough miles, especially in lockdown, to properly look after the battery so I generally recharge every couple of months.
Cheapy LiDL "smart" charger or Clive's special upgraded Winfield (Woolworths brand) box upgraded around 1975 with much bigger mil spec transformer and husky diodes. No idea what the special puts out but the meter goes to 6 amps and the needle bounces off the stop on a well down battery. The wires get warm!
Clive
Looks like he has run out so no longer listed.
Found the same thing at £3.50 now.
Description is "Universal Mobile Phone 360 Rotating In Car Mount Holder Cradle Stand - UK Seller", new listing number 254071842688 .
To be fair it has been very hot and the car is parked nose on to the sun for the hottest part of the day. I suspect anything having a soft silicon pad under the (black) suction cap would have suffered similarly. I stuck it on about 2 years ago and it had stayed put until it melted.
Clive