If they're dead - no flashy LED, whine from speakers when you turn it on - it's lost the 5V supply because the solder around one end of the big SMD resistor under the heatsink has cracked.

The expired cert was only for the old rrpub.gjcp.net domain, but I've updated it anyway just for the look of the thing.

Folk should be using https://rangerovers.pub but it should All Just Work :-)

Finally got a chance to take the props off, and found something rather odd. I decided not to do the rear UJs despite having new ones right there, and I'm rather glad I did...

When I took the front prop off, one of the bearings looked like this. It doesn't look that clear in the pic, but there was a round witness mark on the bearing cup that matched the edges of the circlip - like the cup had been spinning round and round in there. Also there was that powdery brick-red dusty rusty crud that you get when things have been really hot. That was on the transfer case end, too.

So I changed that, and of course lost the phasing of the propshaft because the mark I made wasn't nearly clear enough. There seems to be some debate about whether P38 props are straight or phased, and having the "short" end two splines in front of the axle end seems to cause the biggest fights on other forums, so I figured I'd try it.

Now I've got a tiny bit of groaning noise as before (much quieter) with the suspension on normal height, that goes away at 60mph+ on motorway height, and none of the weird shunting vibration I had before on smooth tarmac that felt like I was running on dumper tyres.

Eep. Good catch.

Happy New Year when it comes, everyone :-)

I'm coming back round to either propshaft or bearing. Here's a recording of the noise, although it's nowhere near as pronounced as it is in real life and it sounds like the diff is howling! At the latter part of the recording I'm doing 60mph and you can hear the noise come and go.

I stuck that into an audio editor and did a little FFT on it, and there are big fat peaks at around 36Hz (2200rpm/60, so engine speed) and a bunch of harmonics, and 42Hz and a bunch of harmonics. Now the tyres are standard 235/70R16s, so they do about 700rpm at 60mph, multiplied by the 3.54:1 diff ratio and you get 2478rpm, divide by 60 and you get 41-and-a-bit revs per second.

Science. Solid Science. Honest guv.

Once you get to about Lockerbie it's all Banjo Country...

Thing is it doesn't really sound like any bad wheelbearing I've heard. Normally there's a kind of "cyclic" noise but this is a steady drone.

Also, I'm not sure a wheelbearing would make the floor vibrate.

... and for once it's not because of the repair bills :-)

For quite a while now I've had a groaning noise under moderate load. It is just audible over all the other noise at about 40mph but becomes quite noticeable above 50mph, and is only present when I'm just on the throttle - not accelerating, not on a trailing throttle, but just "pressing on it" slightly. It's road speed related rather than engine speed related, and sounds almost like a wheel bearing except everyone else I've asked agrees that the bearing seems fine with no roughness or movement. Oh, going round corners doesn't affect the sound. Mild bumps do, a bit.

I did wonder if it was the nose bearing in the diff, but I'd expect if that was bad there would be enough movement to make the seal leak.

One other clue is that I can feel the vibration through the driver's footwell floor. I've almost convinced myself there's an errant socket stuck on top of the gearbox pressing into the transmission tunnel, or some damn thing :-D

How safe is it to drop off one or other propshaft and take the Rangie up to a decent speed? I'm concerned that might eat the viscous coupling in short order. Any other suggestions for how to pin down the noise would be welcome. I'll post an audio clip just as soon as I can work out how to get it off my phone.

I am in the south-west, I'm just outside Glasgow...

I think Britpart has raised their game a bit. My local indy uses Britpart if the customer doesn't specify a "Big Name", and the guys that work there seem happy enough to run around with blue box bits on their own cars.

That being said, I don't know how much of a pig an L322 water pump is to do. I went with a Britpart one for mine, because it was in stock and right there on the shelf, half the price, and I figured that if it was shite it was only ten minutes to get it off and replace it.

We actually had snow for about ten minutes this morning up here in Carnoustie. I'm off to collect the Rangie then head up to Glenshee :-)

It would be interesting to see what kind of readings he's actually getting. These engines are pretty low compression compared to modern ones anyway.

No snow, a bit of hail last night though. It's a kind of cargo-cult weather god thing, I'm hoping that if I put up a snowy pic the clouds will take the hint :-)

The pic is from last winter when we had a few inches. It's mostly too warm here in the south-west for decent snow.

mace wrote:

Random question, but did anything come of the ebay Rangie? I'm vaguely in the market for one now.

Good to see you on :-)

After rebuilding my compressor last weekend it was noisy as all hell. Of course I had the bottom washers upside down! What can I say, it was dark by the time I was putting it back together...

Same as the heater core O rings, as it happens.

22mm diameter, 2.5mm thickness. Someone should sticky that.

I wouldn't worry about a bit of oil lying in the inlet manifold, mine always seems to have a bit in there and it doesn't appear to be pressurising the crank case. It's a leaky rattly old 1960s lump, cut it some slack :-)

Try and lever the front ones from side to side. The main failure seems to be that the metal insert breaks away from the surrounding rubber.