New guy with questions

[skucera]

Hi,

I just bought a 1989 Range Rover 3.9.  It's my first Rover, and my first British car in 16 years.  (I used to own Spridgets and Spitfires, and put a Spitfire overdrive tranny in my Midget 1500 to make it a more civilized highway cruiser.  That was almost 20 years ago, now that I think about it.  Time flies.)

When I saw the name of this forum, "Mud Club," I just knew it was the place for me.  I live in Oregon, which is known for its rain.  I live in the southern end of the Willamette Valley, which is known for its mud.  My driveway is muddy enough to get cars stuck in the winter and spring months, so the Range Rover will be appreciated, deeply.

My first maintenance task is to replace the water pump.  It's dripping a little coolant from its weep hole on shutdown, and I assume it is dripping the entire time the engine is running.  I've got the replacement already.  This looks like a fairly straightforward task, especially since this motor fits the GM design philosophy to a T, but there is always a gotcha with anything that I assume to be straightforward.  Any words of wisdom would be appreciated.

Also, the trailer light connector behind the taillight is different than any I've seen before.  I assume it is a standard British or DIN plug and socket.  Does anyone know of a mail-order or web site that sells the counterpart for it that I could wire up to my trailer?

Thank you for the advice, and for all the wisdom I've already read in the last few days before my membership was approved.

Scott

[Skibum346]

Sorry Scott, can't help with any of your questions but I'm sure someone will be along shortly to help.... in the mean time.... WELCOME ABOARD!   :lol:  :lol:

Look forward to seeing you at one of our pub meets......   :shock:  :lol:  :lol:

Skibum

[Timi]

Hi,

My first maintenance task is to replace the water pump.  

Also, the trailer light connector behind the taillight is different than any I've seen before.  I assume it is a standard British or DIN plug and socket.  

Thank you for the advice, and for all the wisdom I've already read in the last few days before my membership was approved.

Scott

Hi How You Doing?

Water pump, You need a special Landrover Viscous Fan Locking spanner!
Take cowling off Radiator. Probably need to remove alternator and steering pump for access.
Remove water pump clean up faces of block, apply gasket sealant to gasket and replace waterpump, and torque all baolts to reccommended torques assemble reverse of dismantling.

Plug for trailer socket is a specific landrover item as well, Landrover  supply lead that plugs straight in to loom with trailer socket on.

I hope this may have been of service.
Timi 8)

[skucera]

Thanks for the invitation to the pub meet.  The only thing that keeps me from taking you up on that is the entire breadth of the continental United States and the North Atlantic. ;)  Seriously, there is a local Rover club in town.  The guy I bought the truck from belongs to it.  I've got to ask him for more info on joining.

So, I need a special wrench for that viscous fan clutch....  I'll look into that.  In the past I've had great luck with bicycle cone wrenches on viscous fan clutches.

That reminds me, I need to order that repair manual CD.  I keep forgetting to do that.

Thank you guys for the nice welcome.

Scott

[Budgie]

Hi Scott and welcome to the forum.

I'm in the process of doing a full rebuild on a 3.5 Range Rover motor and to remove the viscous fan unit I just used an adjustable wrench for the fan and stopped the pulley turning by wrapping an old fan belt around the pulley and folding it back on itself so it tightens as you try to undo the fan.
I wouldn't use a belt that you intend putting back on the motor though!  
Some of the bolts on the water pump are a bit thin so don't put too much pressure on them as they can snap. Just an even pressure until you feel them crack off. Maybe a smear of copper grease on the threads before you put it back together incase there's a next time!  

The CD ROM workshop manuals are well worth the money, LHP2 is the part number for the Rangie 1986-1994.  :D

[skucera]

Ooh, thanks for the warning about not snapping the bolts.  I'll be careful.  I did that on my BMW's water pump last year, and it took hours to get the headless stud out.  

Also, one bit of advice I remember from high school auto shop came from a teacher who had been a Buick dealership mechanic back in the Sixties:  always put anti-seize on any steel bolts going into an aluminum engine.  He said that sometimes a 215 cu. in. Buick Special would come back in for a second repair and the bolts that came out easily the first time were absolutely stuck on the second trip.  He said they got religious about anti-seize on aluminum V-8's, and we heard that story over and over again whenever we were working on VW engines in class.

Scott

[baileys_1984]

look on ere http://green-oval.com/joomla/index.php in downloads u might just find what ya looking for

[Range Rover Blues]

Depending on the year the viscous fan will need a 32mm or 36 mm spanner, it needs to be flat and cranked to fit in.  I found the spanners for working on my mountain bike were well suited though, I think it's the headset from an old threaded stem and the Shimano adapter for the bottom bracket if that helps.

I have seen 2 trailer light sockets, one being the round type used everywhere ont he car, the second later I think was just a bunch of male spades inside a housing.  Either way nothing stops you cutting it off and using either bullets or spades, or even solder and heatshrink.

[Garth]

Hi Scott

Dont forget the nut on the viscous unit is LH thread.  I use large adjustable spanner and large hammer to "shock" it free with no probs.

Copper Grease, Silicon Grease and WD40 are a must with RRC.

There are quite a few sites based in the US that supply RRC parts but they seem very expensive.  Get your local Auto electrition to cut plug off and hard wire in (or do it your self)

Also look on web and find RRC manual on CD they are very, no a must if you do your own work

[Range Rover Blues]

Here's something i forgot earlier.  Some of yomentioned using copper slip or copper grease, well ideally copper slip is for freous metals and should not be used in aluminium, copper is aftert all another metal and you will get an electrolitic reaction that does not favour the ali.

Instead you should use graphite grease.  Your mission, should you choose to accept it, FIND SOME :roll:

[skucera]

My mission, indeed!  I've never heard of graphite-based anti-seize.  I'll have to ask my mechanical engineers at work.  If they've heard of it, I'm sure they'll know of a source for it.

Scott

[skucera]

My mechanical engineer said that she had heard of graphite-based anti-seize, but then got one of those wry looks like I just shouldn't meddle where I didn't have any right to be.  She pointed me to some Galvanic Index charts on the web that showed that for anything except a saltwater environment I shouldn't worry about using anti-seize between steel bolts and aluminum engine parts.  She pointed out that most anti-seize compounds are made with aluminum anyway, and a few are made with copper, which just isn't galvanically different enough from one metal or the other.  Anti-seize does work to keep bolts from sticking, of course, but it doesn't have anything to do with the galvanic index.  And when she was done I had one of those, "Duh, why didn't I think that through on my own..." realizations that made me glad to have engineers from so many disciplines around the office.

I wrote earlier that my first maintenance task was to replace the water pump.  It turned out I've been driving around on a brand new battery that the seller bought a week before selling it to me because he figured the battery had gone bad.  It hadn't; the alternator was bad instead, so I called him back up, and he felt so bad about it that he gave me $100 back so I could buy a rebuilt alternator.  I put it in last night, and WOW those headlights are bright now with a fully charged battery and a functional alternator.  I'm still looking forward to replacing the water pump, just as soon as I can get my Taurus back together and out of my garage.

Scott

[Skibum346]

My mechanical engineer said that she...

She...  :shock: Now that's progress!  :(biglaugh):  :smack:

Glad it's going well matey!

[Range Rover Blues]

a saltwater environment

That'll be most roads in the UK this winter then :?

[skucera]

You've got me there, since Oregon outlawed road salt decades ago.  (The salt run-off hurt the fish in the streams.  Sportsmen took a dim view of that.)  

Back east, they use salt on the roads.  I've only been back east in the winter twice.  The cars around Toronto had salt stains on their sides, so I could easily call that a saltwater environment.  The cars in Connecticut didn't have salt stains, which lead me to believe that Connecticut just didn't use as much salt on their roads, probably because they didn't need to.  Do your cars end up with a white film on their sides in the winter from the road salt?

Scott

[Range Rover Blues]

You can't leave them that long without a wash TBH, we don't get the extreme cold so it's always damp and salty here, but you do get a white film all over, from the spray of other vehicles and puddles at the roadside, so it even gets all over my engine some weeks.