Ahh, the familiar tingling of fingers that means we are definitely in the
grip of old man winter. As I wait for my battery charger to top off my
batteries, dead from cranking, I figure I'd write up the last few days'
worth of adventure.
I put some newer tires on Valdez, the michelins I was discussing a few days
ago, and I'm quite happy with them. I am still trying to find a spot where
there is snow deep enough to really try them out, but they seem to work
great in three feet deep snow drifts. Here begins the adventure.
We had a really cold night yesterday, around -25 degrees celsius I believe,
and I had an early class so I was stuck driving Valdez at about 6 45 am. I
got in and tried to put the tranny in neutral to start. It felt like I was
shifting a tranny filled with half cured cement. I finally muscled it into
neutral, started the engine, got it into reverse after much cursing, and
backed out into the street. I tried to push the stick sideways to put it in
1st (weird shift pattern, non-rover tranny).
Bloody gearshift broke off in my hands. Dammit.
So, I'm in the middle of the road, truck's in neutral, and I can't move. I
try pushing it, but the axles are filled with the same jello goop that's in
the tranny, partly solid 90wt. I run to the garage in a panic, get a pair of
channel locks, and muscle the stub of a shaft into 1st.
When I swapped the engine, I welded a rover gearshift to the ford lever,
because I wanted to use a stock rover knob and I wanted the shifter to look
"original" to a certain extent. Well, it broke right above the weld,
probably where the hardened gearshift lost its temper, further compounded by
a bit of a weld undercut. Beautiful.
So, I'm trying to shift this stiff as hell stubby knob of a shifter with a
pair of worn out, finger eating, chinese made channel locks, while driving
this cold as hell Land-Rover that doesn't feel like moving one bit.
Excellent way to start off the day. Anyways, that night, 10 bolts and two
6013 rods later, it was fixed forever.
Today, I was on a brief off-road adventure when my clutch started acting up.
The pedal seemed a bit mushy and upon inspection, the fluid was quite low. I
figured that I had sucked in some air, topped it up with fluid, and tried to
bleed the system. Open bleeder as I've so often done, and drip drip drip...
But it stopped there.
Intrigued, am I. Pumping the pedal would move no more fluid. It was as
though the inlet on the master was plugged and not allowing fluid to travel
from the reservoir to the cylinder. Thinking I might have been the victim of
a pocket of moisture or water freezing, I grabbed my propane torch and
slowly heated the casting to try and melt any ice that might have been
obscuring the passage.
That didn't work. So, I finally broke down and rebuilt the master, and found
that the little end seal had swelled up (brake fluid contamination sans
doute, I remember having non correct brake fluid in there for a few days, as
I couldn't find any LMA on the road) and was preventing flow to the
cylinder. Aha.
So, reassemble everything, and it won't start. Pops and kicks, but doesn't
run. Hmm. I immediately think it's just flooded so I crank it with the pedal
floored. It stops popping, and I crank it for a good 30 seconds hoping that
all the gas will evaporate, and the batteries goes kaput. On goes the (two
amp) charger.
One hour later. I look under the hood, and start thinking that it might be
low fuel, the light was on when I started working on it, and I had it idling
to use the heaters for a while. I go get some gas, pour it in. Crank the
batteries flat. No dice.
One hour later, I try it again. Prime it with gas in the carb. Doesn't even
pop. I look around under the hood and find that the coil wire has slipped a
bit and isn't contacting at the coil. I reset it, and it almost starts, but
the batteries (which aren't fully recharged after only 1 hour of charging)
don't have the juice.
One hour later... That's right now. Hope it starts...
So, the two coldest days of the year to date, and I've been crawling around
in my grubbies working on a Land-Rover, outdoors. It's supposed to dip
to -30 tonight. For some reason, this reminds me all too well of being a
kid, working on 30 year old Bombardier snowmobiles in the dead of winter. I
had forgotten how painful frozen fingers are, and how cold steel gets when
it's outside.
Hopefully off for a test drive,
J-L
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