Update: 3/30/08 7:00pm
After a very long week we took some of today to work on the Rover ....brakes specifically.
Here is some background of when we picked up the car (long story but worth reading):
The previous owner purchased the car at a local charity auction for a friend. Turned out the friend never had the money to purchase the car so he put the car up for sale. He said that the rear brakes were locked up, and the more you drive it the worse it gets. We figured it would be the rear proportioning valve that failed. On our way down to South Jersey we came prepared with a car full of tools, air compressor, new rear rotors, new pads, new proportioning valve, we even have brake lines and plugs to bypass the abs module if that were to be the problem. We were prepared nonetheless and we WERE going take this car home.
After taking one look under the car, it literally looked like new...we were sold. We got to work, we noticed that the brake cable was frozen. Unfortunately that was not the main problem. After digging deeper we found out that not just the rears were frozen, but the fronts as well. At this point we were very frustrated and were on the verge of giving up. With time being a factor we really needed to get the truck back to NH and could not afford to give up another weekend to travel to South Jersey.
We tried bleeding the brakes ...strange thing was that brake fluid kept coming out! Like someone was stepping on the brake pedal all the time. Next we bled out the master. Pressure released and the car rolled back a few inches! We were siked for sure. The car rolled freely and we were on our way. A few miles up the road the brakes started to get tight again. We bled out the master once again and that fixed the problem ...temporarily. This should make for an interesting ride home. It is amazing how you can drive on the highway and rarely hit the brakes.
We made it to Mass just about to enter the off ramp to 495, then the inevitable happened...NO BRAKES!!!!! Yea scary for sure. Doug managed to downshift with the automatic and safely come to a stop in the break down lane. A cop was up ahead and called us a flat bed.
What happened was the driver side front brake was dragging and wore through the pad to the point where the piston was acting like the pad and eventually wore down so much that it popped out of the caliper! Here are the pics of the carnage we found today.
Passenger side front
We have a used master cylinder from a Discovery that we will be swapping in and ditching the ABS system, which is problematic and expensive to fix on these trucks.
Update: 4/8/08 11:00pm
The rover is almost ready for the road! We will be getting a new caliper in tomorrow morning and it will be good to go. The new master and custom brake lines are fabbed up and installed.
There was a huge amount of play in the steering wheel do to a bad joint that had a bushing that was half missing. It turns out that Land Rover does not just sell the bushing, you have to buy the whole assembly which runs over $400! We passed on that one and decided to make our own. One of the technicians at the dealer gave us a later model shaft and joint, and we fabbed it up to work.
The old joint and half missing bushing
What was left of the bushing after pulling the joint apart
Newer style setup, we will be using the center section
Forgot to take a picture of it all together outside of the car...here it is welded and installed
Update: 5/17/08 8:00pm
Rover's first tow! it went awesome, could not ask for a nicer tow vehicle. It is hard to tell you are even towing a car unless you look in the rear view.
|
dealer. 
