What have you done to your Freelander today

Nodge68 said:

I've done nothing to my FL2 for a couple of weeks, other than look at it in disappointment.
I am planning on getting the diff out this coming week, so I can find out if it's repairable, although I've got to replace the gearbox and clutch, on the daughter's Fiat 500 first.

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Good luck with the diff John. Not really been onlne much over the last few days but I'm sorry to learn of your continued probs with the new motor today. If you need a second pair of hands at any point, drop me a pm. I'm off work until the 19th Jan so I've got a bit of free time.

Filled it with diesel and washed it

charged the battery again.

Fitted the rear view camera that came with my dash cam, and cleaned out the interior

Approved for use

kernowsvenski said:

Good luck with the diff John. Not really been onlne much over the last few days but I'm sorry to learn of your continued probs with the new motor today. If you need a second pair of hands at any point, drop me a pm. I'm off work until the 19th Jan so I've got a bit of free time.

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Thanks James.

If I get stuck, I'll ping you a PM.

I've been working on the Fiat 500 this morning, although I've come inside now, as it's bleeding freezing in the wind.

Started my TD4 rear end refurb. Will be added to previous front end thread, if I can find it!!
Stripped out wheel arch liners and rear interior trim and carpet. I intend to find my fishtank leak while I am at it. Dried out, lined with kitchen roll then will apply hose.
All new sub assemblies constructed and ready.
Intention is to pressure wash underside, let dry, strip all rear end bits off Inc subframe and tank cradle, replace brake lines and re underseal underside then fit new powder coated bits and rebuild with new brakes, bearings, bushes etc.

Will be doing a day or so when I can.

andyfreelandy said:

Started my TD4 rear end refurb. Will be added to previous front end thread, if I can find it!!
Stripped out wheel arch liners and rear interior trim and carpet. I intend to find my fishtank leak while I am at it. Dried out, lined with kitchen roll then will apply hose.
All new sub assemblies constructed and ready.
Intention is to pressure wash underside, let dry, strip all rear end bits off Inc subframe and tank cradle, replace brake lines and re underseal underside then fit new powder coated bits and rebuild with new brakes, bearings, bushes etc.

Will be doing a day or so when I can.

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You're definitely building the kind of FL I would like to own. I'd love to do a nut and bolt rebuild and go to town with the standards that you're employing.

The good benefit is that I am replacing old screws and clips with stainless or plated ones so when I come to do a simple job later it stays simple!!

Just ordered a can of waxoyl to fill sills and box sections while I am underneath!!

Bit of rust here and there, nothing that won't kill and be resprayed with underseal.

Purchased another one in November to use as spares for my main one, once I had it home I had a good look around it and decided that it could be worth saving, so that is what I have done, put it through the MOT today and it passed with just 2 advisories, 13 moths MOT on it now, just need to fit the new drive shaft joint as it knocks a little then I will be moving it on.

Not today but earlier this week when we had some snow warnings. Put the snow and mud boots on. Which is probably why the snow in the South West was so disappointing.

These only go on in the winter because the road noise is just too annoying.

Wonk said:

Not today but earlier this week when we had some snow warnings. Put the snow and mud boots on. Which is probably why the snow in the South West was so disappointing.

These only go on in the winter because the road noise is just too annoying.

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I've been driving Freelanders for a decade in all weather conditions, and never needed anything other than M&S rated normal tyres. No noise, no messing, slipping, not spare wheels hanging about.

Nodge68 said:

I've been driving Freelanders for a decade in all weather conditions, and never needed anything other than M&S rated normal tyres. No noise, no messing, slipping, not spare wheels hanging about.

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These look mean though. Also that they are also cheap retreads was quite a big factor in why I have them over something more reasonable.

Good job @Wonk - I always think "proper" tyres transform the look of a landorver, particularly the freelander, which is often maligned as the "gaylander" or epitomised as a hairdressers fagwagon, it's nice to have the right tyres on them and "put them to work" once in a while. I always try and keep my landies as "toys" as in not a high mileage daily driver, working on the principle that if I wanted a premium family car experience, I'd drive a premium family car, if I wanted a sports car experience I'd drive a sports car, but I'm driving a land rover so I want a land rover experience, and to me that means a vehicle that can go anywhere, and the tyre noise is just a reminder that it can indeed do that. Were I racking up 20,000 miles a year in the thing it would make no sense to have it on off road tyres on endless motorway miles, but if I'm doing long haul stuff I'll take the BMW 635d or the Citroen C5, if I'm going to the woods, or the beach, I'll take one of the landies.

Heres a pic of our "his and hers" landies on the drive way a few years ago, we've since sold, and regret selling, the 300tdi discovery in that picture, but note both are wearing "proper" tyres:

Not exactly "hat have I done on the freelander today, more what I've done at the the workshop today to make it easier to do stuff to the freelander tomorrow...

I got my two poster from a garage that was closing down, but it's a 3.5tonner, and with it being an asymetrical arm type of ramp, and geared for vans and minibusses, it ended up coming with ridiculously long arms on it, meaning on short wheelbase vehicles it was aye a challenge to get the vehicle in a sweetspot where the pads could land on the vehicles jacking points. And with the ongoing investigations into the freelander's lack of boost being an ongoing saga with lots of up, down, into the workshop, out for a test drive, back on to the ramp, this was really starting to grate on my nerves. And today when I went to put it on the ramp to pressure test the hard boost pipe that runs around the back of the engine, and had "missed" the position for the pads, the temper flared up, the landy got kicked out, and the heavy tools were brought to bare:

First move. sliced off the locking tabs to allow me to separate the inner and outer arm:


Next step, cut the back five inches off the inner arm:


Which as you can see here allowed it to go further back in to the outer arm:


The inner arm was then cut square at a reduced length (28.5") and hole drilled and tapped to screw in a locking bolt to prevent over extension fo the arm:


I then cut off the shims from the inner arms, and the offcuts there off, and replaced the short shim in the first pic on the inner arm with the longer shim from the offcut to increase contact area, although I put the phone away at this point for its own safety. Afterwards the shortened inner arm with the longer shim pad was inserted to the shortened outer arm, and captured by the lock bolt which catches the forward edge of that shim before the arm is overextended.

Following a massive tidy up, putting away the grinders + chop saw + welder + tapes + scribes + squares + PPE + extensions + discs etc... I then function tested it by bringing the freelander back in, and attempting to lift it. It was an order of magnitude easier to get the pads on the cars jacking points, so the ramp is definitely vastly improved by this modification, and the vehicle is now lifted:

There is a story to the BFG AT's on the hippo just now, "Missus Jay" kerbed the heck out of them when they were on her disco, fracking thing looked like a fifties caddy on sidewalls, my hippo usually runs kumho KL71's, but I acquired another set of hippo 16" rims, so replaced her AT's, put her old AT's on my hippo's new "summer wheels", which is what you see there. I've already put the socket on the rack-rack gun, and I've got the KL71's downstairs ready to fit, I might to that tomorrow, might wait till I get to the bottom of this turbo issue.

And you'll see hoses and gauges and stuff lined up ready for pressure testing tomorrow...


So tomorrow is when I'll do stuff to the freelander, but today's activities certainly made it easier to do these things. Given the amount of test drives that have been done, and the kerfuffle it was to get dead on that sweetspot for the ramp, if I'd done this modification before starting working on the hippo, I'd have had the damned thing fixed by now.

Drove it in a very modest covering of snow.

kernowsvenski said:

Drove it in a very modest covering of snow.

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We only got a few flakes, but I could see it was showing more heavily down your way.
Maybe we'll get some tonight, although with the FL2 off the road, I can't play in it.

Nothing. Happy New Year

Now I've finished replacing the clutch and gearbox on the daughter's Fiat 500, and had a couple of day's off cars.

So today I made a start on getting the failed rear diff out the FL2.
I got it up on stands, and took a general look at what tools I needed, before the heavens opened and called off play for today.

So I retired to my cold workshop and continued with the drive coupling for Ali's FL1 EV project instead.

I was thinking about this, your daughter only got that car recently, like easter time if I mnd correctly? So what's she done to it to need a clutch and a gearbox? Might need to "have a word" with her...