I've started doing a few jobs seeing as it is Christmas and all good Christmases are spent beneath a Land Rover. On checking the propshaft, there does appear to be a little slack, which may have been contributing to the clunk on drive take-up and the noise and vibration on overrun. So I've got another to go on. This one is usefully designed - there are arrows indicating optimal alignment, and a grease nipple in the end of the bearing cups:
View attachment 196848 The arrows haven't shown up too well in the photo, but you get the idea.
I'm trying to get my centre difflock mechanism to work again. Here, you can see I've renewed most of it:
View attachment 196853
All the holes were slightly oval, so new levers and links and new top hat washers mean that the little tab on the transfer case now moves enough to select centre diff lock. But no warning light. Investigation reveals that the switch doesn't operate until the button is depressed right into its housing and even then it retains about 10 ohms of resistance. Maybe not low enough to light the light. Shorting out the pins on the multiplug with a split pin off the handbrake mechanism illuminates the light, so it must be a switch problem. It doesn't look like it is serviceable, so I've ordered a new one. Sadly it won't come 'til after Christmas. I'm also renewing as much of the windscreen wiper system as I can. New wheelboxes and spindles have arrived:
View attachment 196855 Imagine my sadness on opening the packaging and discovering they were in Britpart boxes. However, they seem well equipped, as they come complete with outer rubber seals and those funny laminate washers where they go through the bulkhead. They've got a much stronger fixing between the gear wheel and spindle:
View attachment 196859
There is actually a couple of dollops of weld on there. Maybe this will put an end to the tragedy of the gears slipping on the spindles. The other critical issue that kills Land Rover wipers is the way the rack tries to jump a tooth on the gear and succeeds in jamming the wipers mid-screen. Then the park switch continues to supply current to the stalled motor until the coils are completely baked, whereupon the fuse blows. So that bit of curved sheet metal above the gear has to be bent to Angstrom precision to prevent that happening. I'm supposed to be getting a new motor and rack today but it's getting late and with each passing minute the likelihood of a delivery declines further. Anyway, I've got the wheelboxes in position which is the fiddly bit, so if the motor arrives all I have to do is poke the rack into the tube, screw its clip around it and plug it in.
