Monthly Archives: January 2018

The first 1,000 miles

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The first thousand miles after a frame-off restoration are important. This is when you find the inevitable small (and our case, large) things that need “sorting out,” as the Brits say. Mr. Wolf has finally been able to do this kind of diagnostic driving.

Drove the Rover a bit this weekend, and it was quite enjoyable. Next will be hooking the brake booster backup and fine tuning the brake shoe adjustments. Still waiting on the replacement filler neck hose. (The exhaust is) pretty darn good, I think we’re within the normal range now. A bit of smoking for 30 seconds or so after a cold start, then a regular amount for a healthy diesel in normal driving. Cold starts as still a little labored, but I want to get fresh glow plugs in it before I make a decision there. The “direct replacement” glow plugs I bought for it before didn’t fit, need to track down the right ones.

This process is critical and something most owners do themselves (I assume). Given what this truck cost, one might argue it should have been part of the restoration but that’s fluid through the crankcase. I’m fortunate to have Mr. Wolf to find and fix these things.

GoPro Camera

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As far back as Taxicab Confessions I remember wondering what sort of little cameras they used to get the candid video. Not GoPro cameras. In-car video has become common (Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee, Carpool Karaoke, etc) but I’d be surprised if they were using these tiny, inexpensive cameras.

I thought it might be fun to keep one of these in the Land Rover. (Don’t ask me why. If I knew when I hit the buy button it has escaped me now.) I’ve always been impressed by the quality of the videos folks got with these and propping up my iPhone never worked the well for me. The GoPro is well designed for this task.

These are really pretty amazing. I can control the camera with an app on my iPhone or even configure for voice commands. In the next few days I want to try the looping feature which is — I assume — how people get all the insane dash-cam videos.

A few people have pointed out the camera angle is too low. No doubt. The Land Rover will have many more placement options.

Living off-grid in the UK

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When I hear that term I tend to picture two extremes; Ted Kaczynski and Christopher McCandless on one end of the spectrum and well-funded hipsters who build forty thousand dollar cabins where they spend the weekend when it’s not too cold.

For the past week I’ve been watching a series of videos produced by a chap who goes by the pseudonym of Max Ironthumper. Max made a couple dozen videos showing how he restored an old Land Rover (11a). I’ve been addicted to Land Rover porn for the last six months and was immediately hooked by Max’s laid back style and can-do attitude. (Two attributes I admire and covet)

While poking around on Max’s YouTube channel I came across this video (above) in which he talks about how and why he lives off the grid. There’s nothing evangelical about Max’s reasons for how he lives, just an honest account of how he does it. I don’t know if Max lives alone. In one of the restoration videos he mentioned a partner and we get a few glimpses of his dog, his cat, and his chickens.

From a technical perspective, this video is especially effective. For 20 minutes Max speaks extemporaneously with only a few notes. That’s really hard to do but Max has the gift. He’s not afraid to let you see him pause, to think and reflect on something he said or is about to say. I’m making Max sound more philosophical than he probably is. And there’s plenty of technical stuff in this video for the DIY crowd.

I’d be willing to fly across an ocean for the chance to hang out with Max in his shop for a day (and ride in one of his Land Rovers).

PS: If you liked this video, I recommend Project Awesome.

Land Rover restoration – Part 1

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The video above is the first in a series of 24 (?) chronicling the restoration of a Series IIa Land Rover. The gent doing the restoration — Maximus Ironthumper — describes himself as “a blacksmith living off the grid.”

Let me say up front, I don’t expect anyone to watch these. The series is just a good example of something I think we’ve come to take for granted. In a pre-YouTube world we would never have been able to watch this amazing process. No cable channel would have produced something this… real. This gritty and honest. YouTube has become my go-to source for entertainment and information.

With cable and network television, someone else decides what you get to watch. On YouTube, you decide.

Towing

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I’m not a trailer hitch kind of guy. With the exception of the 4 Runner, I’ve never owned a car with enough power to pull a trailer. So, no trailer hitch. In the early 80s I rented a small U-Haul trailer and towed it from Albuquerque to Missouri behind my Plymouth Duster (6 cylinder), stopping every hundred miles or so to let the engine cool down. I kept waiting for the temporary trailer hitch the U-Haul guy bolted on to come loose.

No, I’ve gotten by fine without towing stuff behind my vehicles. And backing up a trailer always looked like a Dark Art to me. But I’ve been told on several occasions in the last six months that my little 4-cylinder Land Rover is quite capable of towing. I didn’t really believe this until I saw this video by a guy who calls himself Maximus Ironthumper.

According to his YouTube channel, he’s “a blacksmith living off the grid.” And he restored a beautiful Series II truck as a companion vehicle to his motorcycle so he “can haul stuff to and from the junkyard.”

I don’t know what I might haul but after watching this I’m open to the idea of a trailer. Stay tuned.

Land Rover: Problem with fuel line

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After a lifetime of pumping gasoline into my cars, I’ll have to remember to pull up to the diesel pump. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to have a little reminder like the one in the photo below (not my truck).

In order to add this little badge, Mr. Wolf had to remove a cowling inside the tub of the the truck.

“I am glad you sent me that Diesel Only emblem to install under the filler neck, because installing it meant I had to remove the cowling inside the truck that covers the filler neck, and when I removed it I found that where the rubber hose that connects the filler neck to the tank goes through the floor of the truck, the hose was pressed up against the edge of the opening, cutting into the hose. Then further down toward the tank the hose was severely kinked, which explains why I had such a hard time filling it with diesel the one time I fueled it up. Also, there was no gasket between the metal filler neck and the body. I can’t find one in any parts diagram, so maybe there wasn’t one originally, but I could see this being a water ingress point, so I am going to make a gasket for it.”

This is my first experience with a frame-off restoration but there sure seems to have been a lot of little (?) mistakes like this. All’s well that ends well.

1996 F355 Ferrari Challenge

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“1996 Ferrari F355 Challenge. Factory built race car, non street legal. So naturally I drove it down from San Francisco today. I’m doing some fettling to bring it up to par then selling it.”

“In 1995, Ferrari introduced a race-ready F355 Challenge model for use specifically in the Ferrari Challenge. The Ferrari F355 Challenge model was created by starting with a standard Ferrari F355 Berlinetta model and modifying it with a $30,000 factory-to-dealer supplied kit. The initial 1995 cars came with cage mounts factory fitted and carpets removed, each year the cars arrived with more and more race parts factory fitted, culminating in 1998 with full-evolution cars which were supplied as virtually complete race cars though parts such as the rear wing still needed to be fitted.” (Wikipedia)

PS: To illustrate just how small a world it is, this from my friend Andrew: “I rode in a Ferrari challenge car this week. Didn’t drive it cause I didn’t have $330,000 to replace it. But it was amazing. Pure 100% race car. I bet Mr Wolf has been to the track I was at in Arizona.”

What are the odds that I’d be acquainted with two people who were in one of these cars in the same week?

A world without jobs

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This article is way too long for anyone with a job to read. So here are a few nuggets:

“Work is … how we give our lives meaning when religion, party politics and community fall away.”

Whether you look at a screen all day, or sell other underpaid people goods they can’t afford, more and more work feels pointless or even socially damaging – what the American anthropologist David Graeber called “bullshit jobs”

“I do think there is a fear of freedom – a fear among the powerful that people might find something better to do than create profits for capitalism.”

As all such articles do, this one mentioned UBI (Universal Basic Income). I don’t know if that’s a good idea or not. But I can almost imagine a world in which — for whatever reasons — there are just a whole bunch of people without jobs. And I can only see two options for dealing with them: Let them starve or provide them with food and shelter. Some way, somehow. I’m counting on smarter people to come up with more options.