That might be the first thing I heard about Land Rovers when I started searching for one. If it’s not leaking, your fluids are low” is the oft-told joke. Rover Sage Charlie Pendleton advised, “If the leak is the size of a half-dollar, I don’t worry about it. If it’s the size of a grapefruit or larger, I track it down and fix it.” A few weeks back my truck developed a grapefruit size leak. This week George Tergin tracked it own and (fingers crossed) fixed it.

My rebuilt engine originally had a turbocharger. I had them take it off before installing my engine because it would have necessitated some work on the transmission I didn’t want to do (have done). And I was confident I didn’t need to achieve highway speeds. Anyway…

The turbocharger gets its oil from a hole in the engine block. That had to be capped off. In my case, the cap was a little too long and didn’t thread all the way down on the… plug gizmo? Looks like they might have put some goop in the cap to improve the seal and it held for six months before starting to leak.

George got a new cap and then did some surgery on it to properly cap the gusher. Still have some half-dollar leaks but George is determined to track ’em down.

Update 4/12/19: The Big Leak is no more.

[Update at bottom of post]

Took the Land Rover in to have a brake light replaced. While chugging along at about 50 mph, the truck went from sounding like a big old diesel truck to sounding like one of those gigantic earth movers. Something wrong. Since I was almost to the shop I kept going.

Remember that leak from the exhaust manifold?

The exhaust pipe broke away from the manifold and was dangling from the chassis. Like so many things with my truck, this just wasn’t done right the first time. But George was well on his way to doing it right. Parts ordered. He knows what needs to be done and who will do it. So in a week or two I’ll have a brand new exhaust system that should improve overall performance.

24 hours later. Parts arrived and George met with the muffler pros and explained what he wanted to do. They quickly put together this mock-up to see if everything fits.

The new, thicker flange came threaded. Not what we need so George drilled ’em.

The rebuilt engine in my truck is from a 1994 Discovery (European). People put them in old Land Rovers all the time (or so I’ve been told) but I don’t see how. In the photo below George is cutting off the end of a bolt in an effort to gain a precious half-inch of clearance between the exhaust pipe and part of the steering mechanism. He’ll make it work, with the help of a very talented exhaust guy named Henry.

Dr. Tergin discovered a leak (red oval) where the exhaust manifold connects to the exhaust pipe. This rebuilt 300Tdi engine was supposed to have a turbocharger but there simply wasn’t room and I knew I wasn’t planning to do the sort of driving that needed the turbo. It was still a bitch to get the exhaust system connected. And it appears somebody sort of skimped on the Turbine Inlet Flange (red arrow). George will have Andy Cain at Capital Machine fabricate a most excellent flange and then make some improvements to the exhaust system. Larger diameter exhaust for starters and we’ll probably do away with the muffler altogether since there’s general agreement the truck could not possibly be any louder.

UPDATE (February 22, 2019): Spent a few more hours with George at Tergin Motors today and finished up the first service on the Land Rover. I hesitate to call this a “service” because George was so exhaustive (in a good way) in going over the truck front-to-back. All told, more than 20 hours over the three days and he let me watch every minute. This was not some wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am GoofyLube service. George approached this like it was his own truck and along with the routine maintenance, he found some stuff that wasn’t done right during the restoration (go figure) and could have been big problems down the road.

I’m confident the truck is now in the best shape it has been since it rolled off the assembly line in Spain back in 1979. We’ll do follow-up inspection but the truck is already driving better.

What started out as a routine service has turned out to be more like a visit to Mayo Clinic. But in a good way. Several times today George exclaimed, “Oh shit!” as he found several things that were done poorly by the people that did the original restoration. Something of a regular occurrence.

We drained and filled the front and rear diffs as well as the front swivel joints.
While I pumped (I’m now an expert), George patiently and carefully fixed each problem. He took the leaky rear wheel apart — right down to the axel — and replaced seals.

We should finish up tomorrow and then we’ll follow up on the transmission/transfer box issue. Do we have a bad seal between the two or was it a matter of having the wrong gear lube, improperly filled. Stay tuned.

UPDATE February 19, 2019: Yesterday we drained transmission and transfer case (the transmission was very low on fluid) and refilled with the correct fluid. Wow, what a difference. Shifting gears now much quieter and feels almost ‘silky.’ Still have to do the diffs and there’s an issue with a leaky seal in one of the wheels. George Tergin did the work but I’m proud to report  got some transmission fluid in my hair.

Coming up on six months since I took delivery of the Land Rover. Even as my daily driver I’ve only put 5,333 km (3,313 mi) on the truck so it really isn’t due (according to the manual) for a service until 10,000 km. But my mechanic pal George had a rare open window so we pulled it into his shop yesterday for a service and check up.

Those of a certain age will remember servicing your car every 3,000 miles. I think that’s frequency we’re gonna shoot for. Should work out to every six months and more often is more better.

George is a meticulous mechanic. No detail too small to examine. Probably spent half an hour just on the oil pan drain plug. It was my dime so I instructed him to pretend he was working on his own vehicle.

The truck has an oil bath air filter and Philippe must have been double-jointed to make it fit with the newer engine. Once George got it out he explained how it worked. Simple yet effective technology.

Replacing oil filter and fuel filter was pretty straight forward. The lubricant level in the front differential was little low so we topped that off.

We hit a snag while checking level on the transfer case. I won’t bore you with details but it seems like the kind of thing the guys at JiffyLube might have missed. George is doing more research so the truck remains in his shop for a bit. Just the eventuality that prompted me to add the pickup to my fleet.

All in all a fun day. Having watched George I think I could probably change the oil and filters on the truck but I doubt I will. Much more fun — and educational — to do it with George.