Cruising Speed

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When the topic of Series Land Rovers comes up (almost never) someone is sure to point out the trucks are a little hard to drive, they’re noisy, and they’re slow. Top speed around 55 mph.

Last night Mr. Wolf shared this photo of my truck’s speedometer cruising nicely at 50 mph. I’m hoping to hear more about how the car handled on the highway and I’ll update this post. One more thing almost everyone says about Series Land Rovers: They are fun to drive. Again, Mr. Wolf:

On two separate occasions someone slowed from 80 mph, moved all the way over from the fast lane to pull up next to me and give a very emphatic thumbs up. First one was a Porsche Cayenne Turbo, second one was a Tesla Model S P90D

This sounds like he was on the freeway — something I won’t be doing — but nice to know the truck can cruise at a decent speed.

Road Test

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The Rover gets its first real road test today when Mr. Wolf drives it down to San Jose (40 miles). Doubt he’ll be on the freeway but doubt traffic on secondary roads is much slower. Eagerly await his report. A brief summary of latest fixes:

  • The front leaf spring shackles were assembled incorrectly, and without any grease. This was allowing the front springs to shift laterally, making the steering sloppy and causing an occasional clunk. Greased and reassembled.
  • Britpart steering damper that came on the truck was faulty, at times not damping at all, at other times binding. The truck is driving great without it right now, but I should probably put a new one on there.
  • The filler neck. (long story)
  • The odometer rolled over 600 km yesterday, so I gave it an oil change. Note: it holds 9 quarts, not 7 like the manual says. I think it has an extra large filter housing.
  • I think I finally solved all of the brake issues. The final piece of the puzzle was pulling the master cylinder and shortening the booster pushrod. It was adjusted much too long, not allowing fluid to come back into the master cylinder.

If you’ve been following this story you might be wondering about the quality of the restoration. And rightly so. I was warned from the beginning that a nuts-and-bolts, frame-off restoration isn’t the end of the process. There will be problems that just can’t be spotted until you put some kilometers on the truck. That said, Mr. Wolf has found a lot of careless mistakes. And he’s fixed them. He’s still fixing them.

Buying a restored vintage vehicle is risky business. Even more so if you have zero experience. My salvation has been having someone who can spot and fix the problems. By the time my truck is done I’m confident it will be as close to perfect as a 40 year old truck can be.

Would I do this again, knowing all that I know now? I would. If you are in a hurry and easily pissed off… this isn’t the route for you. And if my new/old Land Rover stops running a week after I get it, I’ll sit in it and drink beer in the back yard.

Age of Offlining

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Another thought-provoking post from David Cain. Once again he perfectly articulates a feeling (can you articulate a feeling?) I’ve had for some time. Like his take on social media: The phrase “social media” itself has become mostly pejorative, code for time-wasting habits, superficial relationships, and the mob mentality.

It’s become too much. Way too much “online.” But I think a shift is happening. It’s becoming more obvious that always-on connectivity is having some serious side effects on our minds and our society. More of us want less internet. […] I think, or maybe just hope, we’re on the cusp of an “Age of Offlining,” an era characterized by a conscious mass departure from using the internet in such reflexive, uncontrolled ways.

Internet connectivity will always be a vital part of our infrastructure, but its services don’t need to be hyper-connected and endlessly distracting. […] I want to go down to the basement after work, put my messages and my writings into the box, take other people’s messages and writings out, and read them in my easy chair. And I want a big mechanical switch to shut it all off when I’m done with it.

I’ve been hearing versions of this from some of the most thoughtful people I know.

Four chords: High School Heart Ache

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I came across a video showing how most pop songs are made with the same four chords. This got me wondering which chords go together so I asked my ukelele mentor, Professor Peter. Knowing my musical limitations, he dumbed it way down. If you want a 4 chord group:

A, F#m, D, E(7) – or
G, Em, C, D(7) – or
F, Dm, Bb, C(7)- or
C, Am, F, G(7)

When I started noodling around with these I noticed each group sounded like every teenage tragedy song from the early 60’s so I started jotting down high school memories. A quick, stream of consciousness list: high school cafeteria; AM radio; drag racing; orange vodka and cherry slo gin; fake IDs; 3.2 beer; drive-in movies; etc. I plugged ’em into C-Am-F-G7 and came up with three verses in search of a chorus.

The cool kids table in school lunch room
The A-M radio, playin’ our tunes
They put my jockstrap on my head
You go too fast, you wind up dead

Some orange vodka after the prom
Passed geometry with help from mom
My buddy Jimmy had a fake ID
But three-two beer was good enough for me

Too hot to neck at the local drive-in
Wasted money on the cherry slo gin
Suzie’s footprints on the dash of my car
You can leave but you can’t go far

I’ll cast these crumbs upon the water in hopes that someone will come up with the chorus.

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 (Max Ironthumper)

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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.