Bin the grim trim
James junks some of the Rangie’s nasty accessories, only to find even nastier corrosion festering beneath
The Range Rover was festooned with various period nasties such as metal light guards and a bull bar when I bought it. I threw the latter away early on, but the brackets for the rear light guards were still in place. I wanted them off.
Those brackets are made of a hard rubber material, and bolt through the bodywork. The one on the left came off as planned, and I plugged the holes in the bodywork with rubber bungs. However, the bottom bolt on the righthand one put up a fight and revealed a horror when it finally came off – bubbling rust around the drilled hole. Inevitably, tentative prodding duly revealed a second, larger hole.
I confess to uttering some bad language about the design of those light guards; drilling holes in steel bodywork just where the rear wheels throw up spray and muck really isn’t a great idea.
I’ve rust-proofed and undercoated it to protect what’s left of the metal for now and also filled the hole and done a quick touch-in spray, but it’s not a job I’m particularly proud of.
That apart, the Range Rover remains great fun. My theory that the lowspeed cutting out was down to a faulty coil seems to have been proven correct because that problem now seems to have gone away. However, there’s now an ABS warning light on, which means a trip to a specialist.
It’s probably a faulty wheel sensor, which is a straightforward workshop job to change. But since diagnostic equipment is needed to find out which
’Removing the bolt revealed bubbling rust around the drilled hole’
one is at fault, and then make sure everything is okay afterwards, I’m not going to tackle this myself. I’ll let you know how it goes!