FRANK ELSON
Talking Frankly
“Before I knew it I had been roped in to get dirty and lose odd bits of skin from some of my knuckles”
Nearly 30 years ago, when I rebuilt my 1972 Range Rover Classic, OSM 400M, I added power steering to the vehicle. Over the last month I’ve done it again, not to the same motor, of course!
An old mate called round to show me the 1973 Classic he had just bought, it had been rebuilt by a classic car specialist and it cost more than most of the houses I have bought in my life.
It’s absolutely immaculate, looks and feels like it’s just come out of the showroom and I would be very envious if it wasn’t for the fact that he hasn’t got LPG, an automatic gearbox or four doors. Oh, and it doesn’t have power steering, either.
Of course, I had to go and open my big mouth and before I knew it I had been roped in to get dirty and lose odd bits of skin from some of my knuckles.
First, as Mrs Beaton might have written, find your power steering box. And there it was, all nicely attached to a late 1970s Range Rover in a breaker’s yard. We had to get it out ourselves which was fine by me because there’s a whole load of other stuff you need as well as the gearbox itself. We took the box, pump, reservoir, pipes, drive belt, engine pulley (it’s bigger – stands to reason if you think about it) and all of the bolts.
We also got all of the brackets – I well remember the headache when we hadn’t got those when I did mine.
We also went out and bought a new drop arm, ball joint and belt – I do enjoy spending someone else’s money! And then my pal, who doesn’t want to be identified in LRM, sent the gearbox away for reconditioning. I wasn’t keen on the very old pipes, either, so he had them done by a company that handles hydraulics for plant.
Our (read my, he’s no mechanic) first job was to mount the reservoir on the inner, nearside wing. It’s a simple two-nut-and-bolt job using holes that were already there.
Next, I replaced the standard single pulley with the larger, double pulley we took off the breaker. When we did mine all those years ago the nut holding the pulley on had to be chiselled off. These days I have the right size socket. Then I fed the nice new shiny pipes over to the general area where the box would go. It’s fairly obvious where they went as I had kept the old pipes that still had the brackets on. And the bolts, because these go into the water pump and are longer than the ones I was taking out.
Changing the drop arm and ball joint is just one of those jobs that takes care and patience – oh, and a bit of youth would be nice as the pensioner me was well cream-crackered when I’d finished.
Replacing the box, on the other hand, can be a b***** unless you have a recently-rebuilt car with all new bolts – oh, we had! It’s a four-bolt job, using the same holes through the chassis as the old one, but they’re longer. I had taken them off our donor and given them a right good do on the wire wheel so it was a nicely straightforward job.
I fitted the pipes to the box, before using the brackets I took from the donor and pop riveted them to the chassis crossmember so they didn’t move around. Then I filled the reservoir with auto fluid, started the engine up and twirled the steering wheel back and forth a handful of times before topping it up.
Down off the axle stands and a nice slow bumble around the yard, using the steering a lot, of course. Then, we opened it up for another possible top up but it needed nothing. I sent him home with instructions to come back the next day so I could check it again... Yes, I’m paranoid about fluid levels
Do you know? I really enjoyed myself !
My beloved Marjorie says that it’s somehow my fault that we meet all sorts of strange people on our travels. We got talking to a couple in a hotel lounge just the other day and, of course, the subject of Land Rovers and Range Rovers came up.
It turned out our new-found friends had once owned one. “I had one of the first Range Rover Discoverys ever made,” we were told. “I bet you didn’t know that they were built in Japan, did you?” he added. We quickly made our excuses and left.
At my age I doubt very much if I will still be around, or at least dribbling not driving, when the latest idea from the silly politicians of banning the sale of all-new diesel and petrol cars by 2040 in a bid to encourage people to switch to electric and hybrid vehicles, happens. Not that I think it will happen anyway, for lots of reasons.
However, I am rather interested in what they mean by hybrid vehicles. I drive a hybrid. My L322 Range Rover runs on petrol and LPG – and at 53 pence per litre I’m very happy about that.
So, will LPG start to become popular again ?
Frank has been involved with Land Rovers for more years than he cares to remember. These days he drives an L322 Range Rover