FRANK ELSON

Talking Frankly

“I’d like to draw a veil over removing the relay, but that’s hardly the point of writing in a Land Rover magazine”

It’s been one of those months when I’ve spent more time in overalls than out of them.

It all started when Pete called. He has an elderly Freelander and was partway through an oil change when he found that neither of the three oil filter removing tools he had would fit.

I sorted through my garage and came up with four of my own so I took them round to his place. None of those fitted either.

There is an old method we used many years ago, which is to hammer a screwdriver through the filter casing and use that to unscrew it. It’s messy, and sometimes the canister, if it’s made of very thin metal, will twist instead of undoing.

I was still lying underneath the vehicle while he went to find a screwdriver and hammer and, for want of anything else to do, I grasped the filter with both hands and tried to turn it. Yep, you guessed, it came undone in my hands! I suppose the moral of that story is to try the simple things first.

I have written many words over the years telling manufacturers not to use plastic coating. And if ever there was a case to prove my point, I was at a friend’s house when he was trying to clean up a roof rack that had been coated in this spawn of the devil.

The rust had got inside the plastic and spread. In a few places it was starting to come off so he had started to strip it down. It’s easy where the rust is, but he was struggling elsewhere.

The only way to remove it is to burn and then scrape. It took two of us a whole day and two canisters of gas on a hand-held gas gun. When I left him he was finishing off with a wire brush on an electric drill.

“I’ve read what you said about this many times, but now I know what you mean,” he muttered.

Part of my fence blew down in the recent gales. Repairing it was a lot harder than putting it up because since then we’ve built my garage, leaving me with just an 18-inch gap to work in.

Isn’t that metal shelving support that rhymes with ‘exion’ useful stuff? It even repairs fences. Anyway, part way through the job, just after I chop a chunk of flesh out of one finger, the phone rings. The caller, who will remain anonymous to spare his blushes – yes you all know him – was not on Marjorie’s list of favourite people when she came home later to find blood on the handle of every door as I had clambered through the house to find the phone and then relocate to my PC so I could answer his query.

“So, is there anything I should know about changing the steering relay? It looks like a fairly simple job to me,” said George who has been gradually rebuilding a Series II over the past six months.

“Er...,” I replied. Okay, so half of you, I’m guessing, have just dropped this magazine and are sitting there with your head in your hands. I know, I know, but what else could I do ? I threw the overalls in the back of my Rangie and went round to his lock-up.

First off I made it clear that we were not going to get this done in a day (while I’m actually thinking if at all), before pouring a mug full of diesel over the whole thing – best releasing oil ever, by the way.

We removed the steering arms, top and bottom, then attacked the four bolts that hold the lower collar. This only took three hours and two cups of coffee – that, I think ladies and gentleman, may be a record.

I’d like to draw a veil over removing the two bolts that go through the relay, but that’s hardly the point of writing in a Land Rover magazine is it? So eventually with ‘stillys’, a wire brush, six-and-a-half different spanners ( bit of humour there), ƒ- drive sockets and my ‘Big Bertha’ breaker bar (I had to go back home to get that) we got them out.

Bill Jones once hung his Lightweight from a beam in his barn and used his biggest sledge hammer to get a relay out, another friend cut the chassis and welded a new piece in, but we could do neither of those so...

I got my huge truck jack and a large metal ring and jacked up the front of the motor, so that the whole weight was taken up by the relay. We then battered the chassis round the relay until we were cream-crackered and couldn’t hold the sledge any longer. And then we left it, with orders to George to keep soaking it in diesel for a couple of days.

Three, yes three, days later I went over for round two. There was George, holding in his hand a big lump of rust that looked vaguely like a Land Rover steering relay. “I came to it ten minutes ago, tapped it once and it just dropped out,” he grinned.

After we’d cleaned up the hole and were about to put the new one in he baulked at the half a tin of copper grease I wanted to use. “It’s not as if we’ll ever want to take this one out is it?”

I really, really, really, hope not, George.

Frank has been involved with Land Rovers for more years than he cares to remember. These days he drives an L322 Range Rover