MY TOP 5 WORST JOBS

I’m not easily frightened, but there are a few jobs on old Land Rovers I don’t enjoy. Here are my top five:

1. Steering relay (Series vehicles): Firstly the radiator panel has to come out. All the bolts will be rusted solid. the wiring harness that runs under the top of the panel will be bodged together with Scotchlocks and sticky tape. the steering arms will be rusted to the shaft. And once you have done all this, you will find that the relay itself is very firmly rusted into the chassis and will not come out however hard you hit it.

2. Front shock absorbers (Defender, Discovery 1): the bottom securing nut will be rusted solid, and there is hardly any room to get a spanner onto it anyway. I used to resort to chain-drilling the nut so I could split it with a chisel. then I remembered I had a reciprocating saw. now it is a case of seeing whether the nuts on the turret retaining ring come undone without shearing the studs...

3. Clutch slave cylinder (Defender 200tdi): Difficult to access without removing the exhaust downpipe, and you can’t take the downpipe off with the bottom crossmember in place. the threads in the bellhousing for the slave cylinder securing bolts are made of cheese. And once you have it all back together, you have to bleed the air out of the system.

4. timing belt replacement (200tdi): that sinking feeling when you realise that one of the long bolts through the timing cover into the block has corroded solidly in place and is going to shear off anyway.

5. Bulkhead outriggers (Defender): You really hope the lower footwell is rotten as well, so that you have an excuse to cut it out and get decent access to the top of the outrigger. At the same time you hope the long through bolt between outrigger and mounting foot actually comes out. Usually it doesn’t.

But whenever I find myself swearing at some hard-to-access bit of an old Land Rover, I remember the various modern cars I have worked on. Compared to almost anything else with four wheels, an old Land Rover is an absolute joy to repair. that’s why I love them.