So, the aftermath of a day playing in the mud. There's always something. The last time I took Bob out on the green lanes I noticed that the high and low range selection wasn't quite right, it took a few goes for it to stay in high range. This time it really didn't want to play and kept jumping out. At anything above about 25mph it wouldn't pop back in either and would just grind. Clearly there was either something seriously wrong with the transfer box or the selector.
I got quite a way back home before I'd had enough and stopped. I removed the centre console, giving myself a pat on the back for making this so easy to remove to access the selectors. Once the cover was off I could see that the lever just couldn't move any further to lock it into high range, not sure how this happened but it did. Maybe some slack has built up in the linkage. The forward and backward motion of the lever translates into rotation that couples to link arms via a splined shaft, once the locking screw is removed this can be slid off. You can see the splined shaft on this old picture, it's from Keely but as that gearbox is now in Bob it's the same part.
I just had to remove the linkage and push the lever forward as far as it would go before refitting, for the time being that will do. I may have to grind away some of the housing to give the lever more travel and compensate for wear, not sure yet as I haven't looked at it. It got me home and that's fine for now. This was the chaos inside the cab when I had finished this maintenance:
Now that was done and I was confident that the transfer box wasn't going to implode on me I went back to give the thing a quick was in a nearby ford.
I didn't put anything back together so the tunnel was open, it was like a sauna as the water hit the hot gearbox! Headed home for a quick change of clothes before heading to the local jet wash to clean the chassis and the engine bay, all of the local jet washes are code-based now instead of coin operated and I thought they might get suspicious if I went into the posh shop covered in mud. I left the mud on the bodywork because that's a trophy, the looks you get from people when you drive out of the wash bay with a car that's still filthy is great.
Back home and with some daylight left I washed out the footwells, which had been painted a new shade of clay brown. You can kind of see it in the photo above, these old door seals did nothing to keep muddy water from flooding in.
I used my wet vac to pick up all of the water, which worked perfectly and would've been spot-on if the filter hadn't fallen off at some point and got soaked. No damage done to the motor, fortunately.
As mentioned, the indicator was changed yesterday. This was my first time taking the front end apart and I was very grateful of pictures from the previous owner who built it. here are a few:
It didn't fight too much, one of the socket cap screws needs replacing as it got chewed at first but that's fine. The indicators have a notch in them to clear the side bar, I was a little worried about this but my new cheapy belt sander did the job easily. It was all back together in an hour.
I also checked the winch, I had tried to use it on Sunday but it only wanted to reel in rather than out. The free spool was also sticking. Of course, everything now worked with the hand remote but the little switch that is mounted by the offside headlight is partly dead and needs replacing.
Finally, I wanted to sort out my bonnet catches. I'm not sure if Aerocatch had thought about their products being submerged in gritty water when they designed them, but they were both jamming better than Bob Marley. This is due to the design that has a metal part sliding in a plastic channel, this channel gets all scratched up and binds. Some waterproof grease later and both and moving freely again, this stuff is the Mobilgrease that I've had for years and use for wheel bearings, it's waterproof so shouldn't allow any muck in.
I also added a couple of holes either side of the pin to let water drain out, the whole thing was full of muck when I was finished at the off road site.
That's about it. Oh yes, I found out that I don't have any inner rear brake pads any more! I wondered what the scraping noise was. I believe I have a set of spare pads and discs, will get that sorted at some point...