Andrew has been very busy in the last three weeks fixing Pepper up and making her look pretty. It all started with a little service, which include new oil for the diffs, gearbox, trnsfer box and swivel pins. About 13 litres at R20/l: not cheap. Then he decided to replace two front suspension bushes, which is possibly the worst job in the world on an old Landy, but the ride is much better now.
The hilift jack was also mounted in a new position and the sparewheel carrier was fixed after Pepper's fun in the clay stockpile where she broke it. New hinges were made for the tailgate so that it can flap down and Kate can make coffee after a long hard day driving. New seat belt thingies were also made after someone lost them and a new, raised bumper was also fitted. The old bumper was made as a water tank and weighed about 70kg's. Very very heavy. The new one is raised to give a better approach angle and weighs about 15kg.
Burnco Panelbeating also fixed her chassis for her, which was rotting away, probably after fatigue cracking from the heavy old bumper. That cost R1500. All the engineering work (Allbest Engineering) cost R1050, which Andrew has not yet paid for. The exhaust downpipe was also repaired and a new flange was fitted to the manifold, all by Powerfloe exhausts. Cost: R850. The old pipe was dinged which mde the manifold leak, Pepper is not sure where it happened but it won't happen again because they put in a nice shiny fexible section to absorb shocks.
All of this was done after Andrew replaced the alternator bearings only to find out that they were not the cause of a funny rumbling noise. He then replaced the waterpump, which was the cause of the funny rumbling noise. The waterpump job was a huge headache, some fool (previous owner) had replaced bolts that hold the pump to the cylinder head with a variety of metric, imperial and other assorted studs and bolts. The metric ones stripped and all the other bolts were also partially stripped. This lead Andrew to belive that the threads in he cylinder head were also stripped, which would involve taking the head off, which wold not be fun. Luckily the threads were fine, but when the radiator was flushed and refilled here seemed to be some gunk in the water, which would indicate a blown headgasket which would also require he head to be taken off. After a head gasket test at Shell Autoserv, it was found that this was not the case. The gunk was probably from the grease Andrew smeared on the new radator pipes to get them on more easily.
The rear of the chassis was also repaired. Andrew cut out a piece of 3mm steel to replace a rusted section, treated it so that it wouldn't rust and rivetted it into place. He then drove down the road to Tuffex exhausts who welded it into place. Cost: R30. Saving: about R1100, which is what Burnco quoted him to do it.
All in all a fun holiday was had, but Andrew needs another week to recover from the Porseleinberg trail where he spent the better half of an hour knee deep in cold muddy water. But that's another story althogether...
