Got lucky with the brakes .  It turned out to be the spring inside had popped out so the shoes were no longer being held in place, because the hole that the thing clips into had rusted just enough to not allow it to stay in place anymore.  So now have a Toyota one fitted with a small but safe long term modification done allowing a new one to be fitted and held in place. I rarely use the handbrake, but was pleased the problem was something simple and only cost a total of £40 to fix.

So the car is back on the road safely again

The welding job is strong but unsightly, so I will be begging my step dad in the summer to tidy up the weld as he used to be a professional welder.

I was going to attempt to tackle a few jobs today myself, but the wind chill was horrific for me, and it takes a lot for me to feel the cold. So feeling very frustrated, and just waiting for the warmer weather to kick in.  As I will be replacing the wiper linkage, fitting the Xenon ballast, wiring up the rear bumper lights, and fitting the roof spoiler.  As soon as summer kicks in, I will be painting the panel on the bonnet gloss black I think, I have a spare panel ready.  I am also looking at potentially updating the front end again. Not entirely sure though.

These photo's have been taken over the period that the snow started, up to the day before it stopped. I got to use it a bit in the snow, but I needed to use the more economical Shogun in the worst of the weather as I was transporting Carers, Nurses, Doctors, Assisting police and helping tow cars in the worst of the weather, and even taken the workers home in the morning yesterday morning. But the journeys that I did do in the Range Rover were fantastic, even in the deepest of snow, not a single struggle. And as much as I love the snow, I am glad it is going now as I have a list of outstanding jobs that I really want to get completed asap now. Even on sheet ice that I couldn't stand on, the Range Rover didn't bat an eyelid.

Photo's in order of the date taken.

Great photos and good on you for helping people get to and from work

Hope the roof spoiler installation goes well, look forward to photos of it

Cheers kgeddis.

I have now started the mod. A little bit impatient I know lol. I removed the roof panel as I needed the screws from the brake light. I have now covered. I have deep cleaned both the replacement roof panel and the old panel, even cleaned up the old knackered brake light as I am going to modify it and repair it.

I need to drill holes using a hole saw which I hope to do after I have had some sleep.

This is how far I have got so far.

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I had a bad night with my health and didn't manage to sleep.  So when my other half got up to get ready for work, they got my spoiler out for me, I have now fitted the brand new brake light to the spoiler itself. I have made a sort of guess at the size of the bolts, Think it will be M6, to secure the spoiler to the roof panel. Fingers crossed I have guessed right. After I have slept today, once the bolts have arrived, I will be putting it all together, and if the weather is dry enough tomorrow evening, I will fit the spoiler. But won't use the car until Friday anyway as I am taking it to have the air con system serviced and regassed.

I had a surprisingly productive evening with the spoiler situation. The advert for the spoiler stated you only needed sikoflex or similar to stick this thing on. Glad I totally ignored that info as there is no way at all that you could as enough of the surfaces don't meet to allow enough sticky stuff to hold it in place. Only made 1 mistake though, I forgot to put thread lock on the bolts. So after lunch tomorrow, I will take the screws out 1 at a time and apply thread lock. This will allow the tiger seal that I used more than enough time to dry. I am also going to be trying to get my heat lamp out to heat the kitchen up where the spoiler is now for a couple of hours. Providing the weather isn't hammering it down tomorrow evening. The spoiler and panel will be fitted to my car. Which will mean, 1 job that has been sat on the to do list for 18 months, can finally be ticked off. The brake light I will actually have a fully working brake light for the first time ever

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I have now corrected my mini yesterday. I have put thread lock on all 4 bolts. Overall, I am happy with upgrade. Gutted that I couldn't get the washers in the 2 outer holes but at least the middle 2 have washers. Had the weather been better and had my workshop been in the current garden, I would have cut the washers down a bit, and if I had done the right thing and checked before putting it all together, I would have used my hole saw to make the access hole bigger. I would have done this earlier in the day, but was distracted by a shiny new phone lol as it was upgrade time.

I am feeling very frustrated now though as the spoiler is actually ready to bolt to the car now. But I cannot carry it to the car at the same time as use my crutches. Although feel confident enough once at the car that I could attach it to the car without help. I am also gutted that my tailgate gas struts didn't turn up today. But as I don't need to use the Range Rover until Friday, I should be able to fit them tomorrow evening as long as they turn up tomorrow.

Looking forward to seeing it on the Range  2003 Range Rover 4.4 Litre V8 - Adriatic blue

2003 Range Rover 4.4 Litre V8 -Maintenance History Click Here = http://www.fullfatrr.com/forum/topic39687.html

Bad picture I know, but it is on.  It was a pain in the backside to line up and get hooked into those grommets, but feeding the wire through was dead easy and bolting it up was dead easy.  Just nervous as to weather my workmanship is up to scratch.  First night of it out in the cold. And YAY, I finally have a very bright fully working 3rd brake light.  I will get more pictures tomorrow.

Finally, I thought I had all my LED bulbs which were supposed to fit the car, and my tailgate gas struts arrived. I thought I had a short window of time of dry weather, so got on with getting the gas struts fitted and fitting the LED bulbs.  Came across a problem with the LED bulbs though. The wedge bulbs were too wide for a couple of places, and the puddle lights in the door cards stopped working with LED bulbs in them.  The bulbs were supposed to be CANBUS bulbs, but doubting that they really are now. I am going to buy some prewired bulb holders to attach to the door card puddle lights and try hiding a standard bulb somewhere.  Also thanks to Duckworth Land Rover, all the missing metal clip retainers from the tailgate have now been replaced. I also had the air con regassed yesterday afternoon which was one drama after another.  On the way to Crawley, I noticed a sort of loud tapping noise which I though was probably something I had in the back hitting something else, and on the stupid smart motorway M23, I had this blue BMW M5 come up the side of me beeping like a lunatic and flashing and waving his hands, I nearly gave him the finger, but though sod it, I will open my window and here what he wants to shout at me about before I give him the finger, and all I caught was tyre, I dipped my mirror and saw something flapping and shouted thank you at 70mph lol and stuck my thumb up before he left me for dust.  I pulled into the next layby, not knowing that to get out of it, you have to use the SOS phone and get Highways to shut 1 lane of the smart motorway to let you out. All I can say is, had I been in my Diesel Shogun or the Caliber, I would have followed the rules, but I saw a safe gap with highways CCTV firmly on me and my car, and I used every horse under that bonnet to take off.  The gap was quite big thanks to many people using there brains and pulling into the next lane, freeing up the lane I had to pull into.  No one had to brake either. But I made it to Crawley and got my air con regassed for £15 thanks to an online coupon site, it then started to rain, so as I left the garage, the bodge I forgot about failed, and the linkage of my front wipers separated again.  The garage were extremely helpful and despite offering them money, they re did the bodge for free for me which got me home and has still lasted, although I am not using the car now until the replacement wiper linkage I have is fitted.  

Found a design flaw in the spoiler, water collects in it until you open the tailgate

This is because of the access holes that were pre-cut but the manufacturer. So when we have some dry weather at the weekend, I will have to nervously drill 2 small drainage holes in the spoiler near the window

I have ordered the new scuttle panel clips from Duckworth. And after the quote from my mechanic to fit the wiper linkage which was £100! Sorry, but that is a grossly over inflated price! I think he started seeing me as a cash cow as the prices for jobs started creeping up.

Sorry brain not in gear Filters are in fact so good that in certain circumstances, when the ambient air is already polluted, a diesel car will tend to extract more particles from the air than it emits. Emissions Analytics worked with........etc etc

He who dies with the most toys wins...

I am dreading Saturdays wiper linkage replacement job now as the weather forecasted happens to be 12 degrees lower than it has been during the week when I didn't have the chance to do the job. I have had enough of the snow now, got too much that I want to get done. Going to have to work through it though and get the job done no matter what the weather unless it is really windy as I want to use my Range Rover properly in all weather instead of having to check the forecast for the route and destination I want to go to.
Apart from that, the car is still going strong.
My Mum said something funny to me today. Now it works, why don't you get rid of it. I nearly spat my lunch out with laughter. No chance was my response. Then she said, why don't you get rid of the Shogun, simple reply, why should I when I don't need to? Both cars are back up cars to each other, and only the Shogun is currently congestion zone exempt out of the 2 4x4's for central London.

Finally got an afternoon to do the wiper linkage. I never want to do that job ever again. The car fought me all the way. 4 hours to change the linkage. I ended up having to cut the bits above the scuttle panel to get the access need, but broke the windscreen trying to get leverage on the knuckle things before cutting them off, and had to cut slots around the holes to pop the scuttle panel over the replacement wiper linkage. But before getting to that stage, I had to transfer the wiper motor over and being stupid, I set the park location wrong which turned it into a LHD setup, took me half an hour to realise. But the mobile mechanic wanted £120 for that job. It will end up costing me £75 in windscreen excess lol. But most of the screen didn't clear with the heater elements, so needed changing anyway. Annoyingly this job took all the time and energy I had, so the headlight ballast and rear led bumper light wiring did not get completed at the same time.

A few of my neighbours gained more respect for me today, as they thought I was some crazy ponce with big 4x4's. As some of them work on there own cars and apparently had not seen me do some jobs before, although the weather hasn't really been working on cars weather. But they will see a big difference as the weather warms up.

I have a few jobs planned for Easter Weekend.
Fit the Canbus LED reg bulbs.
Fit the extra bulb holder to the mirror puddle lights to get the LED's working.
Fit the rest of the interior LED bulbs.
Wire up the bumper lights.
Fit the headlight Xenon ballast.
Jet wash the old oil from the bottom of the engine to find the source of the new leak.
Clean the engine undertray.
Wash the car.
Update the CD's in the CD changer as I still have Christmas music in the changer.

Also hoping to have the windscreen replaced by the end of Saturday.

I certainly felt the hatred part of the love hate relationship for most of the afternoon. But once it was done. Fell in love with the car again, knowing now that I can safely drive in the rain without worrying about the bodge clip pinging off.

I am planning on taking the Range Rover to a few events this year too.

As long as it doesn't break down, it will be at the Solihull Land Rover 70th Anniversary event in the high street being hosted by the Solihull LR Factory. and will also be at the LRO show in Peterborough, I really hope it is ok for these events especially, as I don't want to be rocking up in a Shogun lol.

On the 1st April I finally got around to wiring up the rear bumper lights. Well and truly please with the results. People moan about how rubbish the reverse lights are at night. Yes upgrade the bulbs to LED's, but also, install these puppies. Make a hell of a difference at night!

Took me around 4 hours, maybe longer, this is because I am a doddery disabled twit But got there in the end. Plus I spent about an hour trying to find out what colour the reverse light wires were.