Believe it or not, the maintenance was spot on for the major stuff, but lots of little things got left out, but yes, I am slowly getting on top of everything, and that dirt is from me, the poor thing was a Chelsea tractor for the guys dogs before I bought it Now it eats mud and tarmac

But today, I covered about 200 miles, borrowing my neighbours trailer and his towbar
But one of the 3 tasks today was to collect my very own towbar, the 2nd was to go and find out WTF is going on with my V8, and the 3rd was doing the thing that pays soley for Tanks upkeep and as the agreement is, only 1 fatty is partially paid for by general household money, the 2nd one has to be self funded.

Had 2 mishaps on the way to Basildon though, firstly, I put the wrong post code in and ended up in the right county, but wrong town Then on the way from the wrong address to the correct address, the trailer started falling apart as it had been bodged together for temporary use by its owner

But the RR Sport parts I collected all made it home safely, car full and trailer full.

Was stunned at how well Tank runs now and how great on fuel it is. 34mpg on the way up with an empty trailer, 31mpg on the way back fully loaded. Happy days

But thanks to the M25 being shut while I was on it, which in a big part made me run an hour late, despite leaving an hour early, I didn't get home until very late, so the car and trailer are still fully loaded

That will be a job for tomorrow.

But for now, going to enjoy my nice air conditioned bedroom in this heat wave.

I am hoping to put my sidestep back together today as well and if it's not too muggy, maybe even get it back on the car.
Also thanks to a great friend of mine, who hoards the little parts like me, I now have a replacement orange thingy for the end of the metal sleeve by injector 1 on the inlet manifold. But this time, as the inlet manifold is coming off, I am going to invest in a new set of gaskets for it.

Love Tank more than ever. Miss Oscar loads though. Although he may be home this week.
And I guess I had better take tank for a wash somewhere this week as it is far too hot for me to do it.

3 people told me that my lights were working fine. My car kept telling me bulbs were out. Admittedly it was only checked on the way out as I kept forgetting, I finally got round to checking for myself, And sure as hell, the car was telling the truth

Replaced both side tail lights with Halfords own bulbs, don't have much faith in how long they will last, but at least they get my car seen again. Only annoying thing is, I cannot get the front sidelights off, so have no sidelights working on the front at the moment, that is next on my list of jobs to do.

The tracker on the V8 is superb for the money, so I have now ordered the same model tracker for this Range Rover. Decided not taking any chances anymore, I want to know where my cars are at all times, no matter who they are with.

Get a black view or similar camera that videos inside and out... good to prove fault and who drives where

Not worth it for me. I have a dash camera recording anyway. Only thing I am planning on doing is fitting a rear dash cam.

I have now invested in a new Nextbase front & rear dash cam set up which I will be fitting later this week. Have been unwell and also organising everything to get my temporary workshop set up at home. Should have it sorted by the end of next weekend. In addition to that, have invested in a Ring spot light camera which will be going up at the front in addition to the other camera following the car being keyed. Police are investigating that as 4 Black cars have been keyed in 2 weeks that we know of.

Anyway back to the car, needed to get away from dealing with all the idiots and morons so took the dogs down to the coast on Sunday for most of the day which meant lunch on the beach and some byway driving. Also got to test out my newly fitted tracker. LOVE IT.

Click image to enlarge

Tank is now sat outside all alone. But the power steering issue has been diagnosed as the power steering servotronic valve at fault. Adding that one to my list.

I will be starting the latest modification as long as the weather allows it.

My Winbo Sidesteps are getting a bit of an upgrade.

I am installing switchback LED's which are actually advertised as DRL's. But for this they are White and Amber.
So going to fit either 3 or 4 each side, the white lights are going to be linked up to the puddle lights in the door mirrors and the amber lights are going to be attached to the indicators.

I have already got the DRL's and wiring to create the loom, just awaiting my M10 Rivnuts and my new Rivnut tool and waterproof plugs so I can still go wading, but doing this modification in such a way that if any of them do fail, It will be a simple case of unscrewing them, cutting them off the loom and then soldering / connecting the replacements up and screwing the replacements in. The idea of it looks great in my head. How it comes out in person I don't know yet.

Also, last Sunday I upgraded the dashcam system to the latest Nextbase kit with front and rear camera's. Love it so far.

Pictures of the sidestep mods will be added in due course.

Did you see my switchback DRLs ?
https://youtu.be/xIY4r71ynoA 2007 TDV8 VSE
2003 TD6 gone.
2002 P38a gone
1999 P38a gone
1997 p38a gone
1993 VSE gone
1992 VSE gone
1966 Series 2a with V8 conversion gone

Just going to look at that link now, I used to build custom lights for cars including the Discovery 3 which I fitted switchback DRL's to with the relays so they came on with the ignition on and went out with ignition off.

Nice mod Wayneg.

I am planning on a different switchback mod on my lights for the V8. But planning on leaving the lights standard on the TD6.

But had a few little complications with the mod, 1st I found that I didn't have a rivnut tool that had a big enough insert adapter for the rivnuts I needed, so spent over £30 on the tool, and bought the rivnuts, only to find that the thread on the DRL's are thinner than the rivnuts, so having to use Tiger Seal to secure them on. Then found the HSS hole cutter was a fake, and won't cut metal So had to buy genuine HSS drill bits today.

But I plan on getting the holes cut tomorrow, 4 per step. Get the wired connected to the DRL's, then possibly on Saturday I will be looking at the best route to route the wires. 2 need to go to the wing indicator, and 1 needs to get to the mirror puddle light. But want the wire to remain hidden and not compromise the wading depth capability

And my step dad has said he can weld again in 2 weeks time, so pending good weather, should be altering or re-making the brackets for the passenger side steps and getting that straightened.

All slowly coming together, but got to be careful with the pennies now as it will soon be MOT time, and I think 1 bush may need replacing. Not sure though.

I used one of the cheap ebay drl controllers, just a voltage sensing relay which comes on at 13v, ie a few seconds after the car starts. The headlamp lenses come off very easy to fit the DRL behind the glass. The indicator switchback feeds come from the indicator wire behind the lamps. All very straightforward.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ONOFF-Automatic...Sw7d5dP-c8

The drls are from Aliexpress, I used the 6 lamp ones.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3294596639...b201603_52 2007 TDV8 VSE
2003 TD6 gone.
2002 P38a gone
1999 P38a gone
1997 p38a gone
1993 VSE gone
1992 VSE gone
1966 Series 2a with V8 conversion gone

Cheers for the info. I have always bought the DRL relays off Ebay, and have a source for my LED's directly from China so get them for less than ebay prices most of the time

I have fitted the switchback LED's to 1 sidestep. Now waiting for the Tiger Seal to finish drying so that it can be trimmed and tidied up before I bolt it to the car.

I have upcycled a RRS washer bottle pipe for protecting the wires going from the step to the car.
But when I was testing the LED's, the switchback function doesn't seem to work, not too worried about the switchback function anyway as the white lights are only going to be puddle lights and the others will only operate with the indicators separately to each other in theory.

This job was very time consuming, but half a day later, got it done. Just 1 more step to go

Day mostly of rest at last

Took a drive down to the coast and attended Airbourne 2019. Without the Vulcan or Red Arrows the show wasn't that great. After the war birds went, we left. But was sat in total comfort in my Range Rover.

Only 1 incident which luckily my car didn't get damaged, but a lorry that may have been stolen, or was at least being driven like a maniac with no secured load shedding bricks which were flying at cars that they were passing, hit quite a few cars, but at last a bit of luck, the bricks only landed a couple of feet away and didn't touch my car

Front & Rear Camera caught it all.

And then a muppet in Pevensey Bay with a MK2 Shogun decided to open his moon roof, partially open all the door windows and open the sliding windows on the rear to stop the car from heating up with his greyhound in it, didn't seem to realise that his dog knew how to open the sliding window, luckily my partner was in the shop in front and my horn is loud, as the dog was about to jump, I pressed my horn, and thankfully it startled the dog which made him freeze long enough for my partner to get to the dog and get him to go fully back in the shogun, he shut the window to a position the dog couldn't push this time But had we not been there, that could have ended badly.

Then got home, and sized up the job ahead of me this week, as my neighbours expansion bottle on his 03 4.4 V8 decided to crack in a big way, and the car needs to be on the road and towing a caravan over 400 miles on Friday Lets hope it goes well. I have no issues with changing the bottle, it's the bleeding I am nervous about doing. I have managed to dodge this with my own by paying a garage

Another day of unplanned adventures. I was sort of on the hunt for a decent sized trailer, and found one on facebook for sale in London. So took a drive up, and despite the modifications over the years, I bought the trailer, which is now known as frankensteine. So Tank has his own toy to tow.

31.4MPG towing this very heavy trailer, very happy with that. Didn't even seem to notice it was behind me. Apart from 1 incident where the bracket holding the lightboard decided to let go and make a loud noise Luckily did it a few yards from the entrance to the services so was able to pull over really quickly and only suffered the loss of an indicator lens on the trailer.

But no issues with the car, it drove beautifully.

I thought Thursday would never end...

A day that should have been so simple turned into a bit of a mission but ended ok.

Decided to take Mum for lunch at a new location, normally somewhere like Beefeater, but wanted a change, so went for Pizza, But 2 miles from home, just entered the slip road to join a dual carriage way, POP, HISSSSSSSS...… Almost no power, and sounded like a lorry

Of course I immediately pulled over before getting onto the dual carriageway, found the problem in seconds. The Silicone turbo hose popped of after 3-4000 miles

After previous experience of the breakdown company I am with having very long waiting times, And knowing the dual carriageway was temporarily limited to 50, I decided to limp it to a garage, so as soon as the traffic quietened down, I started the journey from hell. Minimal pressure on the accelerator to keep the revs down, limped it to a pretty good garage I know in Tonbridge as this was closer and more level than getting home. This garage said for legal reasons they could not refit an existing part So I then had to limp the car on main roads avoiding the dual carriageway to Sevenoaks to a mates. 7 miles of nerve shattering driving. I pulled up, my mate heard the noise and I saw him mouth FFS

So up the bonnet went, he put the pipe back on, I gave him some beer money for his trouble and for me interrupting his extremely busy workload, and started my journey again, this time I thought I had better try a single carriageway road to test the car, well... POP, HISSSSSSSSSS..... Damn pipe popped off again. This time it stayed sort of lined up so acceleration wasn't as horrific although it was only about 500 yards up the road.

So limped it back to my friend who had already helped. Bonnet up, too the silicone pipes off completely on the Turbo side. It was then apparent that the jubilee clip was faulty. So much thicker, heavier duty jubilee clip put in place of the old one, and off I went.

Car has been great since. Even got better MPG again as it had dropped quite a bit, which I assumed was going to be bad driving habbits when I am not towing. And the mystery hissing that someone told me was just me being over sensitive has almost completely gone

I will also add at this point that unusually I didn't even have my basic tool kit in the car, otherwise I would have done this myself on the slip road, although would have had it repeat offending with the clip.

So this drama over, made it to North Kent for lunch, and then it hit me, the day is far from over. My friend and neighbours Range Rover was still waiting for me to get back and find out if the bleeding process had been successful.
I will say, I am happy to help people but was exhausted, so was a bit relieved when my neighbour passed me on the road, on his way to a garage.

We couldn't get his V8 to bleed, did it fully by the book over 2 days of trying, and the car was not having any of it, But found out when I got home that the garage said the thermostat appeared to be stuck shut. I hadn't thought this could be the problem as it was replaced just a few weeks ago. But I was starting to question my ability as a mechanic thinking maybe my disabilities had taken their toll on me. But no. My knowledge is still sharp, it was the car at fault.

Totally out of energy, been tinkering with my project trailer, and chilling.

But this weekend we will be fitting the drivers side sidestep back on, and hopefully wiring onto the cars looms, and will be washing the car. No off roading planned this weekend.

Still totally love my TD6 though.

Click image to enlarge