Hi Guys,

After being the proud owner of a Series II for just on a month, and with a trip up the north coast of New South Wales planned next week (approx 1000 km return), I thought it would be timely to change oil and filter, air filter and have a look at the drive shafts. I read DisoMike's maintenance list with great interest and downloaded the RAVE manual, so armed with all this infoI go the nearest dealer and pick up an oil filter, an air filter plus a sump plug washer - on the way home I stopped in to get some petrol and picked up some Shell oil for the engine. I have always used Shell, both in my cars and bikes and have always got high mileage out of them, so I figure it's probably good enough for the Rover too.

Get home and crawl under the car and find that the sump plug takes a15 mm socket - guess what? 15 mm is the only one I don't have - so I get back in the car and head off for the local auto parts store and pick one up and come home. While sitting in the car i go to lower the windows and the driver's window jumps and sticks. It did this before a couple of weeks ago and the car yard I got it from fixed it under the statuatory warranty. Bugger!!! Obviously there is something wrong and the car yard didn't fix it properly. So I decide to pull the door trim off and have a look. Yup, one of the arms on the regulator has jumped off the track, but the bush it sat isn't white and round like the others, instead it's black and rubbery looking and has obviously fallen to bits. Once I got the regulator out I realised that someone has really done a bodgy job and used the rubber plug out of the bottom of a metal chair with tubular legs. So I ring the dealer and yes, they have regulators in stock but they are $246 Aussie dollars. My girlfriend is coming over to pick me up later so I ring her and ask her to drop in and pick up the regulator on the way over. Problem sorted (or so I thought). So I get stuck in and change the oil and filters. No problems there.

However, once under the car I notice that there is an oil leak somewhere, and it looks like the front crankshaft oil seal.

I had a look at the drive shafts and yes they have grease nipples so I pump some grease in. But I couldn't find a nipple on the Hookes joint. I did notice that there seems to be another oil leak and it appears to be either the transfer box or the gear box.

When my girl turns up with the regulator it turns out it is the left hand side front not the right hand side. Groan!!! When I ring, I find they have all left for the weekend. Great, now I have to wait till Monday.

Which leads me to my main questions - what do I do about the leak in the front crankshaft seal? Are they hard to fix, or just check the oil more regularly and put a tray underneath. And what about the transfer box oil leak, how hard/expensive are they to fix.

How do you lube the hookes joint or don't you?


cheers

Andrew

 

You have a rave , so you can see that you will be removing quite a bit to replace that seal. If you can afford go ahead and repalce the front gasket and maybe even the water pump and gasket as well, check tensioner pulley, new serpentine belt. Murphy's Law may come into play in the near future. I say, put new on while you're in there.
What year? Any details that you can add to your signature will help guys answer you pretty quickly.