Took the HID's out. Been having a problem with the passenger side ballast recently. Going to do some out of the vehicle testing to see if it is a problem between the ballast and the truck or if I need to just get a new ballast. So for the mean time back to factory headlights. Glad I hang on to everything.

 

Got a phone call while at work. Girlfriend said it started to over heat on her while she was getting groceries. yay. luckly we bought a second car the other day. Took the tow of shame again. Good thing is its going to be close to 60 degrees this weekend. so ill be trouble shooting what went wrong now. The sad part is i checked all the fluids yesterday and everything was good. fun times

 

Looked at it sitting there in the garage, and started plotting my camshaft removal plan of attack...

 

Have done several things over the past couple of weeks.

Replaced the oil pan gasket, timing chain cover gasket, water pump gasket, timing chain and all gears, oil pump gasket and gears.

Added a snorkel which right now is only providing better air intake but will eventually be fully functional.



Added a 20in LED light bar to the brush guard.




And made some mounts for lights up near my front windshield. (design courtesy of a good Disco friend)

 

getting closer!

 

Put a charger on the battery. Think I have the drive-train sold for $250.. that is everything minus trans and t-case... (frame, engine, ECU' Axles wheels and tires functioning air suspension)A little giddy, and nervous.

Now I have no excuse to not start on the project, as I just inked a deal on the Centurion body. ( as in I sold the 4 door Bronco Body)

 

and I forgot to bolt the starter back in, or maybe was unable to, due to the bellhousing being gone...

FML.

 

Checked all fluids again, particularly the cooling system since I've recently replaced all the hoses. I've decided this thing just likes the level of PEAK anti freeze to be 1" below the cold fill (or middle seam line) of the reservoir. I top it off time after time, it goes down to that level and seems happy. Go figure ???

 

I got 30 minutes to myself today so replaced all 3 of the rubber mounts for the SAI pump.
One of these days I'll get time to wire up my lights and install the winch.....

 

Today, my wife wanted to take some family pictures with wild flowers. We live in the home of our state flower, the California Poppy. We went a mile or so off the pavement and took tons of pictures, let our two year old son explore the desert a little... and then we hit the trails. Some rocky spots, lots of sand, a few off camber and cross axle sections. One steep, sandy, washed out, heavily rutted descent that had me countersteering with one wheel in the air and the other three spinning at one point. This was the first time my wife had been offroading with me. She held on and didn't say a word. When we got to the bottom, she turned to me and said, "I know you've been doing a lot of four wheeling. I know you know what your Rover can handle. I know you looked at that trail before we started down. I trust your judgement... but that was still a little scary." I reassured her, and let her know that I would have turned around and gone down the way we came up if I had any doubts regarding the Rover's capabilities or my driving skill... not ten minutes later, I ate those words... I was going too fast (25 mph) down a section of double track, when a good sized bump/dirt bike jump in the road showed up... got my damn truck airborne... came down on the front bumper, which is already thrashed. Gear in the back of the rig that was strapped down got turned upside down. My son, who is two, screamed bloody murder for a good five minutes... Had to stop and cut broken pieces of bumper and air dam off with so they didn't rub against the tires... but my wife insisted that we keep exploring, and we drove old trails and farm roads for another hour and a half before we headed home.

Note to self: Rovers aren't meant to fly.