Travelled down the highway pass weekend, heard a CLUNK! Thought I hit some wood, but nothing. Few kilometres down the road another loud CLUNK! Then the passenger rear wheel locks up in a cloud of tire smoke. Made it to the shoulder. Park brake light starts flashing. Pulled the brake release cable in console, cleared the code and I’m back on the road, minus a park brake. Result. Park brake shoes delaminated locking up the rear wheel. So replaced the park brake shoes, including the rear rotors for good measure, and the epb activation motor is original and still working fine.

 

That would have been a brown trouser moment !

 

did a smoke test. Found my air intake tube cracked.

I've got the lean codes.

 

The sudden lockup with a cloud of tire smoke definitely woke me up, but at least I was travelling on the road straight and not on a curve at 100kph (62mph). Only thing going through my head right after it happened was, “how I’m going to get all this camping gear in the back back home”!

 

Picked up a wireless wifi reverse license plate frame mounted camera mounted it to the front license plate, added a wireless switch to power it from the battery. I point the camera down to see the route down at a drop off. No more blind hill edge descents. Crude front camera type like in the new Defenders.
Also replaced the rear spare tire valance that got ripped off on my last outing. Now I don’t have to worry about off-road driving aerodynamic beneath the vehicle without it.

 

I'm more of a lurker, but wanted to mention I'm in love with my LR3 again after it sat for three months in my driveway leaking things...

In the past two weeks I've done a lot of work to bring her back around, and I'm happy to say she seems to be doing great:

• new radiator (now she *hopefully* won't lose coolant anymore)
• new belts
• oil cooler block seal (now she *hopefully* won't lose as much oil)
• oil change
• new LCA's (including some unexpected welding to fix the mistake I made crushing one side of my "alignment dowels")
• got the rear parking sensors working again
• brake fluid flush
• Lucky8 SYA kit installed

After almost three months of not driving as she sat around waiting to be fixed, I forgot how well the LR3 platform drives...we have an offroad/dispersed family camping trip coming up where we will take both the LR3 and our 80 series Land Cruiser and I'm really excited about it. (Yes, we are an equal opportunity offroad family lol.)

 

Over the last couple of weeks. Since I'm new. Figured if anyone is interested this would be more descript than typing it all out.

 

Looks like you have most of the big ticket items already.

 

Went off-roading and really bounced the truck around on the trails. On Monday, I found what you see below. Oddly it did not leak when I got home and it sat all night, just at work. So I drained the transfer case fluid (was on my list anyway) and put in fresh with some Blue Devil stop leak. That seems to have worked, again, for now. I had this leak a couple years ago and the Blue Devil worked so good I kinda forgot. So my next project is to source a used transfer case and bench rebuild it. But I gotta say as much as I had stop leak and some of those "snake oil" type products, that stuff really does work.

 

Nice rig! Snorkel is not OEM, those "Discovery 3" ones are on eBay for $100-$150 but usually sold as being for diesel only. Which is not the case, they work on gas too as you can see. I have the same one. The OEM snorkel is not a snorkel anyway, its a RAI. Also I have that same roof rack, you may want a wind deflector for it. You have an older one which I think did not come with one, but Voyager I am sure can sell you one. Mine came with one and it helps knock down the road noise a lot.

Oh, pro tip: You mentioned kids. One handy "mod" is to remove the middle seat of the second row. Often a cooler or fridge will fit really well there and be very accessible on a road trip. Unless you need that seat too.