Fitted a Traxide dual battery isolator and an 85 AH AGM battery, tomorrow's job is to run the cable into the rear and mount sockets.

 

Replaced the lower steering shaft with a good used unit from Abran. It was a nightmare getting that thing off due to rust I believe.

The improvement is stunning. Before the steering wheel would flop 15-20 degrees in either direction without actually doing anything. Now its like a sports car lol.

I think the replacement was in the nick of time....

 

Well took the LR3 to the dealer today and I will not be going back. The service I booked was not set up, so what should have been an hours work could not be done for at least an hour and then they could not give me anything more than a rough guess as to how long the work would take and it was likely to be a 'few' hours. This was after specifically getting an agreed time and duration for the work on the phone last week as I have to drive 1.5 hours to get to the city and arranged other appointments while in the city.

I then had the service staff disagreeing with what I was asking them to do, part of which was the transmission update to address the California stop. They had no idea what this was and seemed intent of disagreeing with me that I had this problem. They also questioned why I would ever want the adaptions reset - so I simply grabbed my keys back and walked out of the service department.

As I had pre-arranged a test drive I consoled myself with the fact I was going to get to drive the new full fat RR. Ahhh such a dream to have - the sales person I spoke to was actually not scheduled to work Tuesdays, even though he told me to ask for him when I arrived, and no vehicle had been set aside. A blunt call to the sales desk and a hasty test drive vehicle was found where the sales staff would not allow me to drive alone!

So for anyone who lives in Halifax, NS avoid the dealership there. I even spoke to the General Manager and explained to him the entire story and while he was helpful and offered a loan vehicle for the day, I had reached the point I would never step foot in their business again.

So I am going to buy myself the Gap tool, get them to include the transmission update and do the work myself.

As for the test drive , it was a great vehicle to be in, very classy and superb finish with so many toys and gadgets - even a head up display, but it actually left me feeling a little numb. I found I was too isolated from actually driving the vehicle and would say I prefer the experience of the last of the former generation in terms of driving, that still felt like a RR. Don't think it was helped by the oil burner under the hood, it had stacks of grunt, but just sounded like a little diesel hatchback, not a $100K luxury SUV. I was quite happy to get back into the LR3 and listen to the turtle-less V8 :-)

 

Fitted 1 merit and 1 cigi socket in the rear right and will duplicate it for the left side, also cut a hole in the aux battery lid so it fits on and will make a new top for it. As is its surprising how much heat it blocks as the under hood lining would be close enough to sealing up the hole.

 

Got my switch pod painted up. Now I need to mount it...

 

Where is that going?

 

Right here, color did not come out like I expected. Hemi orange is a bit to red.

 

Aha! Is that the Lucky8 bezel?

 

At least you wont miss it !

 

Lol no a friend of mine makes them for the LR3.

Color wasn't quite what I had in mind. May have to try again on that.