First Rain in the Rover....

Ok, I knew going in to purchasing the Rover that they are not know as the most waterproof car out there. Land Rover even printed and released an official "Water Ingress Manual" for the Defender! The previous owner did say that it leaked a little but did not mention where. Well, I drove the Rover to a tennis match last night and it ended up storming quite hard. Walking back to the truck after the match I was fearing water everywhere inside. I get in and and welcomed by a nice splash when my feet hit the floor mat. Great, inside of the car is swamped. Turn the lights on and grab my flashlight to take stock of the situation. Turns out that the only water that got in the car pooled on top of the rubber floor mat on the drivers side. Pull the floor mat our carefully and dump the water, feel the carpet that was underneath and it is bone dry! Look around and try to find the leak but the dripping has stopped. The ingress manual mentions water leaks around the clutch pedal box, this would explain why there was only water on the floor mat. Figure I'll hit the areas described in the repair manual with some clear RTV and see if that takes care of the problem!

Great news is that the Rover started up and ran great on the way home. The high-beams and the aux lights really light the road up, glad I got those wired up correctly.

This weekend I plan on continuing to try to get the rear work light functioning. Going to try to determine where the rear wiring harness leaves the frame to enter the cab so taht I can continue to trace the power and ground wires. Also hoping to trace the extra wires coming off the spare dash switches.

Starting Work on the Rover

Dived right into the electrical issues on the Rover this past weekend. Turns out that the highbeams where not connected to the correct circuit and the driving lights where wired directly to the higbeam circuit. Switched this around and got the high beams working. I then installed a new 12v 30amp relay to power the driving lights. Had it hooked up and found out that both the bulbs where bad so I need to pick up replacements some time this week.

The rear flasher issue ended up just being a slightly loose connection in the rear wiring harness.

The last two things to get working are the rear work light (I have another relay that I am going to power this with, I was also thinking of maybe trying to wire it up to use as a reverse light) and the fuel gauge. Work light should be pretty straight forward but the fuel gauge is going to be a bit more difficult. Figure I will start from the gauge and work my way back towards the tank with that one.

That is it for now. I am going to hit everything with the grease gun this week and try to find someplace locally to source gear oil.

Introducing the Purple People Eater....

Here it is. The new-to-me 1973 Series III Land Rover 109" Station Wagon (say that three times fast). Kel and I drove to Nashville, TN and picked it up this last Sunday. It drove surprisingly well on the interstate. With the overdrive and up-rated engine (2.5L 4 cyl out of a mid 80's Defender) it was able to cruise right around 70 at 3100 rpm.

I'll be kicking the tires and sorting a few electrical issues out for the next few weeks (left rear turn signal, fuel gauge, aux lights) but it is a blast to drive. Now I just need to find a little dirt to play in!

As for the name, the offical color it is painted is actually a '75-'76 Jaguar color called Ocean Blue. Some angles it looks Royal Blue while others it looks dark purple. Thus Kelly dubbed it "The Purple People Eater". It seats 12 so that works for me! A few more pics below.





Roof rack is coming off for now so that I can fit the truck in the garage.