'SWAMPY' MY 02 LWB 3.0 D4D GX Colorado

[sae70]

So where was I before my posting momentum was interrupted by a weekend at Lincomb Farm

All back together following;

Removing & cleaning the radiator
Cleaning the Air-Con rad
Checking the operation of the viscous fan coupling
Cam belt service including a new idler pulley & Hydraulic tensioner
New thermostat
New serpentine alternator belt
Engine service including air filter, fuel filter, oil filter and engine oil

So about know I'm thinking 'Excellent, all ready for Lincomb next weekend'

WRONG!!!

Following a good long test drive after all of the servicing and a quick glance underneath I find this disturbing view???!!!

Following my trip to Wales a couple of weeks before I was aware that the near side front axle oil seal was weeping a little as you can see in the photos below and although I had a spare I had not planned to change it before Lincomb.

I guess now though I would have to as it looked to have almost completely failed during the test drive, so somewhere around the Wednesday before Lincomb I set about pulling all of the near side front suspension apart to replace the now shot oil seal!

Removed the near side battery to allow me to pull out the upper wishbone bolt.

Then started removing all of the components to allow the suspension leg to swing clear.

I then noticed this fresh patch of oil at the front end and could even see a regular drip dropping into the middle of it!!!

I'm now thinking 'Christ I'm never going to make it to Lincomb at this rate!'

On looking up under the front of the truck I discover that the new oil leak is coming out of the OE ATF oil cooler in the bottom of the rad and it's just old residual ATF oil that's now just dripping out of the oil cooler as I have the truck jacked up on the opposite side, thank you God

The people that had fitted the after market oil cooler to Swampy had joined the two sides of the OE oil cooler with this short length of pipe and I'd not fitted it back on after re-fitting the radiator following its deep clean.

It's about now I notice that the pattern of oil that I think has come from the weeping, soon to fail in my mind, front oil seal is not as it should be and in fact the masses of oil that now surrounds this area has in fact come from the open end of the OE oil cooler

That's a relief, but now to far along with replacing the oil seal and it'll need doing at some point in the future anyway, so got on with it and got it done

Wednesday evening after fitting the new oil seal I'm thinking to myself 'Why not tear out the aftermarket ATF oil cooler that's been poorly installed and caused me some aggravation as a result and re-connect the gearbox to the OE oil cooler'?

Thursday the day before leaving for Lincomb, job on

Picked up 5Ltrs of ATF fluid on the way home from the school run and set to by blowing through the OE oil cooler with an air line till little or no old oil was coming out from the other side.

Ripped out the aftermarket oil cooler fitted by someone else

Then started to flush the automatic gearbox ATF fluid through by dangling the pipe from off of the off-side outlet from the OE oil cooler into a washing up bowl and starting the engine till a couple of Ltrs had been pumped out then turning off the engine and replacing what had come out with new and so on.

It soon became apparent that 5Ltrs was not going to be even close to enough, so I picked up another 15Ltrs on the way home from the pick up school run

20Ltrs of DIII ATF later and I was very happy with how it looked

Just to finish off I cleaned off all of the spilled oil from under the truck with brake cleaner.

I then mixed up a Jam Jar of mud soup and painted over the areas that where now clean due to the oil contamination with a layer of fresh mud

I've found that when you have a uniform colored layer of dry mud over everything it's much easier to quickly spot any oil leaks

I mentioned this in conversation while at Lincomb and I think that the person I was speaking to thought I was joking

I also managed to get my new second, second hand drivers side mud flap trimmed to size and fitted for Lincomb, but not the new steering boot as I decided at 20:00Hrs on Thursday night that I may just be pushing my luck splitting the steering joints should anything go slightly wrong

There, all done and ready for Lincomb

Arriving at Lincomb on Friday evening

Back home again and all clean

Hardly any effort at all for a weekend away

 

[froggy Steve]

Great write up and photo's - bit of stress though! are you going to re-fit the extra oil cooler again?

 

[sae70]

Great write up and photo's - bit of stress though! are you going to re-fit the extra oil cooler again?

Thank you Steve I'm not discounting fitting another separate ATF oil cooler, but shall not be rushing to do so. I'm 70% certain that if I do I shall not be fitting the one that I've removed! I've run the truck for 4/500 miles now with a weekends off-roading without the aftermarket oil cooler and the engine temps were never over 80°C, so I'm happy with how it performs with the auto-box in standard set up

Having been using sing the digital temp gauge now for 1000+ miles in different conditions and weather I'd struggle to be without it now and am considering how I could start to monitor other running temps

 

[Ben]

Let me get this straight..................................

You mixed up mud in a jam jar and painted it over the underside of your car with a paint brush????

Apart from that one act or craziness great work mate.

Cant wait for next months laning, wild camping and Lincomb!!!

 

[sae70]

Let me get this straight..................................

You mixed up mud in a jam jar and painted it over the underside of your car with a paint brush????

Yea I didn't paint the whole underside of the truck you understand! Just where it had been removed during maintenance

Apart from that one act or craziness great work mate.

Thank you

Cant wait for next months laning, wild camping and Lincomb!!!

Me too m8 The boys can't believe that they are going back to Lincomb Farm again so soon

 

[Ben]

Yea I didn't paint the whole underside of the truck you understand! Just where it had been removed during maintenance

Aww OK thats totally normal then!

 

[sae70]

Aww OK thats totally normal then!

Yea, that's what I thought

 

[sae70]

Ordered myself a set of five 285/75/16 Cooper S/T Maxx tyres for Swampy from John Craddock this afternoon



I could have bought them for as little as £665 with free delivery from a company in Poland called Oponeo or for £700.95 with free delivery from a company in Germany called Tyreleader, but in the end bought them from JC for £744 after they squeezed their price down from £780. It made me feel good to be buying from a British firm, but if the price had remained at £780 I would have taken a chance on the German firm at £700.95. What a stonking price from the Polish firm though, for the brave!

 

[Chris]

Good looking tyre Steve. Look forward to long term test on those. And a snow report too if we get any.

 

[sae70]

Shall do Chris As I'm sure you are aware JW has a set on his and I had a good look at them when we were at the Lincomb weekend and a chat with him about how he was getting on with them and why he went with them. Rich Sims is your man though, he's done 30000 plus miles on a set in all kinds of terrain from the Alps to Lincomb. It was chatting to him at Bens do about his experiences with them that had me make my mind up finally to bite the bullet and order a set. Hopefully he will pop along and speak up about his thoughts on them

 

[Ben]

I look forward to seeing/hearing if you prefer them to BFG's after you've given them a thorougher testing.

 

[sae70]

I look forward to seeing/hearing if you prefer them to BFG's after you've given them a thorougher testing.

I'm looking forwards to comparing them to the BFG's myself. I'm wondering if they'll be any quieter on the road than the BFG KM2's? I'm sure that they're not going to be as quite as the BFG A/T's that I fitted to Fiery before she left, but you never know

 

[froggy Steve]

We have the ST/Maxx'x and find (found) them great - little noisy through town, but on the open road, no problem. Cant wait to get her back now

 

[sae70]

Thought I'd show you all this temporary load cover that I made for Swampy for the journey to Lincomb and the weekend away with Ben. I wanted something quick to make a descent job of filling the gap till I could find the time to make a proper metal/mesh load guard between the passenger compartment and the load area. This has been so flexible and worked so well though that I've decided to stick with it as my permanent solution

It's a 1200x1000 load cover cargo net mesh thingy that I bought from somewhere in China for less than a fiver! It came with a bungee cord all the way around the edge and some fixings. I removed the bungee and replaced it with Para-Cord and fitted it to the now redundant rear seat belt mounts with a couple of stainless steel 'D' shackles that had knocking about.

It works really well, allowing you to pull stuff out or tuck it back in even when it's in place

I love it

Obviously when in use the net drops over the front of the load behind the seats, not in front as in the photos.

 

[sae70]

They've arrived :0)

 

[MarkW]

Great Project, one of the best 95's

 

[sae70]

Great Project, one of the best 95's

Thank you

 

[sae70]

Swampy needs to be Tax'd at the end of the month, so started to sort out all of the paperwork yesterday to find that her MOT ran out on the 12th!

I'll say no more about it than

Quickly booked her in for an MOT yesterday afternoon. All they had was 09:30Hrs this morning or next week, so with no time even to check the lights I dropped her off this morning expecting the worst.

She passed

Just the one advisory, something about the hand brake At least I now know what one of next years advisory's will be

It also scuppered me getting the new Cooper ST Maxx's fitted as I'd planned, so I'm hoping to get that done tomorrow now

 

[Chris]

Speaking of MOTs, I sold my old Mum's Corolla today. W plate, 37k from new. Been parked for over 2 years, done 320 miles in the last three years. Been SORN'd under my Cherry tree in the front garden. Took it for MOT after nothing but a wash and a vacuum - yep. it passed. No advisories or anything. MOT guy suitably impressed. Should run for years to come. Drove like a new one. There was a new car in when we turned up. Some Hyundai thing. Err, oh dear. Not only did it have ripped gaiters, a tyre through to the wire, no brakes including the handbrake, a light not working and something else I couldn't hear, bit it broke down on the test as the battery died and the engine stopped during the emissions test.

Bet he wished he'd got a Toyota. not funny really. But great prep there Sir

 

[sae70]

Had the Cooper ST Maxx tyres fitted this afternoon and I can't stop smiling

I love the look of them, but the 4/5 miles I driven on them have been so quite in comparison to the KM2's that I get an uncontrolled smile