Cantanko

Just a quick post to rave about Tayna – what an impressive company! continue reading…

Bloody batteries… I knew when I bought the truck that I’d be needing a new set at some stage because the ones fitted weren’t exactly matched, the primary (driver’s side) battery being approximately two-thirds of the rated capacity of the aux battery on the passenger side.

I was pratting around for most of this weekend and managed to leave the door open for a few hours, hence the courtesy light was also on for a few hours. Given that their should be upwards of 180Ah of capacity between the two of them, you’d have hoped starting after a 5-watt load for four hours wouldn’t pose a problem. It did. continue reading…

I tend to go a bit overboard on servicing things, especially as the vehicles I own tend to have higher mileage and / or are reasonably high performance. One thing I have learned over the last fifteen years or so is that replacing filters with cheap-ass generic parts usually ends up in tears one way or another. continue reading…

Booo! I had my first “is this going to get me home?” moment with the cruiser today: I started getting the “more throttle means less power” symptom after attempting to fill up at Tesco and finding they’d run out of Fuel. The problem was so acute when driving that I had to use low range to get up the hill near my house! continue reading…

I’ve finally got round to flushing out the cooling system on the ‘cruiser before changing the radiator (it’s on the list of to-do’s before my trip next year) so seeing as the weather was particularly nice, I decided to give it a go. continue reading…

My auto box has a problem unlike any auto I’ve worked with before. When warm and in D, 2 or L, if you mash the throttle the box can’t hold on to first and jumps  into second. I noticed this problem when I test drove the car and to be honest it doesn’t tend to cause a problem given my rather relaxed driving style in the ‘Cruiser, but it can be annoying. continue reading…

Got the calipers serviced today – of the eight pistons, only one was seized and even then not badly. A bit of pounding with a hammer and an aluminium drift had it freed up in ten minutes or so, with most of the time spent cleaning out the calipers themselves, all of the oilways, seal seats and piston faces.

There was a bit of tarnishing on the pistons but not enough to cause either seal damage or concern, however I will probably change the pistons out next year – it’s been put into the maintenance schedule so I don’t forget

I’ve done about sixty miles on the new discs and they appear to be bedding in very well. There are no fluid leaks that I can find and it stops straight and true, rather unlike the way it did before the service!

All in all, quite a successful outcome

I picked up the caliper service parts from Inchcape Derby today – not bad considering the parts were only ordered Wednesday. So far, they’ve always managed to get me bits and pieces for the truck within 48 hours, which does make the sometimes scary prices a little easier to swallow! continue reading…

Both discs are now changed and this time everything came apart much easier. Also the caliper this side looks to be in much better condition, but both of them will be reconditioned anyway: I don’t like taking chances with brakes.

The cause of the slight play in the bearing also became quite clear when I found I didn’t need a socket to undo the hub nuts – they were quite literally finger-tight despite the lock tab still being in place, so I can only assume that whoever serviced them last didn’t check the bearing preload correctly. Incidentally, Julian Voelcker from Overland Cruisers has posted a very concise and comprehensive how-to on performing this operation on the TLOCUK forums.

Well, I swapped the first disc out last night only to be scuppered at the last step by a bloody seized piston in the caliber! Ho hum – recon kit ordered from Mr. T: hope it’ll be here in time for the weekend…