NAS LR3 build with an overseas twist
- Thread starter Ray_G
- Start date
Ray_G
Explorer
S1 is a longer story than the phone, more after the weekend.
EAS does sit level. Like when it sits level on the bump stops. Bc of a brake light bulb.
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SteveMfr
Supporting Sponsor
See? Like we've said all along: if you keep the car in good shape, the EAS is reliable. Ya gotta replace those bulbs!
Seriously tho, this I'd like to hear more about. How did the bulb affect the EAS?
Nice camp pic, btw. I hope we can make it into the Vosges mountains for a weekend before it gets really cold here too.
Seriously tho, this I'd like to hear more about. How did the bulb affect the EAS?
Nice camp pic, btw. I hope we can make it into the Vosges mountains for a weekend before it gets really cold here too.
Ray_G
Explorer
I would presume you know far more than I what manner of sorcery makes it so when a brake light bulb goes out a truck that your life could depend on out in the sticks has a 'transmission fault' & Xmas tree of lights, no special programs and goes to the bump stops.
Simply put EAS is great, on stock tires and in civilization. The further you get from either, the less compelled I am by many arguments. But that could be bc mine dropped to the bump stops in 40deg (Celsius!, for the non Americans) on the edge of the empty quarter.
What amazes me is the U.K. centric crowd that very clearly clings to EAS as some kind of godsend and going to a 'base' spec is tantamount to insulting her majesty.
But I digress.
Good day on the trails
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Ray_G
Explorer
A few more shots as I am awake waiting for others to also rise so we can break camp.
S1 had an inglorious start to her first MAR, reversing off the trailer but then no longer going into gear.
Towed it to camp and would eventually sort out the reverse detent being stuck. Wife did quite a bit of the work with expert supervision (she's actually under the truck bolting bits back on)
Did some light trails, mostly w/3's & 4's since we were with peeps on street tires and my truck has to tow the S1 home anyway.
All told a great rally, more to follow when we are home.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
S1 had an inglorious start to her first MAR, reversing off the trailer but then no longer going into gear.
Towed it to camp and would eventually sort out the reverse detent being stuck. Wife did quite a bit of the work with expert supervision (she's actually under the truck bolting bits back on)
Did some light trails, mostly w/3's & 4's since we were with peeps on street tires and my truck has to tow the S1 home anyway.
All told a great rally, more to follow when we are home.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
SteveMfr
Supporting Sponsor
Ok, did some research and found the brake light bulb issues on earlier D3s. I was well aware of the brake light switch problems but not the bulb problems. Patrick does our support and is much more acutely aware of individual model quirks.
I was just teasing with the comment about your car not sitting level back end sagging with the trailer attached. I fully respect your decision to go to coils.
I am a proponent of keeping the EAS, tho, and my EAS equipped cars have taken me to numerous relatively remote areas from Asia minor to northern Africa and all over Europe without issues (I don't see us heading anywhere near the Arabian peninsula any time soon, unfortunately...). The problem, as I see it, is not the EAS but how to deal with a modern electronic vehicle in remote areas. This affects all systems and you have to be able to deal with any issue anywhere to be safe. We hope to do a series of articles on this in the near future...
Sorry for going OT. Looking fwd to hearing about the Series 1. Love that last pic - colors are terrific!
Ray_G
Explorer
I definitely think the articles would be good; there are a lot more of these popping up on the trails these days and the owners are doing what many Rover owners do (i.e. larger tires, often with rods) that could find them in a bind if they do have a significant system failure in some form/fashion. Lots of folks on this board have found trail fixes to get out of it-ranging from the 'big 3' of fuses to pull (that I know that is illustrative of why I switched) to building in the ability to refill bags isolated from the system.
Does that make the EAS an inherently weak component-not really-but, and particularly here on ExpO where vehicle dependent travel (hopefully far from civilization) is what many are at least vicariously living to do it is something worth discussing in detail. What you guys do with the IID tool is invaluable and I think those articles would be a great service.
(I love my old school dongle IID, kinda wish I'd gotten BT, but now have the truck fairly 'burned in' so my need to manipulate it is far less-I do point out to others looking to get a modern Rover that your product should be considered as a first purchase after buying one if there is any intent to troubleshoot on their own).
More on the S1 in the next post!
r-
Ray
Ray_G
Explorer
1954 Series 1 86" (aka 'Riley')
Ok, clearly people have hit a point where they are like "yeah, nice D3 on coils with a cool rack-how about that Series 1 you have?" so it is time to offer some details.
The story:
This is not my truck. I need to be clear there.
It is my wife's truck. I am just the mechanic and the emotional support.
Long story short I was going to work absurdly early in the morning and saw the truck pop up for sale on defendersource.com (aka D90). Since I knew April, my wife, viewed the S1 as her dream truck since pretty much forever despite all the known reasons why an SII, SIIA, SIII or what have you makes more sense I decided to ping the seller. I then sent her the pics/link. Mind you she's wrapping up her dissertation and doesn't start her post PhD job till ~Jan so technically we weren't due to for the 'congrats to myself' present yet but opportunity waits for noone.
We ended up 2nd in line, and as the East Coast of the US woke up and realized there was a running/driving/stopping S1 for sale in NY a small portion of the Rover internet blew up. By that night there was multiple people lined up behind us, cash in hand. Thankfully the #1 passed and so it was to us. We discussed the pros/cons for awhile with me advocating that we'd be unlikely to source an S1 at the price point anytime soon-and that if we decided it wasn't for us or not the right time financially, it could be sold in about 20 min in the mid atlantic.
So we bought it, rented a Uhaul car trailer, and went to NY. Here's the first drive:
Loaded up to come home.
The truck, as discussed in the title, is an 86" 1954 model. The story we've gotten thus far was that it went to the Far East (Japan, allegedly) perhaps as an RAF truck. At some point there it was in an accident so the left front wing is actually steel not aluminum-since the Japanese were manufacturing body panels out of steel locally. The original American owner imported it-timeframe TBD-and had it for years amidst a collection of S1s. Sadly he has passed away so we're getting most of this 2nd and 3rd hand, though the recent Mid Atlantic Rally facilitated some hilarious interactions with the 2nd US owner's brother (we'd spoken to him on the phone), as well as a Maine based mechanic that actually has the appropriate bonnet for her.
The good: it starts, it stops (kinda), it shifts (most of the time), and the rust isn't catastrophic-far from it actually.
The less good: it is far from original (we view this as a net positive), it stops sometimes, it shifts sometimes and often pops out of 2nd and 3rd, it only has the hard top at the moment, the electrical wiring will need to be sorted as it is a bodge of epic proportion, the springs are likely from a lightweight, the brakes are from a S2 (that's a good actually), the color is 'some kind of green' since it was clearly painted at some point in its life.
That said, we love it. The previous post alludes to the tragedy/triumph of taking her to MAR, it then not going into gear. The great thing about MAR is all the help though, which taught us a lot since I'm a D1/RRC/D3 guy by nature, with a lot of people willing to help.
As I noted, it isn't my truck-it is hers:
Gotta love the help-but that only goes by so far!
So once we sorted that the reverse detent was stuck and preventing everything from working, she was back in the fight and April was puttering around the field.
She even let me drive a bit.
Loaded her up and brought her home to come back inside, where we've retooled our 'build' plan for her to focus on getting the transmission sorted, tightening up the steering, and dealing with rust first. Fixing the horrendous lights in the back (defender style), and other small details that offend me far more than the wife. Wiring will come as we plan on sourcing an appropriate style harness (cloth covered, correct colors) and such. Intent also is to treat her with a canvas soft top and likely re-do the seat cushions in the same color. Then drive it, particularly at events. So far as I could tell we had the only S1 at MAR, so it is good to take just for the heritage aspect.
So that's the story, getting the wife deservedly into her dream truck as a target of opportunity as she finishes the PhD. A nice little piece of LR history that is easy to tow behind the current models, and is a blast to drive.
Ok, clearly people have hit a point where they are like "yeah, nice D3 on coils with a cool rack-how about that Series 1 you have?" so it is time to offer some details.
The story:
This is not my truck. I need to be clear there.
It is my wife's truck. I am just the mechanic and the emotional support.
Long story short I was going to work absurdly early in the morning and saw the truck pop up for sale on defendersource.com (aka D90). Since I knew April, my wife, viewed the S1 as her dream truck since pretty much forever despite all the known reasons why an SII, SIIA, SIII or what have you makes more sense I decided to ping the seller. I then sent her the pics/link. Mind you she's wrapping up her dissertation and doesn't start her post PhD job till ~Jan so technically we weren't due to for the 'congrats to myself' present yet but opportunity waits for noone.
We ended up 2nd in line, and as the East Coast of the US woke up and realized there was a running/driving/stopping S1 for sale in NY a small portion of the Rover internet blew up. By that night there was multiple people lined up behind us, cash in hand. Thankfully the #1 passed and so it was to us. We discussed the pros/cons for awhile with me advocating that we'd be unlikely to source an S1 at the price point anytime soon-and that if we decided it wasn't for us or not the right time financially, it could be sold in about 20 min in the mid atlantic.
So we bought it, rented a Uhaul car trailer, and went to NY. Here's the first drive:
Loaded up to come home.
The truck, as discussed in the title, is an 86" 1954 model. The story we've gotten thus far was that it went to the Far East (Japan, allegedly) perhaps as an RAF truck. At some point there it was in an accident so the left front wing is actually steel not aluminum-since the Japanese were manufacturing body panels out of steel locally. The original American owner imported it-timeframe TBD-and had it for years amidst a collection of S1s. Sadly he has passed away so we're getting most of this 2nd and 3rd hand, though the recent Mid Atlantic Rally facilitated some hilarious interactions with the 2nd US owner's brother (we'd spoken to him on the phone), as well as a Maine based mechanic that actually has the appropriate bonnet for her.
The good: it starts, it stops (kinda), it shifts (most of the time), and the rust isn't catastrophic-far from it actually.
The less good: it is far from original (we view this as a net positive), it stops sometimes, it shifts sometimes and often pops out of 2nd and 3rd, it only has the hard top at the moment, the electrical wiring will need to be sorted as it is a bodge of epic proportion, the springs are likely from a lightweight, the brakes are from a S2 (that's a good actually), the color is 'some kind of green' since it was clearly painted at some point in its life.
That said, we love it. The previous post alludes to the tragedy/triumph of taking her to MAR, it then not going into gear. The great thing about MAR is all the help though, which taught us a lot since I'm a D1/RRC/D3 guy by nature, with a lot of people willing to help.
As I noted, it isn't my truck-it is hers:
Gotta love the help-but that only goes by so far!
So once we sorted that the reverse detent was stuck and preventing everything from working, she was back in the fight and April was puttering around the field.
She even let me drive a bit.
Loaded her up and brought her home to come back inside, where we've retooled our 'build' plan for her to focus on getting the transmission sorted, tightening up the steering, and dealing with rust first. Fixing the horrendous lights in the back (defender style), and other small details that offend me far more than the wife. Wiring will come as we plan on sourcing an appropriate style harness (cloth covered, correct colors) and such. Intent also is to treat her with a canvas soft top and likely re-do the seat cushions in the same color. Then drive it, particularly at events. So far as I could tell we had the only S1 at MAR, so it is good to take just for the heritage aspect.
So that's the story, getting the wife deservedly into her dream truck as a target of opportunity as she finishes the PhD. A nice little piece of LR history that is easy to tow behind the current models, and is a blast to drive.
Ray_G
Explorer
Great story! A wife with a PhD who works on cars. Wow. My wife has a PhD....
Maybe I'll get a chance to see it live someday. I'm from Rockville. I've been trying to get home long enough to do some east coast events.
Love the 4th pic. Just wow. And cute too.
I am more than a little fortunate across a variety of fronts!
Anytime you are back stateside, open invite at my place as a lillypad to Rover events or whatever.
Hell, I have more than I have drivers-you are welcome to one (of mine...April will have to speak to the S1).
The Mid Atlantic Rally is a quality event, always the first weekend of Oct if you are looking deep. Their Rover's at Wintergreen (RAW) is nice too since it uses the ski lodge there as the base since it can still be chilly (and uses the mountain's access roads as the trails).
Anything from Vermont Overland will be awesome too. I continue to miss the chance to hit all the stuff down in Uwharrie, likewise the stuff in PA which is rather frustrating.
r-
Ray
