Lightning can strike twice …
RICHARD HALL bought his first Land Rover, a Series III, just after his 18th birthday and has since owned, maintained and restored these vehicles for over 30 years now. He runs a small Land Rover repair and restoration business in Norfolk and every month he lets off steam in LRM.
MANY Land Rover enthusiasts own more than one Land Rover, but few own two identical ones. For a while now I have been looking after a pair of ageing Defender 90s, both seven-seat Station Wagons with the 300Tdi engine, both the same colour and owned by a couple who run a gardening and landscaping business. The vehicles are worked hard, six or even seven days a week, and when something goes wrong with one of them I need to shuffle jobs around to accommodate it. Running a small labour-based business myself I know only too well that if you’re not working, you’re not earning.
About four months ago Barry rang me up to say that his wife’s Defender was giving problems. It had become increasingly reluctant to engage first and reverse gears and he wanted me to price up a replacement gearbox. I wasn’t convinced that the gearbox was at fault here. From his description it sounded as though the clutch was not disengaging fully. Normally on older Land Rovers this is caused by air getting into the clutch hydraulic system. The slave cylinder deteriorates
