Grass Rover

Just like this pics.. or should i mention Grass Hoppers? 🙂

Land Rover 200 Tdi Thermostat (and overheating story)

Green Defender Water temp gauge doesn’t work very well, its always point to hot even i’m just started the engine in the morning. This problem is known since i bought this car. And i’m too lazy to fixed it. Well actually i’ve change the thermosender (its cost three hundred rupiah) to found that thermosender is ok. Flush the radiator, check the viscous fan to find they are also ok. I think the culprit is gauge itself and the Land Rover shop list them around 1.2 million rupiah, and i’m a cheap guy so i’m never buy this gauge hehe.

From time to time I notice slight water rust sign around water tank cap. And i’m told by some fellow mechanic that this is small evidence that the cylinder head is wrapped or blowned head gasket.

This is turn to disaster when water pump leaks the water. It doesn’t leak when engine at idle, but when you put a little force to the pedal, water leak at quite high volume.

21 April 2008

on the slight rain and busy morning, i must accompany my kid to his school. No time to do some ritual on water level check at that time. The engine run a little harsh, but i don’t think any problem because its still rev pretty good. Water gauge still show hot like always.

When i’m parked at school, the Defender show a slight water vapour from the hood. Oh no.

Quick check to water tank to find its empty. Open the radiator check bolt and find empty. OMG. That damn water gauge (and my cheap pocket) show its karma. With the engine off i turn on the extra electric fan and let them running for several minute till water vapour gone.

Then i take a bucket of fresh water and slowly refill the water tank and radiator. It takes around one and half bucket to fill, wow. Started the engine and do some quick flush, continously running the water via tank and rad. The engine run smooth. But.. water pump show some leak and water tank had high back pressure so every time i tighten the tank cap, its always hissing (small whistle). My conclusion is the engine had vacuum/air lock or at worst the head gasket is blown and the head wrapping.  Dang.

Quick phone to kang Iwan and told him the problem, he agree with my conclusion.

Close but not tighten the tank cap i take the risk by slowly run the car to kang Iwan’s garage. Its around 7 km from my kid school. Keep the engine rpm low and at high gear i came to Iwan’s without any water vapour coming from hood, but surely my engine running quite hot.

Ordered the water pump from local shop (damage around 750 hundred rupiah) and Uking (mechanic) installed it in second. Flush and bleed the water system to find its still had back pressure. In the same time Uking suggest to change the viscous fan, as he found that one installed in the car is leak its oil and not work very well (damage 1.350 hundred rupiah).

Well, the head must overhauled. Iwan told me to prep around 10 to 15 million for engine stripping and overhaul incase i need new bore, ring, piston and cranskshaft machining. Ouch.

I have no other option, and this is my daily driving so im urge Iwan to take the head down.

22 April.

The head show some slight wrapping at center, and the head gasket mark some blow sign at number 2 to number 3 cylinder. Fortunately the engine block and piston still in good with slight usage sign for near 200.000km clocked odometer. Here came again the cheap guy hehe. I told Iwan to just overhauld the head, and let the piston/ring untouch. Ok he said, but he suggest to not machined the valve seating (skir klep), because he had previously bad experience with good valve seating and used ring/piston on 200 Tdi. Ok, that’s fine. In the same time i ordered to calibrated the injector pump.

24 April.

Bad news came from injector services shop. They said that all of my injector nozzle is out of spec. *grrr*. Quick phone to local parts shop told that they only have full set injector for 1.8 million each (its 4 cylinder btw) wow, im broke. The injector service shop said that they have alternative to change the nozzle only, not full set injector. Its cost around 5 hundred each for total 2.1 million for 4 pcs include service and calibrating. But they must ordered it direct from Bosch Singapore and take around 1 to 2 weeks to deliver. Well, the cheap mind said that i must accepted that. Part number for Bosch Nozzle is .. err i lost my noted, where do i wrote that. Sorry.

I phoned to Injector serviced at Jakarta (Tehnik Delta) they said that they had the parts i’m looking at good price, but will only sent it without warranty or wrong parts because the pump doesn’t serviced at their shop. Well fair enough, unfortunately i have taken the pump to local shop, so i cancel the deal with Tehnik Delta. Kindly good support from them though, maybe next time i’ll tried their service.

26 April

The head had milled down, its only very small, although the mill service does’nt note how much the mill (weird). Well, typically Indonesian hehe. Good work, good price with low on detailing that not suited curious customer :). The complete head gasket kit has come and ready to install.

5 May

Its appear that the injector service shop can fullfill their promise. They said please allow some times again, nozzle has not came from Sing. Oh well, again typically Indonesian, not keep up with the promises, but i understand the situation.

In the meantime i bought some water temp gauge from Autogauge at Cihampelas motor to replace bad Land Rover gauge. This one is cheap ‘Autometer wannabe’ gauge made in Taiwan. Its cost me around 300.000 rupiah ($30) and the next days i find that part shop at Jakarta have same item for more cheap price. Not enough phone talk lead to buy more high price hehe.

Its Smoke Lens Series 90° Scale Gauge. Autogauge have full line of gauge, and later i found that this gauge is well built, they manufactured in the same factory and same component as other high-prices gauge. Pity local shop do not have many variant compared to Autogauge websites.

Included in the package is stainless steel thermo sender. Unfortunately the thread is different with 200 Tdi original thread, so i made simple alumunium custom adapter at local machining shop for 25 thousand rupiah ($3). I take some manual calibrating procedure using cheap Mercury (Hg) glass thermometer and find that the Gauge read high around 3 – 5 degree compared to Hg thermometer.

10 May

The nozzle has came, will installed and check so tomorrow the pump can test on the engine.

Hey, its turn to a long post, and im still not wrote about thermostat.. i’ll continued later yah..

My Land Rover Experience

Being a Land Rover Series II 88″ Pick Up owner for more than 15 years, with all bell and whistles and broken parts (btw, barudak’s Bandung joke, Land Rover is lifetime serviced haha). But i love it, it has PTO Koenig front winches, 7.50×16 Good Year Xtra Grip tires, Defender hood and windshield, and OME shock, the other is Solihull standard. Sure the vehicle sometimes stuck and refuse to run, but considering all of mechanical and electrical component is an old and simple technologies, it always can take me back home. Never towed as i remembered.

Now the vehicle is still running (not so well though) and used as our family farm vehicle. Its main duty is hauling trailer with full bag of compost and livestock feed. Transfer case on 4wd low range most of the time. What an natural habitat for Land Rover. A good ‘ol respected farm vehicle.

for you that don’t know, the landrover is at right. at left is my friends ‘1982 Suzuki Jimny (trepes).

Around 2004, I bought (my dad actually hehe) 1993 Defender from some friend. Its ex-Caltex oil mi

ning at Sumatra, double cab, 200 Tdi, turbo diesel intercooler with 110″ wheel base. Front Warn 8274 winches, side protection bar, hilift jack, 7.50×16 hi miller Xtra Grip (our tyre of choices, in term of price and offroad ability) and the other is dead standard. Oh yea, the car body is dented everywhere as the previous owner decided to take all of putty (dempul) and paint it back with caltex green without fix the dent. I kinda like his idea however. Every dent on the body help build Land Rover character isn’t it ? And this vehicle will see the rough environment, so i don’t really care about paint and body.

When I take the car from the seller, the odometer was dead but its clocked around 116.000 km. Fixed the odo and some of leak then install cheap turbo timer from local auto shop.

It doesn’t have air conditioner yet as of i bought it, but i’ve installed later as the climate on southern area of West Java are very hot for us. The unit kompressor is ND, coming from Suzuki Jimny, small power but surely enough for double cab).

The vehicle mainly base at Bandung, but sometimes drove to West Java southern area where me and my dad have some activities there.  Its a lot of fun, and this cars never let us down. Uhm yea one time only when my dad (my dad has heavy right foot) stucked it on muddy V slope and burn the clutch. Oh dad, its turbo engine.. don’t slipped the clutch! hehe. Towed around 100km (towed by my sister’s Suzuki Vitara, what an incredible small but powerful car)  to Iwan’s garage and got the clutch replaced and gearboxes services.

Even though the cabin comfort was bad due to loose alumunium panel joint but the green Defender still serve me and my dad (sometimes my sister and my wife) daily driving very well. Every time we go to south, we stuffed thing in the back cab and cover it with waterproof flysheet.

I wrote this article for talk about Land Rover thermostat, but apparently it become a story of my Land Rover experience, so i’ll write about thermostat later 🙂