Tuesday, Sep 21, 2021 at 10:37
I'm glad the subject is OWNED, not driven.
I used to have a 1974
Ranger Rover that I bought 2nd hand in 1979. Finally had to pension it off about 3 years ago. So although I had it for about 39 years for a while before it departed it was unregistered as it failed Rego inspection. Who would have thought that a Landrover product would leak oil.
Leaking oil was normal but to fix the final issue got to be too much work and would have led me down the path of a total rebuild. Found someone who wanted a 2 door body to put on a refurbished chassis etc so they took it away.
A guesstimate would have been 300,000+Km driven as the speedo had too few digits back then and had gone around a couple of times and wasn't the original anyway. It still had the original uni joints, clutch, wheel bearings (oil bathed from Diff's which was regularly replenished), noisy gearbox and 7 cyl engine with added 1 cyl air pump.
The new owner got some extras to service and transplant to the new vehicle such as the Fairey overdrive unit and the 2 Roberts Diff locks which ultimately were taken over by ARB.
Sale deal was he got the car for free but had to take all my extensive spare parts acquired over the decades, but only if he paid me for the Recaro seats.
Despite the reputation RR's had/have it was a very reliable vehicle overall. Even when the starter motor failed it was easy to start with the crank handle, although that did get some strange looks when I did it, once deliberately for the fun of the looks.
One of the great things about it was that it had only 2 truly electronic items, the radio and the aftermarket electronic ignition. My current 4x4 spent 6 weeks with the Dealer tracing a "limp
home mode fault" which is more time than the RR spent in it's registered life in a workshop, at least while I owned it.
The current vehicle is almost solely used for towing a caravan and I wouldn't put it over corrugations like the RR loved, such as the Old dirt Stuart Hwy from the NT Border to
Pimba.
I do miss it, but it wasn't automatic and I bought this one as it also didn't have power steering. Also with the replacement seating there was no way the wife could have driven it, even though because I did have it I ended up getting her in a way.
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