New Mechanic

The 109 has a new mechanic: Helena.

I moved out to Dubai two months ago, so Helena is the sole user of the 109 now.  That also means that she has to deal with any problems that come up, like a recent issue with gear selection being very difficult. Helena was able to determine it was a problem on the gear stick rather than internal, and the description of the symptoms certainly sounded that way.  So with some basic instructions, she removed the Wright Off Road trim form the tunnel, followed by the gear box tunnel cover itself, and then managed to identify and rectify the fault.

The original gear stick has been replaced with a type with a thick green rubber grommet around the lower ball, instead of the usual thin o-ring.  This was less prone to wear than the o-ring and had better rattle resistance.  Unfortunately, the grommet split and detached form the ball, but unlike the the small o-rings which cause no problem other than a rattle when they fail, this was limiting the movement of the ball withing the selector shaft “cups”, leading to all the gear selection problems.

The car was back on the road within a couple of hours, including all the trim being put back in place.  So, not only do I have a wife who doesn’t object to my Land Rover (at least, not always), but actually fixes it in my absence.  OK, it wasn’t a full gear box rebuild, but there are a lot of owners out there, and LR magazine staff writers, who would not have been able to identify the fault, let alone take on repairing it.  She has done other jobs in the past, like rebuild the distributor on the Lightweight.  I’m glad to be married to a woman who refuses to submit to “mens’ jobs”.

Comments

  1. Neil Armstrong says

    Well done Helena for finding the fault, getting stuck in and fixing it.

    Regards,

    Neil.

  2. Well done Helena! 🙂

  3. She must be a brave woman. Only remove the WOR mat takes a lot of effort.

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