I have just bought a new selector shaft for the 109’s gear box to make the selection of third gear a bit more positive – the detent grooves in the existing shaft are a little worn, and the gear stick moves about a quarter of an inch when mashing the accelerator or backing off completely, though only in third. It’s not making any noises or threatening to jump out of gear, but things like this irritate me. The curse of the perfectionist.
To go with the order, I also bought a new stop-hinge for the reverse gear selector shaft, because the existing hinge has become weak and one of the wraps around the hinge pin keeps uncurling. I figured it’s only a matter of time before the stop hinge fails and leaves me in a worse predicament than when its stop-bolt loosened on the Alps trip.
The parts were bought from Dunsfold Land Rover, and despite me not ordering them until mid to late afternoon, they still arrived in the post the following morning. You have to love their service.
Now, the new selector shaft was just wrapped in greased paper and a plastic packet, but the interesting part is the packing of the stop hinge. Obviously, these parts have been sitting on shelves for a while, but it’s amazing how well packaged this simple, small and inexpensive part was preserved. The packaging really was taken to extremes, with the part wrapped in a greased green plastic bag, a sealed clear plastic packet, surrounded on all sided by a tailor-cut corrugated cardboard and then placed in a tailor-made, sealed cardboard box. The part looks like it was made last week. The question is, is it sacrilege to open a package that was sealed on 13 April 1959?
The other thing that has happened this week is that James Taylor (LRe editor) and his photographer, Simon, came over to take dozens of photos and make a lot of notes for a planned article in the magazine’s December edition. It was fun to meet James again, and Simon was a pleasure to meet too.
Hi Nick
Alex from LRUK.Enjoyed all the musings of your Alps Trip. Great to see you get a mention in press for all your efforts with Landy. Long may it continue to give you pleasure……….I`ll need to buy the mag to do a nosey. It will be first mag I`ve bought for 3yrs!
CYA
Alex
Hi Alex.
James Taylor wrote an article about the trip itself in the November 2008 edition of Land Rover Enthusiast, on sale at the moment. We’re in a couple of the pictures and unfortunately get a mention when he refers to the trip being arduous and taking its toll on several of the vehicles, stating that we had numerous over heats. In fact, we never had any over-heats, but did suffer from running hotter than I was happy with for the first half of the first off-roading day, until we traced the problem to the fact that my electric fan was a pusher, not a puller (mis-packaged), and so was working against the airflow through the rad. How much this may have contributed to a coolant T-piece that sheared on the way up to the tracks that morning is debatable, but the consensus was that it was down to normal vibration taking its toll on a sub-standard plastic part. The 109 is also featured on the penultimate facing page with the other “next month’s features”.
The big article is in the December edition, coming out in the next few weeks. James was kind enough to send me an e-mail of his draft of the main text for checking, and only a few minor corrections were needed. It was quite flattering, overall, and will hopefully be a good read for everyone.
Thanks,
Nick