1500 miles around south-west UK
Despite our best efforts, our trips with the Land Rover have usually gone something like this...
We pack the car, leave something important behind, it starts to rain, we struggle to find somewhere to camp, something in the engine bay starts making strange noises, we ignore the noise and continue with our trip until the strange noise turns into an immediate and unavoidable problem…
And just like clockwork, this trip was no different!
Our initial plan was to head to the Alps, through Switzerland and into northern Italy for a few weeks of sun, swimming in lakes, and making our way over mountain passes like Roger Beckerman at the start of The Italian Job - except we’d be in our 1997 Land Rover Defender 110, and going quite a few miles per hour slower than a Lamborghini.
But as we know, 2020 had other plans for us all, so we postponed the idea of mainland Europe and decided instead to drive through south-west England until we reached the sea, in the hope of finding that elusive English summer. If we had enough time, we’d then head north and get lost somewhere in the Welsh mountains.
When we pack the Defender before a trip, we have a big list of what we consider essential. This usually consists of parts that have broken on previous trips and various other gaskets, nuts, bolts, washers, a roll of duct tape, and of course, some WD40. But because we’d changed our plans and decided to stay in the UK, a lot of spare parts and tools were removed from the “essential” list and moved into the “if we have enough space” list. After all, it was just a short holiday in the UK, not an expedition across a continent. What could possibly go wrong?
Famous last words...
So instead, we packed the new “essentials”, which included plenty of beer, a selection of cheeses that would be finished before we’d even arrive at the first campsite, and in hindsight, definitely not enough suncream. Just as we hit the road, the heavens opened and reminded us what British summertime was all about. Luckily, the rain didn’t last long and we soon joined the back of a long line of tractors and caravans all winding their way through Exmoor National Park and into Cornwall.
It was around Newquay that we noticed some more oil drops than usual under the car. We’d replaced the inlet manifold and rocker cover gaskets, along with the cyclone breather and o-ring whilst chasing an oil leak a few weeks earlier, so this wasn’t something we were expecting. We told ourselves it wasn’t enough to worry about, Land Rovers leak a lot of oil after all, and instead focused on where we’d find the next ice-cream and where to camp later that night.
Slightly down on power, with some colourful smoke and a slight ‘puffing’ noise in the engine bay, we reached Land’s End. After quick snap of us in the Land’s End carpark to mark the occasion, we headed back east along the south coast with plans to meet up with some friends and fellow Land Rover owners somewhere in Dartmoor later that week.
That night, we decided to try and figure out what was causing the oil leak and power issues, so scrolled through some trusty old forums to try and get a diagnosis. The results were hit and miss - some posts made it seem like we had worn piston rings causing excessive crankcase pressure, others pointed us towards possible head-gasket troubles, and the rest tried to convince us that we’d need a completely new engine.
We settled on head-gasket troubles, and figured that if it was any of the other two, we’d find out about it once the nearest garage had taken the engine apart. Our bigger issue was trying to find a garage in the local area that didn’t have a four week waiting list. Eventually, after sitting around camp and calling everyone in a 30 mile radius, we realised we were well and truly in the deep end. So we grabbed the battered old Haynes manual from the toolbox and with some Dutch courage, we convinced ourselves that we could do it ourselves, quicker and cheaper than a local garage.
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After a quick pit stop at Mid-Cornwall 4x4 to pick up a new head-gasket, bolts, and other bits and pieces (most of which we already had, sitting in the spares box in the shed at home) we found a lovely campsite just 20 minutes down the road, and based on the reviews online promising “casual camping and plenty of space for group activities”, we hoped our pitch would be a suitable workshop for some ‘light’ maintenance the next day.
So on the Saturday morning, filled to the brim with strong coffee, the bonnet came off and we got to work. Our friends had decided to come down early and join us so we had plenty of volunteers to help us find the bolts we dropped in the grass, to share wise words of advice, and mostly to give us a hand drinking beer in the sunshine.
We’ve had our Land Rover Defender for just over a year, and this was the first time we'd gone this deep into the engine bay. To say it was daunting was an understatement, but inspired by grainy photos from the Camel Trophy, where workshops were little more than a patch of grass in a sweaty rainforest, we figured that a campsite in sunny Cornwall wasn’t the worst place to have our first proper experience of some roadside repairs and bush mechanics. If we got stuck, the parts shop was 20 minutes away and we had enough alcohol to see us through the weekend.
We soon found out that replacing the head-gasket on a 300TDI isn’t too difficult, but it’s a long, tedious job that took most of the day. The old head-gasket had started splitting between the fourth cylinder and the back of the head, which explained the puffing sound. There was also some wear between the second cylinder and a pushrod tube, but it hadn’t split completely. Was this the cause of the new oil leaks?
The forums had recommended to get the head checked properly and skimmed if necessary, but our chances of finding a shop to do this at 4pm on a Saturday were slim. So we cleaned up both faces, then used a steel ruler to check for any obvious warps. Satisfied with what we found, we set about putting everything back in the same place...
Whilst we were re-assembling the mess we’d made, we made a mistake which meant we’d have to go back to the parts shop on Monday morning. The campsite owner saw our frustration and came over to ask what the problem was. We'd managed to snap a very small, but very important banjo bolt whilst putting everything together, and after telling Chris (the owner) what we were up to, he was more than willing to let us come down to his yard and see if he might have the spares we’d need to get back on the road. We figured that the chances he’d have the exact parts we needed in his yard would be slim, but what was the harm in trying?
As it turned out, Chris was a bit of an enthusiast and DIY mechanic himself. We followed him down to his yard, where we found a double decker bus and a vast collection of tractors, ploughs, trucks, and engines lying around. However, what was even more exciting for us was the three Land Rovers in various states of disassembly in his yard.
He moved a bonnet and some chicken wire to one side, and sure enough, there was a 300TDI engine he’d picked up earlier this year, which we were more than welcome to use for parts! We could not believe our luck. So now that we had all the parts we needed for our puzzle, we put everything back in its correct place and torqued what needed to be torqued. Topped up the coolant, bled the fuel system, turned the key, and after a few coughs and splutters, we were on our way!
We managed to drive to a new campsite that evening, and after checking our oil and coolant levels the following morning, we continued on our adventure. But, just as we’d finished fixing one thing, a new rattle started, and promptly stopped again. In its place came a lumpy misfire that shook the whole car as we crawled along the B3274. We thought we were in the middle of nowhere, but somehow, we managed to break down just 800 metres from a Land Rover specialist. We limped our way to the garage and after listening to the noise, the mechanic immediately recognised the issue.
It was a missing valve stem cap. We’d set the valve clearances when putting everything back together but this one must have slipped the net. Who knew that such a small part could cause so much drama? Hopefully we’ll find what’s left of the cap in the sump during the next oil change…
Mick (the garage owner) found what we needed in an old box on his shelf, and explained how the tiny part had thrown us such a curveball. We put everything back together (again) and Mick reassured us that the engine was now sounding “sweet as a nut”. With that vote of confidence, we left Cornwall behind and headed north.
The road-trip gods clearly took pity on us, because we made it up into Wales without any more trouble, and happily cruised through the winding lanes in Snowdonia National Park for the last few days of our holiday. The winding lanes took us all the way to Black Rock Sands, where we finally found the British summertime we’d been looking for, and decided to spend a day by the sea.
When we’d arrived, the beach was still empty and we had the place to ourselves, but before long it started to look like a car park, with hundreds of cars parked end-to-end along the water’s edge. This wasn’t quite the scenic beach we’d been expecting, so feeling confident, we headed back inland and made our way towards a series of off-road tracks we’d found online.
The tracks led us all the way to a hidden lake, nestled in the hills far away from the rest of the world. Cracking open the last beers of the trip, were treated to a glorious sunset and incredible views across the Welsh mountains.
Something that we definitely learnt from this trip, and are still learning as this will most likely not be the last time we're fixing something in a field and screaming PG words at the Land Rover... without the lows, there are no highs, and the days spent broken down in a field, make the moments around the campfire after a long day of not breaking down, just that little bit more special...
Have you had a similar experience with your Land Rover? We'd love to hear your stories or if you have any tips for dealing with this kind of thing... We're pretty sure this won't be our last time fixing something in a field 😆
October 17, 2020
Ah, fellow sufferers! Found you while looking for Defender interior build ideas, and I read on.
We did a similar trip in September. Drove from our home in Iowa to Colorado to meet up with the group traveling Oxford and Cambridge Series I truck. Coming out of Denver, transfer case pinion seal blew and along with it, the transfer case oil. Made it a few hundred more miles by stopping and filling T-case. Stopped at a friends house, he had a spare case. Threw it in the truck, and moved on. Ended up changing the transfer case at 9,800 feet in the Rockies at a campground, with a guy from Kenya and a guy from Namibia who had joined our group. Continued on to Moab, UT (White Rim Trail, you should look it up), then a few days in Ouray, Colorado (Imogene Pass, California Pass at 12,980 feet). Awesome trip, Rover history, good people.
We did Hardangervidda Plateau and fjord, up to the Polar Circle, as the call it, in Sept 2017. Wonderful country.
November 17, 2020
Wowww what a story, sounds like an amazing adventure! We’d love to ship our Land Rover over to the US one day… But mostly we just love how these cars bring people together, we always tell ourselves that when something eventually breaks (as it always does) it means we’ll probably end up with some ridiculous story to tell & it’ll be worth the stress! And maybe one day we won’t be stressed when we break down because we’ll know everything that could go wrong.. They do say Land Rovers make people into mechanics 😂