In February of this year (2003) myself and a few others embarked on a trip to Poland. South Eastern Poland to be precise. In fact you couldn’t get a lot further without going into a different country, like the Ukraine. About 1200 miles from London. Now, this might not be a strain on modern vehicles or even a vehicle that was built in the early eighties but the mid seventies?? Now that was going to be a test of endurance.
The Land Rover in question was a 1976 Series III diesel. I think it’s fair to say that rather than being looked after, it’s more a case of it’s been kept on the road. 24 hours before the departure date I was still trying to fit the gearbox back in it. On the morning of departure day it was going for an MOT. All things considered, I’m surprised that it did as well as it did!!
On the outbound journey it was jumping out of top gear so almost all of the journey on mainland Europe was spent holding the gear lever into top with considerable force. This was a nightmare in its own right!! So this meant that the inbound journey was always going to be a tough ride.
Somewhere in central Germany, in the mountains, I’d been racing the Series down hills on the autobahn, as you do, to see how fast it would go. 87mph was recorded on the GPS and verified by the following Land Rover by radio. 87mph!!! Shortly afterwards there was a lovely sunset and not willing to let it go un-photographed I drove with one hand and shot photo’s with the other.
About 10 minutes later there was a horrific banging noise coming from the transmission so I immediately pulled over to the hard shoulder, about 30 yds before a contra-flow system that shut the hard shoulder off.
The other vehicle in our party, which was leading at that point, missed the distress call and carried on into the road works. It then pulled over in the road works. Long story short: it carried on to the next junction, turned round and did a loop to pull up behind me. We decided as there was no obvious sign of what it was to remove the rear prop shaft, put it in 2 wheel drive and tow it. Tow it where was the next question. Calais and then London was the answer. Oh my god!!
We hooked the Series up and off we went. Up hill and down the other side. Some descents were relatively steep and lasted in excess of 7km. On more than 1 occasion I had to radio the towing vehicle to speed up as I had NO brakes. We continued like this for a couple of hundred miles until we got pulled over by the German Police.
Now they were OK about it but they instructed us that we had to leave the Autobahn at the next junction and ‘oh yeah, there is a fine of €20 to pay or your car will be impounded’ (that was the towing car so I was OK!!). They then decided that it was better for us if they escorted us off the Autobahn at the third junction from us as it was easier for us.
Very kind – no sarcasm.
In all fairness they were OK about it and even let us photograph them ‘just for the record’…!
We continued on the a-road that ran parallel the autobahn but when we reached a town called Soest I just couldn’t carry on any further. It had been suggested that I stay overnight with the Land Rover and try and fix it in the morning as it was probably just the nut that holds the rear of the gearbox mainshaft in place and I could do that with no specialist tools. But we decided to put all the luggage and passengers in the remaining, working, Land Rover (which was a V8 110 luckily!) and carry on.
At this time it was 01:00 monday and we’d been on the go since 9am sunday so we were a little tired to say the least. We were still 300 miles from Calais. All luggage and 9 people in the 110 and off we went. We didn’t stop, other than for fuel and food, until we reached Calais – at about 10am monday morning. Quick ferry across and back home it was. Minus a Land Rover.
Sleep that night, lots of sleep – in fact, apparently, I had a 5 minute conversation on my mobile but I don’t remember it!! Woke up Tuesday morning and decided that it was time to go back to Germany to retrieve my Land Rover. Dick & I hired a trailer, booked the ferry and we were back in France by 20:00 local time. It was a constant drive back to Soest, loaded the Series up and drove straight back to Calais.
We got back to Calais it about 09:00 local time and got on the ferry and just slept. Went back home, dropped the Land Rover, took the trailer back and then slept – again.
It was some time before I started to look at the Land Rover and when I did it was in stages. I’d take the overdrive unit off and have a look, nothing wrong there. Took the transfer box apart, nothing wrong there. This meant that the problem wasn’t with the gearbox, as everyone had assumed, but in the engine. Oh dear. Now I was a little concerned but also thankful that I hadn’t decided to stay in Germany to fix it after all. I’d probably still be there now!! After about a month of doing nothing 
to it I decided that enough was enough and I needed to sort it out. The sump pan came off, nothing there, the rocker cover came off, nothing there. The engine was moving freely now so I’d done something right. Another quick inspection under the car revealed that there was a rather large chunk of metal sitting in the top of the sump pan.
It turned out it was the main bearing cap at the front of the engine had sheered in half, dropped into the sump pan, got caught in the sump pan baffle and as the crankshaft had turned it had caught on the chunk of sheered metal. That’s why the engine stopped dead. You can see the remains of it on the right hand side here and it’s NOT a small piece of metal either. Now I know what it is, I can fix it. Don’t worry about telling me that ‘each individual engine has an individual end cap’… I know. But I’m not going to bin a perfectly good engine just for the sake of not even trying a different end cap…!!!
Moral of this story is?? Don’t drive your Land Rover at 87mph when it’s in a different country, over 20 years old and only supposed to do a top speed of 60mph. Believe me – Lesson learnt!!