The many faces of Suetonius

Full moon.... Half Moon.... Total Eclipse....

BRAKE!!

Rear N/S brake has problems - the leak from the hub seal has effected the brake and has started making 'grating' and 'screeching' noises.

Should get it up and apart during the week - we are suppose to be attending a local classic car show in the first weekend of August. Fingers crossed.

I'm Back!

Have replaced the differential, however we have now noticed that we need to replace one of the axle oil seals - perhaps that was the cause of the differential being empty in the first place.

Went for a new look too - and now topless! Unfortunately the screen can't come down due to not having the brackets.

Hmm, something missing....

Something indeed....

So, we got some weather and put some time aside to take the differential off Suetonius.
Half shafts are fine, and the differential came off relatively easy.
Oh, and it had no transmission fluid in at all - it should have had a full 1.5 litres, but not a drop.



Nothing obvious once it had been taken off, however there was a lot of swarf and a fair bit of gorging and pitting, the search continues - perhaps a bearing?

Broken Down

This is a sight that our neighbours have seen twice recently, it's becoming some kind of common occurence - but it's to be expected since we have done 6000+ miles since we got him in October.
Going to the local classic mini meet, and just getting into the town it was being held in it started a god awful squeaking noise - something that can only be described as a loud EEK EEK EEK. First thought that it was the prop UJ's needing greasing or it failing again (we'd bought a second hand one to get us by - silly as a new one is only £35, but when it's your only car needs must and all). It was too late to turn back and worry about getting home or not we'd arrived and went into the pub.
Eventually we left at 10.20pm and got into Toni, all was well to start with, but after about a mile down the road it started again, we'd just got to the roundabout before our turning off to the road home and he completely locked out - leaving a nice number 1 on the left hand side of the road and smoke everywhere. It was obvious that we weren't going to get home tonight - so the AA was called - we ended up with a repair van instead of just a lift - after much discussion with him he'd called the centre and got a flat bed on it's way to us - estimated time was 11.50pm - so we weren't going to get home until 1am. We got lucky and the flat bed arrived at 11.10pm and loaded us onto the back - unfortunately the AA previously had moved the Land Rover onto the grass verge to get us 'out the way'. Meaning that once we had got loaded to the flat bed we where stuck in the mud in it! A lot of muttering and swearing by the driver of the flat bed whilst he tried to think of many ways to get us out - he'd tried wood, grit and sheer determination - and eventually called another one of his colleagues to pull us out. Whilst sitting waiting Chris came up with the idea of winching to a lamp-post which was behind us - this got us pretty much unstuck and just as this happened the other truck turned up - after an hour of this most frustrating amusement we where on our way home!

Current guess of diagnostics is that the rear differential is dead - haven't had a chance to check properly yet - but a quick check showed that there was too much play in it.

We've now managed to get a daily runner, something which we where talking about on the way to the meet - maybe that's why he broke down?

Replaced Prop

Bearings had gone in the prop - lots of lovely play in it - was a five minute job to do 8 bolts and then it was out, new one in and do the 8 bolts up again.

Running nicely since we got the muff - gets up to a normal temperature and manages to stay.

No other problems to report!

Box done and dusted

Everything is now back in and so far so good without any major problems, a little bit of clutch fade, but that is probably due to the fact that the clutch had the usual grease they pack them in.

Fingers crossed that it's alls well that ends well.