Project Range Rover 4.4 V8
PART SIX: The front brakes of Skelton’s Range Rover need attention. Sam Skelton reports.
The old adage is that you should never work with animals or children, because both can be unpredictable, add hours of time and considerable stress to almost any job. Well, I’ve found a third. Never work with old Range Rovers. It can’t have escaped the notice of any regular reader that the list of jobs completed bears little resemblance to the list of jobs we planned at the start of this series, and this issue is no exception to that. So unexpected was it in fact that I actually intended to bring you this instalment last month, until editor Martyn told me he was already planning a brake refit on the project Lexus IS – because this job hadn’t been planned, it actually caused the projects to clash.
When the brakes began to grind, I knew there was only one thing for it – call Allen Walker at Avenger 4x4 and book the Range Rover in. As ever
with Avenger 4x4, there would be a wait involved – Inever trust a specialist who can fit you in immediately; one with a full diary is likely to be far more reputable. And three weeks or so later, I nursed the car gingerly into Peterborough avoiding the brakes as much as I could.
I’d ordered both front and rear brake discs and the necessary pads from Rimmer Bros, in case we had time to get them all done, but timing clashes meant that the front brakes would be all that was on the agenda for this visit. Not that that’s a worry – the fronts were the ones that desperately needed the work. With a couple of hours of David Day’s time, the car would be ready to hit the road again for many miles of fault free motoring.
Which brings me back to the start of this section – about never working with children, animals or Range Rovers. Because I was on my way home from Avenger 4x4 when trouble struck once more. Five miles from my house, the dashboard flagged up a low coolant warning, I got the sweet smell – and by the time I got home there was steam billowing from just about everywhere under the bonnet. Out came my phone, and that familiar number was dialled once again...
FRONT DISCS & PADS
