Trust a Land Rover to get you horny…

With the Land Rover Defender due for its MoT next month I took a day off crofting work to get some more fettling done, focusing on the electrics, chassis and door sills.

I tackled the filthiest job first—crawling in, around and under the chassis with the pressure washer, blasting off a couple of months of greasy crud plus the remains of last year’s underseal to reveal quite a few patches of surface rust but nothing serious.

Just to be sure, though, I worked my way around the chassis with a peening hammer, giving it a good belt every few inches to  check for weak spots.

None of the metal gave way so the Waxoyl I sprayed inside the chassis plus the paint and Waxoyl on the outside have kept the rust at bay for another year.

I now need to go over the chassis with the angle grinder and wire brushes to prepare it for a fresh coat of paint, but that’s a job for another day when the chassis and ground are dry.

Next up, I sanded back the primer on the front passenger door sill and brushed on a coat of red paint. I’ll sand that back tomorrow and do another coat of red, probably doing three coats in all.

The colour might not be a close match to Land Rover red, but it looks a lot better and is much safer than the rusted spikes of metal that were masquerading as a sill until last month.

Then it was the turn of the electrics.

Land Rovers tend to eat light bulbs with gusto and ours is no exception.

I had to replace bulbs in the left indicator repeater, the number plate light and the right side light. (And I really should replace the lense for the latter as it’s pitted and dark with dirt that I can’t get off).

By now, I was running out of time as I had to take the boys to football but I had one job left that I really wanted to get out of the way.

The standard horn on Defenders is a round “parp, parp” weakling that sits in front of the intercooler on diesels like our 200TDi, but someone had replaced ours with two-tone airhorns at some point.

It’s a good idea in theory, but in practice? The installation was a complete and utter bodge-up that had failed utterly in the past couple of days.

The Other Half had tried to sound the horn at another driver yesterday but nothing happened, while I’d noticed this morning that there was a new thumping and bumping sound emerging from the left-front wing.

Investigation revealed the air horns had come adrift from their mounting (no lock washers or Nyloc nuts), the mounting had come adrift from the inner wheel arch (no lock washer again), the live wire had come adrift from the connector on the horn body (a bare wire had been twisted around the terminal), and the auxiliary fuse had blown (thanks to that live wire thrashing about).

I removed the horn completely, dug out a selection of 13mm bolts, nuts and lock washers, rummaged through my electrical spares for new wires, terminals, connectors and a 20A fuse, and set to work.

I made up a new power cable as well as a new lead to connect the terminals on the two horns together, then fitted those to the horns and popped the new fuse into the fuse box.

I earthed the horns and had the Big Lad press the horn button on the indicator stalk—”BORP BORP BORP!!!”

Ears ringing, I concluded the horns were indeed working now.

Disconnecting the battery again (did I mention that you should disconnect the battery before playing with electrics?), I was about to put everything back together when I noticed the time.

We only had 15 minutes to go before the boys were due at football so I sent them in to change while I went into Grand Prix mechanic mode.

The horns on our Defender had been mounted inside the wing, just above and to one side of the headlamp.

It’s a confined space with limited spanner room, a profusion of cabling and poor earthing. Not good when you’re short of time.

I decided to cheat. I unbolted the forward-most mount for the air filter, slipped the mounting bracket for the horns under that and tried it for fit.

It worked.

Not only did I now have more spanner room and a much better earth, but the horns were now facing into the engine bay towards the radiator and intercooler, allowing the sound to escape more effectively. Before, they’d been facing into metal with about half an inch clearance.

I whacked a bit of copper grease onto a new bolt, dropped it through the air filter mounting bracket, the horn bracket and the wing, whacked on a lock washer and nut, and tightened it securely.

The horns went onto the bracket next and as I was tightening the final nut, the boys came rocketing out of the house.

As they fastened themselves into their seats, I reconnected the power supply to the horns, reconnected the battery, made sure I’d left nothing under the bonnet and started the engine.

No problems there and the horn sounded a resounding ”BORP BORP BORP!!!” again when tested.

I checked the boys’ seatbelts, bundled all my tools to one side, pulled the hoses and pressure washer out of the way, and jumped into the driver’s seat.

Reversing up the drive to the road, I stopped, did a quick walk around to ensure I’d missing nothing or left any tools in odd spots, and then headed for football.

We made it with a minute to spare (and without speeding I might add!).

Later, the Other Half gave a most satisfactory jump when I tested the horn as she walked in front of the Land Rover.

“Feeling horny, dear?”