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| Just slightly inconveniently the clutch hydraulics went again 2 days before christmas! I had a rather scary drive across Warrington town centre without a clutch, managed to get it to the Landy friendly garage that did the MOT (Universal Services on Howley Lane for those interested) and had them replace the slave cylinder… now £65 poorer but mobile again! Hopefully that’s the end of the clutch problem now anyway.        Gave up with the clutch and took it to the local Land Rover specialist round the corner yesterday (RWB Motors), one proper bleed through and adjustment of the pedal later and all is back to normal. Took it in for an MOT this afternoon which is always a buttock clenching moment but nearly fell out of my chair when the guy rang to say it had only failed on a worn drag link end!! £35 for them to put right so I left them to it! Excellent! The MOT man also commented that it is in very good nick for its year… always nice to hear! Guess who forgot to keep an eye on his clutch fluid level! Well I’ve got air in the clutch hydraulics now which can make changing gears interesting… no clutch, pump pedal, clutch comes back, nice! Since I topped the master cydinder back up the level has only dropped very slightly so whatever is leaking is only doing so slowly so I’m just going to bleed it for now and see what happens. Normally I don’t have any trouble starting her up, first turn of the key and we’re away, but last weekend I had a couple of instances I came to start her up and the engine would fire on the first turn of the key, cut out and then not fire at all. The first time it started after about 5 minutes before I’d even had a chance to fiddle with anything much but the following morning it just wouldn’t go… I got it going after about half an hour, I’m not convinced yet but I think it was a dodgy corroded LT connection on the coil. Have to wait and see, it’s not happened again since anyway. Fitted a K&N performance air filter tonight which has freed up some room under the bonnet for the set of “Dukes of Hazzard” air horns that I picked up on Ebay last week (yes, I know I’m sad, and yes, I know they aren’t legal to use!). Sounds a bit more ‘throaty’ now and seems to rev a bit free-er too but best of all no more horrible oil bath filter to clean out! Finally got round to painting the rear crossmember in black Hammerite smooth this morning, looks much better now. Also swapped the CB aerial for a Thunderpole Trucker 80 which looks more the part! Replaced the broken radio aerial and installed a radio cassette this afternoon. Stereo went into the cutout to the immediate left of the steering column (not the centre guage area), it sticks out about half an inch as expected but doesn’t look too bad with a bit of black tape around it. I put a pair of Blaupunkt speakers I had around into some old pods and mounted them on the back of the rear bulkhead behind the seats. Wheels are on and they look fantastic. I only needed two new tubes in the end so the bill wasn’t too bad! Order from Paddocks arrived today, fitted the steering wheel and seat bases tonight and I’m booked in at the local tyre place to have the exisiting 750 tyres swapped over onto the new rims tomorrow. I need new inner tubes as well apparantly as the valves are wrong for the new wheels. Also got some front and rear light grilles from the Land Rover Supermarket in Speke yesterday. Those will be fitted at the weekend, when I also plan on doing a bit of Hammeriting, the rear crossmember in particular needs some paint. Ordered a set of five Mangels 8 spoke wheels, a 15″ Mountney steering wheel and two new seat bases today from Paddocks. Delivery on the wheels wasn’t so bad after all at just £12.50. | 
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