Mr. Wolf clearly knows his way around vintage vehicles but his buddy, Philippe, is apparently something of an expert on Land Rovers. Based on the photo (above) it looks like Philippe has a garage rather than a dealership. That’s where the truck is this week, getting final tweaks.

I told him to start with a valve adjustment, reset cam timing and injection pump timing, set timing chain tension, replace the thermostat, and see if he can find a way to adjust the free play in the steering relay box.

Regular readers will remember last week’s Mystery Patch, which leaked.

Good news from the drive up in the rain: the Mystery Patch in the roof does not leak! The bad news: everything else does leak. A bit more grey goop and we’ll be watertight.

And a bit less drafty…

Looking at a Series 2 Santana at Philippe’s, I realized that your truck is missing seals on the slider windows front and rear. I’ll track them down, that’ll make the cabin much less drafty.

Once Philippe is done, the truck is done. Everything has been checked and fixed. Sometimes twice. I’ll fly out to meet Mr. Wolf, play with the truck and celebrate, then it’s time to ship the truck to Jefferson City.

Here’s a bit of background on Phillippe from the Euroland website:

Originally from the beautiful South of France, The Provence, was originally a Rolls Royce, Bentley technician. He added Land Rover to his knowledge and specialty and is very fortunate to be one of the technicians to be certified at Land Rover in Solihull, England.

This project has taken twice as long as expected and cost a lot more, but I’m probably going to get close to the “better than the day it rolled off the assembly line” promise.