For the past few days, assorted “experts” have assured me changing the springs is a “15-minute job”, “nothing more than half an hour” and a “total breeze”. I disagreed, saying that straightforward jobs on Land Rovers inevitably turn into major jobs when the unexpected materialises and, from past experience with previous Land Rovers, that includes “minor” suspension jobs.

Having knocked back a bacon and egg sandwich, I went out to start the job of changing the left-hand suspension as that was the side with the broken spring.

To compress the spring without the aid of spring compressors, I use the two-jack approach: I use the Land Rover’s own jack to lift the back end and a trolley jack to raise/lower the axle.

I started down the route again today and had the rear left-hand wheel just rising off the ground when disaster struck. The rear cross member crumpled and folded around the jacking point.

Despite liberal applications of Waxoyl, the steel had corroded heavily on the inside and was unable to take the weight of the truck when it was jacked up. I lowed the Defender back on to its wheels, worked out a different method for jacking the truck up (moving the trolley jack around the truck and inserting my collection of axle stands before using the jack on the axle) and changed the left-hand suspension.

The old spring and shock absorber came off easily enough. The spring had cracked right through where it seated on its top mount, helped by a healthy dose of rust and friction that had eaten away about 10% of the spring’s thickness. The shock absorber’s piston was slightly bent, too.

Even a Land Rover Defender’s suspension doesn’t take too well to hitting a 12-inch deep bottom hole at 55-60mph.

The new spring went on easily, but the lower fixing for the new shock absorber proved extremely challenging. It took the better part of half an hour to “finesse” it into place, compress the new bushes and get the nut on. So much for it being a 15-minute job—it took just under four hours.

By then, it was getting dark so I’d run out of time to do the right-hand side but a quick test drive over our very rough back roads showed that all was well with the left-hand side. I’ll do the right side after rugby tomorrow. And again, I’ll be expecting another problem to show up—although hopefully not on the scale of the crumpled rear cross member, which is going to cost a fair bit to get cut off and replaced.

Fix one problem and another comes along to replace it. Still, it gives me something to do.

Better later than never… A couple of our hens have decided it's time to come back into lay. Now for the other 30.

Broke a rear spring on the Defender. Hit a deep pothole at speed. Will replace both rear springs & shocks. There goes a few more quid.

Thieving scum are at work again. One near neighbour burgled yesterday, another had two men try to break in this morning while she was home.

Problem is there are only 10 homes scattered over a wide area so it's hard to keep any eye out for each other. Easy for thieves, though.

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Stonehead (@stonehead1) March 01, 2013

The drill proved useful, being much faster if rather more noisy than using a lump hammer, cold chisels and bolster chisels.

However, it failed today. Yes, after just three months.

I was raking out mortar when the clutch shrieked, the drill juddered hard and the chisel bit stopped work even though the motor was racing. Useless piece of junk.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get the receipt off my father and he’s long since gone back to Australia. I now have to persuade B&Q to give me a replacement drill without a receipt.

Wish me luck.

The new boiler and radiators may make the house much warmer than was previously the case but when they go off the lack of insulation means the house loses the heat overnight. (And yes, we’re planning to do something about that.)

A consequence of that heat loss is that when I went out to the kitchen this morning, I found the cold alarm flashing. It’s a little doodad the heating installers fitted to warn us we’re at risk of hypothermia because the indoor temperature is between 7ºC and 11ºC.

It’s just as well we didn’t have one before the new heating went in as it would have flashed 24/7 for the past eight years. I suppose that’s a disadvantage of modern technology—we never knew we were cold until it told us!

My ears are still ringing, too, even though I had ear defenders on. The ear defenders have worked well with everything else—the 9″ anglegrinder, pendulum saw, pillar drill etc—but I’m going to have to get a better pair to use with the SDS drill as the noise level is skull piercing.

I use the big anglegrinder and a diamond blade to cut lines the length of the slot, then chisel the mortar out with the SDS drill. It’s certainly a lot easier and faster chiseling the concrete with the SDS drill instead of using a variety of cold chisels and a lump hammer.

Power tools aren’t as much fun, though. And as I’ve just found they can be messy, even after the event.

Winter has been mild thus far with temperatures rarely dropping below -5ºC, but we did get about 30cm (12 inches) of snow overnight and a stiff breeze meant the windchill was decidedly bracing. Still, the sun broke through in the afternoon and I made the most of the opportunity to do a few jobs, take a few photos and have a brisk walk with Harvey, our Border Terrier.

Okay, consider it done: “Happy New Year!”

Now, can I get back to doing something useful?