Better late than never. Sorry for posting this so late. I did complete the memorial build with the planed trip to the fire lookout tower where my wife and I had our honeymoon 30 years ago. It was a good trip and a needed trip.
Since the trip I have sold my house in WA state, bought a home in NW Montana, Trout Creek area and moved everything including the wood and auto shop to Montana. So a lot has gone on since.
About the trip; 1500 miles round trip, three states and no mechanical issues. Landy did well. Loving the 200tdi and R380. I got an average milage of 24 mpg.
-The tires; Falcon Wildpeaks were great! Not loud on the pavement. I did a lot of gravel roads and a few ATV trails. The have great traction and do not pick up a lot of rocks. I like them so much Im going to put them on my LR3.
-The new suspension. Again I like it a lot. Far better than what was on there. No annoying side to side sway and firm.
-200tdi; it was a used motor with about 110k milage. It idles rough and soothes out just off and above idle so I think injector and pump rebuild would help that out. Good milage and acceptable power, I can comfortably cruise at 60 mph.
-R380; no issues, would like to add an oil cooler, think that would make it even better.
-The rebuilt transferase; Only complaint is there is a metallic type gear noise present with a load and only in the non-diff lock position. Sound goes away in diff lock. I had an up graded diff pin installed, I think that might be it. But no other issues.
-VDO gauge suite; spedo, tach, , oil psi, fuel, temp, EGT, volt, clock. All good, and sweet looking. The fuel gauge is irritac but I feel that is the sending unit in the tank.
-Over all impression on a long trip. Well, it rattles, loud, a lot of heat comes through the floor, typical D90 stuff. It handles well and the offload ability is amazing. An upgrade on the seat would be a welcome. Over all I like it even more. I don’t think my wife would of enjoyed the trip as much as I did. She was more in favor of comforts. One thing I like about this rig is that it brings smiles to peoples faces. I want through a road construction area and saw a worker filming me with his phone. I feel good that I can create a smile for someone even for a brief moment.
In looking back I see that the rebuild and trip was very good for me. It gave me something to focus on during a hard time, gave me goals and something to work towards. Yes it did help recall a lot of memories and in the end that is all we have left
Thanks for the support and following along