There, and back again:
How the Buggy Saved the day
In mid July 2023, my son Leo and I were on our week-long off-road camping trip with a few other Land Rover folks. The weather was hot and dry. We were traveling toward the Kootenays to explore some old mining roads, find epic mountain views and just get away from the big city hustle.
On Day 4 of our trip, a Monday, I received a text message from a Rover-lander’s member, stating that another member's white New Defender had broken down badly and could I take a call for some ideas. I know the owner of the white New Defender and we have worked together on a bunch of upgrades on his truck. I thought, well I’m on vacation, but I should see if I can offer some advice. After talking to him for 20 minutes, including the notion of airlifting it with a helicopter, it became clear this wasn’t likely to be solved over the phone. I wished him well and we continued on our trip.
Over the next couple days, I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind that he was stuck and had
to abandon the car up there. The group I was with discussed the situation and the general
consensus was that we should help if we could. We decided that our trip could head back in that direction and maybe we would make the trip up the mountain and take a look at the truck.
On Day 6, a Wednesday, when we got back into cell service and I reluctantly pulled out the laptop to check on something for the BC Overland Rally. I skimmed over a few hundred emails and saw one from the owner of the White New Defender, where he says he’s exhausted all other options and the only way his truck was getting off the mountain was if he hired someone to go up there and fix it in order to drive it down.
At this point, I knew, that ”someone” was me. Challenge accepted!
The group accepted the change in plans and we began our detour. We thought it would be a
great addition to the trip with some four-low off-roading, epic views and a great campsite next to the lake. I didn’t want to let on that we were heading up to check it out, in case we didn’t make it but I did call the owner to confirm the location moments before we lost cell service again.
The adrenaline was pumping and I was ready to head up right away, but it was late in the day and we were hungry for dinner. The group consensus was to camp at Sugar Lake for the night and we would head up the mountain to see what we could do the next day.
It was a Thursday and day 7 of our trip, so we ended up having a lazy morning and caught up on some domestic duties (the dishes). We finally set off up to the Sugar mountain Fire look-out around noon. It was hot and dusty and the road slowly got more and more challenging. It was about 2:30 when we reached the top and found the white Defender sitting on the road with room to drive around. We had a brief look and finished the climb to the top to have lunch and enjoy the view. I found a spot with three bars of cell service and called the truck's owner again to get his official consent to take a closer look. He was very thankful and appreciative. I told him I’d follow-up again before we headed down.
The truck was locked and we didn’t have the key, so with the hood also closed, all we could do
was inspect from below. The first thing we needed to do was get the skid plates off. To do so, we had to remove the rear one first, then the middle one. This took a little while before we could even get a direct line of sight and access to the bottom of the motor and the steering rack to see how bad it was. Finally, with full access from underneath, we found the steering rack assembly had fully severed and broken away from the subframe. This allowed the steering rack to move freely and collide with the upper aluminum oil pan causing it to crack and leak oil. So, a complete loss of steering and a severe oil leak meant the car could not be towed by a strap nor could the engine be running. This was bad, really bad.
With the support of the group, mostly all hands on car guys, we decided the ONLY way to get
this car off the mountain was to repair the oil pan and replace the steering rack. We had a call
into Rovalution to check on availability of a new rack and it was 3 days out from back east, not
bad, but the oil pan was 3-4 weeks away on a backorder. We needed to get a better view of the
damage to the oil pan, so we decided to try and remove the steering rack. In this situation we
were thankful for the late model technology and the all-electric power steering rack. There were no oily messy fluids to deal with, I just had to unplug the electrical connectors. The next
challenge was how to get the steering rack out, we didn’t have the locking wheel nut tools to
take the wheels off and we didn’t have a jack that would safely lift and support the vehicle with
the front wheels off either. I disconnected the steering column then the inner tie rod ends and
with a little luck I was able to twist and slide the rack out through the subframe. Wow! That was
lucky!
We had a closer look at the oil pan and I figured we could patch it with some sort of epoxy resin. If the patch leaked, we could deal with a little leak and still roll it down the mountain, but we had to have steering! We unbolted the rest of the broken pieces of the power steering rack, called the truck's owner again and headed down the mountain before we were fully consumed by the horseflies.
Friday morning Leo and I left the rest of our group at Sugar Lake and headed for the BC
Overland Rally in Merritt, which was already underway. We made a stop at a 4x4 shop in Kelowna for a visit and by chance they were willing and able to help us out. They were able to weld the broken parts of the power steering rack back together as a temporary repair to get it off the mountain. This meant we could potentially head back up from Merritt without having to return to Vancouver. Very helpful!
When we arrived at the BC Overland Rally, a lot of folks thanked me for helping rescue the stranded white Defender. I thought, ok, ya, but hang-on, I hadn’t rescued it yet, so let's not get ahead of ourselves. The BC Overland Rally was fun and we met a bunch of great people and shared some stories. It was hot. We dunked in the river to cool off and there may have been a little dust storm. By Saturday night I was getting eager to get an early start on Sunday. A long time Rover-Lander asked if he could come along and support in his Blue D90, which was a great comfort, and so it was settled, we were to leave at 7am Sunday morning.
Rescue Day - We set off from the BC Overland Rally at 7am on Sunday morning, the Blue D90 with a trailer and myself in the Buggy. We grabbed some breakfast at Tim Hortons
and headed for Vernon to pick up supplies from the auto parts store. The blue truck carried on to Lumby to fill up and I spent what ended up being an hour or two trying to find everything I thought I might need at two different parts stores. We finally met the owner of the white Defender at the fuel station in Cherryville, where I reorganized all my gear so he could jump in with me. Finally, we were off to climb the mountain, again!
We stopped at Sugar Lake to park the trailer and then proceeded up the mountain climb. It
was a challenging route up the mountain and it seemed to take forever just because I’d already
done it a few days earlier and we weren’t exactly there for the entertainment of it all, but a nice
drive nonetheless. We were relieved to arrive at the truck and find that there had been no
damage or vandalism while it sat there for a full week. Hurray for humanity!!
When we arrived at the truck I went straight into work mode. I’d had so much time to think about what to do, I had a plan and went for it. Don’t unlock the car or wake it up, Lets not trip a fault by energizing the vehicle without the power steering rack connected. Before we put the power steering rack in, we need to address the cracked oil pan. I’d bought 7 different kinds of epoxy and JB weld type products but the best one was a quick setting, high temperature cold weld from Permatex. Probably something we should all keep in the rescue kit. I scrubbed, sanded, filed and wire brushed around the pan to make sure it was clean enough for a good bond.
We mixed up the first batch and set it onto the aluminum pan. It seemed to go really well, so we did three more batches to get the coverage we needed and set the timer for the 30 minute cure time. While it was curing, I put the power steering rack back in. I had no idea if it was gonna fit after the welding or if the holes would even line up. With some luck, everything just slid back together and we had the power steering rack plugged in and loosely bolted back in place. When everything was plugged in, we opened the car, popped the hood and filled the engine with oil to bring it back up to the level. There was another spot on the pan that was leaking, so we added another batch of the cold-weld and tightened up all the steering rack bolts while it cured.
Now for the big test, was everything gonna hold? We started the truck, checked and rechecked
the pan for any leaks and there were none. Then I had the owner drive the white Defender back and forth to make sure the steering and everything was working properly. Everything seemed to be working ok. Cool!
Now we set about reinstalling all the skid plates, which we thought was important to make sure
we didn’t have any more stray rock related issues. Oh, and the whole time there were horseflies chomping on my legs and some wasps buzzing around my head. Yikes!!
So at around 6:60 pm, about two and a half hours after we arrived, everything was looking good and it was time to head down the mountain. We took it slow and drove down with extra caution, not wanting to have any more issues or a failure with our repairs. I checked the oil pan for leaks a few times and it was dry and no leaks. Not Bad!!
After we got back onto the gravel road we made our way back to the gas station in Cherryville
where the owner of the white truck had left his other car. When he stepped out of the Defender, he was absolutely relieved! After all the stresses and unknowns for the last week, his Defender was now safely at the side of the highway where it could be collected by a tow truck. By now it was about 8:30 and he offered to get us dinner and accommodations for the night.
The others stayed in Lumby, but I wanted to get some miles on towards home. So, we said our goodbyes and I drove off in my trusty steed, into the night and onto my next adventure.
