So I'm in Albany, I've spent most of the weekend tearing apart the Range Rover - leaving the dash, drivers' seat and door liner, roof lining and dash - down to the floor and the doors. Visited Eric, who is still talking about new toys on his Range Rover. Showed him my rust, and figure my '90 is about 3-5 years behind where his was rust wise, except, for some inexplicable reason, the windscreen surround is toasty on mine, far too rusted compared to the remainder of the vehicle...

Eric and I move on from my RR to his, and we're talking about all kinds of lights he can put on the Portifino Prowler and where, and his mom shouts over something, and we both run for my RR, which is rolling away down his driveway. Eric got to it first (I think the door on that side was open), and he yanked the hand brake for all that it was worth. We were able to catch it 'cause the brake was on, but it really needed that last detent...

Why was it out of park ? 'cause we were poking around and he was showing me the screws that held the console on... something else on the list of things to do.

I drive it out to Stephentown (to the body shop), and it starts raining. can't get the drivers window up (ack!) I reach into the harness and press connectors on to relays and no joy. When I reach my destination, I discover that the ground for the windows was disconnected along with the console removal...

Get back to the house, and head out. I'd wanted to beat the rain, but noooo not my luck. Pile stuff into the SIIa. Forget to tie down the bottom of the rear curtin. Hope it doesn't suck too much CO, or rain, but I'll wait 'til I hit the border (Caanan) to fix that.

Get to Caanan, realize, *I'm still dry* Take off, up the hill, stop at mile 30 to get petrol. Break open another oil container, etc. etc. A mile later, screaming down the hill (big tail wind:-) absolutely pouring rain, and the wiper comes to a halt. yes, the wiper, the one in front of my face. (Face it, the passenger wiper is a place to carry a spare wiper motor, so when the wiper goes, you've got a handy replacment...)

So, somewhere between the Conneticut River and Westfield, I pull off and discover the wiper is jammed 'cause the top of the wiper is stuck between the frame and the windscreen, and the wiper motor is ok.... (now funny thing is, no fuses blew when the wiper motor ground to a halt ?) (um, well, it is an 11" wiper, and it over hung the windscreen frame, and I trimmed the last 1/2" of blade so it wouldn't ride up on the windscreen frame, and not clean the windscreen)

So back in and somewhere fifteen or twenty miles on, it does it again. pull over and fix it again, and this time mangle the blade a bit and it prevents a re-occurance.... but now it rides up on the windscreen frame and doesn't clean the whole windshield :^|

Get into Worcester and, of course, it stops raining. Only the Mass pike and South was innundated.... but, for the first, yes, very first time, I didn't get soaked inside my own series. Absolutely amazing.

Bil Caloccia
Worcester, Ma
28 September 1998