Hi, does anyone know;
1) how the vehicle will handle if the ACE pump belt is disconnected but the pump is left in place?
2) How about if the pump is physically removed but the rest of the system left in place?

The reason for asking these questions is because the pressure pipe from the ACE pump to the valve block has sprung a leak at the rubber mounting block by the right front wheel. We have been looking for over 7 weeks and have not yet found replacement pipes. We could do with the vehicle back on the road.

The repair shop is reluctant to attempt to repair the pipe as they say the whole lot is quite badly corroded.

You need a flexible replacement to bridge the bad bit from a hydraulic hose supplier .
Try a farm machinery supplier they will make one up ...cut out the bad bit and fit,Though there is a shorter belt available to just leave the pump in place. Always listen to old people or when they die you will live on in ignorance.
The avatar is a picture of the man with a big cock.
Learned to 4x4 on 100 mile beach and Frazer Island QLD
Dont spend money on old cars you will never get it back

The workshop tell me that the whole surface of the pipes is corroded so they have no confidence that such connections will seal.

But what about the vehicle handling in the two scenarios?

It'll handle like a dog to be frank,especially as your used to how it handles at the moment

Why do you trust the workshop ? Have you not taken the wheel off and checked where the corrosion starts and ends ? And made a phone call to get a price for a flexible link?
I just dont understand people who own LR who dont have a spanner to there name and just use plastic to do the repairs. Always listen to old people or when they die you will live on in ignorance.
The avatar is a picture of the man with a big cock.
Learned to 4x4 on 100 mile beach and Frazer Island QLD
Dont spend money on old cars you will never get it back

Actually I have taken the wheel arch liner out and found where the leak is. And I have looked at the pipes and the MOT recommendations for the last couple of years. And I agree with them that they are .
And I have spoken to all sorts of suppliers about what is possible.

I am perfectly capable of doing most repairs on a Land Rover myself. My welding is terrible but I can deal with nuts and bolts, electrics and software. I don’t have a workshop or garage of my own so anything I do is outside on the front drive. And at the moment it’s cold, wet and generally miserable.

The official way of replacing the ARC pipes (as it was called when I was working on the system during its development) or ACE (as the marketing people decided to call it) is to lift the body off the chassis. Yes I could do it. I could construct a suitable frame on my front drive. I could go and buy all sorts of bits of pipe and couplings and rework the pipes.

The unofficial way is to wiggle and jiggle and eventually, possibly get the new pipes through.

But I don’t want to. I have other things that I need and want to do such as sorting out the heating system in our village hall, building a workshop/garage, playing with robots and enjoying my retirement. So I am choosing to delegate this task to a workshop that does have the facilities and I am happy to pay them to do the job. But if they can’t get the parts then that rather stymies the whole thing.

Hence the questions about how we can keep the vehicle on the road while waiting for the correct parts.

Hope this adequately explains my position?

Last edited by TheRealAdrian on Sun Nov 26 2023 12:45am. Edited 1 time in total

daxmatt wrote:

It'll handle like a dog to be frank,especially as your used to how it handles at the moment

I have heard of people welding the actuators to make it a solid bar, Always listen to old people or when they die you will live on in ignorance.
The avatar is a picture of the man with a big cock.
Learned to 4x4 on 100 mile beach and Frazer Island QLD
Dont spend money on old cars you will never get it back

Its not a hard job to change the pipes,you only need to lift the body a couple of inches.You need a 2nd jack,its no different from just jacking it up,There's 6 big bolts i think,on each corner,just undo those,and jack up the body,you don,t have to disconnect anything.

Pistnbroke wrote:

I have heard of people welding the actuators to make it a solid bar,

Yeah, bodge it. That's the answer.  2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed

Bodge it. Standard repair

Welding the hydraulic bars to make them solid is a standard repair? Some people have different standards, it seems... 2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed

We are not talking about a Chelsea Tractor here, we are talking about a vehicle that gets used both to drive down country lanes and at motorway speeds. So I'm not going to degrade the handling by welding the bars up, ripping out the ACE system or any other such bodge.

It will get fixed properly as soon as the OEM parts are available. In the meantime I'm exploring options to try to keep it safely on the road

RRSTDV8 wrote:

Welding the hydraulic bars to make them solid is a standard repair? Some people have different standards, it seems...

so, regarding how the car will handle ......

... if it's anything like mine, the ACE system currently shuts down under certain conditions, mainly slow speed left handers eg coming off a roundabout .... I'm not exactly sure which part shuts down, but it certainly stops actively pumping the ACE fluid, which would be similar to removing the belt I'm guessing.

In terms of handling, there is a definite degradation, mainly around the angle of lean - I liken it more to old Range Rover Classic, but is neither alarming, nor in my view, dangerous, albeit acknowledging that I'm probably driving the car outside its intended operating parameters.

I have had this on and off for about 18 months, and the most annoying element is, frankly, the 'bong', and the red light that flashes then stays illuminated..... so, I've learnt to compensate where possible, and just drive more sensibly on the twisty stuff.