Salvage door post to fix the Rusty one.

With the serious rot in the back door post of the truck, looked a bit like this.

So the rot is bad, not just there, but this is the worst bit to fix.

The rot came to light once the rear quarter panel was removed from the body shell to fix some rot that I knew about.

So what can I do?  Can't scrap it, spent too much time and too much money on it for that, I was blessed with a bit of time to think about it and maybe I would have to do a cut and shut sheet metal welding repair with some 1.5mm plate with extra strengthening plates to help stiffen it up.

The better half was browsing the Land Rover parts pages on FaceBook and happened upon a late model 300Tdi Discovery that was being broken for spares.  It was only 15 minutes from home and I grabbed the reciprocating saw and disc cutter to get it removed should it have turned out to be a good one.

It's in perfect condition and I am very happy with the find, bit of work to pull the body panels back and get access but it was worth it, time to get cutting.

Choppity chop chop chop.

Ha, I win.

Chuck it in the boot and time to head home.

I still have to separate the inner and outer panels but this is a right result for me and a good omen for the Rusty one.

Keep up with the box section sills post for the updates on getting it fitted.

Fuel tank sender and feed replacement.

With so much clambering about in the back working on the old bus and with it being 27yrs old and all that, the pick up and return pipes on top of the sender have rotted through and were leaking fuel all over the top of the tank.

Not pretty but relatively straight forward.

You need a new sender unit, readily and cheaply available for a 200Tdi Discovery, 2 new 8mm sealing olives and if you're feeling flush then really go to town and get two new pipe unions to replace the old ones, mine were grotty but would go again.

New sender unit, it comes bare with no seals or sealing olives so be warned!

The old sender with porous pipes.

 Grab 2X 14mm spanners and undo the unions.

Ooops, but yeah it was expected.

Now then, remember where I told you that the new sender came bare, well this is the part where you need to get yourself 2 new sealing olives as your's will be the same as mine and they'll be rusted solid.

I didn't have days to wait for new ones to come via mail order and my local hardware stores didn't have the olives that small on the shelf so I had little choice if I wanted to get it up and running quick smart but to buy an 8mm in line coupling just for the olives.

Turned out just fine to be honest and just as cheap as buying a pack with more than I needed that would go to waste as I only needed 2 olives.

Just undo the small wiring plug and pop the earth wire off the sender.

Undo the big plastic nut and as you pull the old sender out the rubber seal will do it's best to swan dive into the tank just to piss you off so be prepared to grab it and pull it out with the old sender.

 Clean it all up and smear a bit of grease around the seal and pop it back in the neck and grease up the sender ready for fitting and pop it in from the top, making sure it is pointing in the right direction and wind the big nut back on and refit the unions and electrics and job is a good un, the best piece of advice I can give is that you need to fit the big plastic nut and just before you nip it up, turn the sender counter clockwise about 30 degrees and then as you nip up the plastic nut, it will spin the sender and when it is pointing correct then it is tight enough.

 So that's that jobbed, still got more welding on the horizon on this project but we are getting there bit by bit.

Thanks for looking.

Steering bar/drag link ball joints & freshen up

The steering bar, also known as a drag link hasn't been touched since the steering box rebuild and even then, all I did was pull the split pin and undo the 19mm castellated nut and remove it from the steering box drop arm.

As it's been a while and the track rod end have already been done in the last 5,000kms I decided that I ought to replace the steering bar ball joints, slight play and a little stiff but still serviceable, but brand new ones are cheap enough that I might as well get them done before they get a mention on the safety test.

You need very few tools but a bucket load of patience.

Not to mention two new ball joints, one LH thread and one RH threaded.

It's an easy start, you just need a 19mm spanner and a pair of pliers, pull the split pin out and wind the nut off the threads.

I use two hammers to split the taper of the ball joint from the steering box drop arm and from the steering arm of the swivel housing.  You simply put the big hammer behind the steering arm and belt the front with the other hammer and it pops off, I usually do it in one but it can take several swift wallops.

You need your tape measure, a pencil and pad, I used a post it and stuck it to the window, measure the centres of the ball joints and make a note of the numbers, mine measured 925mm or 36 & 7/16ths of an inch.

Next you have to undo the thread clamps with a couple of 11mm spanners.

Knock the clamp back off the slots and give it a few squirts of your favourite penetrating fluid and use a cold chisel to open the slots up a smidge, DO NOT GO CRAZY opening them up.

If they prove hard to undo with a decent set of pipe grips then you will be able to vent a little rage at this point.

So, one came undone very easily, now comes the rage venting part, take the penetrating fluid of choice and douse the inside of the steering bar so that it can attack the rusty parts from the back side, go off and have a brew, when you come back lay the threaded section on your big hammer and beat it around the circumference of bar with the other hammer and just keep testing the ball joint to see when it loosens and hey presto off it comes.

Then take the flap disc on the grinder with an 80 grit disc and clean the rust and old paint off the bar.

Take the paint of your choice.

Screw in the old ball joints for the moment and rest it on the axle stands ready for painting.

Once painted, slide the clamps back on and brush the threaded ends with a bit of copper slip to stop them from seizing up in the future and screw them in to the right depth to your previous measurement, tighten the clamps up and it's ready to go back on the truck.

Snug the nut up on the taper and then tighten until you can slide the new split pin in easily and bend the splits back round the nut, I bend both back on the swivel end as it is the one that can easiest be dislodged and thus allow the nut to come undone.

The steering box end I leave a little less fast but still secure.

All done and one less thing for me to worry about in the future.

Thanks for looking.

Broke the fan shroud.

My ham fistedness and general fat finger syndrome often creates more work than I have planned, and this is just one such occasion.

Managed to break the fan shroud and it needs fixed as it's an important part of my low speed engine cooling and intercooling set up.

Broked it 

 

 

Drilled a few holes 

 

Roughed up the area around the holes and the cracked plastic with some emery cloth.

 

 

The repair will come as part of a belt and braces approach of.........

 

Here we go.......

 

Mix the epoxy and get her done....

 

 

Both sides of the joint are smothered in epoxy to lock it all in place.

Couple of days in the airing cupboard (at the speed I'm welding this thing up it could be a month ) and ready to fit.

Some pictures from Valentines day 2015

https://photos.app.goo.gl/kWAz25XUxAV8ScWd8

Smaller Wheels But Bigger Tyres

After 6 years and many tens of thousands of kilometers sterling service from the Cooper STT tyres in metric 235/85 r16 size fitted to genuine #LandRover Deep Dish alloy wheels, we are upgrading once again.

The Coopers against the old wheels he came home with.

When I started thinking about the possibility of new wheels and tyres a little while ago I had an agenda to meet, tougher stance and a more versatile tyres with a slightly taller combination was the criteria that I had in mind.

This is the new wheel and tyre combination that I have just bought.

A set of GT Radial Adventuro M/T

In 33X12.5X15 inch flavour

Mounted on 15X10 ET-32 steel wheels

This is a sample pic of what they will look like mounted on a Discovery 1

So how did we get here exactly?

It all started with a desire to drive a few Welsh lanes and do some off roading in the Highlands of Scotland, so what does that have to do with the wheels and tyres exactly?

Well a lot more than meets the eye!!!

The coopers are an amazing tyre and I have been so impressed by them, very tough, great self cleaning in deep mud and extraordinarily cut resistant in flinty, rocky and stony ground but they are narrow, and on alloy wheels, when driving rocks you need to air down to get a good squishy tyre deformation and maximise your contact with the rocks, 235 cross section will deform a lot but, not enough in my mind, the Coopers will for sure be great in terms of cut resistance but even when aired down they will not have the contact footprint I desire.

Currently I have the Coopers mounted on Land Rover alloy wheels, yes the LR alloys are super strong but when it comes to driving on rocks the alloys are vulnerable to fracturing and splitting under hard impacts and the potential of alloy wheels to become further damaged in the event of a bead being dislodged where as the steel rim could be beaten back into a rough shape that would hold air with a hammer so it has become a worst case scenario for my choice of adopting steel wheels over the more pretty alloys.

Then we come to the way in which I found myself browsing eBay.co.uk and happening across these by chance.

Well basically I knew I wanted steel wheels, I knew I wanted wider tyres and I had a friend on the South coast who had a set of genuine Land Rover Discovery steel wheels going spare after his V8 conversion of his 90, so off I pop to go get them.

Loaded up in the back of my little car.

The plan was to use a courier company to send them up to the North East to a machining company in Scarborough and have them banded out by 50mm and have 20mm trimmed out the back and welded up, it's not uncommon to see some very nice wheels and this is the sort of look I was trying to achieve.

The above is actually a Discovery steel wheel with flipped centres, where the centre is removed and turned around then welded back up, they look super and of course, very original but with a twist as they have a deeper dish.

So what happened?

The courier company did the usual and lost my rims 😠😠😠

I am not going to hold my breath in the naive belief that they could possibly find my 3 foot 6 inch 18 inch wide cardboard cylinder that weighs close to 100lbs, the incompetence of couriers is shocking in this day and age.

You'll see them first when I've finished the welding and we get back out on the tracks and trails.

My little eurobox Peugeot 206 did me proud in carting them home, they're massive in the flesh

Had to tie the boot lid down as it was a bit tight for space 😱😱

I'm still busy cutting and welding up the truck at present but I have got as far as fitting the left side with the new wheels and tyres, they're big!!!

Looks like I am going to have to trim a bit off my winch bumper to stop the corner colliding with my front tyre under full articulation.

Looks like it needs trimmed about here.

Left is the outgoing 235/85 r16 and the right is the new 33X12.5X15

I found it interesting to see how the new rims have a greater offset and apart from being 10" wide over the old 7" wide alloys the offset seems to have pushed the wheels further out from the centre line and thus giving better clearance and improving the turning circle.

As always there is a secondary issue to deal with in the fitting of extra wide rubber, the fact that the tyres now protrude outside the arches, by quite a bit 😱

The tyre catches the bottom of the wing only slightly turning the steering, heaven knows what it would be like going over a bump 😧

Now then, at this point I got all excited and after flicking through an old copy of MaxPower magazine in the doctors office I am going to have a crack at something new, wheel arch/fender flaring and rolling.

Cue Amazon.com for one of these.

You're supposed to bolt it to the hub and roll it round the arch pushing the arch out and stretching it to form enough clearance for the tyres, I might be a little optimistic but I'm going to give it a go.

When I have finished the welding I will roll the arches and post my efforts.

Thanks for looking and like, comment and share 😀