110 defender rebuild project and v8 conversion

Brown said:

You're not having a lot of luck with that torque wrench. If I were you I'd hide it at the back of the cupboard and only get it out for mission critical jobs like cylinder head bolts. It's very difficult to judge the optimum and even compression of the gasket by hand. But for most everyday bolts I tend to feel them. After a while you get a sense of when the bolt or stud is just stretching a little and holding the components together tightly.

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+1
I started the rebuild with a brand new torque wrench and full of determination to do things with micrometer precision. Snapped a few bolts/studs and was advised as above. Not by Brown, I don't think, but to the same effect. Never looked back.

Well you'll be glad to know that I parted the 2 boxes tonight... Check all was OK, and then rejoined them, but with a 30mm m10 bolt instead of that crappy stud. Did everything up by hand, and used thread lock on most of the bolts, and sealant on the 2 that go through to the chamber.

I thought I'd get the mounts fitted, and then realised they're m12 thread not m10! Ffs! I've got most lengths of m10 now, but no... Back to Westfield fasteners for a pile of shortish m12 bolts and set screws... I think 35mm might be about right, but I've ordered a few different lengths.

Still waiting for the slave cylinder rod, and the fuel tank rubber mounting washers to arrive.

One thing I did use a torque wrench for was the bolts that hold the injector clamps on the cylinder head on my TD5. Using the recommended value felt awfully tight for little skinny bolts into an aluminium casting. But then I suppose the engineering principle is that it is the elasticity of the bolts and injector clips that holds the injector in against the compression in the cylinders. Otherwise I just feel things. I've even just done it by feel on cylinder heads sometimes, especially with very elderly engines for which the instructions are long since lost or out of print. But then they're often not terribly high compression, high performance items.

When we first got our Series back in the mid 1980s it turned out that some of the cylinder head bolts were little more than finger tight whilst others were done up rock solid so we couldn't shift 'em. It had been running like that for a while. The same was true of the spark plugs. Some were in hand tight just a couple of turns whereas others had been driven in so hard that the corners had rounded off the hex. We torqued the head down with new-ish bolts, which cured a couple of little bubbly leaks from round the edge of the gasket and gave it some new spark plugs. Despite this rather inconsistent approach to engineering, it was always a lovely starter. I barely heard the starter motor in all the time we had it, it was so quick to fire.

Well done, mate. All good progress.
I've lost track of how many times I've bought/ordered stuff then realised I missed something.

Al2O3 said:

Well done, mate. All good progress.
I've lost track of how many times I've bought/ordered stuff then realised I missed something.

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Happens to me all the time. I try to add everything I want for a particular job to a basket at Paddocks or LR Direct. But usually it turns out I need something else for which the postage would dwarf the cost of the item.

Been there. Then you've got the dilemma of biting the bullet and paying the postage again. Or, should I hold on until I remember something else I might have forgotten. Great fun.

Brown said:

Happens to me all the time. I try to add everything I want for a particular job to a basket at Paddocks or LR Direct. But usually it turns out I need something else for which the postage would dwarf the cost of the item.

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This is my life now!

farmershort said:

This is my life now!

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Rest assured, you are not alone.

Al2O3 said:

Well done, mate. All good progress.
I've lost track of how many times I've bought/ordered stuff then realised I missed something.

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I reckon its part of the human condition

Al2O3 said:

Rest assured, you are not alone.

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+1

Anyone know what this clip on the release arm is for?

The workshop manual says "retain release lever (on pivot) with clip".... This clip isn't going to retain anything.. The gape is too big.

Any thoughts anyone?

Pretty sure I've seen a plastic clip in the distant past (maybe 109v8) there. Of course, this clip/arm combo probably fits lots of other vehicles - LDV etc, which may have a clutch actuation rod end to match. Worth a Google?

I've just Googled lt77 clutch release pivot clip and watched the paddocks video - the clip on the inside of their arms looks completely different.

clips over a washer on clutch fork pivot to stop arm falling off pivot point

GATSO said:

clips over a washer on clutch fork pivot to stop arm falling off pivot point

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Oh ffs.... So that's another part and another weekend missed! Any idea of the part number?

farmershort said:

Any thoughts anyone?

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frc2975

jamesmartin said:

frc2975

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Thanks James. I don't even think I can get it through paddocks for sat delivery, as its not a stock item... So much for cradocks sending me everything....

Well the washer bit arrived, but stupid lrdirect emailed me on Friday afternoon to say that part that should have been delivered that day (slave cyl push rod) is no longer stocked by Landrover, and they can't fulfil the order! I called famous four, and they're going to have a dig around and let me know.... So the gearbox remains on the garage floor!

In other news, my mate came to help me set up the spray painting stuff:



That's the painting booth section of the garage, above.



And that was the end result of the afternoon. We masked off 4 areas of the roof (which is scrap) and prepped each of them differently. One had 240 grit, one had 400 grit, one had 600 grit, and one had 800 grit.

We then did 2 coats of primer, 20 mins apart, and that is the picture above. In the morning I'll cut all 4 sections back with 1000 grit, and then top coat. That'll give me an idea of what I'm doing with this old fashioned coach enamel malarky.

Then one the top coat is a dry I'll give it a couple of tests to see if any of the primers failed to stick. I'll also leave it outside to weather as a further test.

Not a bad day all in all.

Love what you are doing here - and the way you are documenting it all too! Well done

looking forward to the results...

I did a bit of a "how well keyed?" Test this morning, by keying the panels with a house key!

240 grit:


400:


600 left, 800 right:


I don't know if it comes across in those photos, but there's certainly more paint coming away on the 240 grit prepped panel.

I guess this makes sense in that, 240 cuts deeper, but there will be fewer scratches per inch. I cant see much difference between the 600 and 800 prepped panels.

These photos were taken after a light flatting with 1000 on all of the primered panels.

I then did something very wrong... I thought I should repeat the cleaning process for the primer, and started wiping down the 400 label with white spirit. It lifted the primer straight off!

I don't know what "panel wipe" is made of, but I have some arriving tomorrow, so I'll try a test area with that.

Initial conclusions at this stage are that 240 should just be to correcting defects, and that 600 or 800 is for keying ready for paint. Further evidence may emerge to change that of course.