1980 S3 Dormobile restoration

Haggisfrog · Apr 30, 2021

Hi all. I am rebuilding a S3 109 SW 2 1/4 petrol RHD from 1980 which has a full dormobile conversion. Not sure whether this was on the car from new or not. I Suspect not. As I am in France, I am also changing it to a left hooker (the work of Satan, yes, i know). Luckily, I have a donor diesel 109 LHD SW in extremely poor nick and beyond reasonable rescue. This car is a reference point to put mine back together and to nab all of the LHD specific bits off. I would not have tackled the conversion without it. I hope to share the rebuild as well as the LHD conversion process so it could help others in the future. I have already spent months stripping, de-rusting, repairing lots of bits and now I am building up onto a new galv chassis. I have already rebuilt both axles including rebuilding the Salisbury rear into a new casing with all bearings, seals. Same for front. Hope it’s of interest. I will try to update as I go.

Haggisfrog · Apr 30, 2021

If I have done this right, below will be 2 pictures. If not, this will be of no Interest whatsoever

Haggisfrog · Apr 30, 2021

I think I got it.....

Stanleysteamer · Apr 30, 2021

Haggisfrog said:
If I have done this right, below will be 2 pictures. If not, this will be of no Interest whatsoever

While you are figuring out how to do the pics, what part of France, just out of interest? We have a place in the Tarn, when we can get there!

Haggisfrog · Apr 30, 2021

Tonight’s job was the PDWA valve. This is a fairly useless bit of ironmongery which tells you that you have only half your brakes left- which on a series, you may not notice. It looks to me like a fine source of air ingress and general gremlins but hey, it was there and I will refit. My donor car has a simple T piece in its place. The part is fitted on a bracket at the foot of the bulkhead on the right hand chassis rail. Both on RHD and LHD meaning that on LHD, both brake conduits have to cross the top of the bulkhead before dropping down to the chassis. I’ll post pictures of that when I get the bulkhead sorted and on.

this is the valve beside it’s innards which I have pulled out

And now completely dismantled. The metal plunger has a groove round it’s middle which the plunger switch drops into. If, due to a front or rear circuit failure, there is a pressure drop in one side, the plunger moves and activates the switch. I presume that this then lights up a warning on the dash. No idea, I have never driven one. Both had no MOT so I got stuck in... picture of the finished article when the topcoat goes on.

Haggisfrog · Apr 30, 2021

Stanleysteamer said:
While you are figuring out how to do the pics, what part of France, just out of interest? We have a place in the Tarn, when we can get there!

About 1 hr west of Paris. It’s nice down in the Tarn. As a kayaker, I’ve spent a lot of time round Florac getting wet upside down.

Haggisfrog · Apr 30, 2021

While I am on a roll with the photo posting, lastly, a couple of pics of the car before I got the high speed 125mm rotary spanner out. If anyone can explain how to get the pics the right way up, the rest of the thread will be less annoying.

There, I’m exhausted. !

Stanleysteamer · Apr 30, 2021

Haggisfrog said:
About 1 hr west of Paris. It’s nice down in the Tarn. As a kayaker, I’ve spent a lot of time round Florac getting wet upside down.

Wow! Quite close to the metropolis then!
We love the Tarn. France's best kept secret.
We have so many French friends who come and visit who have never seen the place and cannot believe what it is like!
Interested in this left-hooker business. Are you going to register it via the "carte grise" of the original left-hooker or go for the "Mines"?

Haggisfrog · May 1, 2021

It already has a French plate and carte grise. Drive side is not mentioned on the carte Grise so I am just going to restore and put it through its contrôle technique. What can possibly go wrong...

Stanleysteamer · May 1, 2021

Haggisfrog said:
It already has a French plate and carte grise. Drive side is not mentioned on the carte Grise so I am just going to restore and put it through its contrôle technique. What can possibly go wrong...

Tempted to say, take it to a different station!
Best of luck with it!

Haggisfrog · May 1, 2021

Don’t worry. I have a ‘tame’ station. It helps when you own several of BL and Rover Group’s finest.

today was a bit of a crappy day frustrated with parts. Lots of time and not much done. Steering relay fitted. I thought I’d orderd up the screws to fix the bottom ring but sadly not. I tried every bolt I could lay my hands on and only one in the whole garage would fit . Some crappy fine thread 9.358/16ths of a kings forearm but it’s unclear if the measurement was taken before or after he lost his hand in the Battle of Naewhere. I mean how complicated would it have been to go metric!

went to fit the PDWA valve with a bracket I made up. That went well. The brake line kit from Automecs is great but unfortunately I ordered a military ref instead of civvy. They could not have been more helpful and we are trying to find which bits of a kit are needed to complete and whether it’s metric or imperial. As I do not have the aforementioned King to hand, I have no idea. In the end I have asked them to ship me a roll of copper pipe and I’ll make them myself with the fittings I have in the military kit. I can really recommend Automecs for their rapid and friendly service though. Land Rover purchasing Dept in the 70s is not their fault.

Lastly, I wanted to fit all of the steering linkages. I ordered 6 new ball joints- 3 left and 3 right threads. I got them 10 days ago, unwrapped them all ( threw away the boxes) and etch primered and epoxied them all. Naturally, upon fitting, there are 5 right hand thread and 1 LH. So, back to John Craddock they go. Long day, nothing much to show for it. Luckily, it’s beer o’ clock

a footnote- for the LHD conversion, it’s necessary to move the steering relay to the other side of the front crossmember. Now that’s either a decent bit of metal fabrication making sure everything is perfectly aligned and in the right spot, putting in a new front Xmber or if you are going for a new chassis, the drive side ordered will give you the hole on the right side. In my case, this chassis is what they call ´unidrive ´ and there is a hole on each side. The steering relay can be reused.

Haggisfrog · May 2, 2021

I got a couple of hours work in today. As I am still waiting for engine and GB mountings to come, I am getting bits and bobs refurbed. Today it was the turn of the heater fan. For the heater box, both ones I had were so badly rusted, I bought a new one from the UK on eBay. It had been galvanised. I t-washed it and got it powder coated. Try rusting now ya wee bampot.. notice that it’s a RHD box but for this part, you can simply turn the radiator matrix round and put the pipes out the other side (after making holes)

Next the turn of the fan unit. Unfortunately, this is ‘handed’ and cannot be turned.

The RHD one was toast. Luckily, the LHD one was rusty but not perforated. Sandblast and powder coat later, it’s looking pretty sharp. Both motors were working but noisy. I checked and both are reversible by simply reversing polarity. I pulled the motors apart and made one with the best bits of the 2. Watch when pulling apart because the spindle shaft sticks on the internal bushing of the motor and in the first case, pulled it out of its spring washer/tabbed housing. Impossible to get it back in. Lucky I had a spare...

etch primed and some black paint (aérosols are handy for small jobs as they save waste and washing the spray gun). To put it all back together, it’s all imperial and I don’t have such small sizes so tapped it all to 5mm which more or less does it. Can anyone recommend a place where I can get a large selection of zinc plated imperial nuts, bolts and washers? The constant grubbing around for the right imperial ironmongery which is inevitably used and rusty- is frustrating and I am annoyed about having to put rusty bits on a clean project. I love some if these projects on instagram with every but, bolt and washer dichromated. I wish I was that organised...
Anyway, here is the finished article - crowned with 2 rusty nylock nuts which had to remain imperial and are about 4.8mm. Any ideas what size that would be?

Lastly, note that the hamster wheel fan is handed. The orientation of the blades depends on drive side. They seem to harden and disintegrate with age. The RHD one was already vaporises. The LHD one crumbled in my hand when removing. There is a bloke on eBay in the UK doing new ones and they seem to be a bit stockier that the originals. Note that the LHD ones are only 5 cm wide against the 7cm for the RHD ones. So a bit less efficient but who cares, the weather’s better here.

Blows like a hurricane, a little noisy on full tilt but I think thats original. Not bad all in all and makes up for yesterday...!

Stanleysteamer · May 3, 2021

Haggisfrog said:
I got a couple of hours work in today. As I am still waiting for engine and GB mountings to come, I am getting bits and bobs refurbed. Today it was the turn of the heater fan. For the heater box, both ones I had were so badly rusted, I bought a new one from the UK on eBay. It had been galvanised. I t-washed it and got it powder coated. Try rusting now ya wee bampot.. notice that it’s a RHD box but for this part, you can simply turn the radiator matrix round and put the pipes out the other side (after making holes)
View attachment 237335
View attachment 237336
Next the turn of the fan unit. Unfortunately, this is ‘handed’ and cannot be turned.
View attachment 237338
The RHD one was toast. Luckily, the LHD one was rusty but not perforated. Sandblast and powder coat later, it’s looking pretty sharp. Both motors were working but noisy. I checked and both are reversible by simply reversing polarity. I pulled the motors apart and made one with the best bits of the 2. Watch when pulling apart because the spindle shaft sticks on the internal bushing of the motor and in the first case, pulled it out of its spring washer/tabbed housing. Impossible to get it back in. Lucky I had a spare...
View attachment 237340
etch primed and some black paint (aérosols are handy for small jobs as they save waste and washing the spray gun). To put it all back together, it’s all imperial and I don’t have such small sizes so tapped it all to 5mm which more or less does it. Can anyone recommend a place where I can get a large selection of zinc plated imperial nuts, bolts and washers? The constant grubbing around for the right imperial ironmongery which is inevitably used and rusty- is frustrating and I am annoyed about having to put rusty bits on a clean project. I love some if these projects on instagram with every but, bolt and washer dichromated. I wish I was that organised...
Anyway, here is the finished article - crowned with 2 rusty nylock nuts which had to remain imperial and are about 4.8mm. Any ideas what size that would be?

View attachment 237342

Lastly, note that the hamster wheel fan is handed. The orientation of the blades depends on drive side. They seem to harden and disintegrate with age. The RHD one was already vaporises. The LHD one crumbled in my hand when removing. There is a bloke on eBay in the UK doing new ones and they seem to be a bit stockier that the originals. Note that the LHD ones are only 5 cm wide against the 7cm for the RHD ones. So a bit less efficient but who cares, the weather’s better here.
View attachment 237343
Blows like a hurricane, a little noisy on full tilt but I think thats original. Not bad all in all and makes up for yesterday...!

Well you have been a busy bugre!
Nice to see progress!
I suspect you can download tables of thread sizes, UNF, UNC, BSF, BA etc etc. I have mine photocopied and dogeared from an old book i borrowed ages ago.
Very interesting!
All the best!
Stan

Mik87 · May 6, 2021

A lot of imperial nuts bolts etc are on eBay. I use the LRWorkshop parts diagrams to establish the sizes and go from there. This guy has really good stuff: https://www.lroe.co.uk/Series-2-58-61-Fixings-Fittings/
I've got lots of nuts and bolts from him, correct finish etc, he was on eBay but now on his own site.

Stanleysteamer · May 6, 2021

Mik87 said:
A lot of imperial nuts bolts etc are on eBay. I use the LRWorkshop parts diagrams to establish the sizes and go from there. This guy has really good stuff: https://www.lroe.co.uk/Series-2-58-61-Fixings-Fittings/
I've got lots of nuts and bolts from him, correct finish etc, he was on eBay but now on his own site.

Must make that a favourite!

Haggisfrog · May 23, 2021

A few weeks have gone by and I have Been making progress. Again it’s mostly preparing parts for refinishing etc but Firstly, tadaaaa..!

engine and GB in. Mating the 2 is a bit of a struggle as they need a bit of encouragement and a perfect lineup. With the engine on the crane and the gb on the lift, that helped to line up perfectly. Unfortunately, the engine had been sitting on an old cushion and obviously the paint was not 100% hard so I have the print of the cushion on the sump….. only the MOT tester will see that.
I got a bit depressed about having to reuse all the specific nuts and bolts with a lick of paint on them because they are just going to go all crappy as soon as I put a spammer in them. so I have stripped all of them plus the brackets off the engine, chassis and bulkhead. Now I have to find someone who can dichromate them.
The bulkhead has gone to the local body shop to get a new RHS footwell welded in. I made a start with an arc welder and ….. well you know the rest. I think I need to invest in a mig.
All the galvanised parts are off the doors and tub to go to get regalvanised in the only company left in the north half of France who still does that.
One of the rear door cappings was quite bad so I had to take a slot out of it and let in some new metal (old footwell). While taking the doors apart, it looks like they’re is going to be a lot of work there too…

Finally, today, I have repaired the tunnel arch bit thingy. There are some double thicknesses at the foot which hold the water in. Cracking design Gromit

so chop chop

just tacked on with the arc welder and I’ll ask the body shop to do a nice mig weld on it. Same on the other side.

Once that’s done, they will go with the bulkhead for powder coating.
Hopefully I can get all of that sent away this week and I’ll get stuck into the rear tub while it’s away. The floor, aluminium profiles under the floor, steel floor traverses, front upstand, side vertical reinforcements, front of wheel arches are all beyond saving. For a car which looked okay when i bought it, the state of the tub when I cleaned it up was a really nasty and expensive surprise. Anyway, that’s for next time…

1980 S3 Dormobile restoration

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