A new chassis

Rightly or wrongly I am thinking of changing the chassis on my 1984,110 hard top. Major holes in existing one and it has failed the MOT
I know it's not going to be easy but what are the little things that you won't know about unless you have done it before?
I will be sorting out clutch, gearbox and timing issues but are there any other points I should consider, I am also thinking about replacing the wiring as there seems to be lots of erroneous cables sticking out in various places and intermitent electrical issues

tanks in advance

St George said:

Rightly or wrongly I am thinking of changing the chassis on my 1984,110 hard top. Major holes in existing one and it has failed the MOT
I know it's not going to be easy but what are the little things that you won't know about unless you have done it before?
I will be sorting out clutch, gearbox and timing issues but are there any other points I should consider, I am also thinking about replacing the wiring as there seems to be lots of erroneous cables sticking out in various places and intermitent electrical issues

tanks in advance

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Chassis swap is fairly straightforwards. Seized nuts will be your biggest problem. Be prepared to have to replace most of them. Wiring harness is a good idea as your old one has probably been cut and changed loads of times or even melted whilst welding near it. Plenty of space to store everything and lots of plastic tubs to keep items together will help. When taking something apart like the dash etc tape the screws to the bit they came off, or put them back thru the hole they came from and stick a bit of tape over so they can't fall out.

document it with photos, not only for your own use, but for others as well

I'd put sticky labels on everything as well, so you know exactly what's what!

Priceless info already

Replace ALL nuts bolts and washers - get some good ones from an engineering merchant.

Get a big tin of copper slip and cover all the threads and washers with it on assembly - makes it so much easier to get things off in the future.

Replace all the springs shockers etc while you are at it, when its all off you may as well.

Replace all the brake lines, no point in trying to transfer old lines over, all new brake flexis too.

Basically EVERYTHING at chassis level should be replaced if you can afford it, apart obviously from the axles and radius/trailing arms etc... (mind you I did!)

When the axles are off get them stripped back, primed and painted up.

Might be worth replacing all/part of exhaust while you are there, mine looked sorta OK before I changed it and after being disturbed and put back on it broke within a week.

I will post more tomorrow if I think of anything.

Have you considered lifting the entire LR OFF the chassis? It's obviously easier if you have access to a means of lifting it up (forklift etc) however it CAN be done with sort of 6 guys some timber etc... disconnect everything, tie things back out the way, seperate everything connected to the chassis, gearbox, engine etc and you can lift it all off clean in one go, someone rolls the chassis out from under it and you sit it down on some tyres or bags of sand or something.

Also saves you a lot of time trying to line everything back up again and just makes the job so much easier - a lot of people do it this way.

Depending on what kind of finnish you are prepared to pay for (i.e. painted / galvanised), there are always things that you can do to the chassis to prevent rot in the future. Always give it a few coats of hammerite, even if it's galvanised and then inject / spray waxoyl, or some other form of rust prohibitor through each and every hole to give the inside a good protective coating. You'll never do it properly once it's all back together. Don't worry about waxoiling the externals until you're done because it'll be a bugger to work on if it's wet and slimy from day one.

-Pos

pos said:

Always give it a few coats of hammerite, even if it's galvanised and then inject / spray waxoyl, or some other form of rust prohibitor through each and every hole to give the inside a good protective coating.

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If it's galvanised that is a complete waste of time and money. Hot dip zinc will pour into all the holes and will coat the entire chassis inside and out in a layer or zinc – and he would need to wait till it oxidises before it would adhere properly - else he will end up with flaked off layers of waxoyle in his chassis.

I agree he should paint it (more for security reasons - make it look plain black chassis don't advertise your brand new shiny galv chassis!) but ordinary paint will just flake right off, you will need to use a special metal primer or wait until its aged and completely oxidised which is better, the primer is good, but they often take time to do their job and will easily scratch off which is going to be inevitable when rebuilding a land rover.

Hadn't really thought about the paint adhering One thing I do know however is that galvanised chassis aren't necessarily the "be all and end all". My local spesh had a series on a galvanised chassis which had just completely disintegrated. The steel had rotted away from the inside, leaving to thin, brittle layers of almost leaf thin zinc! You could pull it apart with your hands

-Pos

How old was it?

Small point, don't use copper slip anywhere near any aluminium. Electrolytic corrosion will cause the aluminium to dissolve. Theres some stuff called Duralac you should use wherever steel and aluminium are in contact.

St George said:

How old was it?

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Not too sure but it was a horrible royal blue colour and it was made out of all number of landy's. Jake Wright said they'd fitted the chassis to it years prior to having it back to refit a new one. Unbelievable. It'd been used as the security land rover at a hunting / game ground.

-Pos

yea bit dubious of galv. chassis? how good /thick was steel? airlocks WILL stop zinc flow into chassis! .......best get genuine or proven quality chassis & etch prime/hammerite + dinitrol inner......will live longer than you!!