Bulkheads

Door switches? What is this newfangled witchcraft? I have recently upgraded to series 3 style doors with the sliding windows.

Part 1 of the repair seems to have gone OK given how thin some of the remaining metal is. Have got a decent oxford welder though, which makes things easier.

MattYorke said:

Door switches? What is this newfangled witchcraft? I have recently upgraded to series 3 style doors with the sliding windows.

Part 1 of the repair seems to have gone OK given how thin some of the remaining metal is. Have got a decent oxford welder though, which makes things easier.

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You're repair is looking great so far
Don't think it'll make a difference with S3 doors. They'll still operate the light switches.
To be honest, given the rot in your bulkhead and how much you've had to strip the Landy back, I'd have taken the bulkhead out. Welding it up would be easier and then I would have got it galvanised. When you come to do the chassis, you then might get away with the full body lift off technique. You might want to go a lot further than that when you come to do the chassis though.

Thing is if I take the heater and brake master cylinder off, I have to powder coat them. I’ll save that all for when I do the chassis.

MattYorke said:

Thing is if I take the heater and brake master cylinder off, I have to powder coat them. I’ll save that all for when I do the chassis.

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Yep, one thing leads to another. That's why I said you 'might' get away with a full body lift off. I'm sure you'll want to improve all of the things you see when you lift it off

dag019 said:

I will say that despite all the scare stories about them not fitting I have just fitted a galv bulkhead to my fire damage rebuild. Although it was a refurbished rather than new one it went in with no more effort than I would expect any other bulkhead swap to go. A bit of pulling and punching to get the bolts though but when you consider land rover tolerances was not too bad. I would not expect any swap toh just bolt up perfectly, neither the bulkhead or chassis were that accurate when in the factory and years of use later things will have settled and moved slightly.

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But if it didn't fit fine if your doing it yourself you can spend time trying to get it fit...as a part share owner in a garage and doing a complete rebuild for a client on a S2 at the mo all parts are bought by me not by owner so if they are not correct my problem...so if a galv bulkhead does'nt fit not supplied by me not my problem because it's not the original and the owner supplied it ... no way will I let him supply parts

MattYorke said:

Thing is if I take the heater and brake master cylinder off, I have to powder coat them. I’ll save that all for when I do the chassis.

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Ahh the resto route you do it for your self as and when..when you have to phone the owner and say wev'e found a bit of a problem it's not nice and it's not easy as you supplied the part...if you can do the job yourself fine but dont expect a garage to waste time on fitting parts they didn't supply...I know not your original post question but people need to understand garage owners are not Harry Potter and can not wave a wand...

Al2O3 said:

Yep, one thing leads to another. That's why I said you 'might' get away with a full body lift off. I'm sure you'll want to improve all of the things you see when you lift it off

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Never a better word said...every split pin a nail hammered in...13mm bolts with locknuts everywhere on body fixings...steering drop arms fitted upside down...brake back plates wrongly fitted...but thats what you get in Portugal on a 59 S2 from Africa...lol..

Quite a bit already done actually that will put it in good stead for the chassis eventually. New battery box, 3.9V8, vented front disks, rear disks rather than drums, all new bushes everywhere, stainless headers, bulkhead removed, sunroof gone, rear fold down seats, rebuilt gearbox arriving in a week or two, etc etc.

MattYorke said:

Quite a bit already done actually that will put it in good stead for the chassis eventually. New battery box, 3.9V8, vented front disks, rear disks rather than drums, all new bushes everywhere, stainless headers, bulkhead removed, sunroof gone, rear fold down seats, rebuilt gearbox arriving in a week or two, etc etc.

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And your asking for advice on here...lol..

Absolutely. I know how to do the jobs I’ve done. Always happy to share my experience of those and always open to learning a better way to do it too.

And for jobs I’ve not yet done, it’s good to learn from other peoples experiences to help make sure I do a better job first time.

I think my summary of the whole bulkhead affair is that even back when I owned a Stage 1 V8 in the mid 90's, it was always that the bulkhead is a nightmare. But having built many other things in the meantime, one thing I always like about the LR is that it's basically meccano. I have an old Audi C5 RS6 and step one of the service manual is "remove engine and gearbox" - which is 2 man days of effort (in my garage, on stands, not a lift, working alone). So actually, bulkhead...not intimidated by this at all.

From the above, it got me thinking to stuff I've already done to this wagon actually (13 years gives me plenty of time to break and then fix stuff):

• New rear axle (disk brakes)
• New brake pipes
• New clutch master & slave
• New front vented disks & calipers (off a 110)
• Replaced 3.5 V8 on carbs with 3.9 EFI (initially hotwire)
• Rimmer Bros headers & sports exhaust
• Megasquirt EFI (closed loop, with lambda and IAC)
• Rear cross member
• 1 front dumb iron
• Front Tow Bar
• Sunroof filled in
• 2 new doors (series 3 style with lever & sliding windows. I like them the simplicity of them)
• New rear door
• Couple of outriggers at some point
• The YRM battery box - this is a nice setup BTW
• X-Drive transmission brake
• Electric fans (running off the megasquirt) since the old fan shroud didn't fit the serpentine fan
• Recovered all the seats
• New rad
• New body corner bracket (see other thread with the CAD file if you ever need it)
• Intermediate bulkhead removal - this is a great upgrade.
• Air ride rear air bags to augment the springs - great when you're towing a heavy trailer.
• Exmoor Lock & Fold rear seats
• And finally a new LT85 on the way

And it still looks like crap. So I'll probably do a front drive respray it this year too - it'll be good to learn.

MattYorke said:

So I'll probably do a front drive respray it this year too

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gloss roller it rather than spray, is much easier on the driveway and is not effected by wind. I am currently doing this for the second time on mine after the firs and have done bother the series 3 and the tractor this way.

I hear you - I just enjoy the learning of spraying (I have done a bit over the years)
I reckon I can do 70% of it in the garage hopefully since all the panels are off. It's just the rear tub I might have to do outdoors.
Did a semi-reasonable job on some metallic black mudguards last autumn that came out OK, so looking forward to scaling up. Won't be trying for "showroom" - it has too many dents to bother, but would like it to be "tidy".

Did my 101 outside and about to paint an S2 in a couple of months am lucky down here as it will be in the 30c temp when I do it...satin finish is your friend on older Landys...

Nearly done this side, just a couple more bits to make. Actually quite a lot of work to make all the bits.

Not sure I can be bothered with the other side at the moment, I might patch it for the time being.