Classic LSE "Rolling" Resto (hahaha, 18 months later and still no MOT)

I agree that your welding is improving - good to see As is the progress in general

Last rear body cross member I did - I used a holesaw to make 25mm holes in the lower surface to let the water out, and allow some air circulation too .... My MOT guy said he thought it was a good idea

( think I put four in - one central in each extension piece, and one each side of the tank - where you can get at it to inject cavity wax )

 

Tidy mate and agree - welding is way better!!!

 

Aah, good point about access to the holes for wax injection! I just used the step drill I was using at the time for making plug weld holes and stepped out to 12mm which is big enough for my wax nozzle, but I did three with one at the centre as I worked out this would allow enough reach with some overlap, but didn’t think about access with the tank in! Oh well, I guess that job is being done before the tank goes in then!

Richard

 

So I've been putting off doing an update here as I've been pretty crap at taking photos of my work recently. Took a few snaps this evening of the latest bit I've been working on but it's still going to be a little bit of a wordy update.

A few weeks back, a friend of mine came to visit me to work on the Rangey for the weekend. He has a series 3 himself and and we became friends working on old crap together in the university motor club so he knew what to expect before he decided to travel from Cumbria to Bristol for a weekend in the middle of a storm! We removed and dismantled the rear axle seeing as access was easy with the floor and rear crossmember out, it will give me better access to the chassis, and it needed work to replace the spring seats and all the seals which was going to be more pleasant in the garage than on the car. It did put up a bit of a fight meaning that it took us all of Saturday to manage to get it off and stripped down, and then the storm affecting trains meant that he had to leave early on Sunday morning to have a hope of getting back home for tea.

The tribulations on the way to getting it off the car included a brake calliper bolt head stripping, all of the poorly made brake lines needing to be cut to remove them and the a-frame ball joint having no gaiter. When we got the hubs off we found the axle tubes to be full of swarth, which was concerning. We removed the diff to find that it seemed to be fine but the casing a bit mucky. Additionally, we found a load of weld all over the outside of the diff casing so this axle must have had a bit of a tough life!

Since Will left, I've managed to get a good few evenings in the garage despite being on holiday last week. I managed to get the ball joint out, attach the second new spring seat, make new brake lines, strip all the bearings and bits from the hubs and basically get the whole thing ready to be painted. I discovered a little more about the mystery of the swarth - clearly there has been a diff that has lost a bearing at some point in the past as the diff casing is marked 94 on the casting, whilst the hubs are marked 93 and the car was sold in '93. Anyway, too many words, after a couple of coats of high zinc and a couple of coats of black epoxy it now all looks a bit better...







I'll try to remember to take some more pics as going forward - they're more interesting than my waffling! I'm planning to get the chassis welding done this weekend hopefully and then maybe some axle assembly in the evenings this week.

Richard

 

Glad your still at it! You’ll want to replace a frame ball joint anyway - you buy it as one in the fulcrum you avoid messing about with the press.
If refreshing bushes with metalistic(sp?) you’ll need a press but if polybushing, a lot of them come in two pieces so you can just squeeze them in.
Be aware also, where your doing spring mounts, the chassis behind has angled plate in to add structural support.

If you cut into it, beef it back up

 

Sorry for the slight confusion, it was the spring seats on the axle that needed replacing. Had to get the arc welder out to weld them as well as that axle tube is a little heavy duty to weld with 0.6mm wire!

AShould be able to do another update sometime soon hopefully. I've been making a little progress.

Rich

 

I’m very local to you rich. Happy to come and spanner with you if you need a hand. I’m prob 30 mins away and get my gas from near you

 

From no photos a few updates ago, this time I have loads!

So, my last update I had been working on painting the bits for the rear axle. The next week the next batch of parts were delivered from Paddock Spares with all the bits I had thought of that I needed. Was struggling to find enough flat surfaces in the garage! The brake callipers aren't new - they had just been replaced before I bought the car.




Evenings that week I turned that mess into this...



I also had to repurpose my pillar drill as a vertical lathe to make a few special bolts up that I had forgotten to order. "Bolt, Paint Clearing, M6." I always find land rover names for parts remind me of military descriptions of kit!



Still got a last few bits to fit. The wiring loom is off as are the brake pipes which I made up. Reason for this is that I somehow managed to drop the bracket for them into the bottom of the parts washer and it didn't get painted with everything else. I'm waiting until I next need to mix some paint up to paint it and then those last few bits can go on.

I got a little distracted in the evenings this week finally making myself a trolly for my welder. I've only had the welder 5 years and did the CAD model of this trolly about a year ago.





It's not totally finished yet but I expect it will probably stay how it is for a few years before I get around to making any improvements! Frame is a little overkill as it turns out - 2.0mm thickness 1" box and the sheet sections are 1.5mm zintec plug welded in place.

Finally I've also made a bit of progress on actually using the welder on the car. I attacked the chassis with cutting discs while I was waiting for parts to be delivered for the axle a couple of weeks ago. The pile of crap mostly fell out of the chassis and more has continued to fall out every time I've gone near it since!





Since then I've passed a little time making up repair patches to fill the holes back in. Today I finally got around to welding them all in. I really don't enjoy welding up-side-down so I hadn't been looking forward to this to be honest.




Getting some paint on always makes me feel like I've made some progress though. Hopefully I should be able to get a couple more coats on this section tomorrow and then move forwards.



Rich

 

I had a feeling from your thread that you were somewhere in the area but I hadn't noticed just how close until I found that thread in the regional section. Thanks so much for the offer of help and I may just take you up on it actually. Now that I've fully assembled the axle in the garage, I've remembered how heavy it was when Will and I removed it and I have no idea how I'm going to get it back in again! I'm not sure how keen he will be to pop down from Cumbria any time soon to help given the ordeal the storms put him through trying to get home last time. If you're ever in the area and just fancy a brew and a nosey around then feel free to get in touch. Maybe best steer clear for a few weeks though as my other half has had a bit of a cough this week.

Rich

 

Yes mate I’m not far! I know how hard it is lifting things on your own too. I’m usually on covered in oil every other weekend until season starts again in autumn.
Trolley looks awesome. I can’t do anything with d1 until I’ve got gas and also my food from the farm!! Can’t get anything at supermarket!! Looks like may have some extra time on the project eh!!

 

I’m in a slightly unfortunate position of being able to do most of my work remotely from home. It’s convenient normally but being stuck at home and not able to do any work would be great for progress on the car! The whole stockpiling situation is a bit ridiculous isn’t it! I’ve found at least the butcher and the baker seem to be keeping up with demand ok but I couldn’t get any tinned tomatoes or anything when I went to Lidl last weekend.

Rich

 

Hi all,

Made a bit more progress. Been working my way forward along the chassis prepping for paint.

I decided, for some unknown reason, to read the instructions on the rust.co.uk website for the paints I've been using and discovered that they only recommend using their Zinc Rich Primer, the sandy grey one which I used on the chassis and axle before the black top coat, on a keyed and rust free surface. That first section of the chassis was probably not suite the level of prep that i should have gone for, as it was clean but only to a wire brushed sort of finish, which apparently might be an issue for the primer bonding properly. Time will tell on the first section I suppose, but I'm going to make an effort to prep the rest better.

First I've been knocking the worst of the rust off with a twisted knot wheel on the grinder and then taking the surface back as clean as I can get it with a strip and prep disc. This is the same as the prep I had done on the first section of the chassis. Before applying the primer I've then been applying their FE123 rust converter and letting that do it's thing before cleaning the surface back and then painting. From now on I'm going to then hit the more pitted sections with a 40 grit flap disc to take the tops off the pitting. Obviously I won't be able to sand all the pitting away completely as that would involve taking too much material away, but I can knock the top back and then, if the surface is still not clean enough, then I will just follow Rust Buster's advice and not use the Zinc Rich in these areas.

The section I've been working on is from the crossmember at the front of the fuel tank on to the tubular crossmember that the A-Frame attaches to. As well as cleaning the surface back of course there are a few bits of rust to deal with!

One in the O/S spring Seat. I'm not totally sure if I'm happy with only cutting this much out to be honest. There has obviously been dirt or water getting between the chassis rail and the reinforcer inside it here, causing the two to be pushed apart. There is still a little more rust between them at the bottom left corner of the hole as it is now. I think I would prefer to cut more out, but I don't want to cut the spring seat off and I'm not sure how much further I can go without doing so.



There was one hole at each end of the bracket for the fuel tank - forgot to photograph but that's now all fixed. I took the bracket off completely, repaired it on the bench and replaced a section of the crossmember behind it. Here it is all welded back in. I welded the whole way across the top and will seam seal some of the sections on the bottom to try to reduce the chances of moisture getting between it and the crossmember again. Also painted both sides with weld through (the red Rust Buster one that I've been using throughout).



Finally both the triangular sections of the gusset for the tubular crossmember on the O/S end were rusted through. Obviously when I lopped the gusset off, I found some more rust in the chassis rail! To make up for the lack of photos above, here's every step of the way on this one.








The observant may notice that I've taken the entire heel board for the back footwell out to access this bit. I needed to replace the captive nuts for the seats anyway so this isn't too bad. I'll replace the captives on the bench rather than working around the tubular crossmember on my back. While it's out I'll strip all the paint back and weld up the holes in it or the panels it attaches to so that I can plug weld it back in afterwards.

I've also welded a couple of bits that I've had prepped for a while in to the N/S tailgate pillar ready to refit the rear crossmember.




Well that's up to date now. More progress in the next week or so I hope.

Rich

 

I do like welding with nice new metal!

Since my last update I have received a load of bits from YRM to get on with rebuilding the boot floor, finished painting the section of the chassis that I am done with (everything up to the crossmember for the a-frame), and started with making the repair sections for the floor sides.

Got a nice new battery tray and clamp from YRM - alloy tray and stainless fixings. It came with coach bolts to secure it down, but I think I'll weld captive nuts into the car and use bolts instead. Should do the job of securing the battery really nicely though.



On the boot floor, first I chopped my one and a bit disco floors up and test fitted for a sanity check that things might line up. The pressing for the floor has quite a twist to it, but I should be able to fix that before it goes in. No point fixing the warp before I weld it as it would only be as bad again afterwards anyway!



It seemed to be something like the right length, so with renewed motivation i cracked on with turning the repair sections from YRM into something that would fill the gaps in my floor side sections...




Obviously after that welding it was banana shaped! Application of a boot, some leverage and a little hammer and dolly work to make a bit more metal here and there and that was sorted. By this time I had finally got the chassis all in black as well.





Logically then it was time to move on to the near side, but I dropped the ball a little on the photography front and the photos jump forward quite a way here. Stripped all the wax and underseal off the wheel arch and spare wheel well both sides, removed the bracket for the spare wheel cover for repair and reinstallation later, and knocked up a repair section for the inner arch.



In that photo you can also see a bit of the floor repair section. Like the off side, it's made up of a number of sections from YRM. This time I tacked all the sections to a piece of box section in the hope it might warp less - I'm not sure that has actually worked to be honest.



And finally this is where I stopped today. Hopefully I'll be able to get a little more done over the weekend but I didn't want to make too much noise today as we had something of a social distancing street party going on. The really observant might notice a few boxes drawn on the off side inner arch in white. Annoyingly the inner arch that I had already repaired needs a few more repairs now that the plate has been ground off the inside. I suppose that will teach me not to leave other peoples patches in place and to just strip everything back until I have something I know is good to start from.



Thats all for now. More soon.

Rich

 

So Apparently I had not updated for a little longer than I thought! Heres a couple of other bits that I got done before the update I just did started.

Got the rear body crossmember back in with a bit of effort. Some plug welds in place but still a few more left to do once everything is definitely lined up for good. The top tailgate still fits which is a good start and the opening measures up as square, but I haven't tried the bottom tailgate yet to confirm.





Repaired the gusset for the tubular crossmember the a-frame attaches to but forgot to photograph it going back in.



Prepped the heel board for the rear footwell as well. couple of patches where the boot floor welds to it and filled in a load of holes from drilling out spot welds. Left the ones on the sides so that I can use them again to plug weld it back in and filled the ones on the boot instead.



Also made up my new fuel lines in Poly something or other 'rigid' tube. It's not that rigid really but I think it's what the OEMs use these days and it should never be a corrosion issue in the future. The tube actually seems very similar to the suspension air lines. It can be formed to a permanent bend by using boiling water and then cold water once you've put the shape in and I used inserts and Oetiker (something like that anyway) clamps to attach proper flexible hose where there might be movement needed like where the fuel filter goes. I'll take some photos of the final product some time and I have a receipt from the company that supplied the bits for anyone else who needs to do the same process in the future.

Cheers for reading my ramblings.

Rich

 

Looks good getting there slowly I'm doing simile to a d1 to the extent I've lifted the body off

 

hi, I had seen your thread and have bookmarked it. Looks like a hell of a welding job you have ahead of you. I hope for your sake the body isn’t as bad as the chassis!

Good luck!

Richard

 

Sounds like you’re going to be needing to negotiate some sort of bulk discount with a panel company! I thought mine was in a bad state from being on a farm in wales it’s whole life - do you know what yours was used for to get into that state?

Rich

 

Yh pretty much mine was a 1 owner car by a woman who lived on a farm in Wales towed a horse box now and again diff lock seized as never been used and never seen any wax oil or body treatment in its life basically just pure neglect has led to the state of mine but for 250 quid for a motor that's done 87k mile it was worth it and only the other side of the mountain from me so was local

 

It really does amaze me how neglected some land rovers get! Perhaps it’s something about welsh mud that made them both rot!

Rich