Half hour job turns into a two day job

So as today was nice and dry and not to cold I thought I'd change the bushes in my panhard rod to stop the annoying clunking that started last week.
Easy job, undo the nuts, drive the bolts out, drop the rod, press the old bushes out and new ones in, do everything back up and Robs your mothers brother.

If only! The bolt through the bush furthest from the steering box had seized solid to the metal sleeve that goes through the bush. No amount of banging, levering, heating, and cursing was going to shift it. So decided to cut down both sides of the panhard rod and through the bolt so I could at least get the thing off the motor.

Of course you cant get a grinder in there so ended up with the trusty old hacksaw. Not the easiest job upside down on the drive but after half an hour of sawing through the rubber bush, sleeve, and bolt I got the poxy rod off.

Next problem was my new bushes had gone walk about. They are in my man cave somewhere but can I find them? So now got a Fender with its snout in the air on ramps but cant move it until I get some new bushes and bolts. Having had a good look at the old bushes I dont think they were the cause of the clunking anyhow. It seems the holes in the bush mount have gone a tad oval so I now need to weld some thick washers to it in order to stop the bolt moving in the holes. In hindsight I reckon I could just have tightened the bolt up a tad.
Welcome to Landy ownership. At least it did not start raining.

Does any job on a Landy ever go to plan, every job I've done on mine always took 4 times longer than expected but would I have it any other way...................................................................................HELL NO

I thought that this sort of thing only happened to me I went under mine last week to sort the exhaust ready for its mot as a couple of small holes had appeared in it by the rear spring hanger and I spotted a small rust patch on the chassis, after a bit of digging with a screw driver Welder to the rescue


I must be the only person I know that keeps a sheet of 2.5mm steel in the shed

You can cut the bolts with a thin disc in a 9" grinder but you can only cut in particularly so you have to keep rotating the bolt. Not long done the job on mine, also had the elongated hole problem.
LR use the same thickness steel plates welded either side of the bush mountings on the axles in all bush brackets.
These welds can be carefully tickled with a 41/2" grinder and the plate knocked off with a sharp cold chisel.
I made new plates and welded them on.
The bolts aren't long enough if you bodge a washer on top of whats already there.

Marmaduke said:

I must be the only person I know that keeps a sheet of 2.5mm steel in the shed

Click to expand...

No ... and 1.2mm, some 6mm plate, 50mm x 50mm 3mm wall square tube, and 25 x 25mm 1.5mm sq .. odd round tube, odd square tube .... various brackets, bushes, mounts ... etc etc ...

Some people, the missus mostly, calls it crap, but I know I need it all ...

Marmaduke said:

I must be the only person I know that keeps a sheet of 2.5mm steel in the shed

Click to expand...

Nope. got some here too.

Paul D said:

No ... and 1.2mm, some 6mm plate, 50mm x 50mm 3mm wall square tube, and 25 x 25mm 1.5mm sq .. odd round tube, odd square tube .... various brackets, bushes, mounts ... etc etc ...

Some people, the missus mostly, calls it crap, but I know I need it all ...

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Yep, all that too, and 5 lengths of 120 * 60 box ready for sill replacement .... and a great load of other stuff too - some of which is going on fleabay !! ( cos I'm fed up with working round it).
Thankfully SWMBO knows the value of it - her D1 was the last to use up some of MY 2.5mm plate !!

One has a galv chassis and bulkhead on ones tratter and therefore has no need for bits of patching tin either flat or tubed

No such thing as a 5 minute job on a Landy.

Doesn't exist.

Mr S1 said:

No such thing as a 5 minute job on a Landy.

Doesn't exist.

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Agreed - not even filling it with fuel

After two weeks without a drop of rain, all was ready to swap engines yesterday . It started raining hard as we started, and stopped three hours later as we finally got the engine and gearbox mated. bugger.

Flossie said:

You can cut the bolts with a thin disc in a 9" grinder but you can only cut in particularly so you have to keep rotating the bolt. Not long done the job on mine, also had the elongated hole problem.
LR use the same thickness steel plates welded either side of the bush mountings on the axles in all bush brackets.
These welds can be carefully tickled with a 41/2" grinder and the plate knocked off with a sharp cold chisel.
I made new plates and welded them on.
The bolts aren't long enough if you bodge a washer on top of whats already there.

Click to expand...

I have some 3mm x 30mm steel washers which I will ream to a good fit on the new bolts. and I'll weld them over the holes. The old bolts had about 12mm extra length when tightened so I reckon that will leave me about 5-6mm spare. I've also just discovered I have an empty gas bottle on my mig so I'll have to brush up on my tig welding or see if I can persuade my pub landlord to swap my empty for one of his full CO2 bottles.
The bushes were the LR originals from new so they have lasted 18 years without any problems. I just wish they had been greased when fitted. Even with the old bush in the vice and using a lump hammer I cant get the remains of the bolt out of the bush sleeve so I had no chance on the motor.

That's interesting about your bolts, all mine were just long enough (after market replacement) so that plate had to come off. It's not hard to get the old ones off, a quick grind on the weld to weaken it and a couple of whacks and it's off.

Flossie said:

That's interesting about your bolts, all mine were just long enough (after market replacement) so that plate had to come off. It's not hard to get the old ones off, a quick grind on the weld to weaken it and a couple of whacks and it's off.

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I may still have to do that as I have ordered some new bolts which may be slightly shorter than the originals.

I had the seized bolt thing and carefully cut it off with a grinder with the guard taken off.

Was an absolute ballache mission, one side took about 45mins the other the rest of the day.

I copper greased the sh1t out of the new bolts where they went in the bush.

I swapped in poly bushes (super pro) for ease of swapping in future

Reciprocating saw, easy job!

Paul D said:

Reciprocating saw, easy job!

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I keep meaning to buy one, but keep spending my money on stupid things like new bushes!

I'm learning this lesson myself. Glad I'm not the only one. Thought I was just being a poor excuse for retard!

Mr S1 said:

No such thing as a 5 minute job on a Landy.

Doesn't exist.

Click to expand...

Tell me about, I went to replace my passenger seat with a better condition one, and noticed the battery box had rusted through on removing the seat box to repair it both end panels needed replacing. While it was all out I though I might as well clean and paint the sills and one of then was then full of rust holes after rubbing it down as well.
All I wanted was a comfy seat for her to try and stop her complaining about the landy.

dag019 said:

Tell me about, I went to replace my passenger seat with a better condition one, and noticed the battery box had rusted through on removing the seat box to repair it both end panels needed replacing. While it was all out I though I might as well clean and paint the sills and one of then was then full of rust holes after rubbing it down as well.
All I wanted was a comfy seat for her to try and stop her complaining about the landy.

Click to expand...

There is no such thing as "I'll just...". I was looking at my track rod ends whilst putting my brake calipers back on. I thought "I could just whip those off in a jiffy fo rthe brand new ones in my man cave." Then I thought better of it. There is probably some mathmatical model to be derived that calculates the average additionital time undoing a single nut/bolt will add to a project; probably proportional to the inverse logarithm of amount of daylight left.