Just when i thought it .......

] I was getting through the to do list...

So mid January, thought got two weeks where i am not going to need it.

Will pop the 90 on the ramp and do the rear hub seals.

Got them apart and also discovered why the brakes needed pumping once.
Adjusters were in the bottom of drums.

So did seals and made an adjuster.

https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/brakes.296317/page-2#post-3687548

then thought i will fix the heater, ( missus had got in a 57 plate puma defender on a shoot day and discovered it was warm, and a T reg 90 county, so had to do something)

Also discovered where my small water leak was, fitted new seals, see other thread on that saga.
https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/heater-box-seal-help-advise-please.296308/


Then got into new seats, led to battery isolator and anderson connector.
https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-ro...ery-isolator-switch-on-a-truck-cab-90.296508/


then added to the list a new fuel filler to fit and gearbox oil change to do

got a small plate to do on chassis for MOT ( or so i thought..)

so
and as it was on the ramp Got the cleaning disc on the grinder and thought may as well make a start..



So now got a pile of work to do any thoughts by you welders and defender menders out there...

Oh dear!

yeah thats what i thought......

just spelt dear slightly differently.....

Yeah that's a bit chewed up.

Back section from the spring mounts backwards.

How are you at welding and what's the rest of the chassis like?

flat said:

Yeah that's a bit chewed up.

Back section from the spring mounts backwards.

How are you at welding and what's the rest of the chassis like?

Click to expand...

Rest of chassis is good, i dont weld at all, however the farmer and his son are both fairly handy.

Will see what they think in the morning, if they reckon it ok, then guess i will be cutting bits of cardboard to use as templates to cut all the steel, then make the tea and hold the light, bribe them with biscuits and cake. Might have to wait a day or so as the weather looks like its gonna break and they got wheat to drill.

But i have possession of the ramp, so guess it will get done.

Cool, post some before and after pics

I had similar issues a while ago
https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/new-rear-spring-seat-installed.241375/

Get your sen some 1mm cutting disks from machine mart or the like and some new steel either from a steel merchant or you can get it delivered from eBay and get cutting. I used cereal boxes to make templates which worked really well. Just take your time and cut out all the rot to get back to decent steel and weld away

Got a quick hour in the workshop before being called out

[QUOTEGet your sen some 1mm cutting disks from machine mart or the like and some new steel either from a steel merchant or you can get it delivered from eBay and get cutting. I used cereal boxes to make templates which worked really well. Just take your time and cut out all the rot to get back to decent steel and weld away ][/QUOTE]

Very lucky as i live on a farm, which means if i ask nicely, i get access to this

Cavey_P38 said:

] any thoughts by you welders and defender menders out there...

Click to expand...

Quite nasty rust, but could be repaired, you may need to do a lot of dismantling to weld some of that, though. Might be worth googling/phoning about to see if you can finf any useful repair sections, and just cut and shut them in, half chassis is sometimes best with the rear if is bad.
I see you have bad rust around where the wire goes into the chassis. Myself I would just plate that, no hole, and route the wire along the chassis in some kind of conduit.

Marmaduke is right. Preparation is half the battle, the Inox discs are great, really precise. And then grind nice and bright, and accurately cut plates of quality steel. The actual welding will be quick and easy if you get that right.

When you have done, try and stop it happening again. Landrovers never had very good coatings underneath, and the pitting all over that metal is obvious. Try and get at least a couple of coats of some quality paints on your finished work, or you will be doing it again soon. And spray lots of something runny, dinitrol or even cheap oil, into the inside of the chassis as well.

I know that is a farm vehicle, and so is mine, and I would be having kittens if I thought my chassis was that dirty. The mud sat on the chassis holds water and salt, and is a major cause of rust. I have a good hot washer, and should think you do too. Really thorough chassis wash, maybe once a week, or after heavy mud plugging on the farm, will save a lot of trouble down the line. It also means you thoroughly inspect the chassis, and can paint or weld little trouble areas before they get that bad.

So cutting discs or odd bits of metal not a problem, they have a plasma cutter as well, which is very useful on occasion.

Dont weld myself but the farm staff and owners all do and are used to fabricating agricultural stuff.

I just do as i am told, cut here make templates from cardboard, clean here.

Hold this
Make tea etc

Not normally left that dirty, howver only popped it on ramp to do the rear hub seals, dead quick between shooting days in January.

Oops
Sort of snowballed from there, trust me wished i had steam cleaned it would save dirty landing on me

Normally spary the chassis woth waste oil 3 times a year, it is due one now.

Cavey_P38 said:

So cutting discs or odd bits of metal not a problem, they have a plasma cutter as well, which is very useful on occasion.

Dont weld myself but the farm staff and owners all do and are used to fabricating agricultural stuff.

I just do as i am told, cut here make templates from cardboard, clean here.

Hold this
Make tea etc

Click to expand...

I dont weld either. I can weld, but better on industrial steels than light stuff. But I only need welding once in a while, and my mate, who is a fabricator, has an expensive MIG, and uses it every day.

So I do the cutting and grinding, as you say, cardboard templates are good! I grind it up bright, spray with WD40, and take it all down his workshop and he zips it up quicker and better than I could.

Cavey_P38 said:

Not normally left that dirty, howver only popped it on ramp to do the rear hub seals, dead quick between shooting days in January.

Oops
Sort of snowballed from there, trust me wished i had steam cleaned it would save dirty landing on me

Click to expand...

Yes, that is another fringe benefit of lots of washing. Not so much stuff falling in your eyes when you have to work on it!

I jet wash mine underneath religiously when I have been mud plugging as soon after as I can and about once every 4-6 weeks if I haven't.

I have found that a wet chassis dries okay, and helps keep rust at bay. I have drilled extra drain holes and 2 access holes so I can jet wash the inside of the rear X-member.

When I see any orange rust bloom I scrub back and paint that area. If it is coming from underneath a component I take that off, clean and paint.

I painted my whole chassis about 3 years ago with 3 thick coats of direct to metal paint.

I have no other coating on the outside and it seems to be holding up okay. I put 4 -5 litres of dinitrol (or this year free waxoyl I got given) into the chassis every couple of years.

This won't stop my chassis rotting away but certainly slows it down considerably, the deterioration in the last 3 years has been minimal.

Mine is a 25year old and has only ever had a 2'x2' plate on the rear X-member and a plate in the footwell

It's effort but worth it IMO, it's the damp mud stuck on th chassis that's the killer

So got making templates


Then got stuck in with the plasma cutter


Then dropped lucky and the farmer was odd jobbing this afternoon, so bribed with cake, he got stick in





Bit of aricultural thinking to bend the bottom plate, using a prop and the ramp..

Personally, I would have pressure washed the underneath to within an inch of its life before I started any welding. When did it last have an MOT?

Mot due in june.

Would have but i was boxed in tbe workshop by a variety of farm kit and had only started on one job and it has kinda escalated...

mick the builder said:

Personally, I would have pressure washed the underneath to within an inch of its life before I started any welding. When did it last have an MOT?

Click to expand...

So would I! And ground back a bit more around the plates, and probably done a bit of priming around the sound areas, ready to paint in the new metal quick after it was welded.
I am afraid I dont have any faith in sump oil sprayed on the outside to protect a landrover chassis. It really needs paint, or at the very least waxoyl carefully applied to spotless clean chassis.

I wondered about the MOT as well. Quite a lot of rust for a year!