Series 3 My Series 3 restoration

that new chassis looks smart

Nice work. Look forward to seeing it go back together all shiny and painted. Keep the pics coming.

aaronmorris said:

Nice work. Look forward to seeing it go back together all shiny and painted. Keep the pics coming.

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+1

Bit of a picture heavy post this time as I've made a pretty interesting discovery deep within the bowels of the engine

We've been opening the engine up the past couple of weeks to get a rough idea of inside condition. Taking the sump off revealed a matt black oil but with absolutely no lumps or filings. This was pleasantly surprising given the condition of the rest of the car, I'd finally found part of the car the bees hadn't gotten into! We then popped the block on its side and inspected inside and it didn't look too bad. There was remnants of undrained oil seeping out of every hole so all of that was cleaned out. We then took off one of the conrod clamps and again was surprised by the relatively decent condition of the bearing. As the picture shows there's a bit of pitting but I've seen a lot worse. The bearing was also stamped as standard size which suggests either the engine has been untouched since new, its had a new crankshaft fitted or someone has opened it up in the past and slapped some brand new standard size bearings in.

I was feeling pretty good at this point with what I'd found as I was expecting to find much worse. I then gave the crank a turn however and there was a fair bit of air leaking out of the cylinders as each piston compressed! I decided then to take the head off which was done without issue but then the cars best kept secret was revealed! As the pictures show the pistons are in awful condition in particular numbers 3 and 4. In the past they've had some fairly hefty debris get inside and its wreaked havoc in them both, in the deepest scratch on number 4 we were able to fit half a screwdriver head! Numbers 1 or 2 weren't too good either and there was lumpy carbon buildup on the cylinder walls. This was fairly amusing as the engine sounded so good when we ran it which I suppose is testament to their durability!

So the engine I've decided is getting a complete rebuild. I'm off for the next couple of weeks in Egypt but once back I'll be measuring everything up and looking at a rebore along with a crankshaft grind and rebalance, probably with the flywheel as well. I've got a bit of time now to do my research and get an idea of how much its all going to cost. As I'll be doing most of it myself its going to be a bit of a time investment over money but its something I'm looking forward to do as it means I can get the entire thing looking squeaky clean and with hopefully performance to match.

After the engine only the gearbox, diffs, steering, brakes, springs and then I'll be halfway there!

Jack

id get crank polished first , its better than a regrind if it cleans up

jamesmartin said:

id get crank polished first , its better than a regrind if it cleans up

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That's a good point, getting a bit ahead of myself! Once the crank is fully out I can see its overall condition and go from there. Definitely from the one that I looked at a polish might be able to do the trick

Jack

Hi everyone,

Time for another check in! The engine work is on hold at the moment as I wait to find a slot for it to be worked on, I have however removed the pistons and as you can see from the pictures, the damage wasn't just on the surface! With the engine on hold I decided to have a 'quick' look inside the gearbox to see how things were inside. I've so far separated the transfer box and happily, all looks well in there with no obvious damage on the gears. I did however remove the small housing between the transfer case and transmission brake and found a hefty chunk of metal inside that had obviously been thrown around a fair bit inside of it! As the pictures show its had a go at just about everything inside of the small little space. It had also punched into the seal going into the transfer case but thankfully hadn't broken into it, which also turned out to be the major oil leak out the gearbox, so a silver lining there! We haven't managed to offer this piece of metal up to anything in the case though so the story of how it got in there is a mystery.

I'm starting to think about getting the new chassis painted up and set myself up to assemble the rolling chassis however the main thing I'm looking into at the moment are springs. I'm looking to buy a full new seat of springs for the car and keep the old ones in the attic as spares. What I can't make my mind up on is what springs to get. I've looked into parabolic springs and the arguments for them but also looked into standard road springs as the main parabolic disadvantage I've picked up on is more body sway. I'm still undecided on this though so am open to suggestions. The other thing I'm considering is how many leaves I'll need per unit. Its unlikely the vehicle is going to be frequently heavily loaded, most likely 4/5 people at most or some light cargo in the back. Should I be looking at less leaves on that basis? The car will probably be used 95% on the road.

I've also rebuilt the fuel pump too, nice little victory to keep me going!

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Jack

Jack that part is speedo drive housing if I recall correctly may have a spare one if you require it.

Hi Blackburn,

I will certainly be looking for a replacement for that casing so would be very interested if you have one spare!

Finished off the engine stripping today for the most part and measured up the cylinders to see what the results were. Happily they were all standard size which was good given some of the pitting that had occurred in no. 3 and 4. I know I've got up to .040 of oversize to play with and the deepest pitting was just over .020, so I've decided to look into having the cylinders rebored to .030 oversize, at the minimum. Should I just go ahead and bore it out to .040 just because I can or is it worth having a bit of oversize left to play with for whoever rebuilds it all next, which will not be me!!!

It's getting a bit more exciting now that I'm starting to look into rebuilding things instead of stripping it all down. The image of a spanking clean engine is fairly good motivation at this point, but I know there's still a lot to do on it to reach the end result, but will be a fairly hands on learning experience!

I've decided to go for a stainless exhaust system which has now arrived and stored away until its needed. The gear box has been separated into its 3 parts and just needs me to get to work on it in my spare time.

The cover for my new chassis was blown off in the wind last week and we caught someone having a good snoop around it, so need to keep eyes on that. I'm starting to think more and more about getting it painted and building it up, but will probably wait until the axles are ready to go, which I haven't touched yet

Jack

Wish I had a workshop like that!
Thanks for the updates - getting very interesting.

Hi everyone,

Back on it a bit more now after a quiet Christmas. The engine is currently on hold whilst I hunt for a good place to get the machining gone, so I've gone ahead and made a start with the gearbox assembly and steering box.

The gearbox assembly to start and I've begun with the front output shaft section. This seemed like the easier of the 3 sections to work on given the choice and as I don't have that much experience breaking internals apart I thought it would be the better bit to get wrong! So far though that hasn't happened and I'm happy with its progress. One lesson I have learnt form it though is to write down notes as I go along as well as take pictures. I've simply gone with pictures to log the stripdown of the output shaft which should be enough but I know that's not going to be enough if I decide to break the gearbox apart!

The stripdown was trouble free, I kept checking the Haynes manual for pointers but for the most part did it at leisure. I'm probably going to print off more in depth manuals now though, the Haynes has served well for the breaking phase. Lots of muck on the outside of the case but happily none on the inside. I took it all out and have put it all through the parts washer so far but haven't gone much further than that. One thing I have noticed is some light pitting on one end of the 4wd selector shaft but as its just a selector I'm not to concerned about this, do correct me if I should be though!

I'll be stripping the rest of the transfer case at some point too, just to say that I've done it. The gearbox itself though seems incredibly daunting as a job and I'm having doubts over whether or not I should give it a go. I'm using a fantastic thread on another forum as a guide as I go along but as I'm not clued up on names of most of the components at the moment it's quite difficult to take in! Has anyone else done much with the gearbox? Are there lots of things that can go wrong when stripping it or is a lot of it a case of slide everything off and slide it back on in the right order?

I'll do a post on the steering box soon too. Despite my best efforts at doing one thing at a time, it hasn't happened!

Jack

The gearbox is not difficult to dismantle and re assemble.
The hard bit is deciding which bits to change .
The bearings are C3 Clearance that means they have a large gap between the balls and races so feel quite loose when you have them in your hand this is because they run in oil at high speed , as long as tracks and balls have no pitting may be ok to refit.
The other issue is finding quality replacement gears.

Hi everyone,

Time for another check in. Once again I've gone off on a complete tangent and shelved the gearbox for the moment and I'm planning on focusing heavily on the engine. I've brought the whole pile of bits back to my workplace so I can stay and work on it during evenings. At the moment I'm in the process of sorting through all the engine components and fixings so I know what I've got and if there are any bits I've managed to misplace.

I've had a very good quote to have the engine block refaced and rebored out to .040. I will be sending the block off to get this done but first I'm cleaning the whole block myself, perhaps a bit obsessively, for a bit of money saving but mostly personal satisfaction. My evenings at the moment are going round it all with a wire brush drill (not on any of the flat faces of course!!). There probably are quicker ways to clean the block but I'm enjoying doing it by myself in the workshop, so no harm done! Once I'm finished for the night with the cleaning the block gets a soak of WD40 and is wrapped in the bin bag, I don't want rust to come and bite me early on.

I've decided not to go with getting the crankshaft/flywheel balanced as based on the minimal wear on what are standard main bearings that have come out of the engine, I don't deem it to be necessary. I also need to save money where possible! I was caught off guard with the crankshaft and noticed a bit of surface rust coming along on the journals. I've since cleaned them all off, masked each journal and wrapped in a bag, hopefully to keep the rust at bay!

My biggest choices are the moment are where to source new engine parts from as I'm starting to build up a parts list. For now it needs 4 new pistons and at least 3 new tappet slides. I say at least 3 because I've found 3 that are cracked and so won't be going back into the engine. Is it practise to get a complete set of 8 of these though or is it fine to just replaced the damaged 3? The guides and rollers all look to be in good condition so I have no intention of replacing these parts. My mind is getting in a twist trying to look through all the different parts suppliers and deciding which to use for these engine parts. There are massive price gaps between each supplier for pistons and I don't want to make the mistake of just buying the most expensive assuming it is THE best. Is there a go to engine parts supplier or is it just a case of choosing an aftermarket set?

I'm still in the process of sorting through all the parts so will try to keep posted as I'm going along. I've been trying to keep momentum going and have got really hooked on the engine, so hopefully I'll be able to get some real progress done in the coming weeks!

Jack

Hmmm Pistons, last engine rebuild I did I was desperate for pistons to keep the job moving forward on a daily driver. I ended up with a set of Britpart pistons which where not to bad but checking the ring gaps I had anything up to 55/60 thou. This was on a plus 30 thou piston so I ended up using plus 40 thou rings and gapped them to suit. Do the maths 0.010" on diameter x 3.14 it adds up ! other than that it ran well.

Turner Engineering are where I buy engine bits from. Seem to have a very good reputation and helpful.

http://turner-engineering.co.uk

Hi everyone,

This is a bit of a sad post to do but unfortunately I'm going to be getting rid of the project as the scale of the task is becoming more apparent. I'm unable to continue to invest both the time and money to see it through and it's becoming more of a burden than an enjoyment. As it is at that stage it's not sensible to try to carry it on. I suppose this is the case for many projects on this scale however I'm losing too much time on it which I should be spending enjoying classic cars on the road rather than in pieces. It hurts me a lot now that my mind is set but I know I'm not capable of producing the finished result without investing for at least another year.

As a bit of an update, Land Raver, I did take your advice and purchase new pistons from Turner Engineering. The engine block and head are currently having their machining work done and they've taken the pistons to ensure they fit as well. Unfortunately other than that I have done no other work on the project over the last couple of months, which I suppose is the main issue with it!

My consideration now is how to sell it on. I may simply sell dismantled as is or build up a rolling chassis as best as possible. I'm aware I'll make a loss on what I've invested but as a completely untouched since delivery chassis is included I'll hopefully make at least something back. A specialist or someone with much more experience than myself can carry it on and do the car justice but a total rebuild was never my original expectation.

If anyone would potentially be interested in acquiring the project do let me know. I'm not looking to get rid of the car as soon as possible, only stop investing any more money into it, so I'm going to do a bit of research and consider what sort of price I should be looking to sell on for.

Thank you everyone who's posted and provided assistance along the way, it was very appreciated. It's definitely gotten me more into Land Rovers as a whole and I'll surely be looking to purchase a more roadworthy example in the future!

I'm really sorry to hear this, however for a lad your age it was a big undertaking.

I'm sure someone on here will take it on. Arron, are you looking for your next project yet ?

think it happens a lot with these big projects, unless you have time, space and deep pockets you are better off getting something still on the road and doing a rolling resto

That was my original hope with the car. I took the initial work as a bit of fun but perhaps wasn't expecting the volume of work that was to come. I'd like to think I've done a good amount personally but its at the stage I'm realising I'm going to losing a good couple of years where I could be out enjoying something roadworthy.

a project can take time, i have heard of some people saying that they have spent 5 plus years on projects, and some have been high as 10 years, if you threw a lot of money at it, you would have the job done in a month or 2, i have owned mine for 11 years now and im still doing odd stuff, but its driveable, i dont annual vehicles checks so that is good, if it did it would have failed for the last 6 years, lots of un-roadworthy vehicles around over here.