S3 109 Safari project......

That’s the lower shock mounts sorted, so I moved onto the bump stops…….what a mess. I must admit, there is an impressive amount of crud build up between the axle and the bump stop. So much so, the bump stops had been pushed upwards and were split…

Once cleaned up, I put the new steel in and seam welded.

A coat of zinc rich primer followed to protect the welded parts. Looking smarter and a bit sounder now! Next I will start the clean up of the casing , prime, paint and get back onto the mechanical bits.

Got the wheels back from blasting yesterday. Great to see the paint blasted off, but they look worse than I thought!
They will do for now. Just got to get some primer on them before they flash rust….

Sprayed one coat of zinc rich primer, followed by a coat of standard primer, two coats of black on the rear of the wheel and on the inside, then two coats of limestone on the front.

Not a perfect finish, but not too shabby with rattle cans. Going to order some 7.5x16 Avon rangemasters to go with them which should look and perform pretty well. Ordering up the bits for the rear axle which is what I will be tackling next.

Gave the rear axle a going over with the angle grinder with a cup wire brush. It seems to clean the rust off great, but the steel bristles fly off, stick in my trousers etc and first you know about it is when you go to sit down and jag yourself.

Drained the oil and stripped the diff pan off to stick on a new gasket. The oil looks a bit dirty, but no chunks in it, which is good…….Cleaned the diff pan, removed all gasket residue, primed with ring rich primer. New gasket with some hermetite on both surfaces and that should solve at least one leak

Painted the whole axle with zinc rich primer, then a good coat of chassis black. Looking a bit smarter now

Bought two new driveshaft flanges as the old ones had a lot of wear on them. Will replace the pinion seal and diff flange too. That should stop any clunking and leaks in the future……

Just got the backplates to clean and paint with some new adjusters, shoes, springs and cylinders. Will need to fit new hub bearings, then the buildup begins. Seems to have taken forever!

Cleaned up one of the backplates today, applied some rust treatment, filled with a coat of zinc rich primer and a gloss black topcoat. Amazingly, the brake adjusters worked perfectly with some lubrication so I have just left them alone.

Fitted the new pinion seal too with a new nut. This was a bit of a faff as I thought the new flange I bought would fit, but it didn’t. The seal protector fouled against the casing, so I removed it. It still didn’t look right, so it may be the wrong one….. I fitted the new seal and used the old flange with the new nut.

Made a bit of progress tonight after the holidays. Bolted on the backplate with new nylocs. Fitted the brake shoes and new return springs making sure I fitted the shoes the right way round! I fitted them wrong at first as per the picture, with the leading shoe in the trailing position. Not much info out there on this that I could see, but I’m pretty sure they are on right now. .

Stripped down the hub and fitted new bearings, seal and lock washer. Might as well do it right

Fitted a new drive flange gasket with some hermatite, new spring washers on the bolts and new cap. A wee bit of paint on the hub makes it look a bit better,

Did the same with this brake drum as the front two; painted it with high temperature silver to stop it flash rusting. Looks a bit too blingy for an old Landy, but it will be covered by the wheel anyway
Just got the other side to do now!

Did the same on the other side today….. new shoes, cylinder, bearings etc fitted. Again, the adjusters were fine, so I left them well alone . The only difference is that I reused the brake drum as it was fine, just needed a clean up and paint. So the axle is more or less complete now. There is no play now when I turn the diff flange, so I think the new half shaft drive flanges have made a big difference. I will start reconditioning the back springs, grease, fit new bushes and get them fitted with the axle. Will make up some new brake pipes up too.

So I started on refurbishing the rear suspension springs. Near side one first….
I heated up the spring brackets that hold the spring pack in line. After bending them back I fitted the g clamps to hold the leafs in tension until the bolt could be loosened and removed.

To be fair, the corrosion between the leafs was not too bad, but there was some flaky corrosion which needed cleaned off. I did this with a grinder with a flap wheel….