S3 109 Safari project......

Fitted the fuel pipes today. Using PE12 tubing with inserts, so hopefully will outlast the car.

Also thought I would have a look at the electrics. Probably going to upset the purists here, but I’m going to use trailer light cable and a junction box at the rear of the chassis
Opened up an existing hole at the rear of the chassis, which when I fit the grommet, will allow the cable to exit the chassis and lead into the junction box. After that it will go to the lighting circuit and trailer socket. Should work quite neatly.

I was prepared to run the cable through the chassis today, but it certainly put up a fight! I used some copper earth cable and ran that from front to rear and exited the hole I drilled last week. Took nearly an hour to get past the inner strengtheners, but I got there…. I pulled the 7 core trailer cable with an additional cable for the reversing light, if I decide to fit one. To fit the junction box, I drilled and tapped the chassis where it should bolt it.The chassis is around 6mm thick there as I doubled up the thickness when I fitted the rear crossmember, so the screws should be fine. I used some dome head machine screws to replace the bolts supplied as it’s impossible to put the nuts on inside the chassis without major surgery. Finished up by wiring it in ready for the back body to be fitted. I only have to run 2 wires from the sender unit along the fuel lines to the front and that’s the cabling and all lines run.

This may seem to be two silly questions but bear with me.
I still need to fit my fuel lines and see you have done yours, however I am a bit confused as you can see both black and clear pipes in the pictures What did you fit?
Also is there a reason why you did not put the junction box in the behind the light in behind the cover on the offside? The connections are there normally and they are out of the way of the stuff being thrown up by the wheel. Just curious if there is a reason why it is where it is.
None of this is criticism, just interested to see how others do things and why so I can borrow any good ideas for mine!

No worries. The original pipe is black 5/16” nylon, which had brass ends to fit to the tank. I decided to replace the black with clear nylon as the original had been chopped short by the previous owner. The clear nylon I have used is 8mm and I like this as you can see if there are bubbles in the fuel (mine is diesel). The new tank and sender outlets and returns are 8mm, so that was another reason to change to new pipe. I used rubber fuel grade pipe to connect to the new sender and tank connections as it worked better for me than using brass connectors. (I needed a bit of deflection in the hose to route the feed correctly). I joined the rubber to nylon using brass inserts in the nylon tube to stop it crushing and fixed with Mikelor clips. I have larger ones on order to replace the hose clips. I used mikalor clips as they are much stronger and unlikely to leak.

With the electrical connection, the original was fitted in the same manner, in the same place, albeit with a different type of box. I have used these boxes many times in HGV’s and tractors mounted on chassis with good results, so I’m hoping this will perform as well here. Understand what you are saying, and I agree that there would be an option to fit internally. I just chose the convenience of mounting it there.

Decided to run the fuel sender wiring from the tank to the front. Used some 2 core automotive wiring bought off the roll for this. Crimped 2 female terminals on but thought they looked really prone to corrosion, so shrunk on some protection, so hopefully that will help long term. Just cable tied it along with the fuel pipes which worked out quite neat.

Moved onto some more work to get the nsf wing straightened out, some filler applied and a rub down ready for paint.

As the door and tub cappings are fairly poor, I’m of the opinion that rather than try and buy new, I’d rather get mine re-galvanised. As I’m fairly sure that there will be a lead time of a few weeks, I will get them stripped off and take them to the galvanisers. I need to strip them off for the rear tub to be painted anyway.

Unfortunately, the two back panels where the lights are look very poor. They didn’t look as bad before I stripped off the cappings! I will have to order a couple of replacements and have a go at replacing them. As they are spot welded, I think I will use countersunk rivets as the will sit under flush and will be covered by the cappings.
That will be a challenge, but it would be best to replace them before the tub is painted….

Collection of parts for re-galvanising starting to build!

I took the plunge and bought a pair of rear quarter panels to replace the knackered old ones. To start the disassembly of the o/s quarter I cleaned up the areas around the spot welds, then started drilling out the spot welds and rivets. I had to use some brute force to get the panel off down the bottom where it had been held with steel rivets that were a nightmare to get to!

I cleaned up all the surfaces, grabbed some screw pins and got drilling. I used the cappings as a point of reference and some measurements I took before drilling the panel off. Once I fettled the panel a few times to get an acceptable fit, I drilled and countersunk all the holes for rivets. As the rivets will replicate the spot welds, I’ve countersunk the holes a little deeper so a light skim of filler will hide them. I’ve also used sealed rivets, so there is less chance of water ingress. Landies don’t need an excuse to leak anyway!

After all the holes were countersunk, I stripped it all down again and deburred everything. Then, once happy the holes were good, I built it all back up and got riveting. I can’t say how much the air rivet gun speeds up the process. Well worth every penny!

Thought I would get the front wing I prepped and the two rear doors painted, but before dropping them off today, I revisited an old repair I carried out. The mudshield alloy bracket which is spot welded to the wing top really needed replacement. I was not happy with it and decided to redo it. Instead of bonding on some ally sheet, I just removed it entirely and made a new one.

I riveted on the bracket rather than spot weld as I just don’t have one! I countersunk the rivets and it will get a little skim of filler to cover them, although the rivets don’t look out of place.

Well, I’m really happy how my second row doors and front wing turned out. Feeling spurred on a bit now after seeing some shiny paint!

Started on the n/s rear quarter today. I followed the same process, and this one seemed to fit a bit easier. Don’t know why! Got my galvanised bits back and they are looking nice and shiny now. There are a couple of snotty bits but generally I’m happy with the finish. The windscreen surround came out great and will look nice against the new paint. I think, though I will change the windscreen glass from toughened to laminated if I can get them somewhere. Much safer in my opinion .

Can’t wait to get these bits back on once the new paint is on the tub!

Carried on with preparing the two rear quarters today, with a bit of filling required. I was in two minds to fill the rivet heads or not. I went for filling in this case as I think it will give a better finish once painted. I filled and flatted the repairs twice and I’m just about happy with them

While the filler was going off, I made a start to fitting up the windscreen. I had to drill out the original holes that hold the retaining strips as they had filled up with zinc. I cleaned the retaining strips and as they are made from aluminium they were looking a bit rough, but with some wheel silver applied they were smartened up a fair bit. I used ‘dum dum’ strip as that was what was originally fitted so hopefully it doesn’t leak. After installing new laminated screens (I didn’t like the idea of kids in the car with toughened glass) I used new stainless screws to hold it all together. Looks like new, well as new as it can be .