Steve's unexpected Series 3 rebuild.

Fantastic work! Dare I ask about the cost to date? or is that something one does not add up.

fantastic build

was8v said:

Fantastic work! Dare I ask about the cost to date? or is that something one does not add up.

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Hi. Sorry for not answering sooner. I've been really busy with boring, non land rover stuff.
I haven't added it all up but I do have all the receipts should I want to. Off the top of my head I reckon I must have spent about £1500 not including buying it in the first place. Still need some big stuff. New loom, 2 new doors and then all the little bits. It's quite scary really. I'm going to stop thinking about it. The only thing that would be scarier is if my wife finds out.

The bulkhead. This is going to be another saga if I'm not careful.
I'm starting with the top where the windscreen sits and the vent flaps. In some places it's really good and in others it's deeply pitted or rusted through altogether. I've got some bits from YRM to replace as much as I can but I can't find anyone that makes the rear bit so I decided that I would just make the whole thing myself, by hand, without a steel folder (idiot).
I made an MDF template and gave it my best shot. It wasn't very pretty but for a first go I did better than I thought I would. Then I must have over-worked one of the bends and split the steel. Bugger.

I started bending the metal between 2 pieces of flat bar bolted together and then held with angle iron in the vice. It was ok ish but then I thought I would have a crack at making a folder and after a look at youtube I came up with the gadget in the last 2 pictures. This works ok but I can already think of a couple of modifications that would make it much better. It folds 1.2mm steel with no problems but the folds are just not as tight as I want.

So when I finally realised I wasn't going to be able to make the whole panel I did what I should have done in the first place and really examined the job properly to see how much I could get away with keeping and how much metal had to be replaced. From the back it looks pretty good apart from the obvious hole. From the front though it's a different story. Deeply pitted and ready to rust through before very long. I chopped out the bad bit and welded a new bit in. I'm trying to avoid replacing the complicated shaped bits where I can so I kept this bit to the flat area. I faffed about quite a lot with mole grips, magnets, heat sinks and anything I could find to stop any warping or distortion. I think I've got away with it.

I had a really good go at the inside surfaces and found that a lot of the rust was superficial and I could get it mostly back to shiny so I've decided to have a go with rust converter. Now I don't believe that just painting some high tech jollop onto rust will kill it dead and stop it in it's tracks. I reckon if there's rust there and you don't cut it right out then it will come back sooner or later. However as I've managed to get it pretty clean in there I think it's got of fair chance of holding the decay back for a good while. The Bilt Hamber stuff seems to get good reviews and it is very easy to use. The instructions say paint a thin, even coat on with the brush strokes all in one direction then after it's touch dry in about half an hour go over it again with the brush strokes at 90 degrees to the first lot to ensure it covers. It starts blue then goes black forming some sort of protective layer and neutralising rust. On top of that I'm coating with etch primer and zinc primer. Then on the inside where it won't be seen I'm lathering it in hammerite. This has really filled the seam where the front and back are spot welded together. There is no chance of water getting into the gap from the inside. As long as I can seal the outside to stop capillary action sucking in moisture it should be pretty good. I'm also spraying plenty of zinc primer into the other box section bits. When it's all done I quite fancy pouring some paint or maybe red oxide primer into all the crevices and then turning the whole bulkhead upside down and onto each end so it runs all round the inside and settles into all the nooks and crannies.

I understand the desire for neat sharp corners in steel but if you look at how Land Rover made their corners you might relax your requirements a little!

I hope you persevere with your DIY folder after all that effort put into making it - but I can't recommend enough the vice mounted sheet metal banding jaws. They do require a decent large vice but that in itself is a fantastic addition to any workshop (if you don't have one).

As for the paint - rust killer {perhaps a primer} then top coat is all that is really needed. I might have misunderstood but the Bilt Hammer then etch primer then zinc primer in that order sounds like a bad idea to me. Is the etch primer a recommended layer from Bilt Hammer? A Zinc enriched coat on top of paint isn't really going to do much good: The Zinc (if you are going to use it) needs to do its sacrificial work by being next to metal. I'm worried that the Zinc coating isn't going to be stable when used as an intermediary layer...

Stretch said:

I understand the desire for neat sharp corners in steel but if you look at how Land Rover made their corners you might relax your requirements a little!

I hope you persevere with your DIY folder after all that effort put into making it - but I can't recommend enough the vice mounted sheet metal banding jaws. They do require a decent large vice but that in itself is a fantastic addition to any workshop (if you don't have one).

As for the paint - rust killer {perhaps a primer} then top coat is all that is really needed. I might have misunderstood but the Bilt Hammer then etch primer then zinc primer in that order sounds like a bad idea to me. Is the etch primer a recommended layer from Bilt Hammer? A Zinc enriched coat on top of paint isn't really going to do much good: The Zinc (if you are going to use it) needs to do its sacrificial work by being next to metal. I'm worried that the Zinc coating isn't going to be stable when used as an intermediary layer...

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That's food for thought. I will look into the compatibility of all the stuff. Thanks.

I'd agree with @Stretch about the zinc needing to be in direct contact with the steel .... like galvanising ... but don't take our word for it, have a chat with Bilt Hamber technical .. IME, they like to hear about what us mere mortals are up to, and I've found them helpful in my continuing efforts to correct LR's "corrosion promotion" treatments

@Stretch and @Disco1BFG I think you are right. This is from the Bilt Hamber website,

'hydrate 80 is an excellent base for a wide range of paint finishing systems. It is preferable but not essential to use a good quality primer before applying topcoats.
Due to the many types of paint formulations and curing processes test compatibility of products at small scale before use'.

It sounds like zinc primer would be wasted over the hydrate 80 as it has etched , primed and formed a protective coating already. Primer and top coats are ok as long as they are compatible and will just be a further physical barrier but any special anti corrosive properties won't make any difference.

LincolnSteve said:

@Stretch and @Disco1BFG I think you are right. This is from the Bilt Hamber website,

'hydrate 80 is an excellent base for a wide range of paint finishing systems. It is preferable but not essential to use a good quality primer before applying topcoats.
Due to the many types of paint formulations and curing processes test compatibility of products at small scale before use'.

It sounds like zinc primer would be wasted over the hydrate 80 as it has etched , primed and formed a protective coating already. Primer and top coats are ok as long as they are compatible and will just be a further barrier but any special anti corrosive properties won't make any difference.

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Interesting. I also couldnt find much suggesting electrox was a good call for applying onto pitted and remaining rust too. In an ideal world you would get totally clean or hydrate 80 but in some places it's hard to do so. I was using electrox on all my chassis. However, I chose another rust stabalising coating half way through that would creep in and stick well to rust too at a far lesser price. Maybe electrox is rust stabilising but I was reading posts by a bh tech on another forum suggesting you needed to be near enough rust free prior to applying. Tis tricky. On another note the epoxy mastic coating they do is really tough!.

I had been dying to make a new one of these but there's not been much point until now. By the way it's the bit that the steering column passes through on the bulkhead and it holds the rubber seal in place.

LincolnSteve said:

@Stretch and @Disco1BFG I think you are right.

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Me? Right ?? .... had to happen sometime

Have you thought about using their epoxy mastic ??

https://www.bilthamber.com/paints-and-coatings/epoxy-mastic

I tend to use "ordinary" Tractol enamel on cleaned steel ... and have good results with it .. even on calipers and the like .... easy to re-coat too ...

Have you tried BH's Deox-C? it's blinking amazing stuff IMHO!

resto_d1 said:

Interesting. I also couldnt find much suggesting electrox was a good call for applying onto pitted and remaining rust too. In an ideal world you would get totally clean or hydrate 80 but in some places it's hard to do so. I was using electrox on all my chassis. However, I chose another rust stabalising coating half way through that would creep in and stick well to rust too at a far lesser price. Maybe electrox is rust stabilising but I was reading posts by a bh tech on another forum suggesting you needed to be near enough rust free prior to applying. Tis tricky. On another note the epoxy mastic coating they do is really tough!.

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It's a never ending battle. No wonder the land rover community is addicted to galvanising everything. I think I'm going to be having nightmares about rust.

Disco1BFG said:

Me? Right ?? .... had to happen sometime

Have you thought about using their epoxy mastic ??

https://www.bilthamber.com/paints-and-coatings/epoxy-mastic

I tend to use "ordinary" Tractol enamel on cleaned steel ... and have good results with it .. even on calipers and the like .... easy to re-coat too ...

Have you tried BH's Deox-C? it's blinking amazing stuff IMHO!

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I have got some deox-c. It's so good it's almost witchcraft. Not tried the mastic though.

LincolnSteve said:

It's so good it's almost witchcraft

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I agree - it's totally star trek to me - a good friend is a chemist and he explained the basics (!) to me - didn't even register .... but by god it's amazing - I've got some stuff in it now, some 4mm plate I have cut "washers" out of ... and before I weld them.. they need to be clean .....

Had a leaking oil can which I "soaked" in deox too ... and was then able to sweat a copper bottom on to it without issue .... used 50p's worth of copper sheet, and some scrap lead I had lying around, saved the oil can and £30 into the bargain ... quite happy with that result

Yes brilliant. The deox gel is great too. The electrox is clearly a high end coating. A pail weighs double that of a paint it's size which shows how much zinc is in it!

So it's time to close in the first bit of bulkhead. I've bought a repair section from YRM that includes this area and goes right down to the top of the vent flap hole but as the metal was sound I thought I would limit the chopping and cutting to the minimum. I made the bit below. The big holes are for plug welds and the little holes are to stick the bent piece of metal through. This let me pull it up really tight while I was tacking it to bring the stepped part up as flush as I could get it. Then when I went over with more welds the holes got filled up. Inside I coated the lot with smoothrite. We've since found out that it's a bit surplus to requirement but it's another barrier to water getting in especially where the panels are just spot welded together. I masked where the plug welds were going to be so it would be easier to clean before welding.
Then I clamped and secured it by every means available. Mole grips, magnets, g-clamps the lot. I really wanted to make sure it stayed put exactly where I wanted it until it was secured.
I know this is going to be an area that is probably never seen again but I have to say I'm not very happy with the end result especially when the primer shows up the imperfections. Too much visible of the welds and little pock marks. I could have kept grinding it back until everything was smooth but then you're just grinding away good steel and if you keep going back putting more and more weld over the top it can really look like a dogs dinner. I think its a job for a little bit of filler and I will just have to improve my technique next time. Having said that it's all sound metal, there's no rust, everything's coated with protection and it's fully welded. I'm just a fuss arse.

Very good