The 110.

Thinking of pulling it apart...

Hi Min, it's been a long while since I checked in on your thread. The 110 is looking good. As for the disco, if it's that bad you might be as well to break it or just get rid as is. I bought one back in May that needed work and I pondered over the decision to sort or strip it for 3 months before I decided that I would simply never have the time to do anything with it. In your case it's a win - win because you will have the money for the 110 that you would have spent fixing the disco as well as the money FROM the disco. A word of warning though - if you pull it apart they have a habit of taking up a LOT of space!

Hello stranger
I would just take bits off as they sold if i strip it. It can sit in the corner of the driveway that way!

min200 said:

Hello stranger
I would just take bits off as they sold if i strip it. It can sit in the corner of the driveway that way!

Click to expand...

Best idea

I didn't have the luxury of anywhere to store my engine donor disco so I removed the engine, pas system, gearbox and transfer box then rolled it onto a trailer where it got put on blocks under the chassis rails. This allowed the axles to be removed. The carcass was filled with shayt and the lot was sent over the bridge, whereupon I got the princely sum of £60.
I used the engine and pas in my 90. I flogged the axles, gearboxes for £340. So, I got my money back on the purchase of the disco, essentially meaning my engine and pas were FREE!
Tbf, there wasn't much left of the disco worth my while removing to sell. The interior was ruined and everything else was either broken or rotten.
Min, sounds like you have gone as far as you can with the disco. I would do similar to what I did....keep the mechanicals and bin the rest. Spend your time on the 110 and either sell the mechanicals from the disco to fund parts for the 110, or if you have room, store the bits from the disco for spares in the future.
All the best,
Rich

Cheers Rich
If I had a trailer that would be ideal but unfortunately I don't. Soooo I think I will have to go down the flog the whole thing route

I had a car collected by a scrap man and all he did was smash the windows so he could put a chain through, then lifted it onto the back of his lorry. If you could leave your Disco somewhere accessible it wouldn't matter if it was rolling or not.

Probably.

What alibro said. You may not get money for the carcass if you have it collected but you will get some cash back from bits, or a great spares pile!!!
Incidentally, I don't have a trailer either......but I know a man who did!
Is there no one who may be able to help?
Admittedly though, stripping the disco is still a pain in the derriere and I would be loath to do another!!
You will still recouped some cash by selling it as is.......which would certainly be the quickest and easiest means of disposal!!
Rich

I really dont have enough time to strip it all down if i am honest. So it will be advertised as is and see what I can get for it!

Crossmembers & Weeping
The 110 Posted by Nicky Smith Tue, November 01, 2016 09:05:31
Being a father to four kids I am not easily surprised these days to see one of them sporting the latest trend in fashion or head wear styling. I have learnt over the years to keep my inner thoughts to myself so as to not upset the little dears or sound all old and grown up like my parents did. Well, hang on a moment I am being unfair here to my parents because my Dad just used to rip the mickey out of me for sporting the latest trend with literally no holds barred. Maybe I am just a little more diplomatic with my children...
No that's a lie as well I do tend to rip the mickey out of them just not to the soul destroying level Dad did it to me. I think the official term is character building.

So to see something several times in one day that makes me stop stop and think "What on earth is that on your head?" is unusual.
When I first noticed this new fad I was walking down a corridor at work when a young chap with reasonably long hair came bouncing towards me from the other direction. I did a second snap of the head look take at his head because he was wearing a plastic hair band keeping his mid length locks back in place. Straight away the Dad in me wanted to take over with a dozen, in my eyes, witty quips but as soon they nearly came out I realised I was at work so I had to hold them back. This though did not stop me staring and grinning at the poor lad like some lunatic keeping back the roars of laughter that wanted to escape my insides.
Now this young fellow is not alone in his funky personal styling with a £1.99 plastic Alice band. Oh no I have now seen at least a dozen pillocks I mean young men wearing these. I may well be into my forties now but I don't think I am that "Old". I am all for living life and expressing yourself but come on guys you are really letting the side down here I mean, this must be on a par stupidity wise as the "Man Bun" where you stuck a fresh roll on the back of your heads and covered it with hair!
Still each to their own I suppose and many will think me mad for wearing a babygrow then working on a motor that should of hit the scrap heap many years ago.

Speaking of the scrap heap I have spent a little time playing on the 110. The stage that I am still at is the putting it back together one from the engine and gearbox swap but headway is slowly being made when I get the time.
First up was fitting the shiny new clutch slave cylinder I bought just because I was changing the clutch over and the old one looked pretty damned tired. It was soon set into place after a few frantic minutes of scrabbling around looking for the bolts only to find this nice expensive branded part leaks.


I have nipped it up as far as it will go but nothing will stop the drip of clutch fluid until the reservoir ran dry. It could be the old pipework or the new part but what I will do is replace the pipe first then strip the part out if a good seal cannot be made to swiftly return it to where it was bought from.

It was then onto popping the crossmember back into place. This is an easy job providing you do a couple of things before trying otherwise it becomes a struggle you will not win.
Firstly try to just fit it back into place without any prep work.
Secondly get the damned thing stuck dry metal to dry metal after hitting it with a large hammer to try to make it move upwards.
Thirdly hit it with a hammer and large piece of wood from the top to get it to drop back onto the floor.

After removing it from under the truck give it a good rub down removing any rust build up and grease the hell out of it. Do the same thing to the chassis it is supposed to fit onto. Then my friends it will be able to be gently knocked into place with no struggling, swearing or pulling of shoulder muscles when trying to swing a large lump hammer whilst lying down underneath it.


Next job will be refitting the propshafts now I have pressure washed the 30 years or so of muck build up off of them. Then I best get the transfer box linkages put back together if I can figure out how to do it!

nickysmith.me

I seem to remember that a few years ago David Beckham was sporting those sorts of headbands. And his credentials as a style icon and in terms of masculinity itself are unimpeachable. These days I'm very envious of anybody with enough hair to make a bun with, never mind laugh at them.

Those compression nuts on the clutch pipes need a lot of leverage on them to make a good seal in my experience. It's a bit like compression joints on domestic plumbing, where the seal is made as a result of the elasticity of the metal. Last time I changed one I thought I was going to strip the thread, but eventually it sealed. Gently does it with a longer lever.

Propshafts & Parcels.
The 110 Posted by Nicky Smith Thu, November 03, 2016 19:16:50
It has been an interesting sort of few days. The Disco has gone which has left me to focus just upon the 110 which is a good thing really. You see I have been stretching myself rather on the thin side. The problem with pushing yourself too far with too many things is that you start to lose your focus, my perspective has shifted between too many things like keeping several motors running as well as doing up the house. Add to that the hours at work well things just mounted up.
With the disco gone it's one less issue to look at and I do feel a damned site better for it if I am honest.

The next thing though is that my focus has turned towards the 110. I hopped back on board yesterday morning with a pair of spanners in hand to get the propshafts reattached after the engine and transfer box swap.
The front one just kind of fell into place and was soon all tightened up.


For the rear I dragged it all into place along with myself to offer it up and wondering why it was all of a sudden too spacey? I lay there on back trying to figure out why the bolts met both ends but what was that space???
Then the penny dropped. I suppose I had better put the handbrake drum back into place first. That didn't take long either but doing the nuts and bolts up seemed to take an age with me ended up jacking up one side on the front and rear so I could turn propshaft around making access a little easier.



With that done it was time to write a big list of what I needed to buy to get this project up to MOT status. The list was indeed a long one.

A trip to Paddocks it was then because I have sold a few bits this week so the kitty was sitting pretty, well until I got there. My poor little car was weighed down with a full boot as well as the back seat being covered. I have a great deal of parts now that will take me almost until the end of the build.
There are still a few things like an exhaust system that needs to be modified and fitted along with the pipework for the coolant system but I will get to that. I also need a pair of seats and I will go with the RX8 ones I think.

There's a few things coming in the post as well so I have no excuse not to pull my finger out now. The jobs that are ahead are all smaller in nature, which I like. It means I can potter about with different jobs that have different timescales. Nothing else will be really forced to completion, I can step up and step out at any point so hopefully the build will be plodding along nicely now...

nickysmith.me

Propshafts Revisited.
The 110 Posted by Nicky Smith Fri, November 04, 2016 13:02:29
Well I am a man who is happy to put his hands up and admit when I got it wrong. And I did get it wrong.
When i refitted the rear propshaft yesterday I put the damned thing on the wrong way round and to say I got a few emails about it would be an understatement!
Happily though all were in a good natured tone and none were mean enough to call me outright stupid!

This morning then was spent doing my favourite job of taking off then putting back on the fiddly little propshaft nuts. In the end it took about forty minutes of messing around but happy days it now sits correctly as it should!

Seeing as I was dressed up in my mucky clothes I then set to removing the pan hard rod on the front, treating the metal whilst it was exposed then refitting the replacement one with the new bushes in.




Not a bad potter for a Friday morning before heading off to work. This is the way I like it, two little jobs done instead of just hanging around waiting to start the work that we have to do to pay the bills. Hopefully I can carry on in the same vain...

nickysmith.me

Always feels better to start and finish a job in one tinkering session!
I often fail in this respect as I get too easily distracted and end up with several 'in progress' jobs!
Keep up the good work!
Won't be too long before she's done!

I am going to focus on one thing and step by step i shall get there
Nothing worse than lots of "ongoing" jobs!

Yes, it's true that most people put propshafts on with the splined bit at the top, but it's equally possible to run them the other way round. Indeed, it might be better, because if the splined bit is at the bottom the water has a chance to run out. We put our Series together with them at the bottom to assist drainage and it seemed to work OK. No little bubble of water when you took them apart and no more rusty splines.

I did ponder about just leaving it as it was. There is a great deal of conflicting advice on it so in the end I decided that the best thing to do was to chuck it to "Factory spec"

Steering Boxes & Seats.
The 110Posted by Nicky Smith Thu, November 17, 2016 10:51:58
As you can all see from my delays in writing anything I have been more than a little busy of late with life in general as well as family illness including my own, that bug that's doing the rounds is a doozy!
Whilst lounging around the house generally feeling a bit rough and sorry for myself I became aware once again of the odd moaning and creaking noises it makes. These sounds worried me sick when we first bought the place as I was so damned sure inside of my crazy head that something would fall down or break but now it is a different story. Those sounds are just the house itself as it warms up and cools down. It's about the same age as me so it's bound to have the odd moan here and there, I mean the poor bugger is getting on now you know!
But now those sounds that once sent me into a quiet worried despair thinking I had bought a lemon now bring a quiet sense of homely comfort. They go mostly unnoticed as such but when they do reach the surface of my mind, I know I am home.

There has been the odd hour here and there on the 110 though so some progress is being made with my main focus being on the steering box.
This really is a straight forward swapping over procedure. Firstly I removed the nut and bolt from the steering column UJ. Then came off the front steering bar on the box's drop arm. Four bolts that run through the chassis came undone without too much of a fight and the box then literally dropped off.


I slid the replacement power steering unit on and much to my surprise it bolted straight into place without any messing around with the holes on the chassis.

I do need to go and pick up a new bolt to hold the steering box arm in place though.


It will be nice to have power steering on the motor. Seeing as it will be our camper/overlander I want it to have as many of life's little creature comforts as I can fit!

There has been a great deal of pondering on what I would like to do seat wise. I have gone from outlandish captain seats through to RX-8 seats in my mind, but after even more contemplation I decided why mess with design and started a bit of a hunt for some standard Defender seats. What I did come across in the end was two separate pairs of seats. One had a good drivers seat and the other a good condition passenger one. The money was right on both sets so I bought them and made myself a good pair.


They are not fixed in place yet as there is still far too much to do on the inside but once recovered they will be spot on. It is damned good to see a pair of seats in the old boy once again though!

Tow bars & Technicalities.
The 110 Posted by Nicky Smith Fri, November 18, 2016 13:00:06
Isn't life a strange thing. You head off in one direction thinking that a small job will take no time at all but within moments of starting you realise that now it's going to head off in a completely different direction taking up hours of time stood outside in the cold.
I headed off this morning to Paddocks to buy a single nut for the steering box so I could get the front end finished only to find that that one singular bit from the hole of a Land Rover is not in stock.
A quick change of mind and plans saw me buying the whole of the 200tdi exhaust system as that should be an easy job to chuck on seeing as the conversion down pipe was already purchased and sat on a shelf at home.

It was not until I got home that I realised that I had not bought the manifold to down pipe gasket but figured "hey ho" lets get it all offered up to make it fit. I did not get past the conversion down pipe in this.


When this pipe is flush to the manifold it still rests on the passenger foot well which will not bode well when I am driving along, so what to do? Well it bloody well looks like I will have to modify the foot well then. I will have cut it out and then make up some new shaped box that will give some clearance for the pipe work when the engines running and moving on its mounts under acceleration.

On a more positive note I had a tow bar fitted to my daily runaround by the tow bar chap (because I needed an invoice to keep up the warranty) and this was done in ninety minutes with no fuss at all. I didn't have to lie under it in the rain like he did getting cold as well as soaked to the skin.


So what I have done in light of this is buy a ticket for the Euromillions in the hope that I win enough money to either get someone else to finish the rebuild or so I can go and buy an already finished motor and then take great pleasure in burning this one.

nickysmith.me

If you're cutting and fabricating wouldn't it make sense to do so to the exhaust pipe rather than the footwell? Just cut a little segment out and bend it, and mig it together again so the flanges mate together and the other end does not foul the footwell.