300TDi 90 replacement chassis

Ok, another thread showing the step by step replacement of a chassis but what else can I do at the end of a tiring day apart from share my progress?
All work being done on my driveway single-handed. No great rush as I don't need the vehicle until the autumn but I don't really want it sitting around too long so I am trying to push on to prevent the place looking like a scrapyard! The neighbours are used to me working on my LR's (I have had them for nearly 35yrs) but I don't want to lower the tone of the place!


Ordered my Richards chassis back in November and requested a delivery date in mid-March.
No problems on that score plus I got an additional £100 off just by browsing their Facebook page where I noticed a discount voucher.



Next couple of weeks were spent prepping the chassis.
De-grease, T-wash, etch prime, Frosts extreme Chassis Black and finally black Waxoyl. I also removed the gearbox X-member to make sure it was fully painted and the bolts nicely greased on assembly.
Most awkward part was flipping the chassis to ensure 100% coverage.





I took the opportunity to fit a new fuel-tank & rear wiring harness. Paint on new tanks is notoriously poor so was rubbed down and given a few coats of Frosts & Waxoyl (including the gap between the bottom of the tank and the guard).



Yesterday was when I really got started.
Having already removed most of the bolts, spare wheel carrier, bumperettes etc I lifted the rear tub and moved it onto the new chassis.
That engine hoist & load leveller I bought a couple of years ago is a real boon when working on your own!





Today, with the tub in situ I fitted as much as possible to help make it look more presentable and also to reduce the amount of parts stored in the garage / shed / garden.
I thought the extra weight may unbalance the chassis (until some weight is added to the front) so I added another set of axle-stands under the rear crossmember just in case.



That is it for now, expect progress to get a bit slower as I move on to the heavy / oily bits.

Nice photos and nice work.
I'll bet there is going to be some swear words in the near future when you realise it would be much easier to do the oily bits before the body.
Anyway, good luck.

Can't see it being a problem.
Make a start stripping the front end today, those panels (inc seatbox & bulkhead) will be stored so I can swing the engine & transmission straight across from one open chassis to the other. With that done I can position the bulkhead and check alignment before rebuilding the front end.
Only items that involve working underneath are axles & suspension but that is no different to working on them normally.

My whole problem is lack of space.
It is more important to have the old chassis mobile so it can be moved around whereas the new chassis doesn't need to moved until the rebuild is complete.

Looking good .

great work and great pics

Great work.

Not a bad couple of days, stripped everything I could from the old chassis but had to stop early today as there is now nothing to be done without making it immobile under its own steam (I can push it forwards & backwards a few feet but I need the engine running if I want to turn it around. Very strange sensation driving a rolling chassis!
Next weekend I can remove the seatbox & bulkhead and get ready to swing the engine & transmission across.

Will post a few observations later, what I hope are useful (and interesting) snippets to anyone else looking to do the same sometime in the future.

So, what exactly is wrong with your old chassis?

I was going to comment on how clean your drive is, then I seen your wall!

The black marks on the wall are exhaust soot from parking in the same spot for over 20-years, they don't matter as when the vehicle is there you can't see them and when it isn't I don't care!
It has been suggested that the marks were overspray from when I painted the chassis but even I wouldn't be that mucky!

Did think it was overspray myself...

Have driven (only turned it around on my drive) a rolling chassis without seatbox, not so easy sat on an upturned bucket.

Litch, that's some great work going on there. You're going to end up with a super old bus

Quantity of materials for prepping and painting a galvanised chassis (90).
I couldn’t find this information anywhere so erred on the side of caution but as is often the way, with some items as it wasn’t actually much more expensive to buy the larger quantity anyway.
Panel wipe / degreaser. Bought a 5L tin but 2L would probably have been enough.
T-Wash. Bought a 5L container but used only 1L.
Etch primer (Arc-Rite). Bought a 2.5L tin of brush-on and used under half. Also bought three rattle cans for the rear crossmember & inaccessible areas (inside bulkhead outriggers, rear crossmember internals etc) but used only one.
Frosts Extreme Chassis Black (Satin). Bought 2 x 1L tins of brush-on and used only one for the chassis (two coats) but I am also painting other parts (new fuel-tank, A-frame, radius arms etc) so the second tin is now getting used. Also bought four rattle cans for the rear-crossmember & inaccessible areas but have used just over two cans. Note:- When brushing, this paint covers excellently leaving practically no brush-marks so don’t get too hung up about brush painting the whole chassis if you don’t want to spray.
When prepping & painting I flipped the chassis between treatments to ensure I got 100% coverage, I also removed the gearbox crossmember to make sure it was painted behind the plates (when reassembled the bolts were well greased as when I work nothing ever goes together dry!).

Painting new fuel tank.
My old tank is still good but it made sense to fit a new one while access is so good.
Although I already have a galvanised tank support bracket on the old tank it made sense to buy a new one as that way I could mount the new tank without having to dismantle the old one (I want the vehicle to remain a runner as long as possible).
I treated my existing tank 20-years ago and although it is looking a bit weathered it is still very sound so I made sure I did the new one the same way as it has certainly stood the test of time.
The paint on a new tank is not very good (it wasn’t then and isn’t now) so I gave it a rub down and then primed & painted with Frosts Extreme Chassis Black (as per the chassis) making sure I got well into the gap between the guard and base of the tank. Then, over the course of a couple of warm days I fed runny Waxoyl into the gap and kept rotating the tank to ensure it get everywhere (messy but worth it) and finished off with a spray of Waxoyl Black Underbody Seal.

Chassis wiring holes (Richards Chassis).
The LR chassis has just four of the large cable holes (two of which are used) however the Richards Chassis has eight (on each side one of these is hidden inside the bulkhead outrigger). The holes containing the wiring harness are sealed with the correct cable grommet but to prevent muck getting inside the others it makes sense to seal them (they are 37mm diameter if I recall correctly). I found I already had four LR plastic blanking plugs of the correct size (can’t remember when / why I bought them or even the part number) but blanking grommets off Ebay are cheap enough and have done the job perfectly on the other two.

Feeding wiring harness through the chassis.
Ordered a new rear wiring harness off Autosparks at the same time as ordering the chassis and am glad I did it so early as delivery was over ten weeks (this was long before COVID).
I found that the best thing to push through the chassis was some T&E cable, it is flexible but rigid enough to push and if you fold back the end will ride over the internal sleeves.
I also fed in an auxiliary harness of my own making for any circuits that may be required anytime in the future, includes a decent sized independent earth wire to supplement the standard one (I am not relying on any non-cabled earth connections).

Fuel filler neck to body seal.
The old thick rubber seal was passed its best so I bought a new one however like so many similar items this has now been replaced with a nasty foam seal which costs the earth but is not very substantial. As an alternative I found on Ebay a thick, fuel-resistant rubber seal which was the perfect size and cost under £3, all I had to do was punch four holes for the fixing screws.

Holes for fuel & brake-pipe clips.
Where possible drill these before you start painting so you can etch prime & paint to prevent corrosion. You can of course drill them later but if you etch prime it will react with the existing paint.

Another weekend and quite a bit achieved, can't do any work in the evenings so have to make the most of Saturday & Sunday but luckily the weather stayed good (bit of drizzle Sunday morning but that was all) and I did all I set out to do.

Remove all the wiring (I have an aux fusebox and quite a bit of additional wiring), disconnect shifter & handbrake and away with the seatbox.




Bulkhead next, apart from the numerous pipes, wires & linkages to be disconnected the main problem was that my strap was too long and I was fouling the roof of the carport. Tried a different strap and that was too short so I think I might resort to multiple layers of rope when it comes to re-fitting.




Finally the engine & transmission.
After Identifying the point of balance it was "just" a case of lifting it up and swinging it across to the new chassis! The concrete surface caused most problems as the small steel wheels were sometimes reluctant to turn and I was worried about unbalancing the load or making it swing but all went ok and it slotted neatly into place.
This time I made sure that I was lifing outside of the carport so I could go as high as necessary without fouling the roof, fitting to the new chassis was not such an issue as that is sitting slightly lower plus I made good use of the leveller to allow me to tilt it as required.




Lowered while turning the crane around to stop it being too top heavy.




And there we go, home sweet home.




Back to work now but we have a bank holiday next weekend so weather permitting I hope to get three days at it.
Certainly pleased with what I have achieved so far, apart from prepping the new chassis in advance of starting the "real" work I have managed to do all this single handed over the course of two weekends (admittedly I had an extra day on the first weekend) but I know it will slow down a lot now. It is one thing to take things apart but refitting & reconnecting everything is what takes time plus I have to get the bulkhead alignment correct before I can get too much stuff in place.

Great work there. I noticed the galv bulkhead. Did you buy it or have it galvanised yourself?

Had my own bulkhead galvanised back in 2013.

Bought the bulkhead brand new in 2001 for £150 (genuine 300TDi rather than the TD5 ones that were doing the rounds at the time), had it painted and filled with Waxoyl so no corrosion set in. Then in 2013 I decided to have the bulkhead galvanised while I did some other jobs so had it collected by my local galvanising firm (Wedge at Sawtry) and they did it along with any other steel parts I could lay my hands on at the time (door sills, bumper, capping, sidebars, swingaway carrier, battery box, tailgate liner plus all manner of other brackets). Including acid cleaning and collection / delivery I think it cost about £125 inc VAT which was a bargain.
Braced at the bottom with a piece of box-section there was no distortion. Removed the steel mesh from the vents, drilled plenty of holes in the box sections to allow gasses to escape, protected all threads with either nuts or bolts (saves re-cutting them afterwards) plus I recorded even the smallest screw / plastic insert hole so I could identify its precise location afterwards and drill it out.
The whole thing went very well with the worst part being clearing the excess galv from the vent hinges. Too close to the panel to drill (even with a flexible driver) in the end I found the easiest way was to tap a length of thin threaded rod through, worked perfectly.

I'm currently repairing bulkhead and was going to have it galvanized until I started removing sections to find a lot of surface rust underneath. So plan now is to remove any surface rust that I can access, paint inside where possible with some corrless paint, then paint and wax oil through holes in bulkhead.
I am rebuilding with galvanized chassis as that is rotten

If your bulkhead is off the vehicle then applying Waxoyl is a doddle.
Tape up every hole you can find, tip the bulkhead upside down and on a warm day pour liquid Waxoyl in through the base of the door pillars until it will take no more. Leave it a while to ensure the Waxoyl flows through every section and then turn up the correct way again catching as much of the Waxoyl as you can.
On a hot day you may find your vehicle marks its territory now and again as a bit more Waxoyl seeps out but you can be assured you have done all you can to prolong its life.

I am enjoying this thread - keep up the good work!

After a good bank holiday Friday the rest of the weekend was a disaster, teach me for saying to my wife that up 'til now it all appeared to be going so well!

I got the fuel system connected up and fitted the PAS box & pipework plus my new Demand Engineering SS exhaust.
Next step was to get the bulkhead fitted so I could spend time checking alignment which would involve trial fitting of the doors. Couldn't believe how easily the bulkhead slotted into position, in just a few minutes I had moved it (using my engine crane of course) up the driveway and positioned perfectly on the chassis so the supporting bolts just slid into position. Started adjusting the gaps using a length of wood as a gauge and then did a trial fit of the doors (dammed heavy those all steel doors when built up!). All looked ok but thought it would be better with the windscreen in position and that is where it all started to go wrong.
Trying to get the windscreen blocks fitted was a real pig, I recall I struggled when I first fitted them back in 2013 and they were no better this time. Used ratchet straps to pull the screen-frame down onto the bulkhead seal but I just couldn't engage all the bolts and I struggled for several hours before they decided that I had the bolts at just the right angle and the seal compressed just right and they went in as easy as pie! One of those jobs when I should have walked away and tackled it the next day but it was bugging me and I wouldn't give in!
That was it then, did some prep work to get various brackets etc back to bare metal before etch priming & painting only for Sunday to turn out to be wet & windy so I didn't get anything else done.

Roll on next weekend.

Deeeeep breath...………………………………...and relax!

Well done pal!

M