23 July - Starter replaced and butt list nearly there

STARTER

The replacement 'Valeo' solenoid arrived from Craddocks (it was Britpart) and looked to be good quality. We will see.

 So stuck this on the started assy and tried to refit to the flywheel casing after testing it on a battery (all good). Now taking it off took 20 minutes - tops. Getting it back in took over an hours and involved torrent of abuse and chopping off a few stud ends passing through the chassis so it would go back on. Ho hum?

Now installed and fired up on the button.


TOW BAR etc.

Completed the towbar electrics (no buzzer!) and fitted the 3 tonne ball and pin hitch that used to be on Cartman (S3).

The height of the ball needs to be checked against our ally log haul trailer. I don't really want to drop it further (currently 27") as that would require additional bracing to the chassis rails and make it a bit too 'plough like'. The Defender hitch is lower at 22" but could go up 2". I could block the hitch up on the trailer by 2-3" which would balance the difference out?


GEARBOX

Trigger has spent most of the past 3 years sitting on the drive doing nowt so at some point I had fitted the diffs/gearboxes etc. and filled them with oil but I thought I had better just re-check all of them just in case it has either leaked out over the past years...or anything else?

Transmission seemed a bit noisy under load anyway.

Front and rear diffs were fine. Main gearbox was fine. The transfer box was another issue and though full it was full of this! (Oh and why the hell does this site rotate all the pics to 4:3 format FFS?)

Looks very emulsified? S2 forum post ---> http://www.series2club.info/forum/index.php/topic,46350.msg412746.html

Dumped the contents and refilled with some EP90 and other manual gbx oil I had around and will take it around the block to give it a good flush through. I have ordered 4 litres of Castrol Syntrans (SMX-S) synthetic to put in there after and will leave enough to change the main gbx oil too.

Also noticed that when in 2nd gear and I lift off the power it occasionally jumps out of gear. Maybe the oil change will help but long term I have a spare S2 box to strip down and overhaul as a side project (if I have time?).


ELECTRICS

Reverse light stopped working just before the MOT (not a testable item). Found out it was due to a poor contact on the base of the bulb.

I had to use the horn at the weekend to warn a non-indicating lane changing van driver he was about to be rammed and realised it sounded like a strangled ferret. Took that one off (bike horn) and located the original LR horn in a box at the back of the garage. Nice and loud now!


INTERIOR

The issue of the seat belts being too short (for some)  was fixed by rotating the seat belt locking arms the other way up and switching them from side to side. So no need to buy new ones (that saved £30!).

Door cards fitted to both doors which tidies up the interior and adds a bit more soundproofing.

Rear bed tie down points refitted.


BUTT LIST

Not many items from the original post MOT butt list still remain so time to update and start a new one?

1. Modify the exhaust to tame it down a tad?
2. Fit an interior light
3. Change tx and main gbx oils
4. Number plate bracket to be fabricated
5. Reduce the engine vibes at tickover. Engine and gbx rubbers?

All the above followed by another ramble out on the Plain running on 100% SVO

15/16 July - Front brakes fixed plus a new problem

BRAKES

I noticed last week after the weekends shakedown that the brakes all would need to be adjusted again after bedding in. So tonite I jacked up the axles and gave them all a click on the snail cams.

Rears were fine (so they should be after all the time I devoted to them!) but one of the snail cams on the NS front would not tighten the shoe against the drum. Last time I adjusted this was about a year ago so off came the drum. It turned out one of the cam 'heads' had not been driven over the splines of the rear shaft which allowed it to turn. Result being no further pressure could be applied to the shoe without the assembly trying to undo itself.

The trick to getting these cam assy's to tighten up square is to hold the front screw with an 11mm spanner and only rotate from the rear (14mm). This way the rotating force of the front screw head does not cause the cam to drift out of line.

Fronts now adjusted up fine.


STARTER MOTOR

Last weekend Trig would occasionally refuse to start on the button, and the 'occassions' were getting more frequent by the end of play Sunday. I would hit the starter and there would be a click as the solenoid engaged and the sprag went forward but no rotation from the motor.

Voltage on the solenoid etc. were all good and when the starter contacts were shorted (along with the solenoid input for the sprag) the engine fired up straight away - so it must be the solenoid assy.

Pulled the starter (came out from under Trig without too many hassles) and checked it is the original fitment Valeo and not a cheap 'Britsmart' copy. So complete solenoid assemblies are available for about £30. So ordered one from Craddocks (RTC 4978).

For comparison for a complete starter motor assy a sh1tsmart is around £100, Valeo £160 and Bosch £200.

The offending article

On splitting the business end of the starter I found the comm surface to be in very good condition, and the brushes seemed 'almost new'. So I just gave it a general clean-up and some dry PTFE lube on the sprag gears and shaft. Then a bit of ubiquitous BBQ paint to the end cap etc. ;)

If anyone needs to source new brushes then check these guys out. Very good prices for Paris-Rhome (Valeo) etc. ---> http://www.anglocarbon.com/acatalog/Paris_Rhone_Starter.html


INTERIOR DOOR HANDLES

In the last blog post I mentioned trying to locate some of the original Series LR interior door handles. These are now selling for around £30 a pair on 'the bay' which seems extortionate for something that not many years ago was treated as scrap.

Anyhoo a post on the Series 2 forum brought a reply of, 'Paddocks still have them in stock...for £6 each!'. So for info if anyone needs handles search for Land Rover part No. 306460.

Order now placed and lets see whether they actually appear?

UPDATE!! - Paddocks rang back today to say the handles will be with them Monday and they will be sent to Tuesday!

10th July - Start on the butt list....

Saturday was spent at the RNAS Yeovilton air day where the Vulcan XH558 actually flew!

I have not seen this in the air for at least 25 years and it was a moving experience to see that 'flying' delta wing bomber chugging across the sky with it's bomb bays open. Designed in 1946 and flying from the 1960's with a 'stealthy' radar silhouette 30-35 years before the B1? Pity this is the only one flying and it is now on borrowed time....again?




Now back to getting Trig's bits fixed.

STEERING

Looking under the front axle this morning I found that I had replaced the steering stop screws with new stainless ones (from Minivin) some 'years' back and there was a world of clearance between the inside of the tyre and the front leafs on either side. The 109 is always going to have a larger turning circle than a Mini but lets see how much we can improve it, eh?

The wheels have a better offset than they would have had originally as they are early 110/late 109 LWB rims so I have a good chance of improving things anyway?

Checking the steering stops I managed to get an addition 3/8" wound in from each screw and there is still approx. a 2" gap from the edge of the tyre to the leaf on either side. These changes have made a huge difference for the better.


BUMPER

Twizzle came up trumps yesterday while I was at Yeovilton and had dropped off a tidy galv Series bumper. It isn't military spec. but tidy ones of that type are as rare as teeth on chooks so this could be modded to take the S2 bumperettes with the addition of a few holes.

After several hours with the wire wheel, brick acid and a drill it all looked like this.

I now need to knock up a bracket to relocate the number plate to the bumper. Currently it restricts airflow to the oil cooler.

RUNNING ON SVO

Following my thoughts that it was fuel starvation (and having checked and rectified the kinked pipes to the fuel selector anyway) I took a further look at the fuel/SVO tank.

What I found was that the inline filter was OK but the pick-up pipe from the tank was still fitted with a fine mesh gauze over the tip. Not a conducive medium for cold veg oil to flow through?  The dieso tank pick-up had had a damaged gauze anyway and I had already ripped that off so I swapped them around so the 'non-gauzed' pick-up was in the SVO.

Took the 109 for a run on veg and it seems (for now) that that has done the trick. So time will tell if this was the cause?

8th July....and the result of the MOT test was.......

.
He PASSED !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I didn't expect that. I was expecting to be hauled up on something but only two advisories came up. A low headlight on one side (they tweaked it) and play in the steering. This I will need to look at first but I'm sure I adjusted as much as I dare when I rebuilt the box?

I did have a worry on the way to the MOT center when the heavens opened and I bunged on the wipers. After half a mile the nearside/passenger wiper decided to part company with the bulkhead drive shaft end and deposited itself, luckily, onto the bonnet. I pulled over and grabbed it but only refitted it when I dropped the 109 at the test center. At least it didn't pop off while they were testing?

Another 'surprise' was when the garage were doing the smoke/emissions test (apparently ALL diesels now have to pass this). Unfortunately the bottom rad hose blew off and deposited all the coolant onto their test bay! They immediately shut Trig down, refitted the hoseclamp that popped off and refilled with water. Nothing seems to be harmed and I needed to flush through and refill with coolant anyway.

All together I am quite chuffed and picking up a 12 month RFL for nowt is the icing on the cake?

So the rest of the afternoon was spent giving Trigger a shakedown. The result of which is a further short list that need to be tackled.

1. Check whether there is any adjustment left in the steering box - NOW DONE (8/7/11)
2. Fix the errant NS wiper - DONE (8/7/11)
3. Fit a small silencer to the exhaust. It is loud! - DONE
4. Lacking power on SVO. Fuel starvation? - DONE ....I hope.
5. Find some larger door mirrors. DONE (16/7/11)
6. Sort out the tow bar and wiring DONE 23/7/11
7. Seat belts are too short for anyone past my stature so I need to look at replacements.DONE 23/7/11
8. Steering stops make the 109 like a Thames barge to manoeuvre. - DONE (10/7/11)
9. Once all these are sorted out then look at the front bumper. - |DONE (10/7/11)
10. 'Calibrate' the speedo. 20% out at mo

Buzzing about today I did around 30 miles on 70% SVO. The tank was then topped up with another batch so now probably closer to 90% SVO. The offside tank is 100% dieso.
Ran without any issues until I topped up the SVO tank, went for a longer run then hit the throttle on the A303. I seem to be hitting a 'wall' when I drop the throttle. Feels like fuel starvation. As the SVO oil lines are heated by the FPHE I am thinking a fuel restriction somewhere on the SVO supply/return. Literally as soon as I select dieso the problem goes away and Trig will hit 65mph or so without any effort.

I first found that the supply pipes into the fuel supply selector valve were bent and restricting flow. I fixed that but it made no difference. Next item to check is the SVO tank in-line filter. It has been sitting there for about a year full of SVO so maybe that is blocked? If that isn't the cause then I may run a direct supply and return to/from the SVO tank to the engine lift pump. That will also cross off the manual fuel selectors as being the cause of the issue?

7th July - MOT imminent

Booked Trig in for an MOT at 0930 tomorrow.

Wish me luck!

1st July - Brakes fixed and suspension loaded

BRAKES

 After having decided a few weeks ago that the rear brake snail cams were worn so far that they wouldn't allow the shoes to be adjusted up against the drums I then find that was not the reason for their lack of adjustment.

The new  'snails' had arrived and I proceeded to fit these and then found I had the same problem (though at least the new cams weren't worn smooth).

What I then realised was the rear brake shoes were slightly different so they must be trailing and leading types - though the green bible or Haynes or anywhere else said nothing about that. So I pinged an enquiry on the Series 2 forum and DavidTS pointed to part of Teri-Ann Wakemans informative site which says just that!
                              
http://www.expeditionlandrover.info/landRoverFAQ/FAQ_rearbrakes.htm

So now the brakes are assembled as Teri suggests and they work fine. So all those with a 109 - take note!

Note the difference in the brake shoes in my pic below. The leading shoe is the top one.

 

SUSPENSION

There are alternative methods of loading the suspension before tightening the whole lot up but wrapping a chain around the chassis and compressing it seemed like a ripe way to damage the paintwork and galv so I thought of another method.

In the front seats I dropped in a two spare 750's plus around 80kg made up of bins full of water (about the weight of 2?). Then to the rear a further 500kg of water in dustbins and buckets. Should be enough meethinks?

Suspension then tightened up. So that's another two jobs crossed off.

A quick run out proves everything is working fine (though the base of the Larkspur antenna became unbonded on the way home).

 

Next task is to set the headlights angle and fit the bumper.....and book an MOT.