1st October 2012 - Hub seals

During yet another run to dump more garden rubbish down the tip I spotted a oil trace on the inside of the OS rear tyre. Also a small one on NS rear.A quick finger test showed this to be EP90...or at least a blend of that and axle grease.

I stripped the hub down (then remembered I had not stripped a hub seal for nearly 10 years!) and the hub seal was showing signs of weeping around the distance piece/seal land. The land had some surface corrosion.

Casting my mind back to 2008-9 when this axle was 'overhauled' I only checked over the seal arrangement and it all seemed good..at the time. So to save peanuts I left it 'as is'. Maybe that was a mistake and a few years aging had finished it off, who knows? So the assembly was stripped down and everything cleaned up in kero ready for a parts delivery from Paddocks.

The distance piece was removed in my std fashion of drilling the surface with a pilot drill and opening the hole up to 8mm - followed by a good hard wack with a cold chisel. Works every time ;)

The mistake I did make was ordering the wrong hub seals. I accidentally clicked on the RTC3511G (S3 >80/81 and Defender) and not the 3510 - muppet! Luckily I had a spare 3510 hanging at the back of the shelf and dropped that in. But the hub seals will always be useful for the 90.

One issue was the internal dia of the new distance piece. This had been stored in the freezer for 4 days prior to fitting (a tad excessive). That should have opened the dia up sufficiently, but it was still too tight. On checking with the vernier the dia's were fine but the axle tube had a small ripple at the end causing a bit of fouling - but good tap using the hub spanner and a 3lb mallet did the trick.

The NS was also stripped and cleaned and the new distance piece fitted. Plus I corrected the odd brake cam adjusters (one cam stripped when I fitted them a while back meaning I only had 3 of one type...so I used the SWB front one). Despite this the hub initially looked to have a better seal than the NS one. Stripping it down showed this to not be the case. It was far worse than the other side. The brake shoes were fine but there was a lot of gunge in there.

I also checked out the weepy OS front hub. The leak turned out to be a couple of loose bolts holding the swivel assembly onto the axle casing. I tightened these up and hopefully all will now be fine?

19th August 2012 - Engine mounts changed/rattly bonnet!

ENGINE MOUNT SWAP

Last weekend I managed to remove the old engine rubber mounts fit the new larger genuine Defender 200tdi rubbers (ANR1808).

This was not an easy job and a few chops were needed to the the LH rubber to get it to fit - but after two days of cursing the mounts were in.

I discovered that I had fitted an old Dunlop Metalastic unit on the RH side of the block. This was a secondhand unit I had rolling about in a box that I put in as a stopgap - and then forgot about. On the RH side I had a pattern Series diesel rubber. This was only a few years old so still in good order.

The gearbox had already been fitted with the later 200tdi type. So I left that for now.

The pic below shows all three. From the left - Old Dunlop, Series diesel, new ANR1808.

So did this improve anything? Yes...and no.

The trans brake no longer jumps a few notches over bumps but the vibes to the body have increased due to increased rigidity of the new mountings. But now the bonnet rattles at low revs just up from tick-over.

In all honestly I think the original mounts would do the job fine if in good condition. The Dunlop definitely wasn't. Personally I would go with the Series Diesel mounts if I had to decide on rubbers again...cheaper to!

Now the new vibes are causing the bonnet to rattle at low revs, which is most annoying. I have initially narrowed this down to loose bonnet catches. These catches both date from the 60's and after all these years of exposure seem to be full of rust + springs that have lost their power. To replace these with new would cost £90 for genuine and £60 for pattern!

An alternative solution will be to 'nick' the two spring clips that hold down the FFR battery cover in the cab. These have always been under cover and are in superb condition. So next weekend I will get these switched around and see if the bonnet 'wobble' is calmed down a tad.



This weekend SW England went through a bit of heatwave and I needed to use Trig's for a few rubble runs to the tip and assorted other errands. So for the first time ever I took the door tops off to get a bit of additional ventilation after rolling the tilt up. Yep, I have never done that before - surprising I know!

I plan to do this again so I then decided to review the door liner setup. I bought a complete set including elbow rests new from Exmoor trim a year or so ago during the rebuild and now I have decided to ditch most of it. The upper panel and elbow rest is now off and in the garage and I plan to flog these on the S2 forum soon. They won't be used again. Removing these makes it easier to get at the door top nuts next time.

....and I fitted the door handles Stu!