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?