Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Land Rover military oil cooler

It has been a frustrating time the last few weeks trying to get the fittings sorted out for the fuel and oil cooler systems.
The previous owner had let the shop doing his swap just cut hoses and pipes and reuse fittings on his 200tdi. So I wound up with no fittings for the fuel system.
Trying to find them on the web or in my parts book was a waste of time even emails to Craddocks was fruitless as they had no idea what was supposed to go on. They offered an educated guess.
Also missing was the fan belt and alternator pivot bracket/bolt/spacer. I could find the bolt and bracket and bought a bracket online from Rovah Farm. I had purchased a belt from them earlier, when I realized that I would need one.
The spacer was more difficult. It showed on the parts drawings but had no number attached, even Craddocks failed to find one. So I made one. I put the pivot bracket up to the face of the alt and measured the distance to the face of the block. I then had to get some spacer material but first I need a bolt so I knew what size i.d. was needed.
I tried 3 hardware and 2 autoparts stores and one Brit car repair shop but nobody carried a M8x100x.75. I had to go to Fastenal and buy 10 of them..........
I stopped at the hardware store and bought a stainless steel 4 in. pipe nipple that had the right i.d.. At home I cut it down to the correct length. Then installed the spacer/bolt/pivot bracket.
Next was the fan belt----WTF? it won't fit, too short so I check online with Rover Farm did I get the correct one? Yes, that's supposed to fit.
Well my alt has the bulge from the bolt hole that hits the block before the belt can go on.
So I try my spare for my 2.25, it fits but is pretty large with almost no room for future stretching. So drive into town and get the next size up belt, 10mm longer. It too is too short!
The next day go back to town, 14 miles each way, and get the next larger belt another 10mm. This one fits! Finally!! I had bought 2 so I have a spare.
Adjust the belt tension and tighten everything up.
On to the fuel lines;

I removed one of the inlet fittings from the injector pump and took a spare fuel lift pump down to the Hose Shop. There Linus was able to make correct fitting choices and provide me with some pipe to flare and connect hoses to.


Of course my flaring tool wouldn't hold the steel pipe so I could flare it and my tubing bender does not have a 5/16 groove for bending--------Arrgghh! But I did my best, but it wasn't satisfactory.
So the next day I asked Linus to come up and help me sort things out. He came up after work one night and we looked it over and decided to return to the Hose Shop to make good fittings. It took us 2 hours of cutting/drilling/soldering to get them done. We made fittings that bolt on not just slip a hose over and use a hose clamp. But he only had 3 fittings for the hose connections so I had to wait on those for 2 days. I took this time to fit the new fittings in place and measure for hose length. Here Brian and I discoverd that the fittings would make an "S" shape for the lift pump to injector pump. So once again a fitting would need to be changed.
When the fittings came in we went down and shortened the injector pump pipe and made it vertical to eliminate the "S". Whew, things then went together.


On the oil line front; things were too congested at the crossover point for the hoses. So I wound up making a longer pipe for the bottom connection with an "L" pointing along the frame towards the oil filter. This meant the hose needed to be shortened and a new fitting crimped on, so back to the Hose Shop. I put it on today and it all fits nicely!




The fuel tank;
I bought a new diesel fuel sending unit and went to put it on. I saved the screws from the old tank but they wouldn't work :^(
I used one from the shipping cap to find the correct size and bought 6 new ones. This installed the sending unit.
We(Linus and I) made a 3way connector for the diesel return line at the tank to fit the spill rail(3/16) and the injector overflow(5/16).
I put some of the Right Stuff around all the outside seams on the fuel tank. My hope is to prevent water from getting inbetween the tank and skid plate where they rust out. Even though my tank has been in my front room since I bought it rust has formed where the brackets are welded on. Crappy paint job!


All this while helping Brian get his tranny put together, figure out why the Roverdrive wouldn't go back on. Getting it on and bolting up the bellhousing only to find a leak in the clutch throwout box. Pulling the tranny again and fixing the leak and reinstalling said tranny and roverdrive all in the last 2 weeks. Sandwich in a train trip to Nebraska and helping Linus drive home a 64 109 that took 5 days. Plus 2 to recover from the trip!