trips and 109

Well, once again it has been awhile since I posted up. But I have been busy. There was the trip to Nebraska, Then I put in the fuel system, tank, filter, lift pump and all the hoses. I still need to get the bottom hose for the radiator.

I may just wind up with a generic one. I have been struggling with what I am going to do about a transmission. I have one that came with the vehicle but it is in unknown condition. I also have a series 3 transmission that came with it and the guy said that it was bad. When Timm Cooper was her putting on the brake system we talked about him rebuilding my series 3 gearbox and putting the older lower geared transfer case on it. The major factor for me was time and money, I knew that any time Timm spent on my project would eat into the work he was doing on Gonzo and that had gone on too long. So I waited and did other things. I went to the annual Mendo_Recce campout for Land Rovers on the last full weekend in April at Cedar Camp in the Mendocino National Forest. That was Fri., Sat., Sun. of Rover porn! It was nice to see new peoples and Rovers and see old friends! The Saturday night potluck was fabulous!!!!

The following Wed. saw Linus and I heading to the Owens Valley, in Calif. He had gotten us signed up on an Expedition Portal arrainged trip "Cinco de Inyos". However Ignotus(my88) was having loud clunking noises coming from the frontwheel drive, as I had discovered at Mendo. I checked things out as well as I could between trips and replaced one suspect free wheel hub. But trying it out in the Alabama Hills showed that the noise was still there. Bummer! So I decided to not go off road into the Inyos. I didn't want to break down 25 miles from nowhere and have a difficult extraction. So Linus and his girlfriend Hayley went with the group on Friday and returned to Independance on Saturday.

In the meantime my friend Emilie and I did the tourist thing and visited the museums in Independance and Lone Pine and a stop at the Internment camp of Manzanar. That night we camped at a windy Alabama Hills! The next day we found the dirt road that goes up the Eastern side of the Owens Valley, and we visited 2 mines a gold mine and a talc mine. Then we rondevouzed with Linus and Hayley. Linus was also experiencing noises in his front wheel drive but his double cardan in the rear had failed and was making horrible noise and vibration! So he took it off and we got an early start on the way home Saturday night. We drove to the East side of the pass to Lake Isabella and camped at a place Linus knew of. It was among the Joshua trees and the coyotes howled at night, with almost a full moon! With the tailgate down I can sleep in the back of my 88, Emilie in her tent and Linus and Haylie in thiers. I want to go back to the Owens Valley and spend more time there! On the 109 front I was contacted by Brian H. and he said that Timm might have a gearbox for me. So I called him up and arranged to go up last Wed. I borrowed my daughters Toyota Tacoma and piled 2 transmissions in it. One I spent Tuesday night taking the low gear transfer case off of. So I hauled it all up to Placerville where Timm showed me what he had and then I had him install the lower gear xfer case on the Late 2a gearbox he had rebuilt previously. When I came home I had 2 complete transmissions plus my old gearbox! We did look into the inspection port on the series 3 xfer case and we could see that the mainshaft nut was loose, That could be the only thing wrong with it. I drained the oil today and could not find any metal in the oil. So I need to take the top off the selector forks and check it out more but first I need to clean the outside of the case1 YUCK!! I did finish putting the xfer case back together after painting some of the rusty covers and new bolts and studs for the covers and such. One thing I did do was I took the flange for the output shaft drive gear, you know the one the rear prop shaft and parking brake bolt onto, down to the auto shop and had them press off the mudshield for the flange. This gave access to those damn Whitworth bolts that hold on the brake drum! We removed them and replaced them with 5/16 SAE bolts. Yaay!!!

I also replaced the four Whitworth studs that the backing plate for the park brake is atttached with. Funny they are 3/8 SAE going into the case but have Whitworth for the nuts???? Now mine are all SAE. So I have all that back together and am ready to put it into the 109. But nagging at my mind is that it would be nicer if I put the fully syncroed gearbox in, so I may wait until I see what shape the inside is in. That brings me to today, Wed. Brian L. came over and painted the bulkhead for me. It looks great but the paint really shows all the galvanizing imperfections. I am pretty sure all the body is painted now. Still have to do the sealing of the roof and then paint it and the sides.

Sometimes this is really alot of work! I want to get the tranmission in before I put the bulkhead on, it will make it easier and less chance of damaging the fresh paint. I had to get some new studs for the bellhousing as some were missing. So I took out one and bought some new ones, When I went to put them in I found that 3 of them are stripped out and I had to buy a Helicoil set ($ouch). I get to do that next. Then I need to find out what bolts and shims I might need to put on the flywheel. I know I only have 2 bolts for it.