gettin busy on the 109, insulation

Ok last week I started to put the overdrive in. As it went on it got to the last half inch or so and wouldn't go any further. So I put the main gearbox in neutral and the transfer case in neutral. When I went to put the OD into neutral it wouldn't go. So I stuck a prybar in the hole on the selector shaft. When I applied pressure the shaft moved and the end of the shaft broke off! Forty-eight bucks and five days from Craddocks in the UK. I also ordered and rear door bottom seal at the same time. After I got the tranny in last week I also ordered some insulation from Lobucrod (www.lobucrod.com). It is closed cell foam with silver mylar on both sides and used in the boat/auto industries for heat and sound.

At the same time I ordered some hull liner material, #6501 from Perfect Fit (www.perfectfit.com). It is a silver gray color and should help to deaden the sound in the back of the 109. I ordered enough of both materials to do both roofs on my 109 and 88. This Monday last saw me install the Kodiak Mk3 heater. I had to cut out a new hole for it and add a stiffening plate on the top of the footwell. I still have to get some hoses for it. Curiously I don't have any pics of it. I'll get some later to post up. Monday also saw my headliner delivered in the morning by my favorite UPS driver. It came right after I finished with the heater install. That afternoon my Postal Carrier dropped off the insulation! So I had Monday night to try to figure out how I was going to do this. I had to move my 88,Ignotus, forward in the driveway to get room close to the back of the 109. I set up 2 sawhorses and plywood on top of them. Over this I had some paper so to help keep the stuff cleaner.

I then set about to measure some pieces of insulation, 20x31in for the front section and 20x40in for the rears, IIRC. Then I took the piece in the tub of the 109 and holding it up I marked where I needed to cut out for the parts I needed cut out.

I wanted to leave the window and the stiffener and the galvanized connector bits exposed. I did figure out that I could use my utility knife(Stanley.com) and cut the window corners and the stiffener corners. Then putting the piece on the table I used a straight edge to connect the corners with my knife.

Using this technique I test fitted the first panel and found that it cut the openings for the window too large. So on the rest of the windows I made sure I cut them smaller. It worked. The insulation could now be used as a template for the hulliner.

And this is where I would do things differently next time! This is what I did; I rolled out the liner and put the insulation on it. Using a black magic marker I just marked out all the corners. Once again I used the straight edge(a 4 ft level in my case) and connected up the corners. My kitchen shears are very sharp and worked great for cutting along the now straight drawn lines. The liner was test fitted, then test fitted with the insulation behind it and modifications made. What I didn't realize that every time I pulled it off the liner was stretching. One at a time I started to glue the pieces on.

I had used blue masking tape to cover all the surfaces that I did not want glue on. I also made sure I covered up the windows. I did not know what the spray pattern of the glue would be so I covered the tub under the panel I was working on. First the insulation was glued to the side using 3M 08088 adheasive. Next I sprayed the insulation and the liner and attempeted to stick it in place. Well it stuck everywhere there was glue....I could pull it off and reposition it sometimes but not always. There were a couple of good wrinkles in that first install.

Always trying to make it easier/better I decided to glue the liner to the insulation first and then just have one piece to install on the side. So I tried this with the drivers side rear. This is where I learned to spray on the glue then remove the glue covered tape so the piece wouldn't stick to it. Of course it came to me at the end of the section. Night fell. Bringing us to today! I was out there by 1000 and gluing the remaining rear liner and insulation together. This one had really stretched and was ill-fitting, but on it went. I could trim it later. Lastly I glued the front 2 pices together and then on to the side. This one went on best with all my new experience. I sprayed and removed tape, set the top and then the side of the window and worked my way around and down to the bottom.

There was a whole lot a climbing in and out of the 109 with out a proper step, and kneeling on hard floor. What I would do differently; I would cut out the insulation to fit like I did, that worked fine. On the liner I would cut out the openings to fit and on the outside edge I would leave 1/2in extra. When gluing, glue both pieces togther, on installing put glue only on the insulation and the sides. Still taping off anything you don't want to get stuck too. Remove gluey tape and install combined piece, trim with razor after installation. So I finished the trim installation around 1130 and I come in the house to take a break. There is a knock at the door and the guy is there with the selector shaft and door seal from Craddocks. Yay!!! Taking my break helped me get ready to do battle again. The door strip looked easy to do,,,now where was that old one????

Twenty min later and I had found it. It needed to be cleand up, the remanents of the old rubber were still in it. I pulled out the metal strip inside and using a putty knife scraped the rubber out. Man it was tuff! I use my wire wheel to get the grunge off the outside, all told it took me an hour to clean it up! Another 15 min to figure out how the old rubber fit and how it all fit on the tub. I tried just squeezing the new rubber into the lip but couldn't make it go. I tried WD-40 to make it slipperier. The final trick was to clamp it to my welding table and pry the lip open slightly and then squeeze it in and clamp the lip back together.

At first I used my water pump pliers to squeeze the lip closed but in the end I resorted to my vise. I drilled out the holes on the strip and the tub to 3/16 and put it on with 3/16x1/4grip pop rivets.

I had to have lunch........ It's hot out in the sun and my 109 sits in it from around 12 to 1430 on these days. So it was a welcome relief to go inside and cool down. But after resting I took the overdrive selector shaft out and dragged out the Fairy. I took off the cover plate, loosened the clamp on the selector fork. Looking around I saw that I need to take out 2 set screws at the back of the shaft, one of which held the ball bearing and spring for the detent. The front o-ring cover plate had to be removed and then I could get the shaft out. The O-ring on the end of the shaft was swapped to the new one and put in place. I lined up the fork bolt and put on the front o-ring cover plate, installed the detent ball and spring, tightened up everything. Done in about a half hour! So I wanted to install it on the tranny. I went to check out and see what might be preventing it from going that last half inch. Upon close inspection I could see that the ends of the unused tabs of lockring on the mainshaft nut were blocking the gears from meshing. I hammered these down and the OD slid right on! In the process I made a new speedo cable holder under the OD out of some stainless steel strip I had.

I still have to put oil in the transmission. But I called it a day after that! Next up insulation and liner on the roof and install it!

109 handbrake

Well, I did a bunch of stuff the yesterday. I was able to drill out the broken bit of the old zerk fitting and get it out with an e-z out.

I then installed a new one and greased it up. You can see in the photo that before I removed the drill and the e-z out I used a magnet to clean up the shavings so to keep them from getting inside the ujoint and causing failure.

Let's see what else did I do....I installed the handbrake linkage and got it operating. In order to do this I had to drill out the chassis holes for it as the galvanizing had made them too small. Small job but time consuming.

I put the clutch slave cylinder and bracket in. This took some fiddling. The 2a bell housing studs are 3/8in and the 2.5 have been switched to metric, 10mm. Slightly larger. This had the effect of causing the holes in the slave bracket to not quite line up with each other. I kept filing away at all 3 holes until it fit. I then had to get it out of the way and install the pin and split pin on the clutch cross shaft connecting tube. A really nasty job 'cause it is so tight in there! Once I had the cross tube on I could mount the bracket and slave cylinder and finish up tightening the bell housing nuts.....Aaaaa!! I was one nut short! Tomorrow for that one as it was too late to go get one.

I then installed the main gearbox lever, cleaned up and called it a day!

109 clutch

I think I said that I had to get the correct clutch internals, disc and pressure plate. It took some time sorting them out over the phone with Travor at Rovah Farm. He was away in Maine straightening up stuff from his recent move. Since I have the series 2 clutch release mechanism I needed the Series 2 pressure plate and 10 spline disc. Well something got crossed in the communications and I recieved the pressure plate and not the disc a week later when parts arrived. So then it was another phone call only to find that Trevor was out of the disc.

So I posted an order from Craddocks in the UK. Another week went by until it arrived, that was last weekend. I went ahead and installed the clutch disc by aligning it with an old pilot shaft I had kept.

Then I put on the pressure plate slowly tightening the bolts as to get an even tension and finally torquing them down. Now I just needed help to carry the tranny from the garage to the chassis. First I tried my son-in-law he said he would but I was too tired after a bike ride with my grandson. Next up was my neighbor Bob, now he's a contract worker and had work this week so he wasn't available. I put out an email to my local Land Rover buddies and one of them said he could help later in the week. So yesterday I went and played Disc Golf at the Black Mouse course in Felton. I shot a +3. After a phone call to Craig we pinned down a time he would come over and he arrived at 0900 this morning. After looking over my project we carried the tranny over to the chassis and set it there. A few more minutes of BS and Craig went home. I got busy as the 109 was still in the shade and today was going to be warm. I moved the engine hoist into position and then had to put some plywood down so it could roll. I then put on the legs, got out my sling and hooked up the tranny where the gearbox and transfercase bolt together. The hoist lifted it up and I rolled it into position above the chassis.

Carefully opening the valve allowed me to slowly lower the tranny in. The front was nose down and as it lowwered I pushed it into the pilot hole of the clutch pressure plate and then the disc. Twas then I realized the rear prop shaft had to be removed as the park brake wouldn't clear it. So off it came. Again lowering it slowly it lined up on the bolts and that's when I found out that one of the bolt holes with a Heli-coil was crooked, Always @#$%^$!%& something! A few hits with a hammer straightened something out and then the bolt holes all lined up and the tranny began its slow slide on.... I got it far enough on that I knew the splines were lined up and started some of the bolts and pulled the 2 cases together. Then I finished bolting it down and lifted it up and removed the block under the engine and set the tranny back down onto the mounting brackets. Not a perfect match but with the aid of a prybar I got all 4 bolts in and tightened down. Then I reinstalled the rear prop shaft, this is when I found a broken zerk fitting on the forward ujoint.

It wasn't easy and needed some twisting and pushing and raising and lowering and turning of the gears to line up the splines but it went on!!!

By now the Land Rover was almost in the sun so I hurriedly put things away and went inside and had lunch (Cheese and pickle sandwich for those counting). But I was too excited to sit out the noonday sun! I carried the bulkhead out and went to work fitting it. I had to ream the holes for the bolts and then it went on, it is a heavy item now with all the sound/heat proofing and vents, ect on it. I was sweating due to the sun and the hearculean effort of lifting it into olace by myself. But, HEY it's ONNNN!!!

Now it feels like I have finally made some progess. Next is putting on the body and windscreen and doors and roof! Plus figuring out what I'm going to do about that ujoint....I couldn't remove stub with an ez out.

109 speedo

Ok so I thought I'd clean up the bezels on the speedo and multi guage for the 109. Both of mine are 4in Smiths guages. The bezels look pretty crusty after 52 years.

The first thing I did was twist the bezels off by hand. Not an easy thing on the multi guage. The gasket got destroyed on it but the speedo one came apart ok. Then to the kitchen to clean the glass, I used a razor blade to take off the circle of grunge and old paint overspray. Soap and water did the final cleaning. I had to cut the inner rubber seal from the glass on the multi guage with the razor blade. It was stuck so tight that I chipped little bits of glass off the edge prying it from the housing!

I think I have new gasket and rubber sourced from Palo Alto Speedometer, www.paspeedo.com Next was to wirewheel the bezels outside and in. The outside was easy, doing the inside required a small wheel mounted in my bench drill press. This got things hot! I almost burned my finger a couple of times moving the ring around.

Eventually I got the bezels clean and sprayed them with rust converter and then semi-gloss black paint. I then went to work on the speedo case. It was rusty as well and even though it is out of sight I felt it deserved a spiffing up!

Unable to remove the roll pin holding the reset for the trip meter I had to be careful wirewheeling the back. Once the rust and old paint were removed it was a couple coats of rust converter and then the semi-gloss black.

It was here that I decided to see if I could reset the odometer to zero by running the speedo backwards with my drill. I had an old inner cable and cut about 6in off the drive end and put one end in the drill, the drive end I put in the speedo drive and pulled the trigger! Almost tore my hand off.....the drive wouldn't turn &^%(*#&&#@.

With the paint still drying I carefully took a screw and ground it down to the size of the square drive. With this I could use a screwdriver to put some gentle force in both directions and hopefully free up the drive. I was able to get it to move so I knew it was just gummed up. The next thing I did was spray contact cleaner in the drive, then brake cleaner. The drive was moving but not easily. So I sprayed some graphite lock-ease that I have in it and tried the screw again. This got it to turn better but it was still stiff. So in went the speedo drive attached to the drill, at first it was stiff and bound up. After about 20 seconds and some gentle speed increases it was going full bore at 40mph! I ran up 3/10 of a mile in reverse and it didn't change the odo, but at least it all works!

109 bulkhead

So I thought while I was waiting for the clutch parts to arrive I would start on the bulkhead. I ran the wires into the dash area and put on the fly screens and the windscreen holddowns. I then tried to figure out which instrument panel I wanted to install. I have 2 different ones. One is stock and the other has had a combi oil/water temp guage in it. I decided on the stock one so I did a test fit. Of course it wouldn't fit. The bottom of the parcel tray had been dented inwards by about 3/8in. Now the mounting holes wouldn't line up.

The opening is too small for a bottle jack to fit and I didn't want to scratch up the paint by useing my Hi-Lift jack. What I devised over a couple of days thinking was; I bought a 2in 5/8 fine thread bolt and nut and 2 hardened 5/8 washers, plus a 3/4in connector nut. The 5/8 bolt fit into the 3/4 connector nut hole. By threading the 5/8 nut on the bolt and then putting the 2 washers between the nut and the 3/4 nut I then had a screw jack with fine control.

I put a 1/4in flat steel plate on the bottom dent of the parcel tray and then the long 3/4 connector nut. This was topped by the 2 washers and the nut threaded on the 5/8 bolt. Over that I had a 1/4in thick aluminum angle and between that and the top of the parcel shelf a piece of wood for cushion. The alli would spread the load on the wood.

By using 2 wrenches I could force the bottom of the parcel tray away from the top and flatten it somewhat. The end result actually turned out to be convex(?). The holes eventually lined up and in the last picture you can see the trial fitting with all screws in place.