Land Rover inspection sockets

Hey, I spent part of the day refurbishing my old broken inspection sockets. What I did was take the old ones apart and figure what I had lying around to make new ones with. Deciding on some 1/4"ID rubber hose for the black(ground) side witha a 1/2" OD. The holes in the dash were .44 so I used my Dremel tool to grind off some of the OD on the tubing and again on the ID to make the recess for the  socket to sit slightly below the level of the front. The hard bit was finding something red and insulating for the power(positive) side. Looking around I found and old bent screwdriver with a red plastic handle. Putting the shaft in my cordless Bosch drill I ground the handle round down to the half inch diameter needed. Then with a hacksaw I cut off the required cross section and put it in my vise for my Craftsman bench drill press. I used a 1/4" drill to put a thru hole and a 21/64 for the countersink. again the Dremel was used to cut the lip for the inset of the hole. The liberal use of a fine file made the base low enough to fit the thickness of the dash. Too thick and it won't tighten up.

Blog changes

Google has made some changes to how Blogger works. It is more difficult for me to post up pics, I can no longer put them left, right, center. When they do upload they go to some random place in the text and I have to cut and paste them to the correct location. Some times it takes repeated attempts to upload for success. I can no longer indent paragraphs or space them apart. Just frustrating.

109 wiper moter cover

Well, I put in some Rivnuts to hold the wiper motor cover plate. I used 10-32 Rivenuts, they are the same size as the screws which hold the top of the dash in position.(IIRC) I used a Rivet Nut Tool from www.rivetnuttool.com. I like the ease of use and the cost for this occasionally used tool for the handyman. So once I decided on the size to use I drilled out the hole and filed a small notch in the hole to keep the rivenut from turning. Then I put the rivenut on the tool and inserted it in the hole and pulled the slide up tight! Presto the rivnut was installed! I also put the drivers seat in. Again I used 2 thick stainless washers in the front and 1 in the rear. Next was to put in the lid for the underseat box. That was when I found out I had used the wrong lid. I restored a used lid I had instead of the orginal lid thinking they were all the same size. The orginal lid had the hinges at the rear and with the Defender seats I would not be able to lift the lid for access. Well the "new" lid braces on the inside are 1" wider than the opening to the box. So the old lid was dug out, the hinges removed and paint removed. Primered with self etching primer from Duplicolor dried overnight and sprayed with Duplicolor Caterpillar yellow paint. Now this is the NEW Cat yellow and not a match for the OLD Cat I used on the 109. But it was easier and mostly hidden under the seat. Once the lid was in I discovered I would need an additional thick washer in the front on the left side for the slide arm to clear the lid when lifted in the sliding position. Then the seat cushion was installed and I climbed aboard. I find the command position higher in the drivers side than my 88 with stock seats. Not a big deal unless at a stop light. Maybe I can figure a mirror system to see the lights. Here's a pic with both the seats installed.

109 battery

I finally got the battery in. It took 4 days to do it what with fab work and painting. I had cut the old battery tray off prior to galvanizing with the intention of hopefully being able to put it back on in the same place. In thinking of this I left some stubs of the old battery supports and predrilled holes. At the same time I predrilled holes in the leg portion still connected to the tray. Then every thing went to the galvanizers last year and the holes would be more protected from rusting out.

So now I just found some 1/8x1" angle iron and cut out some sections and lined them up on the bottom stubs and marked the hole position. Then the centerpunch and drills put the holes in the right places.

Once these were bolted in I put the upper tray in place and marked the holes for the angle iron. Removed them from the stubs and again centerpunched and drilled them. Then mounted the upper to the lower to make sure it fit. Then took everything apart. The angle braces were cleaned, treated with rust converter and painted with cold galvanizing. I then had to devise a side support for the battery that would also hold the J hooks to keep the battery from moving. After looking at my 88 I got a piece of 1/8x2" 4 feet long. With this I could bolt onto the upper tray portion and have sides for the battery to not slide off and put in holes for the J hooks. A centerline was put on the strip of steel and I decided to put my weld at one of the narrow ends. So starting back from one end of the steel, the upper section was placed and marked for holes.

These were centerpunched and drilled and the tray bolted in. Then a pencil mark was made for the next bend and the upper part unbolted. I used a carpenters square and made a 90deg marks across the steel. This would be a reference for the bend. Next the steel was slide in the jaws of my vise with the pencil line just above the jaws. I used my propane torch to heat the metal right at the jawline and using my hand and a hammer I bent the steel into a right angle. Back over to the table and rebolt the upper section and mark where the next bend would be for the long side bit. Unbolt. Back over to the vise and heat and bend.

Back over to the table and bolt the 2 sections together again. Mark the holes and the next bend, unbolt. Centerpunch and drill holes. Put in vise and heat and bend the last corner. At this point the ends overlap but first I needed to bolt the 2 sections together again. Then the mark was made for the place to cut off the overlap, which was done by a jigsaw after unbolting the 2 pieces. I clamped the ends together and welded up the seam. Then bolted the 2 back together and took then to try out on the 109. Everything worked out great!

So it was all unbolted. The side support was wire brushed, sprayed with rust converter then sprayed with bed liner, 2 coats. A measurment was taken at some point for the length of J hook and a trip made to the FLAPS(friendly local auto parts store) Boulder Creek Auto Parts a NAPA dealer. Here J hooks and a top support were purchased. It turned out the top support wasn't a good fit, it would be too weak for holding a battery down off road. I imagine it was fine for a road car but not for washboard roads. That meant one had to be made. For this I used some 1/8x3/4" angle iron connected across the battery by a piece of 1/8x1" flat stock. I mocked them up, marked and measured, cut and centerpunched and drilled, welded and finally test fit and wire brushed. Then sprayed with rust converter and 2 coats of bed liner. Once everything was dry I bolted it on to the chassis stubs and put the battery on.

Then attached the ground from the negative side to the engine.

CVAN-65

I want to tell a little story which happened to me aboard the USS Enterprise CVAN-65. The year was 1972 and it was early summertime in San Diego. I had already made one cruise to Vietnam and the ship was getting ready to make its last cruise of the Vietnam War. So we were off the coast of San Diego for a couple of days of REFTRA or Refresher Training. During these few days we were undergoing various readiness drills and being graded by inspectors. A couple of days into the training we were bored with being "at sea", in this case sitting in San Diego harbor looking at the city lights at night. Some one got the idea to show a movie in our homemade lounge for the bow cats. Soon a projector was found and a movie obtained from the entertainment dept. The movie---Woodstock! Around a dozen of us set up a sheet for a screen and brought in chairs and got stoned on pot. Now we had a great place to get stoned without getting caught. To describe it I have to get a little technical on your ass. The catapults are basically a double barreled shotgun where the bullet(piston) never leaves the barrel. The 2 pistons, one in each barrel are connected thru a slot in the top of the barrel by the shuttle to which the device that connects to the airplane is attached. The pistons are driven down the barrel by steam pressure. The nuclear reactors make steam and send it up to a steam reciever tank which is pressurized to the correct pressure for the weight of the aircraft so it can obtain around 150mph as it leaves the flight deck. Our lounge was a side room to one of the steam reciever tanks. I'm only guessing but these were huge tanks and probably held 5-10k gals of steam. Because of the temperature of the steam in these tanks there was an exhaust fan which pulled the hot air from the top of the tank and blew it out the side of the ship thru a vent.

Well, one of us stoners discovered on our 1971 cruise to Vietnam that we could sit inside the vent space and get stoned. The air was blown thru the center of the space and we sat on a ledge around the edge. We could fit 5-6 guys in there easily. The smokey air blew out the side and no-one could tell from where it was coming. Once all was ready we turned down the ships intercom, the 1MC, and started watching the movie as the sun set. A couple of guys showed up late and went down to get thier buzz on in the fan room. I can still remember as I was sitting up front by the screen and Leon Russell was wailing out Freedom..Freedom...as the projector was at full volume, when we felt more than heard the ship shake. As we discussed it to us it felt like the ship had just launched patrol ready aircraft from the Waist catapults. About a minute later there was another shake. Again it was about the timing for the second ready aircraft to be launched. Since it wasn't our turn to be launching anything we just kept on watching the flick. Suddenly there were 2 very close spaced shaking booms and the late comers came flying up out of the fan room yelling "The bow is on fire!, the bow is on fire!" Someone shut off the projector and I reached behind the sheet and turned up the 1MC intercom. Suddenly we could all hear the Airboss saying that aircraft 401, 402 are on fire on the bow. Well, we scrambled our asses up on the flight deck. I was the last to get up there because I was farthest from the door. I ran up in the dark of the night and got on the nearest firehose that was fully charged. There was a tremendous heat and wind blowing on us but we could see no fire! None of us had our safety gear on, we were just in pants and t-shirts. After about 30-45 seconds in my befuddled mind I turned around and asked the guy behind me, who did have all his safety gear on, what was happening. He told me it was a drill---whew! The heat and wind was coming from an aircraft whose engine was running. I decided I didn't need to be there as we would lose points being without the right gear. So I told the guy infront of me that it was a drill and I went off the flight deck and back to the movie. Word passed up the hose that it was a drill and most of the rest of the guys also came back and we started up the movie again. So we are sitting there grooving out when the leader of the #1 catapult came in and shut off the movie. He then asked us who turned in the battle damage report for the Bow cats? We all faked like we didn't even know there was a drill going on. He thought it was unbelievable that none of us knew anything and did nothing. But he believed us and turned the projector on and left. We turned it off and had a discussion as to how we were going to proceed. We all agreed to stick to our story! On again went the movie. Maybe 20 minutes went by and the #1 cat leader came back in. This time he was pissed!!!!! It seems that one of the guys watching the movie when the 1MC was turned up did the right thing. He ran out and down the catwalk into the catapult room grabbed his safety gear ran out the other side of the ship and up onto the flight deck. Once he got there an inspector grabbed him and told him he was dead. So he laid there and they picked him up and took him to sickbay and processed him. When the drill was over he returned to the catapult room and proceeded to tell the #1 cat leader his story. Mentioning where he was at the start of the drill and how "everyone knew" Like I said he was pissed and came to see us, we stuck to our story though and said that so and so must have been at the back of the room and was the only one who heard the drill. Because we had a variety of rank in our room we were grudgingly believed and once again the projector was turned on as the cat leader went away. Quickly it was off again and we talked it over and the highest ranking of us went over to the cat leader and told him what happened. We figured we wouldn't get into trouble as he was using uppers all the time and we could turn him in if he turned us in. We all got away with it and enjoyed the fan room for the whole cruise of Vietnam in 72-73.

109 front bumper

Last September I decided that I wanted a raised end bumper. Checking into it I found that Doug Shipman of Portland, Oregon (503.252.5566) is the orginator and still makes them. We talked on the phone and he said he was making a batch in Dec. I called him late Nov and ordered one with mount for a Warn 8274 and winch eyes. So time dragged on and the galvanizer delayed things but finally it came last Wed via UPS.

So I put it on. Not without the usual trials and tribulations though. It went on well enough at first but I couldn't get the RH side in far enough. At first I thought perhaps the bumper was ill fitting. But No, further investigation showed a blob of galvy on the underside of the RH chassis horn. I broke out the Dremel tool again and ground away the zinc to fit.

Once that was done I slid the bumper on and had to redrill the mounting holes as they didn't quite line up. I used a 3/8 bit and put 3/8x4 UNF grade 8 bolts in.

Then the Warn 8274 was mounted. I still need to get some line and a fairlead for it.

109 steering and exhaust

Well when we last left our intrepid rebuild the seat base and RH seat were put in. Since then the winter weather has set in and the daylight hours shorter. This and a Christmas trip to Death Valley slowed my progress down not to mention the issues I had with stuff. So let's get on with the show!--- It took a lot of fiddling around to get the steering column all to work. I decided that I wanted to retain my spoked steering wheel. The Series 2 column used a fiber bushing inside the top of the outer column. The Series 3 uses a bearing in the top. Of course the ID(inner diameter) is different between the 2 columns, with the Series 2 being larger. That's a good thing! The other bit of seat of the pants engineering is the fact that the Series 3 steering wheel splines fit the splines on the U-joint for the lower steering section. That meant that I needed to have the top of the Series 2 inner column welded to the top of the Series 3 inner column and have the Series 2 machined down to fit the Series 3 bearing. Is that clear as mud? Well, it took care of the inner column.

The outer column didn't need any length changes but now I needed a lower inner column support. For this was chosen to put a Series 3 top bearing(#RTC324) to support the Series 3 splined shaft now residing at the bottom. It took a bit to find one online and they are expensive! The thing I found out though was the OD(outside diameter) of the bearing was smaller than the ID of the outer column. Crap can't anything be easy? My solution was to use a piece of stainless steel strapping and cut it lengthwise so the bearing was a tight fit.

Next up was to figure out how to secure the bottom of the outer column so the whole thing wouldn't move around. I started out trying to make a simple L shaped bracket to bolt to the bulkhead support and the flange on the bottom of the column. In the process of doing this I realized that I wanted to shield the lower bearing from debris with a rubber seal. I went ahead and drilled out an old piece of axle bump stop mount from my Rangie that the bumper had fallen off of. I replaced the bump stop after the Christmas trip. I layed out for the center hole for the inner column and the 4 holes for the flange. Then with drills and Dremmel tool made the thing fit! The rubber seal was made with a piece of truck mudflap, the center hole for the shaft was a tight fit to prevent contamination. I greased up the lower bearing with Phil Wood waterproof grease and installed the whole thing.........finally!

Then there was the exhaust system...... I had asked one of the local exhaust shops to come up and look at what I needed and give me an estimate for a stainless system. Well, they came up and looked around and never got back to me with an estimate. WTF? So I looked around on the web and found a place in the UK that does this conversion already. So I didn't get one in stainless figuring that I (hopefully) will get to go overseas and getting a mild steel one fixed in a third world country will be eaiser. So after a series of emails I ordered a kit from Steve Parker Land Rovers LTD (www.steve-parker.co.uk) What I ordered was the 19J motor conversion for the LWB kit. I guess this is for the Series 3 109's. If you remember mine is a Series 2 109. So as typical it didn't just bolt up. The first thing was the bolt hole for the downtube bracket from the turbo was in the wrong place, I had to fit and mark and redrill a hole.

After that was figured out I started to put the system together. Well the second and third pipe didn't fit right. I wanted to know if it was just me and to see my options. So I asked Linus to come up and help me put it together. With his help we were able to put together the whole system and see where I would need to make new hanger brackets. Linus did agree with me that the second and third pipe connection was wrong also the third pipe was too short.

During all this the radiator was put in and filled with premixed 50/50 coolant.

I emailed Steve Parker to make sure I had the right system and had installed it correctly. After them sending me pictures of the installation and confirming that I did have the right kit. I asked my son-in-law Andy to come over and take a look. Andy is also a 4wheeler and has a modified rock crawler Jeep which he built the roll cage for. As well as this he is a plumber by trade (Absolute Plumbing) so he knows tube bending. We crawled under the 109 and took a look, he agreed that it wasn't right and made some suggestions. He produced the angle guage you see in the pictures and we figured that the second pipe needed a 10deg additional bend and the third tube around 3" more length.

So the pics of the angle finder and the interferance of the third pipe and crossmember were emailed to Steve Parker, again to check with the fittment. To his credit after a week of waiting Steve himself answered the issue. When they do the installation they add 1.5" to the third pipe, so he recommended this. Nothing was said about the bend. Armed with this info I took the 2 pieces to Bobby's Pit Stop (www.bobbyspitstop.com) where they added the 1.5" to the third pipe and bent the #2 pipe 10 more degrees.

I took it home and it went on like it should have the first time!Next up was making a hanger for the third pipe since this system was not like the orginal system and needed new brackets for the third pipe, muffler and tail pipe. To do this the muffler was mocked up to the third pipe and held in place(my left arm!) with the hanger on the pipe I could mark where the hanger bracket needed to be. Then taking a piece of 1/8x1 flat stock I made the bracket. I opted for thru bolting the bracket by drilling holes thru the frame and using 4' 5/16 bolts UNF.

After the third pipe was hung I could move on to the muffler. This system hangs the silencer next to the frame in front of the axle. Again mocking up the muffler and marking holes and thru drilling ensued followed by bolting in place. I am not sure if the shock will hit the bolt end but think not.

The tail pipe was the last bit to be fitted. I mocked it up and once again made a bracket for the hanger. This one needed to have an angle and a twist to make it fit. The last clamp on the tailpipe wouldn't get tight enough so I cut a couple of slits in it to make it tighten up under the clamp.

Done!!....Whew!