misc Land Rover 109 stuff

Ok yesterday I got my lengthened steering link back from the welder. We added 9in to the center with some cold rolled mild steel rod. The welder, Daren of ArcTec in Santa Cruz, took a 16" bar rod and turned 4" down on each end to fit inside the split stock steering link. Then he welded the seam and drilled and put in welds into the inner shafts to make it stronger.

I brought it home and cleaned it up and sprayed it with black bed liner from Duplicolor. The same stuff I've used elsewhere. It was not dry enough to install today.

So instead I worked on making a large guage/switch panel to fit the right side of the steering column. I used an old small panel as a template and using some measurements made a new panel out of a piece of aluminum I had laying around. Once it was shaped and bent I marked the holes and drilled everything out. Then with my rivenut tool I put in 3 of them to hold the panel in place. Now I just have to figure out what to put in it!

So before drilling any holes I've covered it with the truck bed liner ;^) Just hoping to keep it from getting scratched.

After that was made I went to task on my demisters. Last week I discovered that I couldn't use any of the one's I have because of the interference of the single motor wiper system that's been installed. To make it work I hade to make the RH one 5/8" taller from between the screw holes to the hose opening. Not done yet so there are no pics. I am not sure if I will make the LH side larger or not to match. Still have to put in the hose hole and figure out the connection for it. Plus strip and repaint the old seatbase lid I made it out of.

Horn for the 109

Well, I was ill for a week with a cold so that took me out of my stride. Was actually about 9 days to feel 100% again.
I put an airhorn on my Land Rover. No not one of the great huge things. A small one that's loud and distinctive. I had put one(Stiebel) previously on my Suzuki DL650 V-Strom and it works a peach!
I bought one at my FLAPS(Friendly local auto parts store) O'Reilly's. This one was a "Bad boy" brand.

In order to mount it I had to find the horn wiring in the loom and figure the mounting from there. I was able to put it in front of the battery, bolted to the battery tray. The horn system is a one wire circuit from the horn button with the ground going thru the horn motor/housing. Easy peasy.

I bought an aluminum hawse for my winch and put it on. I then stamped my winch, bumper and hawse with my last name incase of theft.

I ordered a valve for my brake servo so the vacuum pump could be hooked up. Well it came in this week and turns out it don't fit! WTF? The new valve is too large to even go into the bare hole let alone with a seal. I'm currently checking with the supplier about different sizes. The supplier of my servo listed it as coming off a 1983 Land Rover Series 3. The pics show the old and new seals, old one has the smaller end hole, and the valve fitment to the servo. I don't find anything online about 2 sizes............when will it end?

Been having issues with the wiring loom too...............the brake wiring was set up for RHD not LHD. The wiring in the dash ends with mostly ring terminals----all the switches are spade connectors....To do it all over again I'd build my own loom and forget Autosparks and thier US pawn British Wiring. On the good side Autosparks has been answering some of my email questions.

I feel over my head with the wiring. There are some wires not listed in the diagrams in the loom and some in the diagrams not in the loom. Total SNAFU in my book. But between the Series 2-2a-3-110(19j motor) wiring diagrams I am getting some of it worked out. I now have brake lights that function off the pedal, headlights(not sure the dip switch works right) and running lights front and rear. I may need to pay for help.

front 109 wing fittment

Ok so the fittment of the LH front wing was undertaken.  The first thing I did was the wingtop modification of cutting an access panel at the rear of the wingtop. This is above the clutch and brake master cylinders on LHD models. It affords easier access to the master cylinders and pedal towers without having to remove the entire wing. There is also improved access to the bolts holding the wing to the bulkhead and the mudshield.

     To do this I looked at the underside and measured out how far I could go with a panel. Over the years of Land Rover ownership I have discovered that the bigger the access the easier it is to do the work. You have to watch out for the mudshield bracket on the underside of the wingtop. I settled for 1 foot(12inches) on this job.

     The foot mark was transferred to the top surface and tape layed out on the line and next to it to keep the paint from getting marked up. Then a jigsaw was used to cut the wingtop.

     I had previously secured some flat aluminium stock for my connecting bracket. I predrilled it for 1/4" holes for the bolts and 1/8" holes to locate the 3/16" pop rivets I was going to use. The 1/4" holes were tapped with 1/4-28 thread. With these in hand I marked the 1/4 hole locations on the top and drilled out the holes. Removed the side bolts from the access panel and then bolted the bracket in place. At this time I have to tell you that the bolts need to go in the front part of the wingtop and the pop rivets in the access panel. This prevents the new bracket from protruding into the access space( Don't ask me how I know).

    So with the panel clamped and bolted in place the pop rivet holes were enlarged to 3/16 and the rivets put in.

    The wing to bulkhead bolts were installed so the wing could be fitted. Then I removed the top and bottom ones as they are not a slide fit into the wing. The new access panel was left on and a bolt put in upside down in the top mounting bracket to locate the wingtop, allowing the wing to hang in position.

     So the next process was hang the wing, mark the area needing to be cut around the steering box, remove the wing, cut the wing, refit the wing, see where there was interference and mark the wing, remove the wing, cut the wing, refit the wing, see if there was any interference and mark the wing, remove the wing, cut the wing, refit the wing, see if there was any interference, mark the wing........well you get the idea. Lots of fettling around the steering box and the lower steering column.

    Even with all the fettling I screwed up and made one section too large an opening. Solving this was as simple as pop riveting the cut off section to fit the needed opening.

 It is not permantly mounted because I still need access to the electrics on that side but it does fit.