locker install

So, if you read the I feel cursed post you know what happened. The response from Ashcroft was less than stellar IMHO!  What Dave emailed back was "Sorry, Just drill it and put in a 1/2 BSPT plug" "We can send you one"

I decided to put in a threaded bung on the back of the axle housing, I procured a 1/2"NPT( this is America after all) bung and plug along with a 1-1/8' hole saw.

 Then measured the one on my front axle and located the location with a pilot hole and drilled out the axle housing.

Using a magnet I held the bung in place

 and draggged out my welder and had a go at it. It was a disaster to say the least. Why you ask? Well I wear trifocal eyewear and I couldn't see what my puddle was doing, at one point I was about an inch away from the flange and another on the top edge..............bad....

So I ground it all off with a Dremel tool, took hours. Asked my son-in-law to come weld it up for me but he never came so 2 days later I asked my friend an fellow Rover addict Brett for help and he came over and did the job. A nice job too! Thanks Brett!

the inside;

the outside after painting;

Next was removing all the inside slag and debris from cutting and grinding. One of the tricks I use is to wrap a magnet in a cloth or paper towel and drag it around inside, every now and then removing it and taking the cloth away from the magnet and the iron drops to the ground and the cloth is reusable. I also sprayed with brake cleaner between magnetic treatments. I did this until I got no more steel particles.

Then I put on the locker;

Installed the ROAM 24spline axles using engine assembly grease;

And filled it with 90w!

Done!  Still have to figure out the air compressor location and run the lines, but that's not as important as getting the engine figured out.

Discovery 200TDI into Series belt issues

Oh boy, I feel like I've really stepped in it this time. Been struggling with the power steering, alternator belt set up. I can't seem to find the right bits.

Starting with the PAS pump and alt from the 2.5DT only to find that they will not fit so I ordered a new 70amp alt from Craddocks. The problem is with where the tensioning ears are located in relation to the mounting pivot, the 2.5 is on the top and the 200 on the bottom.

Above is the new Disco one with the old pulley mounted.

Below is the proper belts in position awaiting the power steering pump. 

Then with the pump in place there are 2 things to look at, 1) the belt won't go on the alt, 2) neither the alt or the alt clamp clear the steering column.

So I tried moving the clamp hole over on the PAS bracket and grinding off some of the bracket to make clearance. While this helped it was not enough so I redid the process, moving the hole and grinding off material.

 Now the alt housing hits the curve of its mounting bracket limiting compression travel and the clamp slot limits extension travel but the belt is too long. I cut down the slotted clamp to help things fit.

And welded a hole in the end.

This allowed me to bring the alt closer and keep it out of the steering column, IF I can find a belt to fit..........I had to unbolt everything and force the belt on with a prybar for this pic but I need to have a field repairable setup. Also the adjusting clamp is on the wrong side of the PAS bracket.

So where am I at now? After many trips to the auto parts stores I have found that the particular size auto belt I need doesn't exist....Sigh.....but a power transfer belt such as a table saw belt does, I tried 2 of them today but they were too short. Then I took copies of my pics to the FLAPS and we decided on trying to get a different size pully on the alternator. The one which is currently on is a 63mm and my next larger options are 78, 81, 93mm, I am hoping to get all 3 and try them until one fits. Part of the issue is that there is only about 15mm of adjustment available on the slotted clamp between fully compressed and extended.

1 or the other not both.

Ok here's the update, I had the auto store ship(on my dime, of course) the 3 different size pulleys. The small old one is the one off my 2.5DT.

You can see that a couple of them were much wider. While contemplating which one to order I had done some math and figured the 81mm would be the one I would order, then I decided on trying all 3. The short story is the 81mm is the one that fit best with the stock belt, it's part # is from Carquest, 24-1104.

It was a bit of take off and try this and that before I settled on it but here's what it looks like;

Not too pleased with the clearance at the steering column I decided to move the steering box over by installing a 1/2" steel plate between it and the frame, I had to get some longer M12-1.75 x 70 bolts, here is the before pic;

And after;

the alignment

Land Rover putting 19J manifolds on 200TDI

As you might be aware quite a few peopes have been swapping out the 2.25 and 2.5 engines for the 200TDI engines in thier Series vehicles. The most popular is to get the Defender engine because the turbo is mounted above the intake/exhaust manifolds whereas the Discovery 200 has the turbo below the exhaust/intake.
   Because of this demand and the fact of the limited production of Defender style manifolds, IF you can find one, sellers are asking silly money.

Now my old engine the 19j, commonly called the 2.5DT had a turbo and the fellow I bought the Disco engine from also had a 19j turbo and manifolds, plus he had paperwork explaining how to adapt the 19j to the 200 by a guy in Holland. Basically it said to hold everything on with a bar across the top. To me this sounded more like a bodge and I knew it could be done better.

So taking the 2 sets of manifolds down to Arc-tec Welding along with a 200 manifold gasket for a template I asked Daren to add some holes in the proper places. Daren is a very good welder and can do cast iron and does small jobs for folks.

What he did for the exhaust was cut off the old holes and take the flanges off the extra manifold, from these flanges he sourced new bits with the holes and welded them in the proper location.

Here's the other side after being surfaced.

On the intake side he just welded on some 1/4" plate and drilled holes in it.

So Monday I got home late after running errand and helping Brett with his RRC and I tried the manifold on the head. The intake went on no problem, but the exhaust wouldn't go on.  I removed the intake to see what might be the issue, it seemed the holes were not big enough and sure enough a M10 bolt would not pass thru 2 of them. So I reamed them out and tried again. Still a no-go. So using the correct sizes, M8-M10, I bolted the manifolds to the gasket and sure enough 1 of the holes on the end was about 3/16" off. End of day.

The next day after doing some necessary business I took the bolted manifolds down to Daren to see what could/should be done. After some discussion he welded material on to the outside of the flange and the inside of the hole to move it over and die ground it to the right place.

Bringin it home I put it on and it wouldn't go, so I tried a M10 drill in it and the hole was too small and needed to be reamed out, I did this with my dremel tool as so not to screw up the hole with a drill bit chattering about in it. While doing this I discovered that the die grinder had left the hole tapered and once the taper was removed the manifold fit the stud pattern on the head!!!!!!

Next up was to fit the intake and exhaust to make sure they play nice together.

A close look shows the left side exhaust hitting the intake flange as was the inner flanges.

So out came the grinder and some material removed from the intake.

And once again test fitted.

Went on just fine.

I then went about cleaning up the newly welded hole and flange so thing like nuts and washers and gaskets would seat right.

Perhaps you noticed that there are no holes in the top of the exhaust flange? Well Daren made some clamps out of 1/4" steel  to hold both the intake and exhaust flanges.

The following pics show how they fit;

This last pic is of the center clamp in place

I am still awaiting the M10 studs to be able to mount this up.

The M10 studs came in today 3-14 and I fit stuff on but need 2 more M10-1.5x35 for the middle exhaust studs to make the clamps fit. More in the following posts.

Update; I've test fitted and the center clamp thing isn't going to work, can't get the nuts on, so I've taken it back to the welder and asked to have holes welded to the flange. He is having a tough time also due to the difficulty of access.

Land Rover extended fuel tank,

Ugh! that was a bad weekend, but it didn't stop me from doing stuff on Sunday and Monday.

Lets start with on Friday Daren called to let me know the manifolds were done, but it was too late for me to go down and get them so I had to wait over the weekend. On Monday I loaded the 88 with the aux fuel tank and headed down to see Daren.

We checked out the manifolds and they looked good but still rough so it was decided that he would change the fuel tank from a right hand to a left hand while I took the manifolds to the shop and had them surfaced.

So off I went to Andy's Auto Supply where I knew that they could do it. They agreed to do the exhaust while I waited and inbetween other customers and chit chatting with Mike it took about an hour to get done. Once that was done I headed back to Arc-Tec Welding to see if Daren was done.

He wasn't quite finished but cut the gussets and welded them on and it was done.
Here's the tank after;

I think I will have to trim the inboard gusset to fit the outrigger.
I also picked up fittings at The Hose Shop

Due to the gusset welds I had to modify the mounting hanger by narrowing the bottom, I will have to drill new holes when I finally put it in.

I rounded the corners to relieve stress risers and smoothed the edges.
Here's how it now fits in the bracket;

I'll install it when I get the transmission all put in. This should give me around 25 gallons(US) total capacity, IF the 109 get 20mpg that will be around 500 miles range. Then with diesel at $4.00USD cost $100.00USD to fill.

I got around to painting it, well I guess I should say coating it. I used the Duplicolor spray on bed liner after taping up the fittiings and hose connections. This should help with corrosion issues in the future.

I feel cursed! Locker wrong

My whole ife nothing has gone right or easy, what the fuck did I do?

 Who cares! Maybe this fourth beer will help!

Today I found out that Ashcroft sent the wrong diff for my vehicle, it has no oil fill  and my axle housing has none either. I told them it was for a 1960 Series 2. I did a lot of stuff today getting ready to put it in. I made a new paper gasket by measuring my old diff and cutting out a ring and then using a ball pien to make the holes for the bolts.

Then I went and tried it on the new locker tand made some small adjustments on the inner size to make it fit. Under the 109 I checked the fit only to find that the old one has 2 locating pins and the new locker had none so I cut the pins off with my dremel and ground the face flat and then wirebrushed the whole face clean. that when I went to p[ut on the diff after greaseing the new gasket. One of the locating points I use it the oil fill has to be in the right place, well looking as hard as I could I found it wasn't there. AARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!

So i put everything away and emailed Ashcroft(but it's Saturday) and cracked a beer.

Here's the pics from today; you figure it out.