Roof rack gets updated

My first post on making a roof rack is here;
 http://poppageno.blogspot.com/2014/04/land-rover-109-roof-rack.html

Then I followed it up with a rack designed around my Off Road lites;
http://poppageno.blogspot.com/2014/10/off-road-lites.html

Granted there is not much info on the front part of the rack. Basically I just cut and welded some Super strut into a square that held my Hella 2000's.

After I figured out how to sleep inside I sold my roof top tent. Now my roof rack didn't quite fit what I wanted it to do. Hold things, maybe even some sort of sunshield.

Well I went to Home Depot and bought 3 more pieces of Super-Strut. Figuring on making 2 longitudinal sides and 1 center one. I got eager and coated them with truck bed liner first. Wrong!
First I should have figured out where to put them. As they were drying I did this. I looked down the sides and figured I could just use the existing inboard bolts on the towers. Simples!

It was friggin hot outside to work but I started unbolting the right side inboard bolts, I got halfway done and had second thoughts about this being the best way. My main reasoning was that I wanted the rack to be flexible, that is I could reshape it if I needed to. Unbolting and moving the bars where ever they worked the best. This meant leaving the towers alone. So I put all the tower bolts back and moved the bar over to the first available slot. That is when I realized that I had not cut them to length........

I had already decided that I wanted a 1 hole overhang on the front and I would bring the back end almost even with the rear of the roof. This will be if I need/want to attach any tarps or for rigging. The 2 outboard ones were cut and then re-coated with bed liner. and now ready to install.

Starting with the ends for support I loosely bolted the outboard ones up.

And that is when the real work began......the bolt holes on the welded up section did not line up with the new pieces :^0 There went 2 hours...

The next morning I began the great labor of the day. I used a jigsaw to cut out the side pieces on the welded section. Next I removed the back 2 crossbars and ground off the old weld and re-bedlinered(NEW WORD!) the bare metal. Trust me it wasn't easy, climbing up and down on the roof, cutting and grinding up there and then realizing it would be tons easier if I took it off the roof. Unbolting the gutter clamps. figuring out how to clamp the darn thing so I could grind on it. Re-spraying. then putting them back on the roof.

Since the longitudinal side bars were there I had to figure out where to put the other cross bars. I tried measuring and setting it up evenly but the gutter mounts for the sand ladders are in the way so I got it as even as I could. There is another issue with the center long bar. The front tower is centered on the roof and the cross bar does NOT have a center hole.

This means the center long bar is crooked. In order for it to line up with the closest holes.

But it was coming together! The final thing was re-mounting the Hi-lift jack. I knew from taking measurements that it would not go back on the same holes. 

Sure enough after making the swap, I offered up the jack and Viola!

Put away tools and take the money shots after 4 hours of sweaty work and a trip to the hardware store for nuts and bolts 3/8"-24x3/4".

200TDI injector pump replaced

I hope that you have read this post first; http://poppageno.blogspot.com/2017/03/fuel-injection-pump-200tdi.html

  From it you will know that I took parts from 1 pump to make another run. Well it worked somewhat. The engine ran but until really warm was sluggish off the line and wouldn't climb a hill worth a shit! I had to be in 1st or high revving 2nd to get up my hill, one which I used to climb easily in 2nd and accelerate at the top. Now I almost wouldn't make it up in 2nd. On another local 45mph hill I was resorting to 3rd gear to do around 35 to get over.

   I knew it had to be the pump as nothing else had changed. So I studied my options. One was a new pump at around $1200. Another was send it to the local repair place 80 miles away, for $1000+ parts. Or buy a second hand used one, that seemed to be around $500 to $900 on Fleabay. None of these were cheap and within my meager budget.

So I suffered thru it until recently when I sold my 88. Then cash in had I made an executive decision.............
I bought a new one.

I found out that the injector pump comes under 2 part numbers depending on if it is Leyland or Rover. The Leyland number is ETC8625 and the Rover number is ERR0459 or sometimes ERR459. Either way they both carry the Bosch number 0460414069.

My choice was to go through Bearmach and get a ETC8625 for @$1215 w/$30 shipping. My thinking was that this would probably be around the same price as getting one of mine rebuilt. Especially knowing that I would need a shim and cam plate on one of them and who knows on the other.

Ordered on a Thursday and arrived on the next Monday!

It came with new stop solenoid and crush washers and fuel inlet banjo bolt.

So after taking care of business during the week I picked yesterday to swap out the pumps. I figured a couple of hours. It was going to be 100F later in the day so I started early at 0900.

I kinda knew what tools I needed and dragged them out and set the #1 at TDC and pulled the cover off the timing pulley and stuck in the locking pin.

Then it was a matter of pulling off the hoses and pipes to get at the injector pump. Once all that was out of the way I (following the book closely) Locked the pump with the side lock and pulled the 3 bolts on the pulley and removed the timing pin. Took out the top bolt on the oil filter adapter for clearance issues and unbolted the rear pump bracket and finally the 3 nuts holding the pump to the cover. Easy peasy, I just wish I had smaller hands as it is pretty tight in some places!

Before the pump is removed the timing pulley needs to be locked in place. There is a round disc tool that accomplishes this. Unlike the last time I had a heck of a time getting the bolts in to lock it up. I wound up removing a cadmium plated locking plate and this solved the issue, but I spent 15-20 minutes trying to get the frelling bolts in.

Taking it out I compared the old with the new and swapped parts such as fuel inlet fitting and locking pin. Here I noticed that there is a rubber thingy(technical term) on the diaphram of the new pump that is missing on mine.

It was ready so I brought it over for the install.

One of the things I had to swap over was the locking pin. This is necessary to align the pump and the timing plate and hence the crank et al. With the pump properly aligned it slide smoothly in place. It was then a matter of reversing all the installation work.

I only forgot to tighten the nuts on the injector pipes for #3&4. Other than that NO LEAKS!!
Here is one with it running.

Next up was the test drive. I should say that I didn't bleed any lines after the install as the Bosch VE pumps are self bleeding. It did take, what, 10-20 seconds on the starter to fill the pump and get ignition.

So I cleaned up a bit and threw the tools int the back and went down the hill to the mailboxes and back. I noticed right away just pulling out of the drive it no longer was sluggish and responded properly to the touch of the throttle. I went down the hill with no problem other than the damn smoking issue is still there(sigh) and turned around. coming back up the hill would be the test. I set out in first and shifted to second and kept the rpms low, about 3/4 of the way up I gave it some wellie and it spun up and charged up the rest of the way. SUCCESS!

After the test drive I opened up both my now spare pumps and swapped the parts back. Maybe my original spare works, who knows? All told it took me 3 hours and it was 93F when I was finished. So I went inside and showered and napped and later in the afternoon I drove into town and picked up a 6-pack for a job well done reward :^)

Now to tackle the smoke and oil consumption issues, most likely a ring job. :^(


Updated; Aug 28 2017, I got to say my 109 runs great now. I went up a hill that with the original pump I could do in 4th, then it was 35 in 3rd after I swapped parts into it, yesterday I went up in 4th OD with pedal to spare! WOOT! WOOT!!

Still smokes though..... :^(