Land Rover 109, raising the roof-rack

 20 Jan 2022

    I did this a couple of weeks ago and have been trying to decide if it merits posting. So WHAT THE HECK!

When I first made my roof rack out of super strut; https://poppageno.blogspot.com/2014/04/land-rover-109-roof-rack.html

And then made some changes; https://poppageno.blogspot.com/2014/10/off-road-lites-and-simple-roof-rack.html

Then finally with this; https://poppageno.blogspot.com/2017/08/roof-rack-gets-updated.html

All that was good until I swapped tops. I traded my regular top for a tropical top complete with sunshade. With my rack I had built it tall enough to clear the trop top, yet I had a couple of issues that popped up.

One issue was the crossbars were too close to the sunshade and detritus from the redwood trees got caught in the gap and built up. Second was when I was on the roof I could step on the rack and it would bend down to the sunshade.

So I figured out how to raise the rack, by removing the mounts one at a time I could unbolt the top from the upright.

With a little help from the angle grinder I tapered the edges and butt-welded them together.

This gave me around a 1-5/8" lift, should be plenty of room for those pesky little branches to slide under.

In the rear because of  the door lift I had to find some spare steel and make the lift pieces to weld on.

It only took me 9 hours to do all 10, once I had the method and sequence down it went faster,

Land Rover 109 niggling, wiggling, jiggling things

 18 Jan 2022, Happy New Year!

Well to make a long story short, Over the resto mod and since the transmission is quieter after doing the last seal I decided to tackle some of those jiggly noisemaking things that have been niggling my conscience. 

    First off was the aluminum sand mat rattle. The new clamps didn't hold them tight enough to keep them quiet. All I needed was a rubber spacer on the rear clamp system between the mats and the bracket. It is barely visible in the pic.

Next was the door mirrors really shake especially at idle. Now I had made the "Z" brackets to hold these arms and probably should have used thicker material, ya run what ya bring. The fix was to cut and install a round bit of nylon. Yes I did measure, but in the end I used my eyecrometer to cut and fit the nylon. I gently pried the bracket up and slid the spacer in and tapped it into place. Both side mirrors needed it.

Then I went after the steering wheel! The top bearing was either missing or the wrong fit.

Here is a pic of the bearing in the S3 manual.

I pulled off the steering wheel and wiggled things about. Obvious was the lack of grease in the bearing allowing the balls to congregate towards the bottom. I found my hypodermic syringe and put some Phil Wood grease in it. Because the nozzle is small it allowed me to squeeze grease in amongst the balls.

 It was while doing this that I discovered the inner portion of the bearing was riding up the steering column when it turned! I gently tapped it back and turned the wheel slightly and the durn thing popped right out....

    I knew I had to make some sort of spacer to keep the inner down as there was no wiggle when it was. First I tried a bit of rubber under the turn signal ring, it proved too thick. I found a bit of plastic and drilled a 7/8" center hole and cut it about 1-1/2" od and tried that. It took a bit of persuading but it now fits and doesn't wiggle!

Next I started looking for a noise in the cab I can't find while driving. Going to the passenger(RH) side I started feeling around while the engine idled.

That is when I saw it!

A few days ago I drove to the grocery store and I could barely get my windscreen to stay defrosted, despite the fan on high.

The new door on my heater plenum for the passenger footwell was open.......The door swung freely.....too freely as it wouldn't stay closed.

The pic shows the open door after I drilled the hole for the new latch.

So figuring out a latch meant a bolt welded to a piece of 1/8"x1/2" flat stock and slightly bent and the one side tapered to make sliding down the inside wall of the plenum easy.

 

I used a double nutted setup to tension the latch and I welded a bit of rod to the top nut for a handle.

Finally, closed;

Open;

Be nice if the defroster works!