109 roof paint!

Okie Dokie, Brian L. came over today and painted the roof. We had gone over to the paint shop yesterday and bought some Limestone paint. Paint code we used was for Dupont 38505 in a Nason brand urethane paint($128.00). We bought a half gallon plus the reducer and catalyst. As I was prepping the roof I noticed that the few months of sitting on my front porch had allowed a buildup of corrosion/crap on it so I spent a hour or so using my vibrating sander with a red scuff pad on it to clean up the alluminim of both the sides and roof top. Then I taped everything off. My paint booth is too small to fit the roof and sides so we sill paint the sides tomorrow. Then next week Brian will paint the replacement parts for my Range Rover and then the paint booth can be taken down! I think the neighbors will like that! Thank you so much for all the brilliant paint work Brian!! So here are some pics from todays painting.

109 flywheel housing

I went to look to see what I needed to mount the transmission. I knew that some of the studs were missing off the flywheel housing for attaching the bell housing. When I checked them I pulled one of the existing studs and went and bought some new ones. Then I tried to put them in place, this is when I found that some of the holes were threadless and would not hold the stud....GRRRR. So now I had to get a Helicoil set and put in some helicoils. These sets are not cheap!

So I went ahead and bought a set of M10x1 helicoils and put some in the housing. first I drilled out the hole to the proper size 13/32(?) then using the supplied tap I tapped the hole out. Once the hole was cleaned I added a couple of drops of Loctite and using the installing tool I inserted the helicoil. Once the coil wsa in I put in the proper stud and tightened it up.

Roof top job 109

Since my adoring fans(all 2 of them[you know who you are]) clamoured for more, here is more. I worked on my roof top the last couple of days. Brian is leaving for the UK and wants to get things painted prior to leaving. So I fixed up my paint booth, the wind keeps blowing it apart, and put the roof top inside. I thoroughly recleaned it and flipped it upside down. I then tested the spot welds on the front and found that quite a few had given up holding the 2 sheets together. That is why it leaked. While the previous owner had put in pop rivets he failed to totally accomplish a seal. I hope to, so wish me luck! I drilled out the remaining spot welds and cleaned out the mastic between the sheets. Then I deburred the holes top and bottom. I was going to clamp the sheets together and put in the rivets but I don't have a deep enough clamp to reach over the drip rail and close the seam. So I went to the hardware store and bought some 10-32 allen bolts and nuts and washers. With these I was able to loosely close the gap and put some sealant on the inside of the seam where the mastic was applied. Then I closed the bolts down and closed the seam down. With the 2 sheets firmly in place I proceeded to put in solid rivets in all the spot weld holes. Some came out quite nice and others are crooked so I will have to remove and replace tomorrow. They did however pull the 2 sheets together. I hope it sealed them, I think so as the sealant squeezed out as I installed the rivets. In the event that the front doesn't seal from the bottom I am also getting an autobody sealant and will go over ALL the outside seams and drip rail. The auto sealant is paintable and the roof should be Limestone when done. I still have to figure out how to put the side rivets in. I think it will be a 2 man job. Pictures are of the roof with the spot welds drilled out and some of the steps I went thru.

trips and 109

Well, once again it has been awhile since I posted up. But I have been busy. There was the trip to Nebraska, Then I put in the fuel system, tank, filter, lift pump and all the hoses. I still need to get the bottom hose for the radiator.

I may just wind up with a generic one. I have been struggling with what I am going to do about a transmission. I have one that came with the vehicle but it is in unknown condition. I also have a series 3 transmission that came with it and the guy said that it was bad. When Timm Cooper was her putting on the brake system we talked about him rebuilding my series 3 gearbox and putting the older lower geared transfer case on it. The major factor for me was time and money, I knew that any time Timm spent on my project would eat into the work he was doing on Gonzo and that had gone on too long. So I waited and did other things. I went to the annual Mendo_Recce campout for Land Rovers on the last full weekend in April at Cedar Camp in the Mendocino National Forest. That was Fri., Sat., Sun. of Rover porn! It was nice to see new peoples and Rovers and see old friends! The Saturday night potluck was fabulous!!!!

The following Wed. saw Linus and I heading to the Owens Valley, in Calif. He had gotten us signed up on an Expedition Portal arrainged trip "Cinco de Inyos". However Ignotus(my88) was having loud clunking noises coming from the frontwheel drive, as I had discovered at Mendo. I checked things out as well as I could between trips and replaced one suspect free wheel hub. But trying it out in the Alabama Hills showed that the noise was still there. Bummer! So I decided to not go off road into the Inyos. I didn't want to break down 25 miles from nowhere and have a difficult extraction. So Linus and his girlfriend Hayley went with the group on Friday and returned to Independance on Saturday.

In the meantime my friend Emilie and I did the tourist thing and visited the museums in Independance and Lone Pine and a stop at the Internment camp of Manzanar. That night we camped at a windy Alabama Hills! The next day we found the dirt road that goes up the Eastern side of the Owens Valley, and we visited 2 mines a gold mine and a talc mine. Then we rondevouzed with Linus and Hayley. Linus was also experiencing noises in his front wheel drive but his double cardan in the rear had failed and was making horrible noise and vibration! So he took it off and we got an early start on the way home Saturday night. We drove to the East side of the pass to Lake Isabella and camped at a place Linus knew of. It was among the Joshua trees and the coyotes howled at night, with almost a full moon! With the tailgate down I can sleep in the back of my 88, Emilie in her tent and Linus and Haylie in thiers. I want to go back to the Owens Valley and spend more time there! On the 109 front I was contacted by Brian H. and he said that Timm might have a gearbox for me. So I called him up and arranged to go up last Wed. I borrowed my daughters Toyota Tacoma and piled 2 transmissions in it. One I spent Tuesday night taking the low gear transfer case off of. So I hauled it all up to Placerville where Timm showed me what he had and then I had him install the lower gear xfer case on the Late 2a gearbox he had rebuilt previously. When I came home I had 2 complete transmissions plus my old gearbox! We did look into the inspection port on the series 3 xfer case and we could see that the mainshaft nut was loose, That could be the only thing wrong with it. I drained the oil today and could not find any metal in the oil. So I need to take the top off the selector forks and check it out more but first I need to clean the outside of the case1 YUCK!! I did finish putting the xfer case back together after painting some of the rusty covers and new bolts and studs for the covers and such. One thing I did do was I took the flange for the output shaft drive gear, you know the one the rear prop shaft and parking brake bolt onto, down to the auto shop and had them press off the mudshield for the flange. This gave access to those damn Whitworth bolts that hold on the brake drum! We removed them and replaced them with 5/16 SAE bolts. Yaay!!!

I also replaced the four Whitworth studs that the backing plate for the park brake is atttached with. Funny they are 3/8 SAE going into the case but have Whitworth for the nuts???? Now mine are all SAE. So I have all that back together and am ready to put it into the 109. But nagging at my mind is that it would be nicer if I put the fully syncroed gearbox in, so I may wait until I see what shape the inside is in. That brings me to today, Wed. Brian L. came over and painted the bulkhead for me. It looks great but the paint really shows all the galvanizing imperfections. I am pretty sure all the body is painted now. Still have to do the sealing of the roof and then paint it and the sides.

Sometimes this is really alot of work! I want to get the tranmission in before I put the bulkhead on, it will make it easier and less chance of damaging the fresh paint. I had to get some new studs for the bellhousing as some were missing. So I took out one and bought some new ones, When I went to put them in I found that 3 of them are stripped out and I had to buy a Helicoil set ($ouch). I get to do that next. Then I need to find out what bolts and shims I might need to put on the flywheel. I know I only have 2 bolts for it.

Land Rover military oil cooler

It has been a frustrating time the last few weeks trying to get the fittings sorted out for the fuel and oil cooler systems.
The previous owner had let the shop doing his swap just cut hoses and pipes and reuse fittings on his 200tdi. So I wound up with no fittings for the fuel system.
Trying to find them on the web or in my parts book was a waste of time even emails to Craddocks was fruitless as they had no idea what was supposed to go on. They offered an educated guess.
Also missing was the fan belt and alternator pivot bracket/bolt/spacer. I could find the bolt and bracket and bought a bracket online from Rovah Farm. I had purchased a belt from them earlier, when I realized that I would need one.
The spacer was more difficult. It showed on the parts drawings but had no number attached, even Craddocks failed to find one. So I made one. I put the pivot bracket up to the face of the alt and measured the distance to the face of the block. I then had to get some spacer material but first I need a bolt so I knew what size i.d. was needed.
I tried 3 hardware and 2 autoparts stores and one Brit car repair shop but nobody carried a M8x100x.75. I had to go to Fastenal and buy 10 of them..........
I stopped at the hardware store and bought a stainless steel 4 in. pipe nipple that had the right i.d.. At home I cut it down to the correct length. Then installed the spacer/bolt/pivot bracket.
Next was the fan belt----WTF? it won't fit, too short so I check online with Rover Farm did I get the correct one? Yes, that's supposed to fit.
Well my alt has the bulge from the bolt hole that hits the block before the belt can go on.
So I try my spare for my 2.25, it fits but is pretty large with almost no room for future stretching. So drive into town and get the next size up belt, 10mm longer. It too is too short!
The next day go back to town, 14 miles each way, and get the next larger belt another 10mm. This one fits! Finally!! I had bought 2 so I have a spare.
Adjust the belt tension and tighten everything up.
On to the fuel lines;

I removed one of the inlet fittings from the injector pump and took a spare fuel lift pump down to the Hose Shop. There Linus was able to make correct fitting choices and provide me with some pipe to flare and connect hoses to.

Of course my flaring tool wouldn't hold the steel pipe so I could flare it and my tubing bender does not have a 5/16 groove for bending--------Arrgghh! But I did my best, but it wasn't satisfactory.
So the next day I asked Linus to come up and help me sort things out. He came up after work one night and we looked it over and decided to return to the Hose Shop to make good fittings. It took us 2 hours of cutting/drilling/soldering to get them done. We made fittings that bolt on not just slip a hose over and use a hose clamp. But he only had 3 fittings for the hose connections so I had to wait on those for 2 days. I took this time to fit the new fittings in place and measure for hose length. Here Brian and I discoverd that the fittings would make an "S" shape for the lift pump to injector pump. So once again a fitting would need to be changed.
When the fittings came in we went down and shortened the injector pump pipe and made it vertical to eliminate the "S". Whew, things then went together.

On the oil line front; things were too congested at the crossover point for the hoses. So I wound up making a longer pipe for the bottom connection with an "L" pointing along the frame towards the oil filter. This meant the hose needed to be shortened and a new fitting crimped on, so back to the Hose Shop. I put it on today and it all fits nicely!

The fuel tank;
I bought a new diesel fuel sending unit and went to put it on. I saved the screws from the old tank but they wouldn't work :^(
I used one from the shipping cap to find the correct size and bought 6 new ones. This installed the sending unit.
We(Linus and I) made a 3way connector for the diesel return line at the tank to fit the spill rail(3/16) and the injector overflow(5/16).
I put some of the Right Stuff around all the outside seams on the fuel tank. My hope is to prevent water from getting inbetween the tank and skid plate where they rust out. Even though my tank has been in my front room since I bought it rust has formed where the brackets are welded on. Crappy paint job!

All this while helping Brian get his tranny put together, figure out why the Roverdrive wouldn't go back on. Getting it on and bolting up the bellhousing only to find a leak in the clutch throwout box. Pulling the tranny again and fixing the leak and reinstalling said tranny and roverdrive all in the last 2 weeks. Sandwich in a train trip to Nebraska and helping Linus drive home a 64 109 that took 5 days. Plus 2 to recover from the trip!

Land Rover tub is on

Ok on Wednesday, Brian and Matt came over and we put the tub on the chassis. It was pretty straight forward. Carry it out of the paintbooth and put it on the chassis. first we moved the chassis forward so we could come over the back instead of lifting it up over the motor.

Thursdsay I took the oil cooler down to the media blaster to get the rust removed from the supports. In the afternoon I bolted down the tub. For this I had made some spacers out of HDPE (high density polyethelene) I used stainless hardware and antiseize.

Here is one of the alli ones and some of the hdpe spacers.

Brian has finished painting my radiator support panel and I put it on. Waiting on the oil cooler to be installed to take some photos. It is still at the blasters at this time.

oil cooler fitment

Sunday, I started fitting the oil cooler and radiator. I knew that I would need to remove some metal from the radiator support panel to allow the hoses to pass by. I just wasn't sure where and how much. I also need to find out how I was going to secure the oil cooler itself and see if I had enough clearance for the fan.
I started by bolting in the radiator support panel, I had to fabricate the rubber support pads for the install. Next I slid the oil cooler into the rad panel and set the radiator into position. This I loosely bolted in to keep it from falling.

Then I checked the fan fitment, it was good so I put it away. I have room for either the 2.25 steel fan or the 2.5 plastic fan. Unless I overheat I'm going with the steel fan.
Then I played around with the oil cooler(OC) placement. I had to have the bottom fitting on the left side away from the steering relay(RHD). One of my brake line clamps was in the way and would have to be changed. I marked the slots for the bottom brackets so I could drill mounting holes. The new hoses were slid into the rad panel and mounted to the oil filter housing. I marked the places where I would remove the material and took everything apart.

Using a flat round disc of the approximate arc I outlined on the rad panel where I need to cut. I cut arcs to try to avoid stress risers from square cuts. I wound up using my Dremel tool to cut the arc out and burned it up in the process. A little time with a hacksaw and metal files cleaned everything up! I refit the panel and checked hose clearances. All's good.
I called Brian up for coffee and gave him the panel to paint for me.

Returning home after coffee I decided to fit the fan belt. I had purchased it last year from Rovah Farm. Try as I might I could not get it to fit it is too small by maybe an inch! It's always something......The lump on the side of the alt hits the block. Then I don't have the spacer for the pivot bolt for the alternator. Now I'm trying to find the part number. It is this kind of stuff that makes it go so slow. I wish I could just go to my nearest Halfords and pick up the parts as needed@@##$@!

I did try my belt for my 2.25 motor and it fits but is a little large. I will go to my FLAPS (Friendly Local Auto Parts Store) and see what I can get to fit. Thankfully I'm not on a deadline!!