lo-fi

Sounds like I might have an interesting time with the plugs! If I can clear some room, I'll grab an axle out of the garage ready for chopping this weekend.

Thanks! Some interesting comments from Bill about the plug welds being really hard on the LR axles.... Those merc axles DD has there seem to be very similar construction.

Hello, and apologies for a very tardy reply. A heavy dose of flu this week has made it hard to write anything coherent.. Again, thank you all for the info. Ive got a ropey old casing I don't mind chopping about, so I'll post my findings as I start taking it apart. It'll be interesting, even if only to justify my curiosity for how they're put together. Maybe it'll help someone else in the future. A tubular insert would seem to be a good option if you were going to modify them, though, and very strong. I came across the Perentie in my research, and I understand they're being withdrawn from service. I haven't managed to hunt down too many photos of the suspension and drive line arrangements yet, though. I have to admit to being tempted, but not as tempted as I am to get my hands dirty and see what I can engineer myself.... I'll look up the Rockwell's, they do sound interesting. Agreed that a vertical diff could be good, but does depend on weight, track and fixings. Can't have too many research avenues to explore, even if it isn't Land Rover

Thank you all, that gives me something to go on. I'll see what I can hunt down from dirtydiesel too Do you mind if I ask what your welding process was in the end, mat2494? Interesting choice if they are cast iron and welded! Drilling plug welds out seems entirely possible - a few holes in the tube can easily be fixed once extracted. I think I saw a pic of a diff without the tubes on your ratio swap blog entry, Snagger? Were they just cut for ease of handling the donor? So, inspired by the 6 wheeler thread Deltech started a week ago, I got thinking about it. Purely an intellectual exercise at this point, but most of my better projects start off with a "what if?" well before I pick up any tools. Anyway, I was researching what's gone before, and stumbled across a fascinating thread on the subject with a lot of input from Bill Van Snorkle and others. Lots of conversions with another axle bolted in and either a special transfer box, double pinion (truly horrible) or simply 6x4. Most on Rover axles, rather than Salisbury, and very few that use a swing/load equaliser beam, which is what I'm exploring. I was running through the connotations of custom transfer box, split drive on middle axle, that sort of thing too - so whether the housings can be effectively modified and/or the left/ right tubes swapped becomes relevant. I know 6x6 has been done before, and the resulting vehicle can be of debatable utility, but it's fun to think about

Hello! I'm currently musing about a few things, which may lead on to some other stuff (apologies for the villain-like vagueness): Are the diff housings cast steel or iron? Anybody tried welding them? Is it possible to remove the axle tubes without destroying them? How are they secured? Many thanks Ian

Have you taken careful measurements of the bores, deck and bearing seats to check that the bores are still round and the block straight? That's probably where I would start. Any pictures of the block damage with pistons removed?

Peening/caulking it with a small, blunt punch around the leaks might help too, depending on their location and size. I've been learning the dark arts of loco boiler making, which involves sealing lots of metal to metal joints. It still amazes me that a rivet or even a stay in a threaded hole can be permanently sealed using no sealant, against 200psi steam, over hundreds of thermal expansion cycles just by impacting the plate around the joint. And it's all worked cold!

You could pull a very mild vacuum while painting that area, get it to draw into the pinhole a little. Can be very effective. Lovely work!

Hello Just thought I'd ask if anyone has a drawing? I'm toying with the idea of making a PTO with a magnetic clutch to run some light ancillaries. A drawing would be really helpful! Many thanks Ian

I believe the rad in the 3.9 disco donor I used had 1/2 bsp fittings for the oil cooler. These measure 0.825" OD at 14tpi. Don't forget that BSP size names don't relate the the thread size: http://www.motalia.com/Html/Charts/bsp_chart.html A bit of measuring ought to reveal what you're dealing with

Use a 7PK1220 if I recall correctly. Loop over the alt, behind the water pump and over the crank. Bolt on tensioner which adds a little tweak in the long side, works like a charm.

Ah, that's interesting about the alarm box - thank you. The electronic stuff gets a bad rep because "you have to plug a laptop in to work out what's wrong with it". My argument is "what's wrong with that?". I find myself getting frustrated with the older stuff because I can't just read off a diag code to get me heading in the right direction I work on steam engine restoration projects, and of course, as they're all old boys I work with, this very conversation comes up: "oh, I don't know why we need all the electronic stuff, life was so much simpler....". Until someone pointed out that it was actually rather nice to be able to get in a car and not wonder if it's going to start every time. I chuckled I have to agree, as a personal preference, mechanical simplicity just suits the land rover, though!

The issue is often the immobiliser, sadly. VW/Audi engines are a great example: you need the ECU, dash, and immobiliser module or it will start, then immediately stop! I'd like to know what the later Land Rover engines are like in this regard, actually. The electronics are no bad thing, until you come up against those "black box" functions that are designed to be difficult to get around. Or for the hobbyist, at least.

Plenty of space to put batteries and instant torque. Tempting, huh? Next few years with all the clever new battery tech coming on, it might actually be quite an attractive option.

I would have thought that for the number of 109's and 88's there are out there, there ought to be enough rusty disco 200/300 tdi engines to last forever, and they suit well. Newer twin cam/electronic this and that engines seem a little weird in a series, but that's just my personal point of view. When I did my V8 conversion I couldn't even bring myself to put the stone age injection system on and resorted to messing with carbs! Turbo 2.25? I'm almost tempted to take up the challenge, because that's what it would be... I reckon you could do electric rather well in any square shaped land rover, but that's getting a bit space aged, isn't it.. Or how about fitting pedals, Bugsy Malone style?

Thank you

Where did you get your screens from, if you don't mind me asking?

Pahaha! The Heavy Duty Tire Beads and Johnson Rod made me chuckle. Brilliant! I actually saw a poor kid in Euro car parts fall for the old "left handed screwdriver" and "bucket of steam" gags a few weeks back. I had to pretend to be perusing the brake fluids or my laughter would have given the game away.

Thanks I'll try and cover the tacho build once I've actually finished it and I know it works.

So, back to it after a mad few weeks: You can see here how close the pulley is to the front crossmember, meaning a standard radiator is out. I realised the only solution would be to fit it inside, rather than behind the front panel, but the only solution turned out to be a custom job. I found European Radiator Services on ebay, having been round quite a few and was feeling a little worried I wasn't going to be able to get what I wanted. Most people wanted to sell me some allow thing based on fixed core size for the price of a second hand car.... My conversation with ERS changed all then when the helpful chap on the end of the phone said "Yeah, do you brass tanks as well?" after I explained what I was after. £300 delivered bought me a gorgeous copper core radiator with brass tanks, to my exact dimensions which arrived in the post three days later. Worth speaking to the for custom radiator if you have a requirement for your project - I highly recommend. You can see the mounting brackets on top of the chassis in the pic, as well as the bottom hose which has the tee for the bottom connection to the expansion tank. The heater return also tees into this. This is what arrived: And here's how it sits: Radiator sitting neatly inside a slightly modified front panel; And you can see what I had to trim away: And another shot to show the bottom hose installed: A little more plumbing. I installed a bleed valve from an MR2 to get the air out of the heater rad. Making up a little blanking plate for where the otter switch use to go: I've used the switch on the thermostat housiing from the injection manifold, which fit better with my radiator hose placement. On to the seat box! Because I fitted the whole engine and gearbox higher than normal, and the LT85 is twice the size of the LT76, I had a bit of an issue. Even a Stage One seat box didn't clear it, so some chopping and a custom tunnel would be required: Some large chunks being taken off: Still tight, but it fits: This left the problem is the tunnel. I actually ended up slitting the bulkhead and moving the while tunnel section up two inches. Much cardboard template making later, I was able to cut the tunnel out of some 1mm ali: You can see the litte plate in the side giving away how high I had to take it bulkhead side: The lips on either side of the tunnel actually fit under the floors, keeping it all together. The top of the tunnel is the same height as the front of the seat box! A standard defender rubber completes the job. The prop, of course, needed modifying. The front needs to be 32", the rear 36". Both are made from chopped down 109 rears. I wish I'd take more pics, but all you need to do is mark the orientation of the UJusing some angle iron layed against the shaft, then slit right into the weld to a depth of about 3/8 or so. There is a spiggot which locates the UJ inside the shaft which is about 3/4" long - doesn't matter if you cut into it a little. Once you're confident you've got through the weld and thickness of the tube, take a copper mallet and smack the thing a few times. It'll edge out. Cut the shaft to the required length, making sure the alignment mark is long enough to remain after the cut, stuff the UJ back in (it'll be a tight fit), then do NOT weld it at this stage. Stick it on the vehicle, fir it up, remove a rear half shaft, unlock the front freewheeling hubs, and spin it up in low range first. Make sure the vehicle is chocked! You'll see any radial misalignment - just whack it with a copper mallet softly where you see runout. it's surprising how true you can get it this way! This is, of course, assuming you don't have a lathe big enough.... Once true, tack it, then weld it back up. I'd recommend a decent run with 3.25mm arc welding rod here. Seems to get a "factory" looking weld. The arc welder always seems to penetrate better than the mig on heavy stuff... Making up the throttle linkage: The V8 uses a cable (think I used a defender diesel cable of some kind), so the rod had to be modified, a hole cut in the bulkhead and a few pin made. Nothing difficult here. After two useless Lucas coils, I finally got around to researching a decent Bosch ignition coil suitable for the V8: Plumbing in the VDO oil pressure sender was interesting. The V8 uses 1/2 UNC, the gauge uses 1/8 npt. Lucking I found an adaptor on ebay! This has a 1/8 hole in the side for the VDO sender, so getting at the right angle requires installing it, then calculating how much to turn off the shoulder to get the correct angle when tightened up: it looks like this installed: Clearance between the oil filter and diff housing is bigger than that photo suggests! A sump plug modified to take an oil temp sender: Gauges installed: Top left to bottom right: Smiths oil temp, VDO oil pressure, VDO coolant temp, Smiths fuel, Smiths battery voltage. The smiths fuel gauge works fine with a standard land rover sender with a little calibration buy turning the two screws in the back. At this point it drives! Sadly, as the radiator had to take its space, there was no room for the bonnet catch. I considered military type external catches, but didn't like that idea. I had about 3/4" of room to play with, so I made my own slmline version of the stock series bonnet catch: Original: My version: It works just like the original I did have to turn down the pin so it didn't foul the radiator - that's how close it all is!

Yeah, the adaptors do come up. I think I paid about £50 a few months back. Having done both a diesel and a V8 conversion now, I can tell you they are about the same amount of work, bulkhead fettling aside. The diesel is economical but I found boring. I feel like I'm throwing a twenty out the window every time I fire the V8 up, but it makes me grin so much to drive I don't care! A turbo 2.25 would be quite fun, just for giggles. But more effort (and more technical) than both conversions combined to make workable, unless you're already quite skilled at setting up diesel injector pumps... Same goes for petrol with ignition and fueling. Depends on your level of experience!

Well, I got gold of a set of B1FN needles, just out of interest. Little lean off idle, improving as revs build. Probably fine for, and maybe slight over fuel on 3.5 On either set of needles, with everything set up and running properly, there is a small firework display on over-run. She seems to think she's a Group B car! I hate to tell her otherwise - it's hugely entertaining with the side exit exhaust! I see why there were poppet valves on the throttle plates originally... More write up to follow; life has rather got in the way recently! Running great, still making me grin like a Cheshire cat. Eberspacher and DIY arctic heater will be fitted over the weekend with cunning use of a couple of Ford KA heater valves. Watch this space.

^ Maybe along with left handed screwdrivers and buckets of steam. Do you mean black carbon crusty stuff? In which case, a spot of carb cleaner and some Scoth Brite pads (or similar) get my vote too.

You're very welcome, I'll look forward to hearing about it. Interesting about the air box, maybe I made the right call. I'd like to swap to enclosed types though, so at least I can intake some cool air! I read a whole lot of stuff about Strombergs not working with low resistance filters and feeling flat or unresponsive compared to stock setups.. it doesn't surprise me that they might run a bit leaner, so this is probably the cause. I found that my V8 runs surprisingly well at 16:1 at full throttle, so without the wideband lambda sensor I would have had little clue otherwise. So glad I've got my wideband, it really takes the guessing out. Off topic, but I'm pondering doing an LT230 PTO build as I want to mount a generator and compressor to her. Might beg a favour back for some dimensions and bolt pattern info at some point

Oh, just a quick not on the measurements above: I didn't bother to measure to a tenth of a thou! Figures quoted for the stock needles (B1FH and B1FN) are from the needle chart by Burlen. I'd be interested to hear how you get on! I had a bit of an issue today as she suddenly went really rich after a full throttle blast through a few gears. Had a hunch that the needle had slipped its delrin washer and moved up with the spring. Still ran but two points richer and didn't want to start warm. Got back home, took pot luck on which carb and sure enough, the washer in the RH had popped off allowing the spring to push the needle up half an inch! This wouldn't normally be quite so bad, except the Land Rover needle holders have a little piece of the wall of the holder peened in over the top of the needle, rather than miniature rollpins you seem to get on other models. The peened bits are missing on these holders.