[Maltese 88 Old but gold.]

 

All wings installed !

So Engine started and she lives !! did not need to bled of primed first pull and she went.

Belt setup working fine and good and powersteering operational and feels like a fiat 500 hahah

Had to change a big my intercooler position from the wing top to the side but it seams to work wellI will create a guard to stop rocks from hitting it. also if the air flow is not sufficient i will install and electric fan

Started building the dashpanel now

[Maltese 88 Old but gold.]

Hi Lads

COVID Lock Downs again a lot of progress has been done getting closer to MOT and first drive :

Hand Brake :

I am 6 ft 1 and the hand brake was in the most inconvenient and unsafe place imaginable. Also the range rover LT77 is the later cable operated set. I canalised the Hand Brake lever from a P38 and moved it to a more familiar place and I can tell you it works a great i reinforced the area with extra aluminium so it wont flex.

Indicators :

My 2a has the self cancelling set as i discovered all the ruber wheels eventually crumble. I found that a large grommets fits and works well

Rear Light Assemblies :

Rear Light assemblies installed

Heater / AC

Heater pumping cut and test fitted nicely

Fan and Condenser 

Test fit the setup and everything fits with enough clearance

Dual Battery

Got heavy gauge wires made up to join the batteries still need to but a deep cycle battery that fits in ther series box.

I also bought a marine busbar with modern blade fuses for the entire rewiring job makes the job neater and easier to diagnose and less prone to fire.

Sound Proofing

In my quest to make the series noise free I has till now done this :

1 hydro engine mounts from an opel omega

2 Butemin noise killer on both side of the bulkhead

3 Sound insulating foam 1 cm on the inside of the bulkhead

4 carpeting on all interior lower surfaces

The journey will continue

 

Lights :

I love the old look of the series and visually it will look the part but I am like LED light aswell and i am very used to the white light they emmit. For me this a safety feature and does not detract from the design.

i shopped around for something that made most sense. There are a lot of cheap led lights out there make sure you buy at the right price. Most i have seen are the round DRL type which are cheapest. I went for a more expensive set and could not be happier with the amount of light they give and fitment all while using less light the the original halogens installed.

Had to cut most of the lower inner guard out for the power setting setup i will in the future manufacture a cover for it but for now it will do.

I have included a video for you see the light cycling i also add a small capacitor the DRL relay to delay the colour change makes it look "AUDI" like.

Cheers

[Maltese 88 Old but gold.]

Hi all Update #6

After much deliberation I am going to retain the inter cooler and camp up with a less then ideal but functional wing mount. I am ware that defender have the heater matrix under the wing so I cut a square hole in the wing

Intercooler

Mounted the inter cooler and close i could to the side wall of the inner wing bought an aluminium cover and called it done haha. Being that the inter-cooler only need to function when the car is moving I think this will not effect much if it still a problem i will mount a fan under there as well but only if needed.

 

Electric Fan 

Also high on my agenda was installing some sort electric fan the 200tdi belt driven fan had to be deleted due to the size constraint. The vehicle had some weird 2 blade electric fan i could not understand how it worked but i deleted it as it was to big and to useless. I had some fans from Peugeot lying around and 1 of them fit the bill. and fabricated a crude but sturdy mount for it and it work very well and shift air like crazy at full chat. If needs be il add a shroud to help direct the air better.

As a side note I am trying to make the units attach to the body mostly so if I ever need to take the car apart for maintenance I dont need to disconnect anything just unbolt

Powersteering

Also the power steering conversion is done my custom High pressure hose arrived not its a matter of bying E-PAS fluid and testing it out il report back.

Cu and thank you

[Maltese 88 Old but gold.]

Hi Everyone,

Thank you for the massive support and knowledge honestly the stuff I learn from the forum is amazing.

I will try to document better and in more chronological order as I inch closer the driving it

Sound Proofing Projects

I am going heavy on the sound proofing that stuff you see on the bulk head is heavy  Self Adhesive Bitumen. With air pockets and heat shielding. This will be 1 of the many steps to making this series easier to live with audibly. The sheets are 0.5 mm thick and the drone from the panels has completely been eradicated. this will be applied on both sides of the cab. The inside will get second layer of sound deadening foam and then heavy auto carpet to seal it all off.

I will be creating a custom top end cover similar to what land rover did on 200 and 300 tdi to reduce the tappet noise stay tuned.

The 200tdi is hydro mounts from an Opel Omega which I am hoping will cure the chassis rattling so much.

I will also shield the tunnel with heavy fire resistant sound dedner from the bottom the LT77 is way less noisy that the series crash box but while i'm here il go the extra mile.

It will never be a Honda. But wont stop me from trying to make it as close the Puma defender levels as possible and lower price points

The Bitumen sheets cost me 30 pounds per 5m which is quite a good deal .

Ancillaries :

 I installed all the pedals and supporting systems from the left you can see the remove brake booster neatly hidden away under the wing. I fit new master for both clutch and brake and made sure I greased the boot well for them to last a bit longer. In the centre you can see the puma steering column and the ASTRA/GM TRW Electric power steering pump. I made up a custom mount for it and as whole wanted to keep all the fluids on 1 side of the land rover. It has rubber mounts to keep it from vibrating the cab and keep it quite when it is at full chat. I order custom high pressure hose to mate the P38 box to the pump should be arriving soon the return is standard AN fittings and pipe

 

 

AC & Electric fan 

Being a series the radiator space is quite limited especially with an inter cooler for the turbo and the large air box for the snorkel. So some head banging is required to fit everything ergonomically cause if need to service it il be the one cursing at the bad design. I drilled new holes for the radiator to mount it as far forward as i can while giving enough clearance from the spinning pulleys and the engine rocking. The condenser I chose to utilise for my DIY system comes from a VW POLO mk4 it comes complete with the drier so once less thing to source cost me 50 euros plus shipping. I had aluminium box channels make 2 brakes for the sop and mounted right up cleanly and securely . It has enough movement front and back for the engine movements without interfering with the radiator. 

After fitting the condenser it has become apparent that to fit decent sized electric fan the inter cooler has to be relocated or replaced by a slimmer unit. I will be investing what options i have for this.

As far as the AC goes it pretty straight forward . The only questions mark is the fitting AUTO AC fittings are **** show of number and confusing standards and my Nissan Style Compressor and  VW condensor seem to have conflicting sizes

 

so I and try to see what options i have.

 

[Maltese 88 Old but gold.]

Hi all sorry for the long delay in posting life got in the way.

Dashboard :

had and old cooker hood out of stainless steel cut it down to size and punched 4 square holes for american style old ac vents  to try and keep it looking as authentic as possible.

Added a gauge cluster from a audi from the 80s to monitor some extra stats on 200tdi and will be building a nice enclosure for it to look authentic aswell.

A

Turbo :

Bought a CHRA cartridge for the Garrett T2. The original one was literally jammed in sides for quite  a while and was being driven as a 200di. The shipper sent me the item with no packaging and this happened  il have to wait for the return and refund.

After 3 weeks bought another and arrived safe and sound and installed.

 

Steering :

As shown before I deleted the series steering setup and went for a custom simplified and powered option.

This is a Puma column mated to a disco 2 half shaft with p38 end UJ to a p38 powersteering box.

It is now all aligned and firmly bolted in place look very neat and factory

 

As you may know with this setup the track rods needs to be modified. I bought 2 identical defender lower rods and cut 1 up to make it fight the length between the pit-man arm and the lower connection on the swivel housing.

I wanted this to be strong so cut the tube tacked a piece of round bar in welded between them and added an outer pipe to further strengthen it.

 

 

Movement :

Even dry steering feels amazing considering the original setup. the Pit- man arm enough clearance both from the tire and spring so should be all good to go

[Maltese 88 Old but gold.]

Hi all thank you for all the great comments. Haven't posted for while due to work and family. I have been hauling forward working evening and weekend to get more progress done on the Landy .

The engine is mounted as far forward as is possible to keep the Series look in the cabin I am sucker for sleepers and things that look original but are infact moderner

 

[Maltese 88 Old but gold.]

So here are some updates from  my end .

Rebuilt all the axles 

All the axles have been rebuild and painted I took care lubing and greasing all the bearings and pressing in all the new races and seals

Rebuilt all the Drum 

Brake drums are rebuilt the britpart kit has some horrible brake adjusters on the. The original where stil functional so i opted the leave them on we see what how it holds up changed all the shoes and put the top spring for some reason they where all missing from mine :/.

Received the remote brake booster and created a mount

Bought a remote booster for my drum setup this is something the i had done on an MGB owned in the family and it is an amazing upgrade for 68 pounds it also negates the need to change pedal box and cut the fender also I the series 3 booster is impossible to find and ugly under the bonnet. I can retain the stock master and pass 1 line to the booster and connect the other pipe work to the booster . Being and 200tdi I have vacuum pump to use out of the box. I have not seen this done before so I will report back on it once I use it on the road.

Cleaned and Repacked the springs with grease and Teflon liners.

I added custom cut Teflon liners to help with seizing.

Mounted the power steering 

P38 box painted and mounted in place at slight angle to gain the max spring movement now need to make a new track rod.

Fabricated the new engine mounts to take the Opel Omega Diesel Hydro elastic mount

 

 

This the my proudest edition . I hated the vibrations from the 200tdi when test drove the land rover prior to restoration. I also drove and 200tdi defender with stock mounts and it still feels unnecessarily agriculture. I know its a series but standard have changes and parts are cheaper. I want searching around from modern hydro mounts. Found BMW , OPEL and American automakers make round simple mounts for modern cars the rest make those wired shape hanger mounts.

For the price i bought OPEL OMEGA Diesel hydro mounts the opel omega diesel is around 200kg dry so the 200tdi will be fine on them . The shocks are slightly taller and much wider then the stock mounts so . After some considerations in decided the modify the left mount and fabricate and new bracket for the left. I also decided to move the drive train 5.5 cm forward then the original series mounts. This makes the engine very close to the radiator but opens up the opportunity to mount the LT77 on the on the stock gearbox rail with out cutting and moving it. 

This also make the gear knob move very close the the series original position . I will converting the control to work like series to preserve and hide its a modern-er drive train 

 

 

AC out.

 

[Maltese 88 Old but gold.]

Thank you all for the replies. After inspecting the Serial numbers it seems the donor LT230 and LT77 from a defender was a donor from another vehicle its range rover classic variant

with 1.22 gears in it. Also found out that series had defender diffs fitted so 3.54 ratio. I am mainly after a good cruising speed and as low rev as I can get without lugging anything. I enjoy that it is slower then most vehicle and the main purpose of most of the mods is to make a safe and capable over lander that I can keep as a family jewel :). I own sports bikes for cheap speed.

• I have ordered a remote brake booster to retain the series 2a setup and still get a decent amount of braking 
• Converted and rebuilt to pully drive an Audi A6 alternator its a cheap way to get 160A alternator cost around 30 pounts and 15 for bearings and rectifier.
• I will retain the old 60A alternator as sub feed for the a deep cycle battery for onboard electrics
• I will also reveal my plan to quiet down the 200tdi using hydraulic mounts 

I will attach pics soon

[Maltese 88 Old but gold.]

Hi all,

I have a question with and LT77 & lt230 plus out of defender and a stock series diff what will be the final top speed of this set up at 5th ?

 

 

[Maltese 88 Old but gold.]

2 hours ago, Blanco said:

Hmm, me too,.... it's hard to see how the cross member could be stressed there in normal use, twisting the chassis is the only obvious scenario, but to crack like that suggests repeated max load stress? could be the edge of the haz from construction.

That is the likely cause. I know the vehicle has been offroaded fairly recently before i bought and it tore it apart. Before that is was used to haul construction cement so easily went over the max carriage weight . An the roads back then where horrible compared to now.

 

[Maltese 88 Old but gold.]

1 hour ago, FridgeFreezer said:

That's an impressive crack!

I was stunned as well the Landy doesn't look abused as in no rust or off road dents in the aluminium body. I can only assume it was either in  accident or some sort of extreme crash i don't know i will re-welding it up and adding a square beam across the member to prevent it from re cracking.

[Maltese 88 Old but gold.]

Hi all,

 

It been a while since I posted COVID as usual impacted everyone so here are the updates till now.

1. I have completely dismantled the landy 
2. Discovered a crack in the centre cross member so that will first thing weld and reinforce 
3. Power steering bracket fabricated and test installed and front axle stripped and painted waiting on new set of bolt to start reassembly

 

[Maltese 88 Old but gold.]

3 hours ago, Snagger said:

Nice work on the Mini.

Why the electric pump for the PAS?  Tdis have PAS pumps already, which can be reloaded on new brackets if needed.  Less strain on the electrical circuit that way. 

Hi snagger I have to main reasons for it.

1. I will be using a different AC unit than the land rover ones as they impossible to buy locally and better models have been developed since
2. Another reason it that I have available to me and 180 amp alternator and I did some calculation the pas pump draws about 40 amps at full load so i will have plenty of power for the ancillaries while also theoretically losing less horse power in the process 
3. The last advantage is the electric pump has a Yaw and Load sensor allowing me to adjust the amount of assist i want from it something i cannot do in a normal pulley pump. So i can change the feel depending on the road or requirement . I can go full series impossible to steer to fiat 500 

They might not be reason enough but I decide to give it a try if all fails i can still convert it back to a normal pump

[Maltese 88 Old but gold.]

So I started off dismantling the 2A .

I m very happy with so far no rust spots found and wow this is easy to dismantle no haynes manual nothing find a bolt remove it and something comes off 

 

I Started of mocking up and making the parts for the Power Steering install :

This is VW polo electric PAS pump from a early 2k polo

This is defender rack and it will connect to the P38 Box 

I had to shorten the range rover mid shaft at the the BREAKAGE point i basically cut most of the rod out contoured it the same and reattached it. I will be welding it in place to make sure its super safe.

This the chassis plate to attach the P38 

 

I modified the side connector thing and added a metal bracket to securely attach the column to it using the factory mounting

 

I cut the bulkhead connector so i can fit a pearch for the PAS Pump

I found a timing gear the i can make perfectly round a bit of recycling

I attached a male and female jubilee clips so i can take the pump out easily if needed and it should securely keep it in place. I will be adding a top strap later to make sure it doesnt move, I will be putting a soft rubber base to damped the noise

Here it is all installed and welded up pretty happy with this banged it out in 2 days .

The nice thing is with this setup I can technically dry stir without starting the vehicle 

and another advantages being isolated from the motor I can make all the lines hard making them leak proof for years.

I also leaved room for a bigger alternator and the AC condenser and They are dirt cheap. Electric car all have these type of PAS pumps so the spares can only get bigger.

[Maltese 88 Old but gold.]

56 minutes ago, FridgeFreezer said:

Welcome! Sounds like an interesting project - I'd suggest starting with a Defender if you can as the brakes, steering, and suspension are already better and are more easy to upgrade than having to chop a Series around.

Yes i have considered it, and it is the right way to go but the cost of owning a Defender in Malta in prohibitive of my budget. The Series are easier to acquire here and easier to maintain in term road licence and insurance. I like hacking and making thing personal but i do not in any way want to make a defender from a series. But make a Series just more livable on modern roads .

 

5 hours ago, miketomcat said:

Welcome and you will find quite a few on here that have gone from mini's to land rovers, and some myself included that never really left mini's.

Though mine are kits based on the aforementioned cars.

Mike

Hey Mike here the pics that broke from my original post

 

Here is my Mini transformation she is my pride and joy but it was bitch to bring back :

 

Now back to Land Rovers 

 

[Maltese 88 Old but gold.]

Hi guys,

I have been holding back from buying a land rover for a while now, I come from the MINI scene but from the smallest classic car I v always wanted a big toy,

I was hunting around for a defender / 90 but the prices in Malta vary a lot and their are benefits in place in restoring near 40 plus year vehicles rather then newer ones.

I was looking as some local ads 1 day and i found the perfect starting step :

 

This is a weird 1 in that is most definitely a Series 2A but for some reason it is marked as 1976 YOM i suspect it was built from remaining parts.

This was originally a 2.5 TD but it was converted sometime in the  2000s to a 200TDI from a defender , still had the original crash-box.

The good new is that this has no rust 0. After restoring my MINI see pics below I now have a fear of rust especially to the extent i had to deal with on that project

 

This 2a has no chassis rust the bulkhead has no rust or signs of oxidation . It was originally green then it was painted blue  and finally this ugly grey colour was brushed on badly:

THE PLAN :

I love the series aesthetic and charm but i want to drive it overland and use it as a vehicle, As it stands it is to agricultural , The steering is too heavy , the brakes leave much to be desired, The gearing is to low , In Malta i need an AC or its just an oven and it needs a full restoration to get it the standard I want. So this my journey of trying to convert this Series 2a into an almost daily driver while try to keep it true as possible and on a budget

Find below the list of projects that i will be doing apart from restoring it i will update try to log as much as I can thank you and enjoy

Special Projects :

Electric Power steering ( p38 with opel pump)

DIY AC system for under 400 euro (polo condenser ,drier , caravan evaporator and no name compressor)

Convert from single line to 4 line brake system or brake booster 

Swap in LT77 from defender

Sound deaden to the max 

Electric fan install

GSM security tracker install

hidden water tank and shower install