SteveG

Thanks all of you for answers. Sorry for late reply, I was simply trying to ignore your advice, as this meant taking off the other swivel off the donor rust bucket. After snapping off the Torx impact bit in the lower swivel pin, I then moved to the swivel ball bolts. I ended up cutting off two bolts, as the rust had perished enough of the 12 point bolts for the 14mm spanner to just spin with nothing to grip on. Once off, I then tried cutting the heads, and using an impact driver to try and get them out. Two more impact bits later... I gave up, cutting off the swivel damper and bolt heads, and then removed the bolts with a stud extractor. So, eventually I could start to blast off the swivel housing ready for painting... So thanks everyone for the advice, I’ll be using the ABS swivels. Cheers, Steve

I think the website is wrong. For 358, LHD export they are... 1970 1-6 1971 7-745 1972 746-3227 So it is a 1972, which fits with suffix B, as it was introduced sometime in 1972. Engines produced until February 1971 were 8.5:1 CR, those after lowered to 8.25:1 Your engine no. is for a production engine assigned to Suffix A with 8.5:1 CR As it’s a 1972 RR, you’d expect it to have an 8.25:1 engine, however, it’s not unknown for later cars to have left the factory with earlier engine numbers. As it is not a CKD vehicle, English Heritage should be able to give you a production certificate, and this may have the engine no. on. You can request it here... https://www.britishmotormuseum.co.uk/archive/heritage-certificates Or it could have been fitted later by anyone as a replacement.

Thanks Mo, I’ll have to redo the helicoils as both were spinning, when I tested them at the right torque setting.

In rebuilding my Range Rover classic, I need some advice on the swivel housings. Here’s the situation... 1. Converting from LHD to RHD, so I need to change out swivel housings. 2. The current front axle is 10 spline imperial one, with the swivel housing with a mix of imperial and metric, for example steering stop bolt is M12, stub axle bolts are M10 etc. 3. The RHD donor RR is a 91 4 door with ABS, 10 spline too. The plan was to use the donor swivel housings, however, when I took off the first one, and after blasting & painting , I noticed that two of the stub axle holes have been previously fubarred and helicoiled... (lower housing, helicoils at 11 & 3 o’clock) So I decided to cut my losses and source two non-abs swivel housings from LRSeries. Now as it has come time to rebuild the front axle, I’ve noticed that both have stub axle fixings that are smaller than M10. I need to check what they are, but I assume they are 3/8. So obviously there are two types of non-abs swivel housings, those with metric stub axle fixings and those with imperial. I wasn’t happy using these ones as the stub axle holes will be larger than the fixing bolts. So what does everyone advise? Source non-abs housings with m10 stub axle fittings, use the abs ones after re-doing the helicoils properly? Source some early type stub axles (if they’re available?)? some help would be appreciated. Cheers, Steve

The spanner fits with the technical focused nature of the site, how about keeping it simple and just having the spanner and site, like this attached? Obviously it's needs doing properly, by someone who knows what they are doing. cheers, Steve

As per howie's suggestion, plus either buy a loom or wire in yourself the headlamps directly to battery and relay switched via your existing connectors.

Hi Keith RC900 is very similar to a number of converters like Bilt Hamber's Hydrate 80 etc. They all work in the same way, chemically reacting with the rust to seal it in preventing it from increasing. For all of them you have to remove all loose rust etc with wire brush and then clean thoroughly. All of these converters need you to paint on top, or coat with a wax and/or wax underseal or for max protection paint, then wax underseal.Personally, I prefer hydrate 80 as it's brush applied, so you can work it into the crevices etc. However it needs a couple of coats to ensure you get good coverage, and you can't brush inside the chassis, so here rc900 with a spray lance is ideal. Alternatively, you've got rust removers like Bilt Hamber's Deox gel, which will remove the rust. For example on exterior of a chassis you could use a combination of flap discs and wire wheels to remove must of the rust, and Deox gel where it's not easy to access. Then paint with a good active primer like corroless S, buzzweld RCP. Then overpaint with top coat like corroless rf16, buzzweld cio. Optionally, you could then add a layer of wax underseal like dinitrol 4941 on top for max protection. POR15 is often recommended, however it's best applied to a wire brushed rusty surface. You can't overpaint other paints with it, so not ideal for touching up an existing chassis in situ, unless you can remove all of the existing paint. Epoxy mastic's are popular too. Personally, I haven't found them as useful as the other paint options. They are a two part paint, so you have to mix with a hardener/activator and so you have a limited work time. I've found they are best applied on thick, and it's hard to get a good finish if doing a number of parts due to the limited working time. I can see the attraction if you've blasted/galvanised a whole chassis and you could spray multiple layers with a quick application time. Again, they are not great over existing paints, as they can be prone to chipping off in these areas.I've had success in using it on blasted parts, that have been cold zinc primed (Bilt hamber electrox) and then two coats of epoxy. Overall, Ive come to prefer the corroless S primer and RF16 topcoat. Lastly, upol raptor is another option. Like the others, chassis needs all of the loose rust/paint removing, existing paint prepped with scotchbrite, then throughly cleaned. Upol do a raptor anti corrosive epoxy primer, then you can overcoat with the raptor topcoat. The topcoat has isocyanates, so full face breathing mask is required in EU and you need to fully cover skin too when in use. I haven't tried raptor yet, although I do plan to use it on the plastic sills etc. of the range rover classic and may try it out as an undercoat of the body (not chassis). For inside the chassis, you could spray dinitrol rc900 then one or two coats of 3125.

I think you're going to be out of luck with 235/85's being the tallest. For 18's 265/70's are your best bet at getting close to 33" without going too wide.

Hello bish and welcome back. I'm back on here too recently, although you're doing better than me with a running LR. I currently have three sitting in pieces on the driveway. Two range rover classics that at least are meant to be in pieces, and one Discovery 2 that isn't. Cheers, Steve

Assuming you work on your own vehicles at the weekend, I take you just work weekdays at retropower. If that's correct, would you ever consider renting out your paint booth at the weekends, when not in use? Just booth and air feed needed, I have gun, mask etc. It would be handy having access to a booth, when I need to 2K the top coat and clear. cheers steve

I'd left out Motec and Life Racing, just purely down to cost. Spending £3-4,000 for a typical set up was out of my budget.

The motogadget seems to have gone a stage further and built in functionality like a flasher relay with auto kill, brake modulator, alarm logic, etc., but it is still programmable. You can configure things whether an input is push button or switched, positive or take to ground, combining the aux circuits etc. The motobrain it seems, is fully configurable on any input and output, and has many triggers that you can combine to give you quite sophisticated logic. For example, you could fit a light or temp sensor to an input and based on voltage levels trigger single or multiple outputs. You can also link several motobrains together in their app. Obviously, both have been designed for bikes, so don't have as many outputs or overall capacity needed for a car. So you'd have to use multiple units and where the load is high switch a relay instead of the device. However, they could be useful when used for adding accessories or for wiring the main circuits of an off-road only truck. Cheers, Steve

Has anybody got any experience or viewpoints on the new gen programmable solid state power distribution modules like motogadget and motobrain?? https://motobrain.net/home https://motogadget.com/shop/en/m-unit-blue.html They look pretty good with the ability to add logic, and integrate with a smartphone. Cheers, Steve

Plenty of us have run dual batteries with no split charging for winching without any issues. The only recommendation is to use two identical batteries, and preferably bought new from the same batch. If winching use, 35mm2 or bigger cable to wire the batteries in parallel. Cheers, Steve

Carefully pull out the three plastic vents at the rear of the bonnet and replace the foam inserts. The current ones have probably perished, and so if you have the fresh air vent open on the heating panel, it will let all of the dust in.

You want to get some old spanners and use them to make some handles ....

Hi Stephen Talking of arcrite, you can get corroless RF16 in NATO green. Can be brushed, rollered or sprayed. Use corroless S primer first. http://www.arc-rite.co.uk/corroless-rf16-glass-leaf-impregnated-gloss-top-coat-any-colour It's very good, and is the paint used as the basis for buzzweld CIO. I've used it on my range rover classic... Cheers, Steve

You also don't have to go down the write off and cat D route if you don't want to. You can supply an estimate of the cost of parts, consumables etc. and then fit yourself at no cost. This is likely to come under write off threshold. You can then supply receipts of parts etc. to your insurance company for them to pay you, minus any excess if applicable. Obviously, write off pay out will be more, but you won't have cat D this way. Cheers, Steve

Sorry Chris, I've only just seen this thread. When looking at an aerial for the RRC, this is supposed to be best for DAB reception... http://www.dabonwheels.co.uk/Kinetic_DRA-6003_FM-AM_DAB_car_aerial.html pricey, but constantly comes up as offering best performance. Cheers, Steve

I'd be personally inclined to spend the money on putting one in the rear diff. This will give you the biggest return for your money.

Maybe not, the SuperPro body mount bush kit, SPF1788K, is £17.50 for a pair of bushes for a single body mount. So £175 to do the 10 body mounts on a range rover classic.

Thanks for the quick replies. I wasn't aware that Superpro did body mounts too. I'll order ten of those, as I'm not impressed with the available rubber mounts as they are markedly different to factory ones and significantly harder. I've already used corroless S & rf16 on body & chassis, but I've also bought Upol Raptor to coat some of the plastics like the vents, sill covers/bars etc. and potentially as an underseal on body & underside of inner wings. Not sure whether it's hardy enough for this type of use, or whether I should use dinitrol for the underseal. Cheers Steve

Great work so far. What type of bushes have you used for the body mounts, as I've only seen the cheapo pattern ones available and they seem to be made of super hard rubber? It would be good to know of another option. Cheers, Steve

A GEMS plenum, especially with 4.6 on, looks nicer though. It can't be all function over form.

Doesn't look that wild, and nice stitching btw