tugboat

If you prefer the Series 3, why go to the trouble of rebuilding and converting a Series 2a when S3s are more plentiful? There's a growing premium on genuine Series 2s here (whilst prices of the even less refined Series 1s are already miles through the roof). Advantages of the Series 3 include a much more robust gearbox, whereas the S2 boxes can eat layshafts depending on how they've been used, and (on the 109) a Salisbury rear axle instead of the weak half-shaft-snapping Rover unit. Other small, but important, details are knock-in wheel studs, not the old screwed in type which have a tendency to strip out of the hub. For what it's worth though, I prefer the Series 2a in many ways. I used a newish S3 109SW when I worked in Kenya for a while in the late 70s, covering big distances over washboarded dirt roads, and I was disappointed in the cheap, rattly naffness of its dash compared to the solidity of the dash on the late 2a I'd left at home (and which I still own). It's the sort of thing thet really gets to you over days and miles of it. The S3 dash makes the vents much less effective too IIRC. If I was planning on touring, I'd put my effort into sorting out the functional weak points in the 2a, some of which I've mentioned, but the bolted down tin dash is one of its stronger features.

^^^^ And one thing leads to another. Bad timing leads to very poor starting, which leads to heater plug and starter motor burnouts and short battery life. Misfires on idle and at low load give rise to diesel vapour condensing on the cylinder walls which causes ring and bore wear. It also results in fuel contamination of the lube oil which, of course, accelerates further the wear in the timing gear. I agree that the long path from the crank to the injection pump appears to be a recipe for trouble, and in the Rover diesel it most certainly is, but I've a lot of experience with the similarly configured BMC 1.5s and these seem to be very much less susceptible to the problem. It's definitely the Rover's Achilles heel. If Rover had tackled it properly, the engine would rightly be regarded as a classic rarher than a bit of a dog. Too many sexy projects for the boys to play with instead of sorting out their main revenue earner's boring pump timing, layshafts, half shafts, etc., etc.,

The indirect injection Ricardo pre-chambers in the 2.25 have a Rover patented mod (see link below) for inducing additional swirl and turbulence to give a cleaner quieter burn than other diesel engines of the period. This innovation actually does work well. Indirect injection diesels are generally much smoother and quieter than direct injection engines (until you get to computer controlled multi stage common rail setups). The Rover 2.25 in good condition and properly set up is exceptionally quiet for its time. If yours isn't, it's very probable that the injection timing is out, quite likely too advanced, set that way to mask wear and to get rid of blue smoke and misfires at idle. http://www.google.com/patents/US3025839

My 2a 109 suddenly started to do it many years ago - scared the living daylights out of me. As you say, slowing to 10 mph was just about the only way to kill it. I nursed it to the farm and wouldn't use it or let anyone else use it until I'd sorted it out. Very ropey swivels seemed to be the problem, including some loose/stripped studs fixing the lower bearings/steering arms - that's the only tuppence worth I can throw in. Note, I remember clearly that it had very recently passed an MOT test when this occurred (that sort of thing sticks). A few months later, I was following a nearly new S3 109 along a single track road in the Highlands and it was obvious he was having really bad death wobbles too. I flashed him down and told him what had happened to mine but he said the Rover dealer in Inverness (who must have had hundreds, probably thousands, of Series Land Rovers through their hands) had checked out all of that and more and still couldn't pinpoint it. I think you're right - you don't want to mask this with a damper, much better to fix it.

And if you do break a rear halfshaft, and if you're on a hill, and if the FWHs are disengaged, and if you've no one with you (all of these events can easily come together).... then .... you've no handbrake and no way of getting out to chock a wheel or engage the front hubs.

Pointing more and more towards fuel. Everything else sounds good. If the volume at the float chamber pipe is fine at idle, or with hand priming, that would take me back to the carb again and the original fault - the float valve. Have you taken it out and had a look? Back in my BMC SU days, I would change valves and seats every two or three years. The Viton tipped valves were more forgiving than the older metal ones which used to wear a shoulder into the taper and then without warning jam fully open (been there, completely stuck - hence my 2-3 year rule) but they DO still wear and tend to seep or stick rather than let you down completely. I see they're about £11 from sucarb.co.uk for the HIF44. Best to clean the pump gauze and replace the filter as you say - they should really be annual service items anyway, especially if your tank's not so new.

True but the opposite is worse - a poor battery giving prolonged starting day in and day out really does knock the stuffing out of the starter, with high amps due to the motor being near stalled or actually stalled, in which ALL the energy is converted to heat. It's much more of a problem with the diesels where cranking speed is vital for cold starts in cold weather. I know - I ruined a 2.25D starter trying to get by for months on a weak battery with, just to add to the cocktail of woes, Series 2 dynamo charging. If the petrol engine's in good nick, a couple of compressions should fire it up so the battery condition hardly matters at all. There's always the handle. But in answer to the OP, the bigger the better.

Any joy yet, DRA890? Let's suppose the carb overflowing and the "separate" running problem are connected somehow. Otherwise, to have totally unrelated issues at the same time would be quite literally a coincidence and the probability of that is a bit less. That would point me towards looking for crud coming through from the tank. That is possibly what caused your needle valve to stick. It could also have partially blocked the small flex pipe between the bottom of the float chamber and the jet, and the jet itself. You've blasted these through so in the first instance, you could maybe assume the source of the problem is elsewhere. Crud could also have blocked the strainer and/or either of the valves in the fuel pump. Is it the type with a sediment bowl? If so, how does it look? Is there sediment or water in it? The way the engine is running has all the hallmarks of fuel starvation (but possibly other things besides). You've tried some obvious quick fix solutions including ignition (I'd have done much the same) but I think you may now have to tackle it methodically. [Only a couple of other thing on the quick check front first - how is the compression? If you don't have a compression gauge, either turn it over by hand and feel each cylinder, or spin it on the starter with the coil disconnected. Do the cylinder read/feel/sound reasonably even; if so, we can probably assume there's no stuck valve. And are you absolutely certain the plug leads, plug caps, distributor cap, rotor arm and points are all ok? Old points build up a non-conductive crust if left unused for a long spell. If in doubt with any of these, chuck.] Back to methodical. Given that there was, FOR SURE, a fuel problem I'd now be ensuring that the whole fuel system is running clear from tank to jet. The problem may be the tank itself. If you don't feel like draining it first, then do the checks on the pump; clean the pump strainer and bowl (best to have a new washer handy for the bowl first), flush through with the hand primer and then pump some fuel into a jar and have a good look. If it's carrying noticeable sediment, or if the bowl quickly shows more sediment coming through, you need to go to the tank. It may have a lot of internal rust. If there has been a lot of previous contamination and you suspect the fuel pump valves or diaphragm are damaged or dirty, you could have a go at rebuilding but I've heard bad reports about some repair kits; I'd try to source a new Delphi replacement pump (should be under £20 if you can find a supplier - ssldieselparts.co.uk are excellent for Delphi diesel pumps and might be worth contacting) but failing that fit a £15 ebay copy. Once you are sure you have a good supply of clean fresh petrol, you might still have to go back to the carb and strip and clean it. On the plus side, at the end of all of this, the engine should be sweet!

Sticky valve? Stale petrol?

I use these. Marine grade internals and externals. I find they last well in boats and Land Rovers. http://www.chandleryworld.co.uk/catalogue/12v-round-stainless-steel-interior-light-fitting-140mm_p2205-1578.html

Hi Snagger, I clearly remember my cousin's bronze green, early 1970 swb 2a utility hardtop was delivered new with green wheels. And although I didn't buy my own 1970 bronze green lwb hardtop until 75, I knew it from new and it too had green wheels until I sprayed them. (Naturally, both had limestone hard tops.) Cousin went further and had the whole car sprayed limestone. We lost touch with his around 1980 and, to my amazement, I passed it last year, only twenty miles from its original home - it was the all-over limestone and the maltese cross grille which drew my attention and prompted my double-take. Happy memories. I think you're correct about the earlier series 2s having wider application of body coloured wheels.

Quite right!

Standard ex-factory colour for wheels was limestone except for body coloured bronze green models in which case it was matching green. Earlier Series 2s might have had other applications of matching body colours, I can't remember for sure. But unlike landy-novice, I went the opposite way and the first thing I did to my green 109 2a when I bought it 37 years ago was to paint the wheels limestone! My feeling is that limestone wheels suit green body + limestone hardtop or safari roof, green wheels suit green body + green truck cab or canvas tilt. Standard wheels and colours are smart, anything else (with the possible exception of Wolf rims) looks a wee bitty naff in my view.

Rivnuts! Cheers! That should make life really simple. By the way, I used to find a dollop of Castrol CL chassis grease was the best for long-term maybe/never dismantling precautions like this.

I always use Duralac chromate paste on fastenings and metal mating surface on my boat's deck fittings but if you search yachtie forums you'll find there are differences of opinion on this too. The corrosion rate depends quite critically on the actual alloying content of the aluminium in question and in this respect, by some accounts pre 1980 Birmabright seems to score better than the later LR aluminium body materials. My experience is that Duralac helps a lot on stainless to aluminium connections where frequent, sometimes constant, sea water drenchings are the norm, as well as on 316 fittings to aluminium castings in sea water cooling circuits, but I wouldn't dream of having anything but perfect electrical insulation between aluminium and copper, bronze etc. Insulate with plastic pads or washers wherever possible I'd say, and always use Duralac.

Tank needs attention too, then. That's interesting about the Defender chassis supports - I'll have a look. As far as the threatened changes to MOT / Construction and Use, etc., go, there seem to be widely varying views as to whether they will actually affect the UK so I might take my chance on that. Although I WILL hang on to the supports from the old frame. As far as paint goes, I've been looking at the various types of marine epoxy from Jotun. Scouting around the web, I've come across a few cases where Jotun has been used for underbody or chassis painting of preserved cars and the reports are good. Dinitrol seems to be the protection to use for internals. Back in my yoof, I found a NOS shell for a Morris Oxford which had been dry stored 15 years and which, at the start of the rebuild, I Waxoyled heavily (I bought a 5 gallon drum of the stuff!) inside all the sections, and undersealed the whole underbody and then Waxoyled over the underseal. It eventually rusted away like the rest and in all the usual areas - sills, inner sills, jacking points, outriggers, wings/A-pillars, door skins, floors, etc. - despite my having given all the known areas extra special attention. I reckon it didn't add more than 3 or 4 years to the shell's life over the normal BMC treatment (which, admittedly, was about 50% extra life for a BMC car in my part of the world). But, in short, based on that fairly big experiment, I'm not a fan of Waxoyl.

Yet again, many thanks to all for helpful replies. Box section bridge it's most likely to be then. I'll have a look first at the possibility of fitting spacers above the SW supports which would dead simple if it's do-able and structurally stable. Re the tank, Phil, I'm still to look at that. My old car has the standard 2a 109 filler behind the driver's door and the tank under the seat whilst the new chassis is set up for a rear tank. I see Marsland are selling a "front tank mounting outrigger ... bolt or weld on" for the 88" and I'm wondering whether it would serve the purpose. I might go for a two tank option, having been stuck more than once in the in the middle of the night, back in the days when the old 109 was still fit for long trips; 10 gallons in the front tank, isn't it? Two tanks might even allow for a dual-fuel diesel / "Mazola" option!

2a rebuild... Ok, so now I have collected the un-used galvanised chassis I managed to pick up as a real bargain. But ... as I knew beforehand, it's for a station wagon and my old 2a is a utility. As posters have already replied to my previous query, there's not a lot in it. The main issue is in relation to the front two pairs of tub/body supports which produce a platform which is level with the rear four pairs for the utility, but are lowered for the passenger floor area in the case of the SW. I'd like to keep the option of fitting a station wagon body in the future without more hacking and re-welding, even if the chances are remote. More important, I'd rather not weld the supports from my old chassis through my nice new galvanising. So here's the question. For MOT purposes, in place of the forward pairs of floor support brackets for the utility, can I get away with welding up some removeable box-section support frames to be through-bolted to the chassis rails? I'm thinking of a pair of bridges spanning the chassis rails. Without going OTT, it would be easy enough to make up supports and bolting arrangements many times stronger than the original, which isn't saying all that much. And btw, stress analysis of bracketry including, briefly, airframes - aka just loads of brackets flying in formation - was my daily grind for a spell, so designing out the strength problem isn't an issue. The problem is simply whether an MOT tester will reject bolted joints at the chassis rails in place of welded brackets, even although the next joint along the load path, at the tub floor, is a bolted connection anyway.

Check the lift pump. I had a similar problem with a Thornycroft marine diesel with an almost identical AC Delco pump. The pump was almost new (Turkish made copy, supplied by a Thornycroft specialist at that...) primed perfectly etc., but in rough seas I would get, as the previous poster said, classic fuel starvation. After about half a dozen experiences like this over two years, it turned out that I was actually running on a syphon, aided a bit by the injection pump internal circulator. When the syphon was broken by fuel sloshing in the tank, that was it! Changing the filter and priming the system would cure the problem, sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for months. I put it down initially to contaminated fuel (a very common problem with marine diesel suppliers) or a rusty tank, kept changing filters and so on, COULDN'T POSSIBLY BE THE PUMP! I changed the tank too because admittedly it need changed but the intermittent starvation problem persisted. Eventually I found that the fulcrum pin for the camshaft driven lever had worked out of the pump body and dropped into the bilge. I hadn't realised that the hand primer operated on a different fulcrum pin (awkward location in the boat), hence all appeared to be ok with it when priming. The Land Rover pump is a very similar AC Delco design and also has a separate pivot for the primer lever. Delphi are successors to AC Delco (and Lucas CAV) and given that a lot of suppliers are pushing the "genuine Delphi pump" tag, I'm guessing that dud clones are becoming known to be problematic. The Delphi HFP181 is for the 2.25 diesel, generally about £25 for a genuine Delphi pump, but Dieselpartsdirect seem to be doing them for £14 (check it's a genuine Delphi before purchase). At that price, if in the slightest of doubt about your existing pump, I'd change it. Chinese copies are available for under a tenner but after my experience with a rip-off £35(!) Turkish copy of an AC pump, never again. The really annoying thing in my case was that the 10000 hours original AC I'd changed for the Turkish junk in a bit of preventative maintenance had been working perfectly well. And in rough weather in a boat, my failed pump could have been a lot worse than inconvenient.

Swansea say record incomplete (I knew that from when I spoke to them in December when on the point of scrapping it), send V62 with old V5, no fee, up to four weeks "to look into it". In December, I had assumed that given the duration off the road, it might have fallen off the register completely and applied for the vehicle history as a starter but the chap I spoke to said to just send in a V62 and that would reactivate it. So, we'll see ... Edit PS: Just popped into my wee local garage and MOT station and had a chat with owner who I've known for decades and who is a serial offender with respect to accumulating projects to work on during slack periods (currently with an E-Type and Stag in bits, a Mk II running but body panels off, and a Stag, E-Type, P6 V8 all beautiful and intermittently on the road). He says one option is to take it in for a test and the station would be able to enter anything missing online, then tax it and hand in the old V5 at the PO. He says that he once had to get a club to verify from photos he's sent but thinks that that was when he's bought something long time laid up with no documents. He can't see any problem at all. BTW, he seems to be very supportive if I pick up correctly his mocking-the-afflicted and laughing-out-loud-at-fellow-nutter kind of a way. Seems to think it's really funny that, no, it's not been in a barn, it's been outside the barn all this time...

I agree - if I can get away with it. I've just looked at form V62 (replacement of lost V5) and it has no space for an engine number to be added. It also says simply to phone 0300 790 6802 if no changes. I shouldn't have to pay the £25 since I have the original but this may work and it'll be worth it. Will phone right now.

Reassured by all so far. Much thanks. As a priority now, I'll open up both of the engines I have and decide which I'm going to use, and send its number in with the old V5 and get new documents. As I said earlier, being originally goods registered, it's never had an engine number recorded, neither in the original log book nor in either of the old V5s issued to me. Providing one for the first time shouldn't raise a problem. The fact is that, had I kept on top of it all along, it would have gradually ended up the way I'm planning anyway and I wouldn't have given it the least bit of thought. (All the same, if I HAD stayed on top of it, I'd still have my hardtop, bonnet, screen and old "new" doors!)

Feeling better already thanks, guys. I don't mind putting my old Rover rear axle on it for the time being. And the S3 front axle is Rover same as the 2a anyway isn't it? Having said that, there are some really rubbish details on the 2a axles such as the non-spline wheel studs which strip out the threads in the hub if the wheel nut's a bit seized: those would have to go. Regarding the receipt, I've just contacted the seller and he's off to look but doubts it's there as he's moved house twice in the interim, project following on. I wonder if Marsland might issue a duplicate to him. I might contact them if he can't find it. Just to be clear, the new chassis is S3 spec but I think that just means that it has more gearbox clearance, unless we get into the real rivet counting minutiae as currently described on Richards' website. And had I been ordering one new as I had originally intended, I'd have bought one with the extra gearbox clearance "just in case". So it sounds like an S3 chassis is ok by the rules as a service replacement, just that it would help if I can prove definitively that it is, in fact, a new S2/3 chassis.

Started posting at start of year but here's a brief summary. Stage I'm at now: Owner of 1970 lwb diesel since 1976. Car used untaxed on uncle's farm since ??? late 80's/90s Finally expired, cracked piston, wrecked block, circa 95 and has been heavily cannibalised since (hardtop, doors, screens, front axle, one wing, bonnet, all gone). One previous owner. Vehicle registered to me on old white V5, and I'm still at same address (no engine number recorded presumably because it was 'goods' when new). What remains: Utterly rotten chassis Bulkhead very, very poor but maybe repairable Tub, seatbox, wing (actually all very good) Wrecked original engine (!) Gearbox (Rover exchange by first owner in 1975, subsequently rebuilt again by me - broken layshaft -around 1980) Ropey rear axle. (New diff and half shafts by previous owner around 1975 also, but many years later, crownwheel picked up an old tooth that had been lodged in the axle from the Glasgow main dealer repair and punched a hole in the casing. I sort of got away with it, even lathough more teeth found when I opened it, but always a bit slack and worrying thereafter.) Aim: To do a good complete rebuild to, essentially, 1970 2a spec but with perhaps a 5 bearing engine, and Salisbury axle. All 2a apart from that. I'm well aware of the points system but, by and large, I'm changing like for like. To retain original reg (nothing special) and chassis number and at all costs to avoid a Q plate. Historic status would be nice but it's not a necessity. Current status: Have just bought a six year old unused, un-stamped, 109 Marsland chassis, S3 spec, abandoned project, complete with new springs and shocks, overhauled axles (Salisbury on rear), new brakes. Owner sold on his rebuild original S3 with its identity/reg so in fact I've bought a load of new and overhauled spares unattached to any vehicle. Have sourced two good engines, one 3 bearing, one 5. I've also sourced a very low mileage ex RAF 2a ambulance gearbox (might be better than my original but haven't looked inside yet) Need to do something about a 2a bulkhead, but may buy new. Getting twitchy now about registration. I'll apply for a new V5C as soon as I decide which engine to use, and before I order a bulkhead. Any suggestions about how I should proceed if I'm to keep things simple would be most welcome. I'm getting into the serious money stage and getting a bit nervous. Don't want to order a bulkhead until I'm sure I'm not going to fall foul of bureacracy. If there are going to be major problems rebuilding on my old 2a identity, I think I'd rather buy a recent, going-concern scrapper and put the spares into that.

Many thanks, guys. I had a hunch it was probably reasonably easy my way round but not the other. Seller of unused project chassis still to get back to me on which it is.