2a total rebuild - want to avoid registration pitfalls

[tugboat]

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.

[ejparrott]

Do you have the original Marsland reciept for the chassis? That should tell you that its a like for like replacement, and so you retain your 5 points.

Engine changes 2286 to 2286 I don't think usually matter, the 5 bearing being seen as a straight in-service swap for the 3 bearing.

Not sure about the Salsibury rear axle to be honest....its a rover spec-d axle, and is a like for like swap, its not like you have to modifiy a coil axle.

Gearbox should also be seen as a straight in-service swap.

[Snagger]

You'll lose the two points for the axles and maybe for the engine, but the rest sounds like it should score the points. You'll get the 5 for the chassis, two for suspension, two for steering and two for transmission. The bulkhead is a part of the body and thus irrelevant. A reciept for the chassis would be awfully nice to have, though.

[tugboat]

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.

[Snagger]

I don't think the chassis spec would be an issue - if you had bought a new chassis from LR in the seventies or eighties, it'd have been SIII anyway. As for the axles, why worry? You have well over the eight points required for the original VIN, so fit whatever axles you want and do the job once - swapping them about later will just make life harder.

Just look closely at the Salisbury axle conversion - 88s have the rear springs under the axle, like at the front, but 109s have rear springs mounted outboard. I would assume the axle's spring saddles and bump stops have been moved inboard, though I have seen conversions where 109 spriung hangers were fitted to the chassis instead. Make sure the work is accurate and the welding is strong enough. I have just done a similar conversion to fit 110 axles to my 109, and though I had few doubts about what was done, I still had it inspected closely by a qualified tester.

[Phil Hancock]

I think you will find that a Salisbury axle in place of a Rover axle on a 109" is classed as an in service replacement and still retains the point.

[ejparrott]

The Series 2 I rewired had a Series 3 axle under one end. If you'd bought a replacement axle in the 70's or 80's from Land Rover, again, it would have been a Series 3 item, so seen as an in service repair. I still think you'd be alright with the Salisbury rear, its leaf sprung so its an appropriate axle for a 109 anyway - put it in!

[tugboat]

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!)

[CwazyWabbit]

Is there any reason to add the engine number to the V5? The way I see it if you have to change the engine again you have to get the V5 updated again, with it blank you don't. The only benefit I can see is that it may make recovery of parts easier if it gets stolen.

[tugboat]

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.

[CwazyWabbit]

Will be interesting to hear what happens

[tugboat]

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...

[Snagger]

Sorry, desregard all the stuff about the suspension mountings - for some reason I thought you had an 88". You will need the correct prop for the Salisbury, though, which is shorter than the prop for other axles.