It's Alive!

After fitting the bulkhead in the previous post, I slowly attached everything to start and drive the Land Rover . This included bleeding the brakes and clutch (which was surprisingly easy) fitting the accelerator linkages and all the ignition components. Brand new distributor (Britpart, so we'll see how long that lasts, but it gets me started) and all new Lucas leads, coil and alternator, NGK BPR6ES plugs (to suit the 8:1 compression ration head). I had been given a Zenith 36 IV carb that came off my Dad's 109" 2A, as he had fitted a Weber. A second hand series 3 radiator was sourced, filled, with no leaks So in theory it should work!

With a battery connected, the fuel suction pipe rigged up in a jerrycan and a piece of old exhaust pipe bolted to the manifold it was time to have a go at starting the engine. It was pretty nerve wracking as it was a test of not only the engine but the wiring as well (I am using the original loom)

Dad came over to give me a hand, I turned the key and engine turned over with no electrical fires so far! continued cranking but had issues with over fuelling/flooding. Took carb apart and found the level float/needle valve sticking allowing the fuel level to get far too high inside the carb and basically pouring fuel into the inlet.

After sorting out that issue we tried again and after a few attempts of turning it over it finally roared into life! After fiddling with the idle speed and the idle mixture screw it settled into a nice idle, without any smoke.

 Water temp stayed about this temp after 30-40 mins of running

With the engine warmed up it was time to try out the new clutch/gearbox. To my delight the Land Rover reversed out of the garage and down the driveway nicely, I was able to test out the clutch as well as 1st, 2nd gears + hi/lo range, all working. Excuse the multi coloured panels, I had been trial fitting the panels to prepare for paint (will be covered in the next post)

I've started the engine a few times since and it starts first turn of the key each time. Well chuffed!

Bulkhead

You may remember from a previous post that I had made a frankenstein bulkhead but transplanting the centre panel from my rusty bulkhead into a good bulkhead with a modified centre panel. It then got put aside while I carried on with the drive train. In October I had the bulkhead sandblasted and etch primed. Fortunately there was no further rust uncovered by the blasting.

 I then took it to my painter who hit it with a coat of epoxy primer, and a guide coat of black paint so I could start rubbing down.

After hours of rubbing down with wet & dry it was ready for paint. So back to the painter for the top coats of paint. I purchased a basic 2K paint called Metalux, tinted to Land Rover paint code LRC006 MARINE BLUE. It came out a little darker than the original Land Rover Marine Blue but i'm happy with it and the finish is amazing.

Like a kid with a new toy, I couldn't wait to start assembling. The bulkhead is a big step forward as there are so many parts attached to it! I could finally open up the cardboard boxes of parts that I had tucked away all those months ago. The first thing I fitted was the vehicle ID plates and all the plastic thread inserts, then put it up on the chassis in it's rightful place.

Heater blanking plates, vent screens, and steering box fitted.

Upper dash, wiper motor and wiring loom in.

Lower dash and binnacle fitted.

  Brake pedal box & master cylinder fitted.

 Dash nearly complete. Gauges pulled apart and glass cleaned, bezels painted black.

Getting close to first turn of the key!

Engine

The contents of this post are spread across two periods in time, as I initially stripped the engine about 6 months ago but didn't reassemble it until recently. Despite being very rusty and sad looking on the outside the internals were actually reasonable and it has had an .040" rebore at some stage .

The valves were covered in carbon but none were burnt out or with bits missing. The bores had a very slight ridge, barely enough to catch a fingernail on. My plan initially had been to have the engine professionally reconditioned, but the high cost of this compared with the fact that the vehicle isn't even on the road yet made it hard to justify spending that kind of money when in theory, what I have currently should get me going at least until it is complied and on the road. I will consider a full re condition after that. Bearings and journals on the crank shaft and cam shaft were all in good nick also.

I decided to simply re-assemble the engine with all new seals and new piston rings. To start with I cleaned and degreased the block and head enough to get some paint on them. I went with UHT engine paint in a spry can, the colour is called 'pontiac blue' and is nothing like the original 'duck egg blue' colour that Land Rover used but it looks OK. I then honed the bores with a glaze buster on a battery drill to get a cross hatch pattern to seat the new rings.

Next the crank shaft went back in with it's original bearings. They have been replaced before a they are .010" US, still genuine Rover bearings though.

I had managed to buy a NOS genuine rear main seal kit, so that went in with the crank. This job is tricky enough with the engine on an engine stand, I can't imagine attempting to do it in position. Basically there is a split oil seal that you slip over the crank shaft (smeared with the supplied silicone grease) then you have to thread a garter spring around the inside of the seal, then connect the spring and get the orientation of the spring and the seal correct in regards to the engine, I can't recall what it is now but it's in the manual. The other tricky bit is getting the cork 'T Seals' into position, I used some 0.1 mm shim to help slide the bearing cap with seals fitted, into position. Once  bearing cap is tightened you trim off the remaining cork, to leave 0.8mm protruding. All very exciting stuff I can assure you..

New gaskets, seals, rings etc were ordered from the UK as well as a new clutch, which was 100% necessary as the existing clutch was for a 2A gearbox which the vehicle was previously fitted with, so I needed a new S3 type clutch to mate with my newly rebuilt S3 gearbox. Clutch was AP brand, gaskets were all Britpart as there didn't seem to be an alternative, and the front main seal was Corteco. From memory I used Bearmach valve stem seals and piston rings.

Measuring ring gap. 3 were within tolerance, 1 required some light filing. The old rings were so far out of spec that I can't imagine they were ever right! almost 5mm gap when fitted into the bore. Either way, I imagine oil consumption should be significantly reduced .

Old pistons w/ new rings, going back into the cylinder block.

Finding TDC when fitting the timing chain. The manual suggests temporarily fitting the front pulley to do this, but I figured a dial clock would be more accurate, and meant I didn't have to go hunting for the pulley and indicator arrow.

Cleaned up the head with a scotch-brite pad and re-lapped the valves. New valve stems seals fitted as well.

Home made valve spring compressor...

New front seal pressed in with a lashing of Hylomar. The seal retainer was originally held in by solid rivets. I drilled these out then drilled and tapped the holes to make it easier to change the seal in the future.

Starting to look complete

New clutch going on, using a spare input shaft as an alignment tool.

And voila, back in it's rightful home. I remember this was on New Years eve and I was rushing to get it done as I had to work that night. In fact I did nearly all of this engine work over the course of a week while my partner was overseas (unlimited time in the shed)

That's enough blogging for now, will come back with another post about the bulkhead over the next few weeks.

Wheels & Tyres

The original 7.0x16 cross ply tyres were stuffed, so I had them removed from the rims and the rims sandblasted & etch primed. I found some spray paint that is close to the original LR limestone and gave them several coats of paint. How durable this is remains to be seen but it looks good at the moment! After browsing for suitable tyres for a while I discovered that Nissan Navara utes come into the country on steel rims with Bridgestone tyres. These are then removed at the dealership and alloys fitted if so desired by the new owner. This causes a huge over supply of steel rims with brand new Bridgestone Dueler HT 205/80/R16 tyres. A little research suggested this tyre size is very close to original SWB Land Rover tyres (somewhere between 6.00"x16 & 7.00"x16) so I picked up a set of 5 for an absolute steal. They are road biased tyres but I think this will be fine as I don't plan on doing any serious off road driving once I'm done.

I had the tyres fitted to the LR rims with new tubes and they've come up really well. With the wheels fitted, I was finally able to roll the chassis out of the garage, a monumental occasion! With the garage cleared, I got the rear tub off it's side and onto the chassis to give me some room to work around the vehicle. Working in a single width garage sure gets cramped! The tub is only on temporarily, it will come off eventually for paint. But it makes good storage for the mean time!

If anyone local to Christchurch would like some of these Navara rims & tyres, get in touch with me as I know where a huge stock of them is available.

Brakes (and yes I am still alive)

Apologies for the long delay in posting here. Progress hasn't stopped on the Land Rover, but it definitely slowed down over summer, with more time being spent outside of the garage. Anyway, I will carry on from where I left off in the last post and will make a few more posts in sequential order to catch up to current progress.

So with the rebuilt gearbox fitted I decided to crack on with the brakes. I fitted new TRW slave cylinders with new brake shoes and springs all around. The brake drums were pretty good but I gave them a light skim in the lathe. Hopefully they still have some life in them. Unfortunately I can't find any photos from this part of the job, thats what happens when I don't keep up with the blog!

My biggest issue was the pipes. I had been putting this off as it looked fiddly and confusing. I decided to buy a Automec copper nickel brake pipe kit from the UK as all the pipes are supplied at the correct length and with the correct fittings. Should have been easy! but it turned out I had ordered the wrong kit. I ordered kit DA7409 - Land Rover Series 3 88 Dual Early > 1980. which to read, sounds correct, but as I have know learnt, there are 2 different variants of the dual circuit brake system for a series 3 Land Rover (possibly 4 if you count thread changes/metric creeping in on late models) One with a tee piece on the front cross member which feeds the front L & R wheels from a single line and the second variant which has an individual line for front left and right coming from the PDWA valve (will cover the PDWA in a late post).

Dual circuit brakes were an option in the UK home market, but were fitted as standard in New Zealand (and Australia I believe) due to local legislation, and from what I have seen, all early S3's (and very late 2A) here in NZ have the latter variant with individual lines from the PDWA. So to summarise, none of the front pipes in my kit were compatible with what I have. For any one else reference, you want the kit for 'lightweight' Series 3 Military Land Rover, as these had the same set up. This again gets confusing as there are two lightweight variants. I'll paste in an extract from an email incase the info is useful to anyone:

The brake pipe set GB5620 has a longer right hand front pipe (45”)  than the earlier lightweight model (GB5613) which has a 34” right hand front pipe and a 69” left hand front pipe.  The rest of the pipes are pretty much the same in both sets but the GB5613 has master cylinder pipes with a large and small male fitting at each end rather than one pipe with large 7/16” male fittings and the other with small 3/8” fittings.

So in the end I used the rear pipes from the kit, and had the fronts made to length from copper nickel  pipe at Safe R Brakes here in Christchurch, using the fittings from the Automec kit where possible. I know I could have done this myself but I don't have a flaring tool etc. I think i will invest in one now!

Anyway, Photo Dump!