Thread: Saving the defender

Originally Posted by cafe latte

A fellow shooter has a 4bd1 in his Landy it has 550K on it and it is still as tight as can be it sounds and runs perfect. I would not worry about yours unless there are obvious problems.
Chris

My next service, in a few hundred km is 600,000. Still running pretty much the same as it was 23 years ago when I bought it. New seals at both ends of the crankshaft, several thermostats, new manifold and sump gaskets, injector overhaul, that's it on the engine apart from regular servicing.

John

Originally Posted by JDNSW

My next service, in a few hundred km is 600,000. Still running pretty much the same as it was 23 years ago when I bought it. New seals at both ends of the crankshaft, several thermostats, new manifold and sump gaskets, injector overhaul, that's it on the engine apart from regular servicing.

John

Nice work JD.

Any updates?
Chris

As John Lennon famously said " life is what happens while you're busy making other plans" :-)

Its been a massive year - the move to Tamworth in April has completely derailed my progress. It took a few months to move all the parts up - and theres been a lot of travel up and back for work....etc and so on...haha

However, I did meet up with a great bunch of Landy owners in Tamworth the other night - its time to get things back on track !

stay tuned.

Andy

They all hid under their woodpiles last time I was there.

Well, its been quite the journey.

I've finally got around to exhuming this thread and kicking it back to life.

The same cannot be said for the defender 130 I began building over 12 months ago - however its definitely still a work in progress and steadily coming together ( well - actually, steadily coming apart - more on that soon)

Since the move to Tamworth last April, it took a few months to relocate, took a while longer to get the 130 here, and then my wife got sick, and then we found out she was 4 months pregnant, and then my wife got better and my son was born, but he was sick, so then we spent two months in Westmead Childrens hospital, where we spent a good deal of time, including Christmas.. and New Years, and then he got better, and then we all came home...and then I started working on the defender again

Now, for those few of your who followed this thread last year, well, let me just say its nice to be back. For great majority of you who have no idea who I am and never saw or followed this thread a year ago - hello and welcome to what can only be described as a rather large rebuild of a totally clapped out 1998 300tdi 130, that I bought because I lived in Sydney and it was rusting to death in Noosa, and I decided one day that I had always wanted to rebuild one.

A one way ticket to noosa with a pocket full of cash, and I bought the 130 off the back of a flatbed truck and drove it for 14 hours to Sydney.

I've been told I'm impulsive.

Turns out, I'm lucky I didn't kill myself. The old 130 was...ahem...more or less roadworthy....

...Aside from the fact that the brakes were completely shot out ( including the discs, pads, pistons, seals and hoses ) and aside from the fact that the steering ball joint off the drop arm was literally held together by a tourniquet made from a torn kids t-shirt, and aside from the chassis that was rusted out in about 10 places, and aside from the suspension which was kaput..and the rear main seal that leaked..aside from all those things, this 130 was a diamond in the rough.... oh, except for the cracked windscreen...and the torn seats...and the mouldy head lining.. and the hail damage...aside from all those things, this old 130 was in mint condition

And now the restoration journey begins...

When I left you all last year, the defender had arrived in Tamworth and I had to take the roof off to fit it in the garage.

It was not long after that and she was stripped back to discover just how bad the rust was...it was much worse than expected.

Passenger side dumb iron and outriggers were shot out and , the big one - rear main cross member was beyond repair. The dumb iron and other parts of the chassis were all repaired with 3mm - as for the rear cross member, it was beyond repair and now has a donor cross member from a county.

The rust repairs were done steadily over several months, then the chassis was sent off to the sandblaster and when it can back I gave it 3 brushed coats of KBR rust paint, followed by two sprayed coats of a 2K polyurethane.

The inside of the chassis rails were also closely inspected, then cleaned out and they will be flooded with Penetrol.

so, the brake pads were down to less than 1mm - the safe tolerance I think should be 5mm?

I suspect that due to the worn pads, the pistons were fairly proud of the caliper and about 5 mm from the ends weren't touching the wiper seal - as a result the pistons all had bad rust damage and the chrome had eroded to a point where the only solution was to replace the pistons and seals.

That was a bugger of a job. Trying to reseat a piston into the caliper takes a bit of practice - there is a certain 'feel' to knowing when the piston has been seated square and can slide home.

I ruined the first piston as it wedged off square, and I also ruined a few of the metal retaining plates until I worked out how to do this correctly.

Essentially its a case of coating the piston and seal with some lubricant ( not oil) and then put your hands over the caliper and set the piston on your index and middle fingers of both hands - a bit of a wiggle side to side until you feel it is square and then they push up into the caliper with just hand pressure.

To seat the wiper seal and metal retainer, I pushed them over the seated piston, put a 5mm piece of steel plate over the piston and then using a small f clamp gently seat the piston, wiper and retainer square and flush into the caliper.