Ex. Army Series 3 GS 109 6 cyl 2.6ltr - Never Say Die

**Dordie** · 17th January 2021, 10:01 PM

Cleaned up the air filter.

It was a bit battered and bent, having been dropped some time in it's life.

Had a fair bit of manky oil in the reservoir, mixed with grass and seeds.

Dropped the lid and rusted components in a citric acid bath to let the magic happen.

Cleaned the mesh with lots of engine degreaser to remove the old oil residue and tweezers to pick out the grass.

Knocked out the dents in the lid with my new leather beater bag. I suspect there's too much sand in the bag.

The air cleaner came up a treat and I like the patina'd look.

**mick88** · 18th January 2021, 08:14 AM

From memory the recommended service interval for the valve clearances on the 2.6 was every 5000 miles.
Given it was such a marathon job to get at the exhaust tappets they were often overlooked and this resulted in burnt valves.
I believe the issue was more prone to the engine when fitted to a Land Rover, as the Rover sedans had a different shaped exhaust manifold with the exhaust pipe flange centered, not positioned nearer to the front cylinders, so the exhaust fumes/heat got away a lot better.

Cheers, Mick.

**Dordie** · 18th January 2021, 08:36 PM

Great info Mick88.

Valve clearance adjustment pretty well makes every service a major one IMO given that panels need to be removed etc etc.

I won't be doing a lot of KM's when Regie is finally road worthy, so I'll probably do one service every year and check them as part of that process.

Now that I've done it once, it should be a lot easier / faster next time....

Still, not as much of a pain as my first car - a 1950 Ford Prefect with side valve motor. From memory, no adjustment was built in, it was basically remove and hone.

**Dordie** · 18th January 2021, 08:53 PM

During Regie's time in pasture, he acquired a few dents and scrapes.

So, armed with some knowledge gained from Youtube, I thought I'd have a go at making the dents a little less dented.

A couple of the dents penetrated the side of the tub and were fairly deep. I managed to knock these out, finding the aluminium rod really useful to punch small areas in the dent, the hardwood timber great as a dolly and straight edge, and the big hammer - especially the ball end to give lots of heft to bash the metal straight. Some of the sheet aluminium stubbornly refused to straighten out until I gave them some quite heavy blows.

All of the dents are around 1mm deep now, so really happy with that.

With the dents that penetrated the side of tub, I'm thinking I might rivet / sikaflex a patch over them, rather than aluminium weld the splits (or JB Weld I've been told) and apply a think skim of filler.

Thread: Ex. Army Series 3 GS 109 6 cyl 2.6ltr - Never Say Die

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Cleaned up the air filter

Panel beating the tub

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