Nice. Are you keeping the Holden or looking for a Rover engine?
cheers,
D
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Nice. Are you keeping the Holden or looking for a Rover engine?
cheers,
D
If you are considering returning to the original engine, perhap a first step might be to ask the seller if he still has the original engine stashed away - presumably it needs something done to it, but it is quite possible this may just be rings and bearings, or even just valve stem seals. And it may have been replaced just to get more performance, although most likely it was replaced because dropping in a Holden motor was a lot cheaper than overhauling the Rover engine. This is still probably the case, although the difference is probably less, and the original engine type will make the restored vehicle considerably more valuable.
John
Thanks for all the kind words guys, really nice!!
Our intentions: for Plugger this will be his first car and for now he plans to keep it indefinitely. As a matter-of-fact, on the way home he eluded to a plan he formulated along the lines of After we finish doing up the Camel Dad, I think we should go back to Farmer Gill and grab the other two Landies, and then do them up and sell them for a profit and this will pay for my camper trailer...!! Out of the mouths of babes eh...!! (he has also expressed ideas of restoring an MGB TD as well. He has got the British bug, comes from his mum who is from the Isle of Wight!!)
We are going to keep the Holden six in it. Plugger has ideas of towing a camper trailer etc so this will help in that endeavor. We have a budget also, that we need to stick to, and sourcing and rebuilding a Land Rover engine might just blow that wide open.
For now, its Strip down -> Assessment ->Procurement strategy -> Rebuild -> Enjoy -> (and then possibly Phase II) Evaluate -> Improvement
And through it all I am hoping he learns a lot and understands the costs involved in restoring a car but also the immense pride and self-achievement in doing so.
Can I just say thanks to you all for your support, Plugger and I were a bit overwhelmed by it all and it bolsters him for the labor ahead. I think he is off to a great start - I think he chose well and bought well and this puts us ahead in the game, so fingers crossed we can stay there.
Mick Marsh - what is a "wide light"??
Thanks,
Tricky
Landrovers up to 1969 had the headlights set in the radiator support panel, between the mudguards. After that they were moved to the mudguards, as in your example. Only the last couple of years of 2a production had the wide spaced lights, hence much rarer.
John
Thanks guys...
Much rarer - that sounds promising!
That is a good vehicle you have picked up there and it is good to see a fourteen year old lad with the interest to take on a restoration. An excellent project for him.
Having recently rebuilt both Holden and Land Rover engines, I don't think there is a lot of difference in the cost factor these days, as compared to several decades ago when Land Rover parts were very expensive, and Holden parts were cheap. Mind you, although parts for both engine families are readily available and affordable these days, the kitty still needs to be "plump" when you undertake a rebuild.
Good Luck,
Cheers, Mick.
Well it has come time to start disassembling The Camel down to his last nut and bolt to see exactly what we have, what can be saved and what needs to be replaced.
Plugger himself was up at sparrows with spanner in hand, eager to start the long process of restoration. With weather on our side we began early hoping to have a swag of work done before the BOM-predicted rain moved in this afternoon.
Here is a photo of Plugger hard at it:
http://www.aulro.com/afvb/attachment...1&d=1471675779
So, by the end of the day, just prior to the rain starting, we had Camel half-stripped so he looked something like this:
http://www.aulro.com/afvb/attachment...1&d=1471676228
We then covered him back up with the tarp until tomorrow. The roof bars(?), seats and bullbar all went into the trailer and will be dumped at the tip tomorrow - we wont be using these in the restoration. We found a lot of frozen fasteners and rounded bolts - par for the course I guess. Oh, and British Whitworth can be so frustrating!
The things we found out while we were dismantling the car:
>It has free wheeling hubs, I take this as being good. Although they look the same they are different.
>The chassis has some rust - we knew it did as the farmer told us so. How much he was unsure of. We will know the extent in the next few days
>It has a suffix A gearbox - is this a Series III box with full synchros? Comments welcome
>It has some bad corrosion in the bulkhead. We didn't know this and I suspect farmer Gill didn't know either. Once again, par for the course.
>It has the usual assortment of oil leaks and weeps. We will attend to this when we address the rebuild of the various sub-assemblies.
>The front grill panel has been pushed forward 2" to accommodate the Holden 6 and a bigger radiator. If we use a thermo fan the panel can go back in the original position
>It came with a various assortments of parts - spare wheel and tyre, crank handle (no good for a Holden six), rear cabin wall that turns it into a ute (tiny, tiny loadspace, but no roof for this configuration), another early series front panel with the inset headlights, original LR radiator.
I will post more tomorrow when we continue with the tear-down.
Cheers and thanks,
Tricky
P.S. John, I enquired with the Farmer regarding the whereabouts of the original engine - he said it was knackered and not worth saving so it went into landfill. It looks like we shall stick with the Holden six.
Good work there.
Cheers Rod
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