Yes Mick as far as I know!Quote:
Originally Posted by mick88
But its a Land Rover 9-inch, not 8.5-inch!
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Yes Mick as far as I know!Quote:
Originally Posted by mick88
But its a Land Rover 9-inch, not 8.5-inch!
Howdy Folks,
Well its been a little slow going of late as we have so much going on around us that the Camel has had to take a back seat for a while.
But now we have caught up (kinda) and I had some hours on the Sunday to donate to the project.
With the chassis/engine/gearbox all but complete - sans some minor items - it was time to turn our attention elsewhere, and that elsewhere was the bulkhead! I have been dreading this as the bulkhead isn't in too good a condition unfortunately and it has been subject to some abuse, neglect and some shoddy repairs in the past. But, the time has come so attack it we must...
Both the left and right outrigger mounts were virtually toast as the bolts that go through them had rusted solid, no chance to get them out so in the act of dismantling Camel to start the resto they were simply cut off. They were heavily corroded anyway and had to be replaced. we got some new items from SW McIntyre's and then made a start trying to extricate the original items - man what a chore.Multiple spot welds in had-to-reach locations. In the end I chopped out the offending part with the intention of replacing whatever I cut out. This is the drivers side after frame after relieving it of its bulkhead-to-frame bracket...
Attachment 124769
And before we could weld in a new bracket and make good the channel section we had to repair this part of the drivers side footwell. The PO had sandwiched the rusted out original steel between two sheets of galvanised tin and fastened them with some aluminium pop-rivets - yuck!!!! Hadn't even bother to seal around the repair (I use that term loosely here) so the original sheet just kept rotting....
The outer skin
Attachment 124770
The inner skin showing the amount of rust cutout previously
Attachment 124779
With the new patch panel welded in (I ended up cutting out about and extra 10-15mm all the way around to find some good steel to weld to), we then proceeded to transfer the captive nuts for the hinges from the old bracket to the new bracket...
Attachment 124780
And then welded in the bracket, and made full repairs to the pillar section. In actual fact it turned out pretty good...
Attachment 124781
Now, the previous owner installed some kind of ghetto roof rack system that was bolted through the pillar sections and also bolted to the windscreen hinge. This had been done on two separate occasions as the original fixings (2 off either side) simply flogged out so they went to a three-fixing system, which also flogged out - so thats 5-holes in the pillars either side!!! I am not sure what they hell they were carrying on this rack but by god it must have been heavy! The rack itself was made out of old galvanised water pipe and it weighed a ton to begin with!
Here is a pic of the pillar with the three holes drilled out with the step-drill to a diameter of 20mm so I can plug them with the holesaw plugs leftover from drilling 20mm holesaw holes. I always keep my holesaw plugs for this very reason. This shot shows one of three done, and you can also see where the PO has bogged over the original two holes - which of course will have to be made good...
Attachment 124782
And here is a shot of the two afore-mentioned bogged up holes now drilled out with the step drill as per the previous three holes ready for filling with plugs...
Attachment 124783
So, with the pillar and bracket fully repaired, this is how it came out. Its pretty fair along its length but it will need a skim of filler to get it perfectly flat for paint. Still, its good to have the pillar with its full strength back and not look like swiss-cheese.
Attachment 124784
And this is what it looks like on the inside.....makes me angry!! Anyway, still deciding whether to plate straight over the top or cut it out and weld in a patch - probably the latter as it will look better!
Attachment 124785
And some more damage - stress crack most likely induced by the over-loaded roof rack! There is a few of these, but this one has now been repaired...
Attachment 124786
Well that was about it for the Sunday. I am almost done with the drivers side of the bulkhead with just a few minor spots to repair. Then its onto the passenger side which believe it or not is worse! Ahh well, keeps me off the streets. More next week.
Cheers and thanks,
Plugger and Tricky
P.S. Has anyone got any info on the extended shocks I will be needing for Camel? Even just a recommendation will do. Cheers....
Good work on the repairs. I wish my firewall looked that good!
Look here for extended shocks:
Rocky Mountain, Shock Absorbers
Thanks 86..Quote:
Originally Posted by 86mud
Howdy Folks,
Took a break from doing the bulkhead today and decided on installing the fuel tanks instead. The catalyst for this was that through the week I tried to source a second fuel tank base (mounting bracket) from various sources all without any luck. The only one I could find was a rusty POS that would have been more trouble than it was worth. To this end I decided to make my own bracket and of course, everyone loves a challenge right??
Plugger and I started early and I got him set up water blasting the inside and outside of both fuel tanks. While the inside of the second tank - the auxiliary we sourced from a guy in Gympie - was absolutely spotless inside the same could not be said for the tank Camel came with. There was a fair bit of rust inside the tank and it was evident that it had some water laying inside of it for some time - most likely condensate. Here is a shot of all the rusty water spewing out of the tank - luckily the tank itself was not compromised and all the sheet metal was still very solid. The sender however was rusted solid and the pickup tube was starting to corrode.
Attachment 125296
While Plugger was cleaning, I set about making the new bracket for the auxiliary tank. As it turned out, the bracket Camel came with fitted the auxiliary tank better than it did the main tank so in fact I set about making bracket for the main tank, which needed to be about 2mm longer through the middle. I decided to make the bracket/plate/mount in three pieces rather than two as was done by Rover - just easier to bend up this way. After cutting some 2mm sheet steel to size, bending, drilling, holesawing and slotting this is what I came up with - and it fit the main tank perfectly if I do say so myself! You can just see the welded joint on the right.
Attachment 125297
Plugger had finished waterblasting the inside and outside of both tanks by this stage, so I set him the task of wire-wheeling all the old enamel paint of the tanks ready for a fresh coat. It took him some time but he was very diligent and did a good job. Here is the the 2nd tank just before painting. Dirty job but someone had to do it...
Attachment 125298
So, while Plugger was doing double-duty on the 5" grinder, I was tackling the last bit of fabrication for the fuel tank bracket/plate/mount. It was a complex bit of bending with two 45-degree bends and some slits with wings spread 90-degrees apart. After a bit of cutting, bending, slotting and hammering it came out perfectly and I was really chuffed in that it was virtually identical to the factory unit
Attachment 125299
Attachment 125300
And finally all welded together and sitting next to its original brother - you cant tell them apart except for the welding. Now to clean up the original and get them both ready for paint
Attachment 125301
Attachment 125302
And while I was busy with the wire-wheel and the grinder getting the bracket/plate/mount ready for paint, Plugger had already jumped ahead and was hard at it laying some Dulux epoxy enamel in gloss black down with a brush. He laid it up quite well with minimal brush strokes but nice and thick so it got a good layer of protection. It would have just been too wasteful to spray these with an aerosol can and get it on thick enough...
Attachment 125303
I decided to spray the bracket/plate/mount with the same Dulux epoxy enamel in gloss black - we all know what happens when you try and brush over and around holes - yuck!! So I strung them up on the temporary line and had at them. While not my best job (a few runs but hey, its on thick and its on the underside of the bracket) they came out quite smooth and glossy...
Attachment 125304
...and by the end of the day Plugger had done an exceptional job finishing the fuel tanks. Tomorrow we will flip them both over and do the underside. I will have to wait until Monday to fit them up as I don't have any M10 button-head stainless allen bolts left in the store. I am thinking about glueing the tanks onto the brackets with some black silicone as someone mentioned that originally the tank and the bracket/plate/mount were silver-soldered together. I could not find any trace of this on Camels tank and the tank just came out when we took the plate off. Anyone care to comment???
Attachment 125305
Well that's it for today, its beer o-clock and time to order a couple of sender units!! Proud of Mitchell's effort today too as he put in all day!! More tomorrow!
Cheers and thanks,
Tricky and Plugger
Well two things,,
you guys Rock!
and Sikaflex will hold a Saturn V on the pad,,
Ok,, :)
Hi Forumites,
Well last week saw Plugger and I freed up somewhat because of the school holidays, so it was a good opportunity to play catch-up with the Camel and try to gain a bit of ground on the mountain of work still to be done. We had some discussions surrounding painting of the car and we realised that we were not too far off actually starting this, if only we could get the panels prepped and ready - a dirty, messy job that no one in their right mind really likes!!
The fuel tank paint had time to cure so we could now glue the bracket/plate/mount to the tank so that was the first order of business. It was going to be a two step process requiring curing over two days. Firstly we grabbed some Sikaflex (thanks Pedro!) and glued the major portion of the tank to the bracket. I soon discovered that the paint wasn't as hard as I first thought it was - I should have post -cured it by sticking the heat gun inside the tank but didn't realise this until too late. The paint on topside of the tank became marked where the clamping bars were located - oh well, if we get time we will repaint them, but because they will never be seen, I doubt that this will happen with everything else yet to do. I grabbed some marine-grade adhesive - Sika 291
Attachment 125848
And then proceeded to bond the tank. I could only do one tank at a time because I only had a few large clamps...
Attachment 125849
While the Sikaflex was curing I decided to start stripping all the panels of their old paint so they would be ready for the new coat of BMW Dakar Yellow when the time comes. The booth was supposedly vacant in a few weeks time so this was the timeframe we were working towards. Starting on the bonnet I decided that I would chemical strip the underside and then wire-wheel the top side where it was easier to get to. A few hours of toil and the bonnet came up just fine. There was only a minor section of corrosion to the steel frame at the front. I decided just to neutralise this but not repair it. It was not structural and the corrosion was very limited...
Attachment 125834
Attachment 125835
Onto the fenders and the passenger side fender revealed a lot of bog, and two different top coats of green. I started stripping with chemical stripper but then finished it with the wire wheel. The gel paint stripper was great at getting the top layer of paint off but didn't do a great deal of work on the original factory BRG (looks like BRG, could be wrong!!) So I finished off the whole panel with the wire wheel, then set about doing some bodywork on the numerous dents, high and low spots! While the panels are far from pristine, they aren't too bad for a near-50 year old car!
Attachment 125836
Then onto the drivers side front fender and at the end of day 1 we had both fenders and the bonnet ready for the painting process...
Attachment 125837
Day 2
Day two saw Plugger join the action. I had him help me clean up and mount the fuel tanks while I concentrated on the front sheetmetal. The front panel was in pretty bad shape - lots of corrosion at the bottom where the mud n water collected and in the end it just rotted away
Attachment 125838
But it was salvageable! Firstly we had to decide how best to repair it. I decided to do it in three parts due to the complex fascia - it was not dead flat - and the fact it had a lip underneath that was reinforced that bolted to the chassis. mark out where to cut...
Attachment 125839
Then make a new centre section out of 1.5mm sheet and weld in...
Attachment 125840
Then cut-out two pieces for the ends, do a little hammer-forming and voila, a old piece is new again..
Attachment 125841
Even saved the inner lip. I think it came out pretty well even if I do say so myself...
Attachment 125842
And don't forget the reinforcing on the inside!! Nothing special here, just a piece of 30x30x3 angle welded into place...
Attachment 125843
Then I handed it over to Plugger for some wire-wheeling to get all the old paint off. Here is the finished product, he has done a great job and I am chuffed about the repair, almost looks brand new! That was the end of Day 2!
Attachment 125846
Day 3
Day three saw us arrive at the shop late, as we all slept in after going to the movies to see Cars 3 - while its an animated movie, the storyline was good and I enjoyed it as did Plugger. Anyway, we had a choice once down there to either continue on with the bulkhead (essentially a one-man job!) or start on the tray or the hardtop. Plugger chose the hardtop so that's what we attacked. It literally took us all day to disassemble it enough to get it stripped back. Once we had the rear door off and disassembled I handed it over to Plugger to strip the paint off with the wire-wheel. Unfortunately we had to get medieval on the door to get the handle off as the shaft pin had frozen solid. We will just have to fix this later. It had a bit of corrosion around the steel frame but I will treat this the same as the bonnet - neutralise it and leave it be. Here is the Plugger in action on the rear door...
Attachment 125826
And the stripped door - good work Plugger me ol' Son!!
Attachment 125850
Attachment 125851
And here is the hardtop all disassembled. It took us most of the day with rusted or frozen bolts, stripped heads and hard-to-reach fixings...
Attachment 125828
Attachment 125847
Well that was it for day 3 so we packed up and headed for dinner. Lots of sanding and stripping yet to be done but we are making good progress. Hopefully, it should be in paint withing 2-3 weeks which is very exciting.
More soon,
Cheers and thanks,
Tricky and Plugger
Tank to skid plate. As far as I know all the original tanks were soft soldered (not silver soldered) to the skid plate. In my view the space between them should very definitely be sealed with something, otherwise the gap will fill with sandy water which will rapidly penetrate the paint and encourage rusting. I used silicone after the solder let go!
Yes, totally agree there John!!
Hi Guys n Girls,
Made some progress on the Camel over the past few weeks, but alas not as much as we would like. We are madly rushing towards getting the vehicle into paint but it seems to be two step forward and one step back at the moment.
Plugger and I carried on where we left off with the hardtop. Once we had it up on the panel stand we continued with the paint stripping. The interior top layer of the hardtop was flaky anyway but this didn't stop the underlying paint to stick like ****e to a blanket. Wire wheeling was the only way to get it off and after a few hours of persistence it was done. And it came up really good I thought. While the hardtop is going to be painted gloss black, our intention is to spray the inside in ute-liner to give it a bit of insulation and to keep heat transfer and condensation to a minimum. Failing this we do have a good quantity of Dynamat on standby!!
Attachment 127035
Next was the outside. This was a lot easier than the inside and after another two hours was all done...Then we decided to cutout the Alpine windows we purchased from an old gent in Tassie. Firstly lay out some masking tape and mark out the exact location of the windows. As you can see I pushed forward the window so that the back edge would be level vertically with the back edge of the sliding windows in the sides.
Attachment 127022
And then simply cut out with the jigsaw on both sides taking it nice and slow. The template for the shape was the original glass plus 8mm all round to allow for the rubber. This glass is the 5mm thick OEM Rover glass so I might have to send to the UK for the rubber seal if I can't source any locally. Our local Clark Rubber has closed down so can't check that out except online. Anyone used Clark Rubber??
Attachment 127023
Attachment 127024
And the finished hardtop ready for the painting process...
Attachment 127025
And while all this was going on the fuel tanks went in...
Attachment 127026
Attachment 127027
After this Plugger and I decided on tackling the tray. This involved some disassembly obviously for paint, some repairs from damage sustained in its previous life but also some modifications to suit the auxiliary fuel tank on the passenger side. So once we got it up on the panel stand Plugger went at it and removed the fuel filler cap, neck and shroud, badges and all the old rubber seals etc. We could then start on the modifications to the tray to allow for the fuel tank fill which would just be a mirror of the drivers side. We decided to make it a mirror of the drivers side even though this was never a factory option but would give us that factory look. We mulled over this for a while as doing it this way would entail making changes to the spare tank filler neck location (moving it from its current location more to the outside and then blanking the original hole - to make it a perfect mirror of the standard tank - so some rework to be done on the secondary tank) and also the vent hose location. Ahh well, hindsight is always 20/20 they say.
So, we started out marking out the filler neck shroud location on the passenger side. Using the standard one as a guide, it was a simple case of measure and mark out the hole size less 5mm all around to allow for the reinforcing lip as per the original...
Attachment 127028
Cut and bend the lip (looks a bit bohemian I know, but I will make this good when I can get it on its side)...
Attachment 127029
Then test fit the shroud and drill the holes for the rivets - almost perfect!
Attachment 127030
Now onto the rear bulkhead. Pretty simple here, mark out the exact location as the original but mirror reverse, drill the holes and connect the cuts.. As you can see the hole through the bottom flange has already been cut in the exact mirror-opposite location to the original. This will allow us to place the tray in its proper location and simply mark out on the auxiliary tank the right location of the inlet spout.
Attachment 127031
Attachment 127032
And finally mark out and cut where the fuel filler hose comes up through the floor of the tray...
Attachment 127033
Attachment 127034
And that's it for the work on the tray so far. Obviously some bits will have to be fabricated like the cover plate that hides the fuel filler hose on the inside of the tray - not hard its only 1mm aluminium and we will just make a mirror-reverse template from the original.
On other news I discussed seat belts with the Certifying Engineer the other day. Camel never came with seat belts of any kind and of course we would like to install lap-sash seat belts for the driver and passenger and a lap belt for the centre passenger if Plugger decides he wants to go the original seating layout in lieu of bucket seats. To this end the Engineer and I both agreed that there is not enough structure in the roof of the hardtop to facilitate the install of the upper mount which requires a 7/16th UNF bolt in a reinforced location. The only way we decided to enable this is to install a roll cage with back stays and attach the upper mount to this. Of course this entails a lot more work but does have added safety benefits in terms of ROPS etc. So, now we are busily designing the roll cage and how its going to be attached to the rear tray. Another added bonus is the roll cage provides a good place to attach his high-lift jack to and keep the weight down low. The rear tray will just be used for storage anyway as we are going to put in a fridge slide and drawer system for when he goes camping!!
And finally,progress here on in will be a bit slow for a couple of weeks while I recover from my carpel tunnel decompression op which was yesterday. Its all fun!!
Cheers and thanks,
Plugger and Tricky
