Thread: Plugger and The Camel

I'd love to do something like this, if I ever had the spare time!

Rod, thanks for the nice words.

Surrefus - it sure is time consuming, we have a system whereby we do a minimum of fours hours on Camel every Saturday - we hope to have him finished by Xmas!! Thats 4 hours x 2 people x 6 months = 208 man hours. Somehow I think we shall be short by a long way!

Anyway, and update....

Plugger and I have started the procurement process - parts sourcing and ordering. It seems that for the most part, parts are cheaper from the UK which I find bizarre - even with the inclusion of postage from the other side of the world.

So, this week we have ordered 4 x hub bearing and seal kits, and some pinion seals. We also saw this for sale on eBay, so we grabbed it - its a S3 snorkel kit - we snavelled it for the princely sum of $99 including postage:

Apparently all you need to change is the windscreen pivot bolt to something more flush to make it fit a SII or SIIA. We shall see it its that simple.

Plugger and I have discussed at length what colour we are going to paint the Camel. While we had a shortlist of colours, all very similar, we had by this time narrowed it down to two. I went and got a pressure pack gloss enamel can of both colours and did a test colour board for both colours. Because the board was fairly large it was easier to see what the paint would look like as opposed to just a colour chip. The winner - BMW Dakar Yellow with black barwork and wheels:


Its a really nice colour (the photo doesnt do it justice) and should suit the Landie very well.

Almost Saturday again, which means more Camel-work! I shall update the thread after that session

Cheers,
Tricky

That colour scheme will look great.

A few points you need to be aware of.

Most important, probably is that the tie rod ends changed at about the start of Series 3. Earlier ones have the clamping section unthreaded, later ones clamp on the thread, which is full length. They are not interchangeable. Clamping threaded against unthreaded, either way, is not secure, and may lead to steering failure (at least one fatal accident is known).

Since the complete links, tube plus TREs are interchangeable, you need to check what you have, and that it is matched (may have been swapped previously), and order the correct parts; and make sure you get what you order - some suppliers don't know the difference.

Second point, do not use stainless steel to hold alloy panels unless electrically insulated from them, as the stainess will cause corrosion of the alloy, which is protected by the original sherardised fasteners.

Only a few locations require the original threads, where the fastener is threaded into the body or other part. Notable places are the hub drive flange bolts(BSF) and the top fasteners on the instrument panel (BA).

John

Hi Mate,

I agree with Homestar - that colour scheme is going to look great. I have to admit though - I had assumed that you were making a Camel Trophy tribute car!!!

If I can give you a few tips on your restoration project (having spent 4 years doing a ground up restoration on a Series II SW..

Photo's, photo's, photo's... Because it took me so long - I sometimes couldn't remember how/where things went... So I took lot's of photo's which made things much easier..

Locked sandwich bags... I used hundreds of these - as I pulled things apart, I would label a bag and put the stuff in it.. Even if you intend on replacing the nuts/bolts/washers - it helps you to know which size, how many, etc..

Wiring Loom... You can purchase entire wiring looms (there is a firm in OZ and a firm in the UK).. I chose to replace the entire loom because my S2 is 56 years old, and some of the wiring was brittle. Plus being a Landy - every owner had "modified" the loom, and I wanted to put things back to standard.. The loom that I bought looked factory - with the correct colour coding as well.

Paint... I've restored 2 Landy's now.. Make sure that whatever paint you choose, you can get plenty of it... The first Landy I did - the company that made the paint stopped selling my particular colour about 3/4 way through my restoration... I took what paint I had left over to get colour matched - and the colour match was terrible! I ended up sourcing the last 2 tins of paint in Victoria (of my particular colour)

Parts.. Just about everything is available. There are many suppliers - just be careful when ordering parts.. I got caught out a few times, ordering the correct part for my vehicle - only to discover that my vehicle had been modified and the correct (original) part wouldn't fit anymore...

Enjoy... The great thing about restoring the Land Rover is that you (and your son) will get to know every part of it. For me that was a steep learning curve.

I'm following this thread with interest.. Good luck!

Cheers,
The Grey Ghost

Some ideas of how she may look, maybe with some big mods in one case

Good on you guys











image.jpeg

Hi Guys,

John - I checked the tie (steering) rod ends and they definitely the screw-in type. So when I order the new parts I will definitely order the same type - thanks for the heads up!

Homestar - I think it will look great too. The larger sample piece gives a better idea of how it will look on the car. He made a good choice.

Digger - some great pics there but what the hell is that last forward Control beast - looks like something out of the future! I think yellow and black will be a great combo, especially the BMW Dakar colour, as it wont make the car look 'safety yellow'...

Grey Ghost - yep, lots of baggies!! The colour is a standard production colour so I can go anywhere and get it mixed as long as I have the right paint code. I think the wiring loom I will do myself. Seems the car is all S2A, sans the Holden six which makes ordering parts easy. Thanks for your insight.

A Quick Update....
News from the weekend. Now that we have the entire car disassembled, inspected and assessed we have decided to move him down to the workshop so the weather wont affect it anymore and we get a parking bay back for visitors. However, while I had him in prime position to do some repair work on the chassis I took that opportunity.

While taking off the front bullbar we noticed that the front frame horns were rotten on the underside where all the dirt and mud had collected and just rusted out the lower plates. The continual rocking back and forth of the bullbar had flogged out the bolt holes, so it was a case of cut out the affected area and make new, rather than try and affect a repair. I did a slash cut at 45-degrees until I had good metal to work with, and also to leave the front spring hangers unaffected as they seemed to be very solid.


Drivers side - the worst:


Passenger side - not too bad but had signs of previous ghetto-like repairs


So, I had some 75x75x3mm RHS lying around and I decided to go to work. Firstly I drilled some 16mm holes in the top and bottom faces to accept some 16x2mm crush tubes. I countersunk the faces to get a good welding area then ground them flush. Now we have some sturdy 12mm mounting holes to accept the new winchbar and winch. These four bolts will be reinforced by other mounting points yet to be decided, but I think that the more fixing points the better.


Next was a pair of encaps to seal off the tube ends. I made these out of 5mm steel so I could use them as recovery points for Camel. In hindsight I should have welded some captive nuts on the inside to allow for this, but I didn't have the recovery hardware at hand so I didn't know the fixing spacing or sizing - this will be done at a later date. It will also enhance the locating of the winch bar:


More...

Continued...

Now it was a simple job of mating the two cuts, aligning and making sure the new parts were plumb and square. Then weld on:

Passenger side:


Drivers side:


Passenger rail underside:


Drivers rail underside:


Things to note - there had been repairs to these sections before, badly!! It seems that the previous repairer had removed the chassis number somehow. Luckily the mod plate has the chassis number on it!! I also extended the frame horns out another 35mm to allow for the winchbar fixings to be tightened without getting impeded by the spring mounts. Hopefully now this repair will see-out the rest of Camel's lifetime until more repairs may be needed well into the future.

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