Thread: Plugger and The Camel

I have enjoyed reading this thread, it brings back lots of memories, just something to think about re the Holden 6, the camshaft has a 'fibre' wheel timing gear and can self destruct without warning, over the years with all the Land Rovers that I have owned, the Holden powered ones all got the 'Alloy' timing gear for the camshaft, it is a little noisey but a good investment in my opinion, here is a link to the item
JP Performance Holden 6 Timing Gears EH HZ VB VK Aluminium Helical | eBay
anyway I'm sure 'Plugger' will enjoy the experience of 'how to' and it appears that you have the plan laid out in your head which is good as there is a way to go about this type of work, damn good to see, when I was doing my projects I did something to it everyday without fail, anyway cheers and looking forward to the next installment, Dennis

Dennis I don't think the compressed goat dung timing gears are available any more. I have rebuilt a couple Holden donks recently and when replacing the timing gears the only ones I could get were alloy, which is what I wanted anyway. I did not try the local GMH dealer, perhaps they still stock them.


Cheers, Mick.

Rod - thanks heaps for your encouraging words. Its a pity your sons don't share your passion, I find that sad. Plugger is my best mate, and we do (almost) everything together!

Mick & Dennis - thanks guys, its on the 'To-Do' list for sure.

Quick Update on Procurement - Plugger has always wanted a good set of driving lights for camel. and being the environmentally conscientious lad that he is he wanted LED. So we saw this light bar for sale on Grays Online and we grabbed it. Its a re-branded Phillips unit and uses genuine 10W CREE LED's. Understanding that they are all made in China these days the quality might be suspect but the price was sure right. We tested it from the end of our (long) driveway and it gave good light coverage way past the driveway, across the road and into the neighbors yard (around 150m) so it cant be too bad. This will be fitted on the underside of the roofrack where the roofline slopes down to meet the windscreen. It has 20x10W CREE's giving a total of 200W. The outside four on each end are flood pattern, while the centre 12 LED's are all spot! Cost - $147 including freight to our door.


We found this winch on eBay. A guy had bought it a few years ago and never installed it on his 4x4. So we made a bid and low-and-behold we won it for the princely sum of $151. Its 8000lbs which should be heaps for a SWB Landrover. I know its not a Warn but for the price it was too hard to pass up. Even if it saves him just the once, then its worth it. I am hoping it will work fine for years to come.


And finally, to take some of the weight off the front end - some 10mm genuine SK75 Dyneema rope. This will save possibly 20kg off the front end and also the risk of serious injury versus a steel rope is greatly reduced. Also it wont fray, rust or kink like the steel rope. It will also save installing the roller fairlead that came with the winch in favour of the billet machined aluminium hawse fairlead that came with the rope - more weight saving there!! The breaking strain for the Dyneema rope is 10700kg, which far exceeds the winch by a factor of almost four! Cost - $95


That's about it. More to come from the weekend. If the weather is fine, its paintin' time!!

Cheers,
Tricky

Hi Gang,

Well the weather was kind over the weekend so it was time to start the refurbishment process on the front suspension assembly.

On the Saturday Plugger and I did the final clean of the parts prior to painting - this consisted mainly of wire-wheeling the parts to get all the old paint off the parts and get them down to bare metal. We also decided to paint the front propshaft to get it nice and clean and protected as well. The rubber boot that covers the telescoping splines was knackered so that will need to be replaced - about $15 from memory. Here is a shot of Plugger hard at cleaning the diff housing in preparation for paint:


And also the front propshaft - it was an oily, greasy, grime-caked mess:


And here is the wonder-kid again at the blast cabinet sand-blasting the worst of the parts - mainly just surface rust as opposed to grease n grime:


And finally, the parts ready for paint sans the diff housing (not in shot):


And finally, there was the masking - and lots of it. It didnt faze him too much, I think he even kind of enjoyed it - kind of.....:


More.....

Great progress, I love rebuild threads. .

Have you thought about lashing out on some disk brakes for the front by any chance? I know they're not in everyone's budget but with the young bloke tooling about in it, just a thought.

I'm happy for you to tell me to bugger off and mind my own business too if I'm prying.

Continued...

Still on day 1, Saturday, we decided to get the etch priming done this day and leave the top-coating for Sunday. That would allow the primer a full 12-hours or more to cure before being top coated.

The two palms outside the shed along the driveway made an excellent spot to hang a rope-line between them to hang the parts on. Because there was so many parts we had to do them in two batches. The diff housing and the steering rods we put on a bed sheet on the driveway and painted them on the concrete - they were way too heavy to suspend from a rope!

Batch Number 1 - cleaned and masked ready for etch priming:


And primed:


Batch number 2 - cleaned and masked ready for etch priming:


And primed:


And the diff housing and steering rods ready primed (no before shot sorry!):


We let all that dry for a few hours then hung them up in the shed until tomorrow when they would get their nice new shiny topcoat. That was it for Saturday, it had been (almost) an 8 hour day by the time we had finished. It was definitely beer-o'clock once we had finished!!

More.....

Continued....

Sunday, Day 2. Dawn greeted us with slightly overcast skies but the forecast was for good weather, and definitely no rain. Perfect weather for doing some spray painting. The etch primer had dried nice and hard so it should be a doddle to just take the parts outside again and hang them up ready for their nice new shiny coats of black. We bought some Motorspray Chassis Paint from the local paint store as it was what they recommended. The Etch primer we used the day before was the proper etch for that paint - also by Motorspray. I was hoping it would do the job and we would not have to go to some expensive 2-pack system or POR15 or KBS or some such other - we had a budget to stick to!

So, we hung batch one on the line again, and gave them three coats of the black semi-gloss enamel. The paint came off the gun just fine and coated evenly and shiny. Good preparation ensured this. I thinned the paint to 15% as per the instructions and it laid up just fine. I would recommend using this paint to anyone else thinking of doing this work as it goes on so easily - and I am no gun with the gun !!!!!

Here is batch 2 already with the 3 coats on and back in the shed (it was the last to go in so first to come out). Full cure time was 24 hours:


Batch 1 with 3 coats just waiting for the paint to flash off before being moved (learned this lesson first hand when I went to move the steering arm from batch 2 and dropped it in the dirt ):


Diff housing and steering rods with 3 coats (notice the lengthening shadows):


And just for a bit of bling - the swivel housings with 3 coats of BMW Dakar Yellow - the same pressure pack rattle can I used to do the test board with. Looks great I think and Plugger thought so too:


Well that was it for Day 2. It was about 2.30pm by the time we finished so it was time to pack up and break for a beer. All-in-all it was a very successful and rewarding weekend. Plugger had a bit of a whinge Saturday about all the prep work involved but even he said it was all worthwhile - (understandable as he is usually kicking goals on a Sunday - boys will be boys!!)

Still waiting on a few parts prior to reassembly (parabolic springs etc, but we are hellishly close now!

Cheers,
Andrew

You need to use an old potato sack (or a big dark old beach towel) over your head when using the grit blast cabinet, it will block out all unnecessary light, I have used that method for almost 17 years it works well when your cabinet is exposed to extra light, cheers Dennis
ps it adds a new dimension of'put a bag over your head' LOL