Thread: 107 Gus

If he needs a driveway to change the oil, he's free to call into North Sydney for a coffee and a chin-wag

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Well it would appear that he has passed my part of the world anyway wishing him safe travels, cheers Dennis

Ha! Thanks Mike! To correct Mike, I only worked on landies professionally for a month, between my real job and this trip, but yes, I am interested in piles of series Land Rover bits, mainly for the entertainment of looking at everything and meeting new people.

I have a blog southby107.blogspot.com.au/

And a bit of a thread in the SLOw club section, which I believe is open
The great 107 trip

I am Currently in Newcastle, I just took the train into sydney for a few days. After this week, I dont have any set plans.

-Gus

What a lovely vehicle - and the owner is a bloody nice bloke...

Just a feeler for any possible work somewhere between Canberra and Tassy. I am keeping a watch on gumtree etc...

Gus toddled out of the yard at my place today with a grin that big, he had to turn it sideways to be able to fit through the gateway out onto the road.

Toe in now set at 3/16th" not 1" brake adjusted up and the report was, "it's like a new car".

Heading for the bottom end of Bruny Island via JC's.

.

Met Gus briefly today, a true adventurous series owner unfortunately had very little time to chat, let alone take a squiz at the 107...Hope to catch up with him on his way back from bruny.


JC

Gus rang me when he got off Bruny Island, saying he had problems with the engine not running at all well.

I ended up driving 'Daisy' down to Kettering to help Gus out and he wasn't going anywhere, with the engine refusing to start.

I got stuck into the problems one thing at a time, the first was the points were stuck where they pivot, so we cleaned up the spare set of points and set the timing statically at 6 degrees advanced, that had it running but not anywhere as sweet as it was when Gus left home the other day.

The engine seemed to be blowing a bit of unburnt petrol, so hoping for the best I checked the level of petrol in the float bowl, it was a bit too high so found another fibre washer to fit under the needle and seat that settled the engine down a bit, it was still not running sweet after that, so I talked Gus into returning to my place so we could do a compression test as we were now suspecting problems with the exhaust valves.

Add; A nasty find by Gus as soon as we had the engine running, was the discovery of a hissing sound from under the middle of the 107, when he investigated, he found a hose to a now defunct vacuum brake booster had come loose. This air had leaned the mixture on the back two cylinders and possibly the number two cylinder as well, we checked this by looking at the colour of the spark plug tips and the colour ranged from a sooty black on number one to a very white deposit on number four that was consistent with running too lean.

On the road things quickly deteriorated, with a rattling noise that sounded like it was pinking from being too far advanced, I adjusted the timing a little by retarding it a bit, it was at the risk of the engine getting hot so I asked Gus to keep a sharp eye on his temperature gauge.
The engine seemed to run a little better, but we hadn't covered much distance again when Gus pulled over and the rear cylinder was chuffing -- the head gasket had definitely blown!

So after one more attempt to get the 107 moving under it's own power we decided to tow it with 'Daisy', this we decided to do in low range as the auto in 'Daisy' is to be nursed along as it has done 556,000 Klms and while it is still working ok it is a bit tired. Slowly we made our way up to Kingston to leave a not so happy Gus and the sick 107 near JC's workplace.

Tomorrow we start trying to round up four exhaust valves, a top overhaul gasket set and if possible a throttle body and gasket set for the Solex carburetor. This will not be easy as it's a long weekend.

If anyone can help with those parts or some of them please PM me with your phone number and I can give you a ring.