Thread: '70 IIA Wagon questions

G'day JayBoRover

When you buy new tubes and tyres make sure that the tyres have all the little stickers inside (passed/OK etc) removed from them, or they will rub through the tubes when in use, the tubes, go for heavy duty tubes with short rubber stems, not the long Toyota cruiser type, fit tubes one size smaller than the tyre, I.E. for 7.50 x16 tyres fit 6.00/6.50 tubes, that allows for stretching of the tube, so that when a repair is done it is easier to fit the work stretched tube back into the tyre,similar to m/cycle tubes on road bikes of the 70's 80's

cheers

The results of my shopping in the weekend.
The new 4,000kg axle stands to replace the axle bricks at the front ...:


... and my other set of 3,000kg axle stands to replace the axle bricks at the rear:


Now I can crawl underneath to undo the last bolts holding the tub in at the front without giving people sleepless nights regarding my surviving my Land Rover.

I also bought a small Karcher water blaster and tested it the other night on the grunge around the gearbox and transfer case:



Another purchase, but not new this time, was a S2a steering wheel:


The centre is a little rusty ...


... with the "ring" in poor condition and coming loose. Anyone know if you can get just the ring? I'm also missing the centre and I suspect there's supposed to be a horn button in the centre, although I'm happy enough with the horn button on the dash. It's generally only 100m or so past the point I need it that I finally get to press it. Gets a funny look anyway. In this photo you can also see the cracking of the spoke at the centre hub. It doesn't go all around. I'm hoping some epoxy injected in there will stop it getting worse and then a clean-up and paint.


There is some cracking at the other end of the spokes as well but again I don't think it's too bad and I'll try the same fix method. I plan to get a leather cover for the outer rim anyway.


This is the drag link removed from the donor car. it'll need a fair bit of work to clean up but I have replacement ball joints for the rod ends already:


Final purchase was these two wheels:


Now I have a set of five, although the two new ones are by far the best of them as regards to condition.


This one I've attacked with a hand scraper followed by a rotary wire brush in an electric drill followed by some steel wool.


It started out looking similar to this one:


Both are quite bad inside, so I think I'm going to sieve some firebreak sand and try my little 10 gallon sand blaster on them. It might be a couple of weeks for that though - especially now I'm tempted into going up to Gingin for the British Car Day on Sunday.

Finally, a slightly blurry photo of DeeDee as she stands tonight. Only external change since last time is I fitted the sun visor from the donor car.

I'll replace the photo with a focussed one in the weekend.
Ciao
JayBo

G'day JoBoRover

That drag link from the donor vehicle has the accessory steering damper rod fitting on it, yours being a later vehicle will have the steering damper as standard and the drag link will be a 2 piece unit with the damper fitting (pin type) as part of the long section,the other end of the damper connects to the built in chassis mount (double pin type damper) the early damper from memory was pin, and eye on the rod,but may have been double eye,it would be clamped/welded to the Left chassis rail, that was one of the production changes during the 2a lifetime steering dampers became standard and the safety dished steering wheel (with shorter steering shaft)came as part of a safety upgrade also with the option of vacc boosted brakes.


Love the sun visor very rare now, a good save and you will get benefit from it,also to make a little more comfort find/fit a pair of series 3 interior sunvisors,they fit into rivet locations above the screen I have a pair on my 2a,not original but a good safety item when driving into the sun.


cheers

Good job with the stands mate,looks like the series disease has got you well and truly now,Dee Dee was certainly a good buy.They are awesome old machines,even the ones I have look like they are drivable from a distance,if only one was drivable would be great,nothing like the sound of a Landy especially in low range.
Cheers Konrad

Originally Posted by UncleHo

G'day JoBoRover
Love the sun visor very rare now, a good save and you will get benefit from it,also to make a little more comfort find/fit a pair of series 3 interior sunvisors,they fit into rivet locations above the screen I have a pair on my 2a,not original but a good safety item when driving into the sun.
cheers

I'll have to have a look at the S3 sun visor you speak of. Currently there is an overhead console with a pair of visors that don't strike me as being original. I'll get a good picture this weekend but you can see the end of it in this pic.


The visor works very well even with very low setting sun. I will be ripping out the console and building myself a better one though and will probably re-use the existing visors as they work so well.

I'll have a good look at the drag link and steering damper issue too. Thanks for your input.
Cheers
John B

This is a statement I made many posts ago in this thread:
"...the tacho about 2,800rpm with the 186 Holden motor buzzing along nicely."
Well, I made an interesting discovery. It's a 202! Not a 186.

Did I hear someone say "of course it's a 202, it's a blue motor". Well it seems that 186's were also made as blue motors, although the red motors seem to be the ones you generally come across or hear about. I was told it was a 186 and I thought I'd seen something in the file referring to a 186, but I didn't really think or worry about it as long as it went well.

After someone bailed me up about it the other day (he was convinced there are no blue 186 motors) I hunted for an engine number. Couldn't find an engine number but did find a large "3.3" on the lhs of the block down low near the sump. A quick check on Wikipedia and it seems the 3.3 there means it's a 202. That explains now why I ended up with a 202 thermostat balance pipe when the 186 one didn't fit. Why didn't I realise that at the time??

I think there were black 186 but not blue, in any case they were called 3000 (186) or 3300 (202) when they changed colour.

By the way, if you have a blue or black Holden 6, you may find that it has a lightweight flywheel. For off road low rev torque you are better off with an earlier heavier flywheel off a red engine.

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

I think there were black 186 but not blue, in any case they were called 3000 (186) or 3300 (202) when they changed colour.

By the way, if you have a blue or black Holden 6, you may find that it has a lightweight flywheel. For off road low rev torque you are better off with an earlier heavier flywheel off a red engine.

It seems you are quite correct in that the Blue motors were 173 and 202 only - not 186. Same resource (Wikipedia) states the Black motors were 3.3 litre only. It's more fun coming here than looking on Wiki though