Thread: '70 IIA Wagon questions

Well, I've been a busy beaver the last few days and mounted my Blue Tongue air compressor and air tank, with an Nitto air connection socket out the rear of the rear bumper/cross-member, as well as swapped out the old 2-way for my UHF. I'll take some photo's of the installed gear tomorrow, although it looks a little rough because I haven't yet sand blasted and painted the air tank. The switch on the dash hasn't got a fancy engraved label like all the other switches on the dash of this truck, so that's something I'd like to sort out properly one day too. Photo's to come will explain all.

I'm waiting until I have a bunch of things to do at the same time, as just doing the tank is a small job for all the effort of sand-blasting and painting. Currently the list includes blasting and painting the side-steps (the steel frames - not the aluminium checker-plate itself, although I might yet do them but using the grey paint I painted my steel checker-plate tray on the Nissan ute with). I might also do a quick flick of the rear cross member just to dress the rear up to match the bull-bar at the front. I will also blast and paint the side mirror stalks, as they detract a little from the overall picture. I'm thinking I'd also like to remove the fuel tank guards and clean them up and paint them too, but I'm not sure how big a job that's going to be yet.

At the moment I'm happy enough to leave the S2A and finish up dressing the Nissan ute and Traymate camper ready for sale. I'm confident in the Landy now and there isn't really anything looming that would see it off the road for anything major. I'd still like to sort the steering out better but I'm hoping that a look at a potential parts donor S2A this week might resolve that with standard Drag Link, wheels and steering wheel. Then I can ditch the hydraulic ram power steering which will create some space currently utilised by the hydraulic fluid reservoir for mounting a dual battery under the bonnet. We'll see what happens.

Cheers
John B

Photo's as promised ...
So the new switch on the dash looks a little lonely:


These are the nicely engraved switch labels on all the other dash switches:

Also, all the other switches have little LEDs at the end of the toggle so maybe I'll have to track one of those down to keep everything even. Interesting though, I think the LED would only light when current is flowing and that will only happen when the pressure switch on the air tank has switched to call for more air to complete the circuit to earth through the relay. This means the switch would be "on" but the LED not lit unless the compressor runs. A little pointless really when you can hear the compressor run.

So the compressor is mounted in the passenger side rear locker under the bench "seat". The relay is mounted just forward of the compressor. I used a good 4mm wire direct from a blade fuse at the battery for the supply, run along the top and sides of the drivers side chassis rail under the body. The switch wire is smaller and run internally along the passengers side roof edge. Plenty of room in the locker for air line, gauge and fittings. There is some carpet to go back in there but I ned to make some holes in the right places for the various bolts to go through.


The tank is basically directly below the compressor behind the wheel arch. It hangs on a pair of large 'U' Bolts with air connection elbows at each end.


The inboard elbow fitting goes to the compressor through a 'bulkhead' fitting (so there's no risk of chafing and damaged air line is easy to replace without having to deal with getting a hex nut through a grommet) while the outboard one goes to the Nitto socket mounted in the rear bumper.


The pressure switch on the tank is rearward facing on the side of the tank. This protects it from stones flicking up from the rear wheel and also provides a nice route straight into the locker via existing grommeted holes that are used by the indicator/tail/ brake light wires. One wire comes from the dash switch and the other heads to the relay mounted with the compressor.


The carpet will go in when I remove the air tank for sand-blasting and painting. The air compressor should be a little quieter when reinstalled onto the marine carpet.

That's it for now. Tomorrow I have to plug a tyre I found is losing air. While doing some painting on my Nissan ute I had 10 minutes to spare while another coat flashed off. I figured I could check the Landy tyres in that time. 38psi/38psi/39psi/20psi. So while topping it up I glanced around the tread that was visible and found a shiny patch - the end of a steel nail or something. Ah well. It's due to be changed soon anyway so a quick plug repair will do. Lucky for tubeless tyres.

Cheers
John B

I went to have a look at a potential parts donor S2A this morning. It was a complete wreck! The only things that might be salvageable for me are:
1) the steering wheel (reasonable condition four spoke with only one crack in the outer rim that I could see, although I couldn't open the driver door for a better look so going off what I could see from the passengers side)
2) the drag link arm for the steering
3) possibly the four wheels (Tyres are shot and the wheels are rusty but should be okay with a clean-up).

Question time: The wheel have smaller wheel nuts than are found on my S2A. My truck requires the 27mm (1 1/16") wheel brace but the donor uses smaller ones (22mm?). The question I have is will the studs be the same diameter? Ie are the donor wheels likely to fit on my S2A? They are both supposedly 1970 S2A's.

Either way the donor is not really worth the $500 ask. The engine is a 4 cylinder but I couldn't tell what state it's in other than the oil on the dipstick was pretty clean. Everything seems to be there under the bonnet. Everything else about the car is completely shot. Even little things like the knobs for the air vent handles have been replaced with rusty bolts tack welded on. The total list of salvageable parts other than the above on my shopping list are:
- passengers door handle
- windscreen
- instruments and dash
- potentially the engine (radiator is completely stuffed)

That's it really. Drivers door is tied on with rope, both doors are completely rusted, chassis is completely rusted, all panels are dented and have holes drilled in several places, etc.

Not worth $500....walk away from it or make an offer you consider reasonable......but if everything else on it is stuffed.

You can use the SIII tie rod ends (the threaded ones) on a IIA you will just need to replace the tie rods for SIII ones. The threaded tie rod ends would appear to be much more readily available then the proper shouldered ones.

Keep up the good work and enjoy your Landy.

Originally Posted by JayBoRover

I went to have a look at a potential parts donor S2A this morning. It was a complete wreck! The only things that might be salvageable for me are:
1) the steering wheel (reasonable condition four spoke with only one crack in the outer rim that I could see, although I couldn't open the driver door for a better look so going off what I could see from the passengers side)
2) the drag link arm for the steering
3) possibly the four wheels (Tyres are shot and the wheels are rusty but should be okay with a clean-up).

Question time: The wheel have smaller wheel nuts than are found on my S2A. My truck requires the 27mm (1 1/16") wheel brace but the donor uses smaller ones (22mm?). The question I have is will the studs be the same diameter? Ie are the donor wheels likely to fit on my S2A? They are both supposedly 1970 S2A's.

Either way the donor is not really worth the $500 ask. The engine is a 4 cylinder but I couldn't tell what state it's in other than the oil on the dipstick was pretty clean. Everything seems to be there under the bonnet. Everything else about the car is completely shot. Even little things like the knobs for the air vent handles have been replaced with rusty bolts tack welded on. The total list of salvageable parts other than the above on my shopping list are:
- passengers door handle
- windscreen
- instruments and dash
- potentially the engine (radiator is completely stuffed)

That's it really. Drivers door is tied on with rope, both doors are completely rusted, chassis is completely rusted, all panels are dented and have holes drilled in several places, etc.

Wheel studs changed about that time from 9/16"BSF to 16mm. The wheel nuts for the 9/16 studs came in two sizes, the original double taper nuts used since 1948 (standard 9/16" BSF spanner), and one the same outside hex as the new metric nuts, with only one taper, flat on the other side. Wheels are the same and are not a close fit on either stud - they hold on the taper of the nut plus the centre, like most wheels.

Probably not worth the $500 unless the engine and other mechanicals are in good condition, and even then may not be worth it to you!

John

My Landy was parked at the end of the driveway and my wife drove up in her car and asked me why my Landy was "on a lean". I looked from her perspective, with an open mind, and lo and behold she's right!

So today I investigated and found that there was no air in the drivers side Polyair helper bag while the passenger side had 50psi in it. So I put some air in the drivers side bag and heard a hissing sound. Off came the rhs rear wheel and a bottle of soapy water and this is the result:






It looks like a stone might have been caught between the bag and the "coil cage" and rubbed through the bag. The cut was directly underneath one of the coils and had the look of being "dug in" from above. (Note that I turned the bag inside the coil cage to get access for the photo - the hole was on the inside right where you could expect a stone to go).

So the question for today is: does anyone know if the Polyair bags are repairable or will I have to consider a replacement?

Tomorrow night I will detail my findings on wheel offsets and dimensions of the 15" Sunraysia rims and the 16" LR rim. Complete with quite a few photo's showing how I measured the offsets. I will, of course, include another question because that's what you when your thread is titled '70 IIA wagon questions".

I wrote up my findings on the wheel offsets and you can find it in the "rim size" thread:
http://www.aulro.com/afvb/series-2-2...-rim-size.html

I should probably change the title of this thread as it's become more than just questions. This time I'm answering someone's query about the side-steps that was asked in "General Chat" in the thread on "Land Rovers for Construction".

So this is the side-step that was asked about (Most of the photo's relate to the passenger's side):


I was asked whether the side-steps are folding and whether I could take some close-up photo's of the mounting details and construction. So here we go.

The view from underneath showing the square section frame that the actual step plate screws onto.


The rear of the step frame ends with a tab that is bolted to the sill. I am not too familiar with Land Rover framing so can't be specific at this stage as to what exactly it's bolted to. It seems to be a "U" section with the door seal rubber on the right and the fuel tank on the left in the photo.


The disadvantage of making the frame out of square section is this:

The hollow collects rain water. I'm going to sand blast, etch prime and then chassis paint the side-step frame to give it a best chance without drilling holes in it for draining. (There are holes underneath the framing for draining it of internal water).

At the front, the step frame is welded to the end of the outrigger. Looking at it I believe it could be possible to sort out a bolt-on step using a similar principle to the rear attachment. I'd like to think that when I do the preparation for painting that I will grind back some of the messy welding and clean it up with some better welds. The reality is I'd better leave it "as is" as my welding will probably look far worse. (Maybe a visit to someone that can weld is in order one day).



This is the drivers side front welding detail:


Cheers
John B