Well, springs are off and bushes out on the front - well one chassis bush is still in the chassis, but it will die this evening.
if you're going to attempt this plan to be cutting the front shackle bolts as they will be seized to the bushing inners.
You will need fire to burn out some of the rubbers, and a long metal blade on a jigsaw to cut the bushing outer sleeves from the springs. Its a fairly destructive process despite trying to save as many parts as I could I needed to destroy 3 bolts. Any very few of the bushings came out in any sort of shape resembling their original form.
I made an extractor for the bushings out of some hi-tensile (8.8) grade threaded bar, some 8.8 nuts, square washers, a small length of steel tube with an ID > the OD of the bushings and a little longer in length ( the bushing will get pushing into this as the nuts on either end of the bar are tightened). Have spares as I stripped the threads under load getting the first chassis bush out.
A 22mm (or 21mm at a pinch) works well as a drift to push out the bushing, and a 16mm socket as an drift extension once the 22mm starts to get deep into the chassis.
Ill look at giving the springs a bit of a refurb prior to fitting the bushings, as I'm waiting for some parts before refitting, and its probably easier to do the necessary welding to the chassis with the springs still off.
My rear springs must be after market, each leaf is about 7mm and they've been doctored to be a little softer ( which isn't working )
and a close up of the rear
It looks like the 4th and 5th leaves have been removed and placed at the bottom of the pack to act as spacers and an additional retainer added to keep it all it place.
I'm thinking of trimming the now overlong leaves as they are doing nothing and just likely to hang up off-road, and remove the extra retainer as its got to be adding extra friction to the system.
Any reasons why I shouldn't trim them? Will cutting the leaf with an angle grinder cause any heat affects with in the metal?
Last edited by p38arover; 24th September 2015 at 04:12 PM.
Reason: fix broken image link
Well folks, thanks to all the help from all on here Bill has rego!!!!
A solid week of grinding, welding and painting, along with gluing rubbers and replacing dodgy ignition switches on the day of the inspection, got him through.
Mechanic was v impressed with the way he drove.
But even better! THe boss returned home after working abroad for a few months and she absolutely loves it! Couldn't wait to have a drive.
New chassis bushes are great, well worth the pain of the replacement, and I re-shuffled the rear springs to make them a bit more compliant. And it is only a bit.
The front springs could do with being re-set as theres only about 30mm between the axle and the bumpstop. Whats the stock distance for a 2.25 petrol motor?
Other option would be to trim the bumpstop by half, as it seems the front shock is nowhere near full compression when the axle hits the stop.
Anyone got any good ideas for making sure internal chassis rust is stopped/slowed down?
I've got a 4l tin of SW2 (like fish oil with out the smell) , but don't have a good way of getting a nice consistent delivery method through the small holes in the LR chassis. I've been using Penetrol in cans but they could really do with a longer more flexible hose as well. Any hints?
Next on the list is painting the footwells and getting rid of a little bit of rust in the corner of one. I'll just weld in a small patch I think. The lh door and the bulkhead corner post have been munched pretty hard by the tin worm but I think I can butt a patch in rather than cut the whole post out, I bought some new door bottom frames to replace the others, but I think I'll need a bit of practise with welding thinner metals first.
Does anyone want a SWB fuel tank and cradle? Free. Its drain gasket is leaking but other wise it seems sound. I though initially it had been welded to the rusty outrigger so I bought a new tank and outrigger, but once it was dismantled it was fine. But as I had the new tank I stuck that in.
As well as setting the timing and giving the bare ali a coating of SW2 I decided to trim the front bumpstops.
The front springs are sagging by ~30mm and every speed bump or gutter hit straight on was like dropping of a 6" kerb as there was only 40mm of up travel before hitting that big block of rubber. So i measured the compressed length of the shocks and there's plenty of room to do a bit of bumpstop trimming.
I cut the stops in half, then linished the edges so the contacting surface was the same size as the uncut stop.
This gives me almost as much up travel as an unsagged spring before hitting the stop.
Took Bill for a test drive this morning after setting the timing and WHAT A REVELATION!!! The front end felt completely different. Instead of bracing at every lump and bump on the road, it truly felt like a short travel coil.
Trimmed Bump Stop.
Last edited by p38arover; 24th September 2015 at 04:15 PM.
Reason: fixed broken image link
OK, its been a long time between drinks as the saying goes so I thought I'd bring this thread up to date with whats happened to Bill since last July.
New dizzy cap and rotor, cause the rotor arm was looking pretty burnt out.
As documented in another thread I got the springs reset on the front, initially they gave a 40mm raise over stock but have sagged back to about 10mm under standard. Thats a bit of a shame, but the ride is much improved regardless so I'm reasonably happy. I do have a pair of number 2 leafs to fit into the fronts to try and stop the drivers side sagging so much, as it should sit higher than the passenger side, but isn't.
I haven't got round to that yet as I've just been too busy.
Other stuff
Added an overflow bottle for the series 3 radiator, its worked brilliantly.
Refurbed the toolbox and added some anti slip rubber to keep everything nice and quiet.
Connected up a temp gauge I found in the boxes of bits the PO had given me in the sale. It's pretty flaky, but when it does work its in tandem with the original temp gauge in the dash. Also managed to find some vent flap handles.
Talking of temps I found over summer sitting in traffic in 40deg the temp guage rising a tad, so I found a radiator shroud and fitted that. Its made a big difference temp needle hardly moves now.
then it was a few cosmetic things - hasp for fuel cap, tailgate fixings, but most of all front and rear badges
Other things have been done, both pinions seals, swivels and front hub rebuilds, but due to the amount of oil and grease involved I didn't go for a pictures.
Oh and some new tie rod ends
Rego is due end of the month, should be a lot less hassle than last year
Last edited by p38arover; 28th September 2015 at 10:44 PM.
Reason: fix broke pic links
Here's a bit more detail about the tie-rod ends as Bill seems to differ from the 2a parts catalogue
Here you can see the tie rod connecting the drag link to the steering arm. The tie-rod here is the older shouldered style RH thread (part no 231183)
THe drag link is in 2 parts, the left hand side has the mount for the steering damper, the rhs is a plain threaded tube clamped at either end. I'm presuming its in 2 parts to be able to fine tune the positional relationship between the steering wheel and the LH front road wheel, without needing to disconnect the amper.
Above shows the other end of the drag link (viewed from above) which screws into a later style tie-rod end with the thread going all the way to the ball. This is the only TRE I replaced as the rest seemed to be in pretty good condition (despite what it looks like).
The track rod is a replacement part from Britpart with the later style TRE at either end. Whether or not it originally came with shouldered TRE's I don't know.
TRE box - I bought this later style TRE from Paddocks, expecting Britpart, but its Atek who I think are German. Quality seems pretty good. Nice a smooth movement with a good casting and grease nipple, and no binding when screwing into the drag link.
Last edited by p38arover; 28th September 2015 at 10:51 PM.
Reason: Fix broken img links
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