Thread: 67 Workshop

Talk to Antony at British 4wd in Melbourne, very knowledgeable bloke. Very Nice Looking Truck btw

Take the sample to a local bearing shop and get a quality replacement.

Colin

Thanks for the replies, I ended up going to a bearing shop, what a great place, I hadn't been in one before.
British 4WD should be handy too, its pretty close to my place.
I just need to do door seals now and get some tyres this week then it can go off for a RWC and rego.
There's not many mud tyres still made in 7.50R16, every time I buy them I have less choice. I'm going with Goodyear Wrangler TG, I have to get 10 of them cos the Defender needs tyres too!

Sam

Slowly getting there...

I rebuilt the rear springs over the last few weeks following some very helpful advice posted on here by isuzurover a couple of years ago. They were just a tad on the firm side, partly from being a bit seized up and partly from having too many leaves. I could stand right at the back of the tray and bounce up and down and the only thing that flexed was the tyres.

They've been cleaned up (only very light pitting) and reduced down to 5 leaves from 8. I had them re-set and tempered at Carrolls, who did a good job and were very quick. Just need painting and re-fitting with new bushes and rangie/110 shocks. I'm going to put parabolics on the front, probably Rocky Mountain as the Heystee ones seem a bit harder to get hold of.





I also had the Smiths dual gauge repaired at Howards Instruments. The capillary tube had been cut off at some point so I got a new one fitted and the bulb re-filled with ether and calibrated. Unfortunately I stripped the thread screwing it into the head so now need to shell out for a 5/8 UNF helicoill kit which is a bit pricey.

Well its registered. It was a fairly smooth process in the end although I was really hoping I'd have it done before the Christmas holidays. Never mind.
Over the last few months I've had the hydraulics totally replaced. The front springs are now refurbished with new bushes and shocks all round. The front still feels a bit stiff, I might do a bit more work on them later. I put in new exmoor trim seats, redid all the window channels and door seals and swapped the speedo for another one I had in the shed.

I'm really happy with the suspension flex. These ramps are not that high but there is plenty of travel left. My defender won't get onto these same ramps without the lockers on as it lifts a wheel. The shocks I've used are efs from carrolls, who reset the springs. The fronts are 40 series cruiser and the rears are defender/rrc.



I'll put up some more photos tomorrow.

Now for the next stage of the project. I've got some custom +5 offset discovery 1 rims ready for some 255 85 BFG km2s.
Then I need to sell my defender to pay for the rest. McNamara hypoid diffs, I think probably with true track centres, at both ends, a new carby and a winch.
So if anyone is interested there'll be a nice one owner defender with front and rear lockers and maxi drive transfer gears coming up on gumtree in the next couple of weeks.

Few more pictures:

I know its an oldish thread, but must say that its in very good condition being a tassie truck. Im interested in the spring changes made, look to be good alternative to parabolics.