Thread: Barney - a 1958 Series II

A few photos to go with my last post, I'm still getting used to the new forum; it seems I can't edit my posts after 24 hours or so.


Here's the engine in all it's glory -

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The first photo is a fairly accurate representation of the colour, the second was in shadow and didn't come out so well.
Tucked in behind in that first photo all wrapped in plastic is a 1950's vintage Alfa-Romeo V6 engine all finished and ready for pick up by the owner... alas, I don't think it will fit in a Land Rover...

And here's Will - engine builder extraordinaire with a passion for old motors -

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Looks fantastic coming together

I have a new set of check straps. Right hand 237100 & left hand 274469.
one is 830 mm long and the other is 862 long.

Which is left and which is right? They have no numbers on them to identify them.

If the longer one has the part number for the RHS then I would be fitting it to that side, as the springs are handed (R&L) the right is supposed to have more set than the left, to compensate for the weight of the driver/full tank of fuel and battery, cheers Dennis

And that's the problem; neither strap has a part number on it. They just came loose in a box of parts I got from Paddocks.

I put the steering relay back together yesterday, as always I forgot to keep taking photos around halfway through.
But it all went with incident and is now installed in the chassis. Another one to tick off the list.

I was surprised how hard it was to turn once installed, in fact I had to put a lever bar on it to get any movement at all; is this normal?
And it got me thinking - what is the purpose of the steering relay? Apart from transferring movement from above the chassis to below it which could be achieved with a simple shaft and a couple of bearings. What is the purpose of that big spring? It just seems to serve to make the steering heavier than it needs to be. Is it some sort of primitive steering damper?

Here is my take on the spring squashing process...

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Filling it full of oil was super easy, it took 1 and a bit of these and about 10 minutes to fill it to the top.

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Sorry all the photos are on the side; you can always tip your computer up.



Cheers,
Peter.

If the shaft has a hole through the side you don't need to compress the spring like that. All you do is clamo the split busfed on one end then put the spring on thecshaft & put a screw driver through the hole then wind the spring down. Then clamp the other bush in place . Then it is onlyba matter of driving the adsembly inti the housing.

Yes, it is a friction damper, and I suppose it does make the steering a bit heavier, although with the gearing of the steering box and leverage of the steering wheel, you can't feel much from the driver's position.

The first Landrovers only had the friction damping on the bottom, and a roller bearing at the top, but after a few months production were changed to the one that remained virtually unchanged until the end of Series production. And it was offered as a free retrofit to all that had been sold with the early relay - almost certainly, all were fitted with them. It was necessary to tame wheel wobble.

Additional damping is provided by the swivel top bushes.

Note that hydraulic dampers were not even an option until about the end of Series 1, and were never fitted as standard to any Series Landrovers, although they were fitted to all Australian Series 3, almost certainly as a marketing requirement. They are not necessary for normal use, being useful only when driving on very rough ground.