Thread: Bagged a Series 3 ute

I have seen some strange chassis repairs in my time but those ones take the cake!

I wonder if it rusted from the top down because it carried fertiliser. Seems like a good buy for $250 - the PTO would be worth more than that

Cheers Charlie

Good buy for $250. For the engine miss, my first guess would have been plug leads, but they look new (but looks can be deceiving and could be plug not lead, or cracked distributor cap). Otherwise check compression is even - low compression on one cylinder could be due to incorrect valve clearance/damaged seat or valve. After that, most likely to be either points or mixture (carburetter adjustment/faults or leak at manifold joint).

John

Thanks for the troubleshooting advice. The farmer says he's been trying to eliminate the miss problem. Apparently, the leads are fairly new. He said one of the cylinders had slightly lower compression that the others but not enough to bother about. He had the head off and said it all looked fine.

I'll follow your suggestions when I get it home.

I wish you really experienced blokes would put together a reckoner for troubleshooting common series Land Rover ailments.

Cheers!

I got this one home without incident- Praise The Lord.

I'm really happy with it.

It's only real issues are the chassis corrosion and the plates welded over it. Its a bit odd that there is surface pitting on most steel surfaces- nothing really bad. But it is under the paint on most of the steel parts. Inside the passenger seat box too. The paint just flakes off with either a stable corroded surface or white oxide -but its not corroded aluminium. Its like its been in a hostile environment. Maybe a previous owner used it around chemicals or fertilizer as has been suggested... or salt, perhaps.





Its sitting pretty low down. Needs a spring re-set.


It also has some idiosyncrasies. It apprears to have been changed to a positive earth at some stage. Why would someone do that? Maybe to operate some positive earth equipment?



The brush guard is pretty sturdy work and is attached to the bulkhead with bolts. The top bolt nut is accessed through the hole drilled as shown.


The bulkhead is in really great condition. None of the usual trouble spots show any problem- footwells and all. It obvious to see that it has lived in a shed when it wasn't out in a paddock.

The rear crossmember is broken.


Do you think it'd be worth welding up where cracked? Or better to replace it?

I want to get this one back on the road. I reckon I'll take it back to a bare chassis and Penetrol the whole thing before repainting.

Also, with a flat tray on it do you think there's any point in keeping the rear outriggers? If they were to be removed rather than repaired it'd make things easier. Or would that been seen as major chassis modification and require an engineers cert?

Thanks.

great buy I reckon I will look forward to your up and coming repair threads

Can I ask picture No 11 is that a power take off? I'm only guessing due to what looke like a shaft attached to a geared housing that looks like it might attach to the transfercase. If so thats cool never seen one before will hopefully get my hands on one in the future as I would like to use my landy to slash the padocks

yes, the last pic is the PTO unit and driveshaft, but the unit as shown is the part that is bolted to the rear crossmember

Yes, there is the bit attached to the gear box as well with a big red knob. I don't know which direction it needs to be moved to work, though.

G'day Korg,
The rear crossmember looks to have had a tremendously heavy load on it to cause cracking like that! Perhaps it was used to pull a loaded fertiliser trailer or something similar.

When you strip it, it would be worthwhile measuring the chassis for distortion on a level floor, to see if it has been bent somewhere else. The rear cross-member is rather easy to make and I think a new one would be stronger than one with welded cracks.

PM me if you want a copy of an article I wrote on how I did my S1 cross-member,

Cheers Charlie