Restoring the Colonel

I dropped the fuel tank out today. The tank itself looks to be in good condition (seems to be made of stainless) with solid seams. However the protection plate has a couple of small rust pinholes in it as can be seen in the photo. So something else to add to my list of things to make/scrounge/steal. My understanding is that the tank is normally soldered to the protection plate. In this case the tank was just sitting on a couple of strips of rubber with 4 tabs folded over to hold the tank in place. The problem with this is the space between tank and plate is the perfect place for water (and other stuff) to collect as evidenced by the protection plate conditiion.

Cheers

I like the way that you have identified design problems as you have dismantled Chris. :D

If the strips ran the other way, it may be possible to hose the space with air, or water to keep it clean, depending upon ease of access.

Alternatively, make a protection plate out of stainless steel and glue it to the base with Sikaflex adhesive. I suggest stainless, because dissimilar metals in contact whilst damp, will cause one to corrode badly,

Cheers Charlie

Looks like the fuel tank is not the original one but the plate is. that is probably why the tank was replaced coz it was rusted out. hope this helps. Have fun with the resto...

Cheers Rod:wasntme:

A somewhat momentus day today, instead of pulling bits off and hiding them in various locations around my yard. I actually began doing something towards putting things together again. I pulled the tub supports off the bottom of the tub as they were looking pretty manky and I want to strip the tub back, much easier to do without the supports in the way. So I hit them up with the wire brush, gave them a clean and put on a coat of penetrol. I also gave my leaf springs a coat while I had the brush out. I was a little excited to actually be doing some constructive rather than destructive.

The tub supports had what looks to be layers of webbing attached to it where it sits on the chassis, obviously to reduce noise and metal on metal rubbing. They were fixed by these weird looking split pins. I think I'll just use some high density rubber with rivets, making sure the heads sit below the surface.

After reading some of the threads of others rebuilds I have decided my approach will be to clean as much rust as I can off the underbody steel bits. Give them a good coat of penetrol then finish with 2 coats of semi gloss enamal black. As for the aluminium I am hoping to strip back to metal (probably with paint stripper) then use an etch primer followed by the top coats. I realise grit blasting would be easier than paint stripper but I don't have the facility for that at this stage.

I also put up a tarp to give me some shade while i work and to keep the rain away. Don't want anything getting rusty now do we. I don't have a garage, just a longish carport. Up to now i had been rolling the chassis under cover to work on then rolling it out so we could park the non Land Rover cars there. As I'm about to remove the rear wheels I figured it would get a bit harder to roll so some shade was called for.

After a reasonable days work I retired for a refreshing beverage, and 2 minutes later found myself back outside wandering around the Landy looking at things. I had a bit of a poke at the bulkhead around the vents and discovered there's not a lot of metal left there, lots and lots of crumbly rust though. I suspect the water has come off the windscreen and worked its way in behind the vent frame as it looks to have rusted from the inside out. That, in conjunction with the rusted door posts has led me to think I might be better off with a new bulkhead. So, one more thing to add to my scrounge list. If any of you good people have a spare series 3 6 cylinder bulkhead in your back shed then let me know.

The last photo shows my Land Rover parts storage facility, aka, the back yard.

Tomorrow sees some black paint being applied to my tub supports and leaf springs, not sure if I will sleep tonight.

Cheers

The weird rivets as you called them are what is known as Bifurcated rivets, ;) cheers Dennis :angel:

Nice work, it's a good feeling when you can start painting and reassembling.

A word from the guy who stuffed it already: make sure that rubber you use between the tub and chassis is not too thick. I made that mistake, the tub becomes impossible to fit and you'll spend a whole day lifting the tub on and off trying to sand/grind the rubber to the correct thickness. Not so fun.

I often find myself just standing looking at what I have to get done, or thinking about what I should do... must be a LR thing. :D

If you can weld, then I wouldn't get a new bulkhead yet... wait till it's off and you'll be able to better asses what is needed. If you need one, I'd contact the "HoHars" on here, they have a bunch of good stuff.

Back to work this week so work will slow a little on the rebuild, not that it was moving at lightening speed anyway. Dropped the rear axle/diff out on the weekend, boy those things are heavy. As you can see I'm operating on the principle that the more tools lying around the better.

Tonight I inserted a couple of bushes into the leaf spring eyes. Using a homemade puller consisting of some threaded rod and a couple of sockets. Thanks to the forum for that tip.

I also took the rear wheels off, I wonder if I could use them on my Kia while the rebuild progresses?

After several PM's back and forth, Chris finally popped over on the weekend :) That station Wagon we found last week now has no rear doors ;) I think Chris will be back :)

Mrs hh:angel:

I'll be back