SLROC Forum

Looking good & great progress.  Weather looks horrible in your recent photos.....

A very very busy day today, engine, gearbox bulkhead and axles removed, time to start the rebuild, front axle and steering box on, although not without a struggle......... now then, what bit goes where.......    :)

Many thanks to Ruari and Paul today, could not have got this far without them.

Aim for tomorrow, rear axle, engine, clutch and gearbox.............. hope I haven't set my sights too high.

Bulkhead is now with a very nice man who is going to make it as good as new..........

Absolutely brilliant, Ive been playing at rebuilding my series 2a for over a year now.
You've put me to shame 
Well done. Fantastic.

well done, looking good

Well thats the end of an exhausting weekend, very good progress made I think, certainly I am more than happy so far.

First job of the day was to correct a slight error with where I had put the springs and spacers on the front axle and put the rear axle on.

Next came the threading the loom through the chassis, we had really struggled with it yesterday, hitting loads of internal webs and almost loosing my CB ariel inside but today it went in within a few minutes! Next was the engine, clutch and gearbox, followed by the prop shafts, exhaust.

Finally it was a trip to see a man with a small pointy hammer who had been looking at my bulkhead and to return the engine hoist, thanks a million for the loan of that. The bulkhead really is shot and needing a lot work, or another from a different source! It was even possible to date it, there was a few old tax discs stuffed in it with a load of filler, there was no metal to go rusty at that point. 

Progress is liable to slow a little now as we have visitors next weekend and sourcing/repairing a bulkhead, but then I have a full week off at the beginning of April to hopefully finish it off. 

You have my unreserved admiration, very impressive, looking forward to seeing it back on the road.

Tommy

+1


Dave, when you see the state of the old chassis makes you wonder how you ever got round the Lochgilphead forest without the car falling apart!

Dave, when you see the state of the old chassis makes you wonder how you ever got round the Lochgilphead forest without the car falling apart!

Tell me about it, the pictures really don't show it all either.

Thats the old chassis gone to the scrapyard in the sky now, along with the old springs and rock sliders, a whole £41 back, better than nothing I suppose. It only weighed 200 kg, certainly felt a lot more than that when humping it about   

Just a couple of hours on it today, fitted new turret seats, steering damper, fuel tank and a couple of other odds and sods.

Ordered replacement bulkhead yesterday lunchtime from CWS (4x4 specialist breaker) near Yeovil, it was still attached to a landy at the time, surprise of my life when the delivery man is calling today saying "are you in I'm just on the way". At first inspection it looks ok, needs a can of paint but certainly a lot better than the one I took off!

Amazing how it can work sometimes - I got a parcel of generator parts I ordered yesterday lunchtime, here at 2 pm today and again all the way up from Bristol.   

The last couple of evening after work have been spent changing over bits from my old bulkhead to the new, but nothing is straight forward is it. Even though it was off the same year defender as mine, its amazing how many differences there are, things like the clutch slave cylinder is on the opposite side and loads of brackets for relays and things just aren't there and the hole for the loom is just a few mm smaller so that the large plastic block from the under bonnet fuse panel wouldn't go through, so I'm assuming it was a 200 rather than a 300 tdi.

Now I have everything removed from my old bulkhead you can really see the rust now, bit beyond sensible/economic repair really for someone not able to do it themselves.

I had to laugh last night, I was watching the new series of Wheeler Dealers, mike had bought an old Morgan that required a new chassis. They both spent most of the programme saying what a huge job it was, remembering he has all the tools and a nice warm dry workshop and doing it as his day job! I'm doing this on someone else's drive, luckily decent weather, in my spare time!

Another few hours this afternoon, not a lot to see though. Reconnecting all the rear loom where we had to cut it to remove and doing a few bits to the bulkhead. Hopefully tomorrow will see big changes with the bulkhead going on and maybe the rear tub as well.

Is that it nearly finished ..............



OH Oh, not quite......



A day of mixed fortunes today, sort of 1 step forwards, 2 steps back and 2 forwards .........
 
Started off very well, bulkhead in place and loosely fixed





Then came today's lesson, and this could happen to anyone just changing the clutch slave cylinder ........

During the strip down I removed the clutch slave cylinder without disturbing the hydraulics, trying to make life easier, hmm that worked didn't it! 

Whilst the engine and gearbox were out I then changed the clutch, release bearing and operating arm, so after the bulkhead was put in the first thing I wanted to replace the slave cylinder and check it all worked.

Then came the problems, it just wouldn't quite go in right, so as always if at first you don't succeed then read the instructions ..... in this case the Haynes Manual. It goes on to say that the push rod should remain attached to the operating arm, mine wasn't, it had remained in the slave cylinder. It is attached to the operating arm by a piece of plastic with a couple of clips which fit into the rectangular hole you can see in the picture below, which of course you can't see and is just over a finger length inside the bell housing so you can't even feel it. We were then sat there for over an hour, with one sat at the front looking back with a torch and guiding the other lying underneath the car, a bit like the golden shot, up a bit, left, down, right, push ........ no use, out with the gearbox, which was only out for literally 2 minutes to fit said bit of plastic and operating arm........ 



After getting the gearbox back in it all started going a bit better, on with the rear tub and sort through all the wiring, trying to find where everything goes, just glad its a TDI or it would be a real nightmare.









Another day of rest tomorrow to go to the Bathgate driving day, then Monday will be set my Gazebo up and get some paint on the bulkhead before ploughing on with the rest. It really is amazing how time consuming it can be just doing up a couple of nuts and bolts though, the day just disappears.

A bitty but busy day today. Started off with a bit of painting, the bulkhead areas that will be visible and a few others that were badly bubbling and/or rusty. Baring in mind this was outside in April and out of a spray can (and the fact that I am hopelessy impatient  ) it hasn't turned out too badly, especially as this will be used for off roading and not for shows 

The other bits done today was windscreen back in (so it is almost weather proof now), and numerous other small fiddly bits like the steering column in the engine bay before the wings can go back on, and a bit of wiring round the back end.

Weather permitting, tomorrow should see either the dash going back in or brake pipes.