Rattleguns Series Rebuild

Here's a thread about the unintentional rebuild of my 88" Series 3, I've been on it about 5 months and have got some pics of where I've got so far...

Here it is....



I know what you're thinking - that doesn't need a rebuild - thats what I thought! I got this about a year ago when I started looking into Land Rovers seriously, I read all the guides about what to check and then went and ignored them completely. I was seduced by the fact that this had only failed an MOT the week earlier - the only fail points on the sheet being a rusty tub support, loose handbrake lever and poor headlamp aim. What a crock of **** that was! The MOT tester must have been working in the bleedin dark. I knew it was running rough too...

Driving it home was frankly, terrifying, I had it in low range to start with and on the tarmac it was all over the place, could hardly keep it in the white lines. Right pull over and have a look, turns out he'd fitted a mat from a digger or something and high range wasn't even possible, ripped that out and got it in high - much better. Top speed was only 25mph and I had to get it over the steepest pass in South Wales so that went down to about 10mph. Still, I had massive grin on my face funnily enough the queue behind me didn't seem bothered like they would with a 'normal' car, they just kind of accepted it and passed happily when they could.
To top it all off, when almost home I tried the windscreen washer, which caused the most massive fookin backfire I've ever heard as it shorted out the ignition, I actually saw an old lady wobble on her feet and clasp a wall for support, my slow speed meant I saw quite a lot really.

Still, it was peanuts and I thought it would be on the road in a week or so...

After getting it the short trip home these are the faults I reeeealy found:

Hole in front dumbiron so big you can put your fist in (hidden by front panel), front wheel bearing collapsed or loose, brakes pulling left really badly, head gasket gone which disguised the bottom end knock once fixed, leaky swivels and everything else.

Ok, so that was a bit demoralising so I tried to get to it when I could (nowhere to work on it), anyway I saw this on ebay locally:



A timewarp 109 Station Wagon, what I'd always wanted. Now, this really was a wreck, even I could see that!! The body was in amazing condition however, it really looked as if it was driven out of the factory and parked there for 40 years. There wasn't a dent or mark on it and the rear load bed was unmarked, all with original (worn) paint. The seller let me pull it apart in the field, and I mean pull it apart, all the steel had rusted away and I could just pull the body off the chassis, even the outriggers came off in my hand.

I just had to get rid of the 88 to make way for it and build a workplace - simple...

to be continued

You want to watch out there, I had the same idea to build a work space, it went from just a couple of parking spaces to a full length concrete pad for about 12 motors...

I now have 7 projects all running concurrently.

Body looks good , but the chassis , is it worth a repair ???

Right where was I. Needed somewhere to work so first built this platform out the back to work on. Now, my house, like many in the old Rhondda Vallee clings to the side of the mountain like a clingy thing. This means the back entrance to the garden is higher than the roof of the house! That makes adding a work area a little tricky, I used some scrap staging units and scaff, looks scary but it's well within loading limits. Having a Land Rover that looks like it's going to fall on you is a bit freaky:



I got the 88 on there as I decided I wanted to get it running, it was just going to be a rush job to get an MOT, definitely no rebuild, I wanted to do the 109. I though it'd just be a couple of weeks to patch up and maybe a roller paint job.

Front dumbiron rot in this pic, unfortunately it had been repaired poorly in the past which made an add on part a bit tricky, the rot went back to the engine mount and steel was pretty thin on the inside rail, in fact the bottom of the chassis rail was unzipped with rust from the bulkhead to past the gearbox, bugger.



I sat and thought about it for a bit, I didn't feel up to the welding skill wise and I wanted a quick job so I had a brainwave (uh-oh). "I'll pick up a cheap chassis and can practically finish it in a weekend, I'll lift the complete bulkhead over and roll the axles under it!". What a fool. The back half of the chassis was a recent replacement so I thought I could make some money back selling that.

Stripdown pics:



A helper



I made this gantry out of some bits of scaff, very very handy, easy to move about for lifting engines, axles and whatnot, you can even move it with the engine in place.

Greats stuff. Projects make the best threads.

I hope someone finds it useful or interesting!

So, it took a few weekends to get it all in bits. It was all pretty straightforward. A small angle grinder with a thin slitting disc is my new favourite tool. Someone paid £100 for the old chassis and was ecstatic with it, God his must have been awful. To be fair, it wasn't really that bad, just more than I was happy with.

Whilst looking for replacement chassis, I found a couple in the £300 range that said they'd been fixed up and painted but the sellers were cagey when asked about the inside. I knew from looking in mine and the old 109 that they can rust as fast from the inside, if not faster, so who knows what they were really like. I got a used Galv rolling chassis off ebay and thought I'd sell off the axles and wheels it came with to offset the cost. That worked out ok and after selling my original chassis and the axles/springs/wheels from the new chassis it cost about £500.

Here it is being picked up on my 2 wheel 8'x4' trailer, yes, that's a Land Rover on there! It's rated at 560kg and I guesstimated a chassis and axles prrrroooobably weighed about that...... I screwed some boards to the trailer bed to increase the area so it would fit on and when I got to the sellers house, I lifted the trailer back like a ramp and they pushed it up on! The trailer groaned and creaked but held out.



You might notice an engine in the middle... the night before I went to get the chassis, an engine came up on ebay for £60, an ex mil 5 bearing, claimed low mileage so I thought I'd kill two birds with one trailer and got it on the way home. That's when I had another brainwave (uh-oh), I called up Mam and said "um, I'm coming to see you, and um, can you take the car out of the garage, I need to borrow it for a very short time to store something".

I know from past projects that having no room to work is pretty miserable so I thought I'd build the Landy back up at my Mums garage, doing all the prep work at mine, then I'd just take sub assemblies over and bolt them on in a nice clean environment. Mam was pretty good about it, as long as it was finished in her lifetime she said ( I assured her as long as this was not weeks, it'd be fine!).

Her garage has a massive central beam, my Dad insisted we put it in when we built it years ago, he said it'd be useful, thanks Dad. We just rolled the trailer in then lifted the whole lot off with 2 chainblocks I borrowed. They are so bloody useful.

Engine came off first:



Then the chassis/axles, the roof didn't even creak:



I'm feeling reeeealy happy:



The chassis was in perfect condition really but has been used in a rebuild and nothing was put between the tub and the chassis, this had worn into the galv leaving some light rust starting to poke out. The previous owner had put some cold galv paint on so it needed painting to even out the colour. The exposed galv was quite pitted from salt and general aging so I painted the whole lot in chassis satin black paint using a mini roller. It was much easier at chest height:





Looks really good, the satin black is great. I bought a 5 litre tin but only used about 2 litres on the chassis, the rest will come for the axles and whatnot.

Really interesting thread, I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of it!

Ok, I'm ready for another update, this is the story of the axles.....



Now, as this wasn't supposed to be a rebuild my original plan was to undo the shackle bolts, roll the axles out complete with springs and bolt them onto the new chassis (hahahohoho as usual). The axles really didn't look good enough to go on the fresh clean chassis and had a few faults, rusty, pitted leaking swivels, leaking pinon seals, loose bearings and pulling brakes.

First job was to clean them up, the front axle was so grease and filth caked it was hard to tell what was original castings and what was chunks of the rotten grease. A wire wheel angle grinder attachment was brilliant, it blasts paint and rust away but is surprisingly kind to engineered surfaces where the gaskets go, didn't even leave a scratch.



There's the swivel outer housings, dirty on left and cleaned up on right. That's the first bit I've cleaned up of the original Rover and was a tearful moment (not just because of the grit propelled warp speed into my eyes from the wire wheel). The whole chassis tube took about 45 mins, after years of battling rust and filth from Leyland bangers of yore, watching the rust disappearing as clouds of dust from the wire wheel was most satisfying.

Once everything was cleaned up, I thought I'd start with the front. I got new swivel kits for both sides which come with most of the seals and bearings for rebuilding, but not the seals for the end of the axle case, or new O rings for the drive members, to seal the little hub caps on. Since starting this I've come across the Britpart debate and have so far found the quality overall to be 'variable', some bits have been great to work with and some less so. The swivel kits seemed to be well made however, I'll mention the bits that don't.



You have to put the Railko bush and lower bearing race in yourself but that's fairly easy. As long as they're lined up, they tap in quite nicely with a bronze faced hammer (great tool, a must have). Once they're in (with thrust washer) and you've put a half shaft bearing in using the same method, you can assemble the swivel system. This is much easier to do by putting the swivel on the axle case with just a couple of nipped up bolts so you can take it off after to do the seals. The top pin has shims (supplied) to set the preload, apparently, too loose can make the steering shimmy and too tight will affect the self centering (and bearing life I guess). A tip I got off the net was to squeeze the pin in until the resistance felt close to the specs and then slip shims in the side to get it roughly right so you're not undoing the bolts all the time.



I also discovered there's about 42 ways to incorrectly assemble the swivels so here's a guide:

The Railko bush and lower bearing race are the same size and you don't want to put them in the wrong side of the swivel, the bush goes in the swivel at the top where it's closest to the axle end, the bearing race in the bottom where it's cambered out from the axle. The outer housing can be put on upside down and you don't want to do that either, easiest way is to make sure the filler plugs are at the back side of the axle (where the diff nose sticks out). The steering arms can go on backwards too, they should point to the front, opposite the diff nose. The long arm goes on the left! I think the pic below shows it wrong, luckily I spotted it before fitting it all up properly.



Brakes next.......

Nice thread mate, will be keeping my eye on it as and when you update

excellent so far, must say i am looking forward to the wagon resto if you do it.

I am sure i would be constantly looking up at the workspace trying to detect any movement in the landy , it would keep me awake at night if my bedroom was underneath it.

Thanks guys

Heheh no movement yet, the only thing up on there now is the tub and a few odds and ends as all the heavy stuff is with the chassis at mams. I am going to take the engine into work this week to dismantle as I often have a bit of spare time there. It's very hard to drag myself up to the shed after work and playing with kids, having some nosh etc! I'd rather do it while I'm awake and warm, we'll call that site 3 then! I've got the gearbox in work too so hopefully can assemble the complete engine/box and then take it on my trailer to the chassis.

Righto, this is nearly up to date - just got to finish the axle photos....

I haven't been looking forward to the brakes as I've never done anything with drums before and reputation precedes them as fiddly and a bit of a black art. I do like to stop though so they got stripped to the backplates and rebuilt.

This is what the cylinders looked like inside:



Lumpy gloop and some corrosion. I cleaned all the cylinders out till they were smooth again and used a seal kit to rebuild them all:



That's a rear cylinder, seals just press on to the pistons, not hard at all. I put Girling Red Rubber grease in the cylinders which made pushing the new seals in much easier (and better for them) as well as preventing corrosion, lovely stuff that doesn't damage the seals.

New shoes are pretty cheap but I paid extra for Mintex shoes, even they were only £30 an axle. The back axle didn't have any leaks and had smooth running bearings so I just rebuilt the brakes on the axle (leant against a handy wheel pile):



Putting the rear shoes on was nice and easy, although you've got to pay attention to where the springs go, it's not so obvious when the shoes are full of holes! There's a spring at the bottom that goes across the shoes, and a red one at the top that goes from one shoe to a peg just under the cylinder. The springs were new ones from Paddocks (Britpart I presume) and fitted perfectly.

The front brakes (twin leading shoe on mine) were a bit harder, here's the finished backplate:



Not complicated at all but the Britpart adjusters and springs needed a bit of work to fit, the adjusters are basically just a bolt with some rough splines on the end that a snail cam bolts on to. The splines are badly formed though and if you tried to use the little bolt that attaches it, you'd certainly snap it. I squashed them on with a vice first to make them fit before pulling them apart and fitting them to the axle with some grease, they come with different size cams depending on year:



The new springs needed work too, as they come, the loop is far to long to get them to fit into the shoe, I struggled for ages before I got the old springs out of the bin and had a look. I had to grind the end of the loop down, it just popped in then. Glad I still had the old parts or I'd probably still be up there wondering what I was doing wrong.

Before and after grinding:



You can see in the backplate pic there was no way the spring was going into the shoe as supplied, even if it had it would have bent the spring anyway. That was pretty much it for the brakes (if they work of course!).

The front axle has a lot of bits in the end and even though I'd only just taken it apart the Haynes had to come out to remember where it went. First step was seals in the stub axles - these go in facing backwards on this post 1980 axle, probably similar on other years. The back of the seal with the lip faces what you want to keep in, in this case it's facing that way to keep the ep90 in the swivel housing and out of the stub axle:



Now that was done, it was time to fit the stub axle and brake backplate, the stub axle goes onto the swivel (with a gasket and sealant) then the brake backplate over the top of that, then an oil catcher ring, then lockwashers and six bolts. You better be a flippin Octopus, this was a right faff on my own!

It's possible to put the brake backplates on the wrong side, don't do that or you'll turn your leading shoe brakes into trailing shoe ones and it'll all be bad. In the backplate pic in the brake post above, that's the drivers side. As a further check, the bit of the shoe that is moved by the piston (leading edge) should be at the top and facing forward on the axle:



The oil catcher ring you can see between the bolts and the brake backplate is an interesting bit of failsafe engineering, I think it's only present on later axles. It's hollow on the inside and has a drain hole at the bottom that lines up with a channel in the stub axle. If the hub oil seal fails and oil/grease escapes, instead of being flung around the drum, it's caught inside this ring and can drain out instead of ruining the brakes. Now that it's fitted, the hubs and bearings can go on. The hub needs a seal on it's back which seals on the stub axle, put the wheel bearing in first though! On this axle the seal is a twin lip type and seals both ways, I looked around for a drift for a while to put it in then found out a drive member was perfect for drifting it in:







The hub then slips over the stub axle, outer bearing slid in, greased up and then a thick washer, nut, lock washer and locknut - easy:



Once that's done, there's the drive member to fit (gasket) and then halfshaft retaining nut/retaining pin clip. You did slide the halfshaft back in about 5 steps ago before the stub axle didn't you? Neither did I Lastly, there's an O ring to go on the drive member (paddocks has them for pennies) and a hub cap (less than a quid so had four new ones). The new hub caps were very tight but the hub nut tool drifted them on with a few hammer whacks. The hub and drive member then got a nice coat of satin black, you can see later when the wheels are on (forgot to take pic).

Nearly there....

Nice work and explanation. I did the same to mine last year. You've got me thinking now, I can't remember removing or refitting the lock nut tabs on the stub axle carrier. I had to replace my stubs - some pitting and wear on the non-removable Land....very costly if you ever need to replace these on these later models

Fair play to you mate, I thought i was dealing with a sloping drive!

Nice thread, a very good read..

i too found the brakes bit interesting, you have given me a bit of courage to check out the ones on my s1, havent used if for a few weeks and they seem to have seized

Land Raver said:

Nice work and explanation. I did the same to mine last year. You've got me thinking now, I can't remember removing or refitting the lock nut tabs on the stub axle carrier. I had to replace my stubs - some pitting and wear on the non-removable Land....very costly if you ever need to replace these on these later models

Click to expand...

There weren't any on the bolts I took off so maybe they're a later addition, I've never seen them in pics before either but they were in the kit so i chucked em on. Maybe they don't even go there heheh

The lands on mine were a little scored so I rubbed them down with wet and dry so we'll see how they get on. If they don't leak I will be chuffed and if they do I shall consider it normal behaviour so it'll be win win!

Great read that - Keep up the good work

Hi mate,good thread, dont know wether your interested, but i have a good station wagon chassis if you need it for your lwb project, its a rolling chassis at the moment but i need the front axle, but the rest is surplus