Ian's 90 300tdi rebuild

must be satisfying getting rid of those cold welds.
I have to say that your fabrication and welding skills are superb, a proper job your doing there, well done!

I cheated a bit I'm a fab/welder by trade . So on to this installment the tub , this needed some major work and some home made panels .
First up the outer plates on the driver's and passenger sides door pillars were removed , they were shot at the bottom .


Then the bottom panel the seat box bolts to and the lower panel that attaches the tub to the chassis were removed .





then some new panels were made out of alli








Also some new plates for the door pillars made and fixed in position .





The lower panels were fixed in place later , next a new floor was fitted and new cappings and rear quarter panels pics on that tomorrow .
cheers Ian

Your work is so smart! You'd shiver looking at my thread lol!! Keep up the good work!

I had a quick look resto_d1 some good work there ,will have a better read when I get more time . so first up I found some pics of when I made the door pillar plates for anyone that's interested , got loads more pics than this but trying to not upload all as there's to many when I'm trying to catch up , so on to the door plates .





Used a bit of 12mm bar with a slot in it to bend the returns , should have used a different grade of ally but told the place I brought it from what it was for and they said that grade it was a bit to hard .
So the tub ended up like this ,

I then fitted a new 3mm floor to keep it all square , next it was on to the rear quarter panels and cappings .







Then the floor was fixed in position and new top hat strengtheners from YRM and the new lower panels I'd made were fitted , the strengthening cross channels were cleaned up painted and refitted .

















I do apologise that some of the photos are out of sequence but its been hard to find all the best ones . I do have a more detailed set of photos showing were all the spot welds are on the rear quarter panels and how to remove them if anyone is interested i'll put them up .
cheers Ian

Well time for the next installment , first up tub bulkhead removal I'd looked round the net saw the manufactured ones I didn't want to remove it totally thought I can make one for a few quid lets have a go . So firstly removed the top rail .

Then decided I was going to use some 40x20 I had brought for the roof rack I was making , fitted nice and looked okay .

Then cut it out where I wanted it .

Then slit the cross and side tubes so they fitted over the lip that was left .

Then a test fit .

Didn't like the corners so cut the corner piece so it fitted flush in there and decided fixing wise , the frame would be welded in situ , sides would be welded to the tub cappings and the bottom rail was drilled through rivnuts fitted the screwed down with counter sunk head screws . So you ended up with this . I did put some closed cell foam in between the bottom rail and the tub .



Next up was to move the fuel filler as if you remember from earlier I'd fitted a TD5 tank , the filler neck frame was brought from YRM.

So first up was mark out the hole , measurements were taken from a TD5 90 which was the father-in -laws .

You'll notice there's 2 lines the cut was made on the inner one with a plasma cutter ( which I brought from ebay for £200 , well worth the investment) the outer line was the appeture so the first line was bent back to make the return .





Like so ,the back was cut out also then the frame test fitted , the holes were for plug welds , it was also bonded in to seal it well .

Welded an sanded flat . Next a small frame was made to secure the filler to the tub inside and riveted in place .



The old hole was then filled , a plate was cut to make a snug fit then welded in with small stiches and was smothed over with filler later to make it look flush .

The inner frame was removed but not fully as it helps strengthen the panel . Next was the access panel for the fuel tank sender , means you can change the sender without dropping the tank , makes life a lot easier . So the floor was cut at the correct distances , which I found on the internet , and edged with alli strip . You have to remove part of the floor strengthener but it looked fine and I'd upped the floor thickness to 3mm anyway.


the side strips were then riveted in place .

And the cut out piece was used as the cover plate .

The plate was drilled straight through and rivnuts fitted to the straps underneath so it could be fitted down and ended up like this .

Next up is the seat box rebuild .
cheers Ian

Your attention to detail is absolutely amazing.

Great work there with the bulkhead frame, top job

Thank you .

Lovely standard as usual. Keep it coming!

Thank you both .

So last bit of rebuilding for now was the seat box , all the parts were brought from the LRO show last year off YRM . As the fuel tank has now been moved from under the drivers seat to the rear then more storage could be added under the driver . And a shiny pile of bits from YRM. there was 2 new end panels , a battery box and a tool box for under the drivers seat .

The battery compartment wasn't totally gone but was a bit cruddy so got removed ready to be replaced by a shiny new ALi one .

This is one of the more straight forward jobs it's held together with rivets and plug welds and you only need to rivet it back together . The YRM parts are pre-drilled and come like a jigsaw so it's easy when you find out what goes where , you just need to be gentle and make sure you get all the rivets and welds out before you start to pry it apart . So plug welds drilled out down the end panel ,

and rivets out of the top and you're left with this

New side fixed into place with closed head rivets .


The other side was replaced in the same way then the boxes assembled with rivets .




Then the underside was cleaned off .

And the 2 boxes were fixed into place with rivets .




And the end result .




So with only the doors left to repair and with the nice weather we were having last year I decided to spray all the parts that were ready , with the thought being that I could assemble the truck over the winter and the mechanicals could be done then as well . So next up is the spraying of all the parts and Rioja Red Pearl was the chosen colour .
cheers Ian

So it was time to get on with the spraying as this mean't that I'd have plenty to do over the winter , the paint was Rioja Red Pearl from Jawel paints and was good stuff . It was a 4 stage paint epoxy primer was used , then a red base coat , then the red pearl coat and lastly laquer , this was used because that's how the colour came from them and it was easy enough to spray on .
So here you go all parts were rubbed down , I did each set of parts to a finish when I did them but I've grouped the photo's together to make life easier , so sand down stage .




The seat box , bulkhead and side panels were done as well but I can't find any pics of them , the gutter sealant was replaced as it was cracked and not looking good before painting . The inside of the wings , the engine bay side of the bulkhead and the underside of the tub were all painted with buzzweld CIO after being primered , so on to the primer .










Then the base coat .





And finally after the pearl coat and laquer , they had 3 coats of each with a flating off after each coat had dried .







So that was the painting done so far still got the doors , sills and a few other bits left to do , but the main thing was I could start re-assembly . So up next is actually putting stuff back on axles , suspension , body parts , and all the other oily bits .
cheers Ian

Looking good

Thank you all , so next axles and suspension . Axles were blasted then under coated with Tractol then Buzzweld chassis extreme .



All the other suspension parts were done the same , as well as hubs and swivel housings .Shiny new parts , got some Monroe adventurer shocks of ebay at a good price so went with them .


Assembled the axle then fitted it to the chassis .


New wheel bearings and discs .




All sorted the brake lines .




Not quite as straight as factory . Next up front end and another box of shiny bits .


And assembling the front .







And voila axles , suspension done .

Didn't do the front brake lines as I need a new brake compensator valve , next up is assembling the body back on and I've still not caught up yet .
cheers Ian

Holy **** your making this look easy

Thank you all , it has took about 18 months to get as far as I have and there’s been a lot of head scratching and stress along the way . As I said the thread was well behind I actually fitted the engine this week after I rebuilt it and there’s a custom dash and a wiper modification to come so plenty more to come .
Cheers all Ian

So did you get your balls chromed or were they still roughly serviceable?

Balls where very pitted and I’d not read anywhere of anyone rechroming so I replaced them with Teflon coated ones .

Hi all , next installment is the re assembly , so first up fuel lines fitted ,

next up tub re-fitted ,

access hole for fuel sender was in the right place , that was a relief .

then a new chassis loom was made and fitted .


Next was the bulkhead .

next the steering was installed

Next up the transfer box was rebuilt .









Then the auto gearbox was given a service and a spruce up .


fitted together and dropped into the chassis .


Steering column was fitted .

Then the roof and side panels , sill rails and seatbox were fitted all with new seals .

Rear windows in,

then the side windows were over hauled and refitted along with the alpine windows which were a rite PITA , I brought some allmakes seals and the windows wouldn't go in any way shape or form , I then brought some genuine seals and they went in , it wasn't an easy job but I definatly wouldn't buy anything other then genuine seals to do this job again .

and the sunroof .

Next up fuel filler ,

brake pedals ,

And some nice new Perei LED lights at the rear .

So next up is the engine which should bring the thread up to date near enough , then it's the dash and center console , which I'm making myself as I'm to tight to pay £400 quid for a plastic one I've already managed to get a disco 1 auto gear lever surround in very good condition , which took 12 months as most were in a rite state that I've saw .

This is awesome, proper job of it and the auto is going to be a blessing

Thank you your making a proper job of yours too from what I’ve saw , yes I’m looking forward to driving it with an auto in , have heard a lot about how nice they are .