James Mac's Defender 90 Rebuild

James_mac · Feb 8, 2015

I think its about time i started my rebuild thread so here it goes.

Iv decided to do a full nut and bolt rebuild on my 1996 90CSW, iv never done a full rebuild like this before so its going to be a learning curve for me and hopeful ill be able to seek some advice/guidance from you guys too. I have a good selection of tools and plenty of space in a shared lockup at work so that makes life easier.
The plan is to keep my 90 on the road for as long as possible as i use it everyday so I bought myself a disco as a donor vehicle, from this I'm going to strip and rebuild the axles, drop a galvanised 90 chassis onto them, then ill overhaul the engine, gearbox and transfer box and pop them onto the chassis.

Once i have a full rolling chassis with an engine on it, I'm going to take my 90 off the road, strip it down and rebuild it onto the new rolling chassis making everything nice and shinny in the process. Hopefull :-D

so thats about it, time to get posting some pictures.

Whats the best app for uploading pictures, i normally use photobucket but it seems to be really slow and crap recently, is there a better alternative?

James_mac · Feb 8, 2015

This is what my 90 is like currently

And this is the disco that I bought as the doner car. Not bad for £400, 1998 with 120,000 on the clock and just enough tax and test to drive it back.

James_mac · Feb 8, 2015

i then started to strip the disco down, the only thing i really want from the disco is the axles and the engine so I'm going to scrap everything else.

anyway here are few more pics

James_mac · Feb 8, 2015

once i had stripped it down this far everything came to a halt, i couldn't decide what would be the best way to remove the body. i bought myself a cheap plasma cutter off ebay, which was working well until it went bang, turns out i had fried some of the MOSFETS somehow, I'm thinking it was a bad earth, iv got some replacements but i haven't got around to soldiering them in yet. Anyway, a few months past then i found out a friend of mine has a sthil saw so we spent a hour or so chopping it up and i had a rolling chassis and a big pile of scrap metal.

James_mac · Feb 8, 2015

i then pulled the engine, gearbox and transfer box out and put them to one side.

James_mac · Feb 8, 2015

then i added the chassis to the scrap pile, pulled the wheels off and stuck the axles onto my axle stands ready to start refurbishing them.

James_mac · Feb 8, 2015

i think its bed time for me now so ill continue tomorrow

top drive · Feb 8, 2015

Isnt the discongear box levers in the wrong place for a 90 or are you getiing the swapped about as partbof overhaul ? Your gear stick will come out in centre seat if you fit as is ?

Pricilla · Feb 8, 2015

Nice.....looking forward to the next update

bluedog333 · Feb 8, 2015

Poor ol Disco! £400 for a running 300TDi engine with ancillaries is a bargain though!

James_mac · Feb 8, 2015

top drive said:
Isnt the discongear box levers in the wrong place for a 90 or are you getiing the swapped about as partbof overhaul ? Your gear stick will come out in centre seat if you fit as is ?

Yeah the gear lever will be in the wrong place so i have 2 options for this. Strip it down and change the gear lever for a defender one as the insides are exactly the same or see if I can find somebody that will exchange it for a defender one, I was thinking that a gearbox reconditioners wouldn't be too bothered with a straight swap. I have also toyed with the idea of putting a 6speed TDCI box in but I'm not sure about that.

James_mac · Feb 8, 2015

time for some more pictures.

The plan now is to full strip down the axles, replace all the seals, bearings, swivels and clean and paint the casing.
The axles had 17 years with of crap on them so i got to work with the wire wheel on the grinder once.

James_mac · Feb 8, 2015

i spent about 3 hours with the grinder on one axle and it started to come up nicely as you can see in the last picture but i had eaten through 2 wire wheels and progress was really slow and i couldn't get into all the corners properly and under brackets etc so i made a few calls and i got quoted £30 an axle to get them shot blasted. so i made some blanking plates, stuck them on the ends and took both axles. i then loaded up the landy and took axles, the back plates and the spring seats down to the shot blasters.

James_mac · Feb 8, 2015

almost back into real time now :-D
so, as the axles are at the shot blasters and i didn't know what to do in the meantime, so i decided to put the engine on the engine stand, iv never use an engine stand before but i was really please once it was attached, its going to make working on the engine 100 times easier.

James_mac · Feb 8, 2015

i bought a battery recall pack for my snap on impact gun, so i removed the old and soldiered in some new ones and its miles better now, lots more power and hopefully the charge will last more than a few hours.

Once that was done, with the help of a few friends we loading all the scrap from the disco onto a trailer and my mate took it to the scrap yard for me. I'm glad that out of the way now.

James_mac · Feb 8, 2015

and thats pretty much everything that i have done over the last few weeks so now were back into real time.

I have now started to strip the engine down, iv never actually striped one down this far before so its all new to me, one side completely bare and the other is on its way. i haven't taken the timing case off yet but i will do soon. i need to buy myself the locking kit to lock everything in place really.
Anyway, one side of the engine is pretty clean, and the other is covered in oil n crap and it needs a good clean, iv got some gunk and a steam cleaner so hopfully it will come up well.

Im picking my axles up from the shot blasters on wednesday so i should be able to get them primed and the first coat of paint on them them. in the meantime i need to go order myself some bits, i think i need:
swivel housing kits x2
wheel bearing x4
Disk and pads all round
diff flange's x2
HD Drive flanges X4
and i think thats it, i might splash out on 4 new callipers but I'm going to get the rest first and see how much it costs.
Have i missed anything else off?? I'm reusing the stub axles and the hub but pretty much everything else will be new.
i also need to find myself a decent supplier for nuts and bolts around here.

GATSO · Feb 8, 2015

Nice work ,,,,, my engine was once like that great tread it's great striping down but great when u start painting and rebuilding stuff following with interest [emoji41][emoji41]

James_mac · Feb 10, 2015

I have just picked the axles up from the shot blasters, time to crack on with the primer now

What would be the best way to get a chassis delivered from Richards chassis to me in reading, it's a 200mile trip and they want £170, im sure I could get it cheaper than that somewhere

Littelwill · Feb 10, 2015

Great thread

aaronmorris · Feb 10, 2015

Cheapest way is to go and get it yourself if possible. I'm under 10 miles from them. Door to door. Yet wanted £75

So brother lent works tipper and we used that.
Axles have come up great. I look forward to the rest of this build

James Mac's Defender 90 Rebuild

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Head's a shed

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