Rattleguns Series Rebuild

peter8315 said:

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

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I've already sorted a chassis, thanks for the offer though.. Station Wagon chassis are rare, especially good ones.

Here's the wheels, they were £50 on ebay and were advertised as modulars. I was going to go with the standard Series wheels but these came up locally so thought I may as well. When I got them home I saw a few of the little allen head bolts were snapped off typical, there's always something. I guessed I'd be able to drill a couple out.

They were in silver with some rusty bits so gave them a going over with the wire wheel grinder, and all the heads of the allen bolts came flying off! :faint2: You know that scene in a film when the dude looks at his gun in disbelief after blowing something up, it was like that! On closer inspection, it turns out the bolts were made of plastic, just pressed into holes in the wheel The wheels were all welded construction, just made to look modular.

Primed them up and sprayed satin black:



They're fitted with 205/85/16 Kingpin Mudtracker tyres, £40 each new. I didn't want monster tyres for it as the steering was really heavy on the big 7.50 x 16 Deestone tyres it had before. They were cheaper too You can see the difference in diameter in the pic (not as much as it looks due to the angle).

Axle Pinion Seals

The pinion seals were leaking badly, when the flange was removed it looked like this:



The seal part was made of some fibrous material that was all falling to bits, it was practically an open hole. I was a bit confused as the top was metal and I'd not seen a metal seal before, didin't know if it was some kind of cover or the seal or part of the diff case or what?? I laid into with the cold chisel anywhoo:



Once it had been 'reformed' by the chisel it came out, this is it next to the new replacement, a twin lip type:



Once again, the hub spanner was perfect for drifting it in:





Using two drive member bolts and a crowbar for holding the flange steady whilst torquing it up:



The holes for the split pin lined up fine but didn't when I did the back axle. I took it past the torque point to line them up to start with but the diff went stiff and gritty so i backed it off to looser than torque spec to get the split pin in instead.

there must be the wrong shims between the bearings or another issue if tightening nut a bit further made the rotation poor

Thanks James, I was wondering about that. Do you think I should strip and reset, is that tricky?

i would , shims lie behind front bearing should be 2 on one of that age ,is mudshield catching seal or housing?

Finished















I got some Bailcast gaiters for the swivel balls, no pics of fitting sorry. It's pretty straightforward, they come split so you can add them without stripping things off and you superglue them together (you can just see the seam at the top). The gaiter goes under the standard seal retainer but that has to be split in two vertically to accept the greater size. It came with 2 steel bands to lock it to the swivel flange but they're total rubbish, will have to source 2 large Jubillee clips or similar.

That's about it otherwise, yippeeeeee :clap2: Someone remind me to torque up all the bolts before I drive it and fold up the lock washers. I've left them for now in case it needs to come to bits. Hopefully, the wheels won't be coming off again for a few thousand miles yet (hohohohaha).

jamesmartin said:

i would , shims lie behind front bearing should be 2 on one of that age ,is mudshield catching seal or housing?

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Thanks, I'll check that out.

Axle fitting

Had some time a couple of weeks ago to get these over to 'site 2' for fitting. They're realy really really heavy. Once you get your head round the fact you're working on a truck (yes it is ) and not a car you kind of accept that everythings heavy and plan for it (unless I'm a total feeb?? ).

Lifting the axles onto the trailer, gantry and block is sooo useful:




Ready to go:



At the other end I just pushed the axles off and chased them around Benny Hill style before they got too far. A front axle with no drag link is almost impossible to move or control as I found out!

Rolled under the chassis:



Had to replace a bush first in the chassis as it had a seized bolt in. New bush was pulled in with some M10 threaded rod (greased!), a socket and a bit of random steel (which later bent, to be replaced by a large socket):





So, 2 axles, 6 bolts per axle and 4 U bolts, should be all done in half an hour?

not fecking likely!

Started by putting the front of the back leaves into place, only they were a total pain to get in place as the bush was super tight in the chassis fork, lots of hide mallet and wiggling, only for it to drop out the other side. Those leaves just love to flop over when you're holding them, taking your wrist around with it. To be fair , it would have been easier with a helper:



Chassis was lowered on the chain block and located at the shackle end, pretty easy now...



The axle is now almost in place so I just planned to lift the chassis on the block and bolt em in. Oh no pal. The diff nose wants to point at the floor so the axle mounts are now pointing at the sky. Oh Gawd, is anything going to be easy?? Octopus style, managed to move the axle into place, lift the diff nose and then work the chain block to pick it up. The peg on the leaf spring has to locate in the axle, if you miss it and get it in the void either side, it's easy to spot by looking at where it sticks out underneath. Also, your U bolt/shock mount flange won't line up.

Lifted the whole lot up to do the U bolts - they're only a little tight at the moment, remind me later to finish them off!

Same story at the front, made tricky by the wheels wanting to go in different directions, defying any attempt to move the axle about. Fitted the drag link which I got with a matching steering link (whats that one called?) a little while ago. They're solid steel and came with lemforder track rod ends, the old ones were horribly rusted and seized and these are gold so there:



ARE YOU READY FOR THIS????












Happy days....

Mint thread apart from the last photo

Wonderful stuff indeed.

darius said:

Mint thread apart from the last photo

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heheh innit

looks like youve done a great job

Rattlegun said:

Happy days....

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You have the wrong lump in yur series

haha I has photo regrets now :faint2:

At least the present lumps works and doesn't leak much!

Rattlegun said:

At least the present lumps works and doesn't leak much!

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Trouser area would seem to contradict this !!!!!

nice chassis fella, keep up the good work

Got the dampers on this week, the rears went straight on. A pair of pipe grips helps to pull in the washer at the bottom so you can get the split pin in.



The front was a bit trickier as the suspension was just a little too high with no weight on the chassis. The engine came in handy to rest on the front crossmember, with a tweak from a 5 tonne ratchet strap around the axle to help.



I didn't have any chassis handles for the back and Landys always seem to get crunched on the corners so I got these galvanised tubular bumperettes as a treat. A new bumper for the front too as the original was rusted through. It needed a bit of grinding to fit as the mounting flanges were spaced a couple of mil out.










It always pays to keep an eye on eBay, got a pair of these in top nick, will be great for the kids I hope:

Its nice to start putting brand new bits on isn't it? Its looking great