Straight 6 rebuild

Right, have fired up the laptop to update this. Have spend the last couple of afternoons in the workshop this week and have been making progress, first the side of the driver's footwell was replaced using a bit of a footwell I bought, the rest of the drivers footwell was solid albeit with a not so pretty patch that I put in about 2 years ago. I have also cut out and replaced the strengthening fin that connects the top of the foowell to the door pillar which you can't see on the pictures below but you'll see it in on of the later pictures in this post. The brake pedal box and servo have also had a lick of paint.



Next up I cut out the bit of the replacement door pillar that I needed, the top part of the door pillar is properly solid and I didn't want to be dealing with the faff of aligning the profiles of the new pillar with the wing and door so I just replaced the bottom bit. First up I bolted the door pillar foot in place and welded the top to the rest of the door pillar before drilling and bolting into the footwell on both sides of the pillar to bring the bits together for welding.



Lots of tacks were put in place, the bolts removed and the bits seam welded and the holes plug welded.







That was the last of the welding needed on the bulkhead so after a coat of red oxide and 2 coats of NATO green I ran a smear of isopon P40 filler over the exposed welds and along the back of the drip rail before sanding it back and slapping on another coat of paint. Will be putting on at least another 2 coats before I'm done, also need to waxoyl (or similar) the inside of the bulkhead.









I'm chuffed with how well it's come out if you compare it to what it looked like before I started working on it, not bad for my first time I recon! :lol:

Next up was to start looking at the driver's side dumb iron as it was a bit crunchy underneath, I cut the front and top off and dropped the suspension to gain better access.



After going at it with a cross pein hammer it looked like this underneath.



I plated the back side with 2mm steel (no picture of this) and then folded a bit to replace the front, welded it in and drilled the holes for the bumper bolts before then welding the front back on.





Need to go shopping tonight for things like bulkhead vent seals, a windscreen to bulkhead seal etc so I can start putting the bulkhead back together.

The std of your work is first class...I think I remember you say in the past that this is the first time you have tackled something like this....

May I ask...do you have an engineering back ground...I would give my right arm for your workshop.

Nick.

absolutely sterling effort there, most impressed with the door pillar repair

Cheers guys, yes it's the first time I've done this, only ever welded patches on for MOTs in the past. No engineering background as such, my background is in science so I'm reasonably methodical when doing things.

Spent the weekend in and out of the workshop but didn't really get much done, had to shift my mate's new galv chassis (I'm only a little bit jealous!) out of the workshop where it's been stored for the last few weeks and then shift his brother in laws offroader out of his garage to make room for the chassis.





Then on Sunday we headed out to the bit of land on the edge of the brecon beacons that my mate's family own and where his landy is stored, he's planning on putting parabolics on his so I'm having his front leaf springs as they've not seen any use, just been stored in a barn. Got the springs back to the workshop and have given them a scrub with a wire brush and painted then with engine oil, I've left them to penetrate for a few days.

Got all the new hinges on with new mirror arms as the old ones were rotting and one didn't fold. Also got the passenger side door bolted in, I'm happy enough with the shut lines!







Lastly I got the new passenger side door top (which I've had kicking about for the last 3 years but never fitted!) dropped on so I could paint both sides at once and a lick on paint on the door bottom and another coat on the bulkhead. It's starting to look more like a vehicle again now!

Alignment looks spot on well done sterling effort on your part.

Blackburn said:

Alignment looks spot on well done sterling effort on your part.

Click to expand...

Close enough that it could have been done in Solihull! :lol:

not during the british Leyland years though

Looks fantastic work so far !! and very much like my summer will be spent i think, taking the body of my old girl when the weather is better, no workshop space for me !!

Keep the updates coming im taking notes !!

Only a little progress today as I was working on a mate's swb series 3, his bulkhead feet are knackered and MOT expires this month. I went over the front half of the chassis with my 'hammer of justice' and the front is nice and solid. Unbolted the front near side leaf spring and shock, once I've degreased and painted that corner I'll put the new shock and new(er) spring on there, I've new shocks and 'reclaimed' leaf springs from a mates vehicle which have seen very little use to go on all four corners which has saved me a few quid.



Also wire brushed the heater matrix and given it a lick of paint (looks much better for it!), there are so many places it could leak through the joints so I've brought it home to give it a smear of black silicon sealant over all the gaps.

I'm not sure I'm ready to do a full engine rebuild but the price of 6 pot pistons in this country scared me so I preemptively bought a set a 6 with piston rings from South Africa this week for much less. Here's one of them.

Got the heater matrix bolted in last week, as I have replaced the front face of the bulkhead I used 6 mm rivnuts to secure the top edge which because of the protruding flange on them sets the heater forwards by about 2mm, I've smeared a load of sealant around the mating surfaces to try not to lose any of the precious warm air coming from the heater into the engine bay.

Having let the new(er) front leaf springs sit on their sides with a load of oil painted onto them I got the passenger side front spring on, new bolts and U bolts, new shock absorber. Setting the deflection to the mid point before torquing up the bolts was a bit dodgy, the green bible tells you to wrap a chain over the chassis rail and under a trolley jack which you then use to delfect the spring, I didn't have a trolley jack to hand (the one at the workshop is knackered) so made do with a carefully positioned bottle jack and a wrachet strap round it and the chassis. The book says to set the distance between the axle and the chassis rail to 12 cm plus or minus 2 mm, how they expect that level of accuracy when dealing with many layers of paint, non parallel surfaces etc is beyond me, on top of that after asking for that measurement they then instruct you to tighten the bolts a very non specific 60 - 70 lb ft! I went with "looks about in the middle" and "feels reasonably tight", in traditional land rover fashion - that'll do!

While I had good access to the exhaust valves I figuered I should set the tappet clearances, with the wing on they're a pig to get to, it's no wonder people often didn't bother gapping them and burning out the exhaust valves.



Heater motor back in place:



Freshly painted wing back on:



Ditto the wheel:





The lines look pretty good still and the panel gap between the wing and bulkhead which has been in the back of my mind for a while is better than I thought it's be, there's a little gap but nothing major.

Been a few weeks since I last updated this, since last time I've replaced the driver's side leaf spring and shock absorber, the landy now has a slight lean which it didn't before, I'm hoping that'll correct itself after a couple of bumpy drives. Got both of the wings back on and the electrics hooked back up, bumper painted black instead of the green it was before, as it's got an ex-military look to it (though it's not) I figured it should have some D rings on the front so have bolted them on too.



Where the driver's side sill bolted to the bulkhead foot was a bit rotten so I cut out the offending item, made a replacement and welded it in place. It still needs some diamond plates to overlap the butt weld to give it some more strength, I've stood on it as is and it's ok but I wouldn't trust just a butt weld on the sill so want some overlap.





Other than that it's been a lot of little fiddly jobs that all need doing but the sort of thing where you don't feel like it's progress. Lots of small repairs and painting things like the battery clamp frame and mudshields below.



Also got the windscreen back on and a lick of paint on the brightwork, it was painted already so I don't feel bad for painting over the galv.



Need to make a start on repairing the bonnet support rails next and that'll be the front end just about done.

looks good, with some colours - like yours - the windscreen looks better painted imho

Like the repair to the sill ends looking good and the bulkhead too. I had the same problem on the sill ends and managed to locate a repair section on ebay. Looking forward to the next stages and well done. Cheers

Got a few little jobs done yesterday, nothing much that felt like real progress though! Got a couple of plates welded onto the sill repair to span the butt weld and also cut the lip off of the old bit of sill and welded it onto the repaired section so that the protruding lip now runs all the way to the door pillar again. Had to do some electrical fault finding on the washer motor and the indicator switch so it was out with the multimeter but both are sorted now. Got new washer hoses cut roughly to length at fed through to where they need to be, just need to remember how they were all held in place between the motor and the jets! I must have a load of P clips stashed somewhere. The last thing I got done was fitting the mud shields, steering box cover and the battery clamp frame.

No pictures as it pretty much looks the same as before!

I'd be interested in some pics of how you welded that sill repair on - this is like a welding masterclass!

I wouldn't be taking any master class tips from me! My welding isn't great, it's strong enough but not normally that pretty. To repair the sill I cut out the rotten part with a 1mm disc like so:



Then used the old piece as a template to make a repair part from 2mm steel, the top and bit that butts up against the bulkhead foot is one piece with a bend in it, the vertical bits that form the C shaped channel are separate bits welded on on all sides to the rest of the piece. The slots were either cut with a grinder or drilled and then dressed with a file.





Before I welded it onto the rest of the sill I popped some bolts through the holes of the bulkhead foot and into the repair section so everything lined up. In order to see what I was doing when welding the inner face I had to pop my head up through the hole in the floor, it's a bit tight but managable.



I haven't got any pictures of the plates that overlap the butt welds but I'm sure you can use your imagination as to what they look like! I cut the lip that the door seal buts up against off of the old rotten bit as that bit was still solid, dressed it with a grinder and welded it in place. No picture but I'll try to remember to get one when I'm there on Sunday.

Oh, I just remembered something else I started last night, I had a look at the bottom of the dash panel as bits of it are rotten but not quite enough to warrant pulling all the vinyl off and welding repair patches on as I'll never get the vinyl back on properly and it'll look naff so I bodged it. The only bit that was rotten was around where it connects to the heater matrix through the bulkhead, I guess water gets in through the foam seal and rots it from the inside. So I dug out an old pot of chemical metal and gave the crispy bits a smearing on the inside of the ducting. It'll never be seen unless the dash is removed so I think it's being 'economical with my time' rather than bodging! ;-)