[QUOTE="LincolnSteve, post: 4882263, member: 117008
View attachment 210444
So we struggled it round to the garage and got it lifted into place. It started to look good and briefly I was encouraged. Then I squeezed the windscreen into place.
.[/QUOTE]

LincolnSteve is that a home made lifting system/crane have you any photos of it. I think your doing so well with that series
 
[QUOTE="LincolnSteve, post: 4882263, member: 117008
View attachment 210444
So we struggled it round to the garage and got it lifted into place. It started to look good and briefly I was encouraged. Then I squeezed the windscreen into place.
.

LincolnSteve is that a home made lifting system/crane have you any photos of it. I think your doing so well with that series[/QUOTE]

Thank you.
There is a bit of a story behind that hoist. It was originally built by a friend of my father in law. This chap was German and had been an engineer on u-boats in the war. Somehow he was taken prisoner, came to England and ended up staying. He was a great engineer and very particular in what he did. He would regularly drive all the way to Germany to visit family and almost as regularly he would use the hoist to take the engine out of his Humber to check it all over before the journey. When he decided to get rid of the hoist as he got older I bought it from him but didn't install it for some time. It needed a bit of modification to fit but it has been a great thing. Not as versatile as a mobile crane but no storage problems. I think there might be some pictures earlier in this thread about when I put it all together.
 
[QUOTE="LincolnSteve, post: 4882263, member: 117008
View attachment 210444
So we struggled it round to the garage and got it lifted into place. It started to look good and briefly I was encouraged. Then I squeezed the windscreen into place.
.

LincolnSteve is that a home made lifting system/crane have you any photos of it. I think your doing so well with that series[/QUOTE]
Pictures of the hoist being installed are right back on the first page. How time flies.
 
Alright lets try this again. So last night I posted this stuff. It was late and I must have been more tired than I thought because I actually posted it on completely the wrong thread. Not even my own thread for heavens sake. Apologies to @joe_m.
I decided to restore my steering relay. I'll come to the saga of that later but first it was the collar that holds the relay under the front cross member.
The old one was ruined, new ones looked a bit feeble and quite expensive and the fancy CNC ones look lovely but I definitely can't afford them. So I decided to make one.
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I didn't realise how important it was to have the correct bolts for the relay end caps. If you don't have the right ones the heads stick out the side and won't let the collar slip over the relay. Hopefully that's a good tight fit and will keep most of the muck out and hold the relay good and tight. There's plenty of copper grease in there as well so if it needs to come out in a few years at least i'll have a chance.
 
I didn't know what to do with the relay. I didn't really fancy opening it up because i've read all the stories of exploding springs and how impossible it is to get them back together. But I didn't want to buy one and end up changing it again quite soon because it had been rebuilt with dodgy parts. I thought that at least if I did it myself I would know what was in there.
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So I put it in the vice and tested it with a spring balance. It was obviously too loose, not terribly bad but below what the book recommended. I had hoped it was ok and would just need new oil seals but this meant it was definitely coming to pieces.
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I was scared of the spring so I did exactly what the book said. Even so removing the end cap I was still sure it was all going to fly to pieces but of course it didn't. I never did feel very confident handling it with one or both of the end covers off. It can't fly apart as long as the shaft is in place but it still feels like holding a grenade.
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An old jumper with one sleeve cable tied off made a nice spring catcher. You just gently tap the end of the shaft until the taper bearings become free of the housing. Then there's nothing to contain the spring and away she goes. As long as you leave one end cap on you know exactly where it's going and was no real drama. Recover the bits from the jumper and you are left with this.
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I love a load of new parts.
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I bought mostly Bearmach parts. I don't like to write off Britpart completely but it does seem to be a lucky dip as to the quality of parts and as I really don't want to be doing this again any time soon I went with what I hope are going to be quality.
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The book says that the minimum free length of the spring should be 17cm (I think) and mine was just that. Compared to the new one it's clearly been squished too much for too long.
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So we've now got a spring that's even longer and springier. That's going to be fun to squish back in.
 
I couldn't see any way of getting that spring back in without something like the genuine tool listed in the workshop manual. There's no way I was going to get my hands on one of those so as usual I thought i'd better make one.
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Will it work? You'll have to wait for the next thrilling installment.
 
Next thing is to get the relay secured in the vice. You need a 19mm spacer (bit of wood) placed inside.
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Now that is a lot of spring to be compressed down into that relay. At this point I thought I might have bitten off more than I could chew. It was a bit late to be worrying though so it's time to break out the tool. I had a couple of practice goes before really going for it. When you're leaning over that spring at full compression knowing that if it gets loose it's really going to hurt it certainly focuses your attention.
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When I got it locked in place I quickly stepped back and got out of it's way, still thinking it was somehow going to kill me. However it just sat there doing exactly what it was supposed to be doing. The next stage is probably even scarier. You have to put the split bushes in place, secure them with a jubilee clip. Two things to remember. Make the tool big enough to clear the bushes and position the jubilee clip towards the upper end of the bushes because in a minute you're going to have to tap that bush down into the relay so you better have enough room to get it started.
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Also don't forget the washer at either end of the spring. Would be very easy to do and really annoying. Tap the shaft along with the bushes steadily down into the relay and you can get rid of the jubilee clip and the spring is contained and can't go anywhere.
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New seals in the end caps. I even had to have a new bottom cap as it must have had a whack at some point in the past and was damaged. I thought I had done a good job of these but they both leaked. Not where the shaft passes through but around where they seat in the caps. So out they came again and I put a bit of RTV silicone in and then bedded the seal into the silicone. That did the trick.
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So that should be it. I put the top steering arm on and tested it with the spring balance and it's way too tight. Now the manual says that this can happen and all you have to do it take each cap off, press the bushes in a little bit and get some oil between them and the shaft. That's a good plan except to press those bushes in you would have to be a good seal stronger than me. I therefore had to improvise something.
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I filled the relay with oil and used that huge bar to move the bushes allowing the oil to get all round. I wonder if it would have been better to soak those bushes in oil overnight before fitting them. Despite everything I tried the relay is still very stiff. The resistance is different as you rotate the shaft through a full turn. The relay only ever partially rotates. It never turns a full 365 degrees. In fact it's probably only about 100 degrees. I'm going to position the best 100 or so degrees of resistance where it will move to hopefully give the best steering feel.
Time to refit it with plenty of copper grease.
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So that's it. I'm pleased to say that it doesn't leak from the bottom at all. But it still has to prove it's a Land Rover so it actually leaks a bit from the top. That is special Land Rover leaking. It can leak against gravity.
Since posting this i've learned (many thanks to @Blackburn ) that the bolts in the last picture are the wrong way round. Bolts should go in from the rear so that the nuts are nearest the front of the vehicle. Apparently if you put them in the way I have you can't get them out later without first removing the front panel. Beware.
 
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Now you know why this rebuild has taken about 6 years. Too much faffing about. :)
I've owned mine 5 years but it only took off in earnest around February when I sold my discovery and bought a reliable car :D I want mine on the road by the end of June
 
That would be great. To be honest even though I have enjoyed the process so far i'm really ready to be finished. I'll bet you i'm still at it this time next year though.
 

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