A

aaronledwidge

New Member
Well basically i have owned bruice for a few years now and also been a fairly quiet member of the forum for even longerso i though it was time i did a little bit of a write up about him. I will update this will some decent pics but here is a brief description.

He started his life as a series 3 2 1/4 petrol and was bought as a little non runner for repair.

The bodywork was fantasticaly straight and it must have had a rebuild in its time. He came with buckets seats, a half cage and some 32" tyres.

Here is a pic of Bruice has he stands today.
attachment.php


Since buying him he has been treated to a new hood, 200tdi conversion, overdrive, 11" front drums and a few other bits and bobs. Ill pop up some picks of the TDI conversion a little later but here is one of the engine bay.
attachment.php

So the next plan is a power steering conversion. I have collected all the bits and should be tackling it this week if all goes well. Ill get some pics up as its goign to be a nice intersting bit of work.

Aaron
​
 
So heer are some pics of the 200tdi fititng, its a pretty well documented process although with anything there are always a few bits and bobs to get over. In honesty its not quite finished, the throttle cable is a little basic really and i want to re wire the front halfof the truck when i get time.

The engine fits on the series mounts and only need minor alterations to the belhousing. Basically some blank holes tapping out and a couple of studs moving. This all went in nicely and i started fabbing up the intercooler pipes. The intercooler was fitted into the front panel by cutting out the side and slightly modfing one of the input hoses.

IMAG1576 by darransandwich, on Flickr

As you can see below the water pipes didnt fit although a new one had longer ends so sorted this issue an di used a flexi water hose for the bottom mount.

tdi by darransandwich, on Flickr


After this i had to make up a custom pulley to bypass the power steering pump, this was done by purchasing a blank and turning it out on a lathe.


tdi2 by darransandwich, on Flickr

Then fitted this to the landy.

tdi3 by darransandwich, on Flickr
 
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So now the conversion is well under way so i thought i should pop some pics up.
Firstly we got the landy set up in the barn.then we proceeded to remove the wing ready to start stripping. That left us with plenty of access to the steering components.

IMAG1577 by darransandwich, on Flickr
so next up is to get all the parts of the steering stripped ready for mocking up the new assembly.

So once this was off i whipped off the wheel


IMAG1579 by darransandwich, on Flickr
Then removed all the steering components. I cut of the shaft from the box to the relay and then unbolted and removed the shaft and box as one. This gave me enough room to remove the pitman arms from the old relay.
This left me with a blank canvas to work with.


IMAG1580 by darransandwich, on Flickr

These are the old and new columns for comparison. it looks like the new column is a little longer. Its a late td5 column so in good shape with nice smooth bearings.


IMAG1581 by darransandwich, on Flickr
 
I then started to mock up the steering system, slotted in the TD5 column and popped the box as far forward on the chassis as possible. then balanced the shaft in between to see how much it would need to be shortened.

sorry its a bit blurry. but thats the first mock up.

IMAG1587 by darransandwich, on Flickr
to be honest even this rough mock up got me pretty chuffed but there is still loads of work to do before it will be good enough.

In this pic its just resting on the chassis using some 3/8 extension bars but it gave me a chance to check the height of the bottom pitman arm against the one on the old relay. it showed id need to raise this one a little to make sure the arm wouldn't foul the springs.

I then set about sorting the mounting bracket for the box, i went out and bought some 6mm plate and then marked and drilled some 13mm holes in it, this gave a little clearance for the bolts and fitted pretty well to be honest.


IMAG1593 by darransandwich, on Flickr
 
I then welded the plate to the chassis and fitted a bit of 6mm plate to the top of the chassis to space out the crush tube.
This was the plate all mounted up.


IMAG1600 by darransandwich, on Flickr

Then i mounted on the box to see how it would look. To be honest i was pretty chuffed with that.


IMAG1594 by darransandwich, on Flickr

Once this was done i counted the turns to find the neutral position of the box( this was surprisingly off center) and test fitted the wheel for clearance. I have loads :)


IMAG1598 by darransandwich, on Flickr

SO next is mounting the collumn and shortening the intermediate steering shaft.
 
once the box was in place i had to decide on my steering wheel positiona nd mount the collumn. For mounting the collumn we found a bit of box section, drilled and bolted it up to the shaft. here is a pic of it clamped on to test the alignment. The top mount was jsut the original series mount that is fitted to the bulkhead.

IMAG1604 by darransandwich, on Flickr

then wleded up, drilled and painted.

IMAG1615 by darransandwich, on Flickr
 
so with the box and collum mounted i had to make up the intermediat shaft, the steering box had a different spline to the collumn i had so i split the two UJ's and then made one with the correct spline. I have been told that a p38 one may fit both straight off but these were the parts that i had to hand / came up the cheapest at the time.
first i ground away most of the material around th bearing cup

IMAG1555 by darransandwich, on Flickr
Then i split the last bit with some gentle persuasion with a hammer. which left the uj
free from the shaft and intact


IMAG1559 by darransandwich, on Flickr

I then pressed the bearings out of the p38 uj and fitted the two together.

IMAG1561 by darransandwich, on Flickr
 
With all the bits ready to fit together i mocked up the fitting and then cut the intermediat shaft to length, this then gave me the steering mechanics in one piece for the first time.

IMAG1608 by darransandwich, on Flickr
to be honest i am pretty chuffed with the way it looks, seems pretty smart to me, the next task is to make up the steering arms and find out how long they need to be. for the moment im going to join the series arm to the p38 one, ill get a custom one made up when i can find a supplier :)

so the gap was measured up. and the two tubs cut to length with a 10mm gap in between them. this was to make space fro a joining piece to be turned up out of some solid bar as the two tubes were different in diameter.


IMAG1618 by darransandwich, on Flickr.
then we test fitted the pieces together.

IMAG1609 by darransandwich, on Flickr
We were happy with the lengt of the tube and allignment was well within adjustment so the pieces were welded together.

IMAG1639 by darransandwich, on Flickr

then the bar was at least in one piece and looked like this, please excuse the stick welds. i bloody ran out of mig gas ha ha. these were courtessy of my mate mike as his stick welding is far better than mine. You can also see in the background my wing has became a make shift table. I think mike wants the landy in long term :wack:

IMAG1630 by darransandwich, on Flickr

IMAG1610 by darransandwich, on Flickr
all in and test fitted. were goign to strengthen up the bar by milling into the solid bar and welding it up for added strength. this will still only be a temporary measure as ill get some custom arms made as soon as i can its just buying the right taps and dies for them that i need to sort out. Any advice on this would be much appreciated.
 
So once the bar was all welded up and tested again i first checked to see if i could hit lock on both sides. if this hadnt worked i would have needed to source a longer pitman arm i guess but thankfully all was ok and there is still a fair bit of era movement so the bar was removed and put in the milling machine.

IMAG1631 by darransandwich, on Flickr
we then milled the channels through the tube and into the bar so that there was roughly a third of each material showing. This would give us a nice area to weld into and

IMAG1634 by darransandwich, on Flickr

these were welded up and ground flat and then the whole bar was fitted and painted black, hopefully this should eb a nice strong bar and get my by long enough to get a custom rod making up.
 
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The pump was a nice easy mount as it just went back in the mounting point on the TDi and i had a cutom High pressure pipe made up and Nuneaton Hose and Fittings, a pretty nice place from what I found out. No idea if i overpaid for it :wack: as I have no idea what it should cost. the return feed i made up with some banjo fittings off ebay and some braided fuel pipe. this was then sealed up with dowty seals and looked like this when it was all done.
I know this probably isnt much help for people still rocking the 21/4 but then i guess electric pumps are easy enough to come by.

IMAG1614 by darransandwich, on Flickr

IMAG1621 by darransandwich, on Flickr
The most exciting thing about this was I now was able to fill the system and test the steering.
 
So i filled the system and fired her up, below is a little video and i am dead chuffed, it could do with a bit of a bleed but its already so much lighter that the series ever was. I have quite a few more jobs to do before ill be back on the road but this was a great place to stop as it was the 23rd of december by the time i got here :wack: Still had my gifts to buy and the missus may have hung me if i had missed christmas to build my landy.
Here is a vid of the system all fired up and its pretty powerful it makes the body twist on the leaf springs at full lock and is nice and easy to turn so im dead chuffed.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/14144290@N04/8312702050/

I took some pocs on full lock too as i have read loads about people saying the box may reduce clearance but i seem to have bags of room.

IMAG1645 by darransandwich, on Flickr


IMAG1646 by darransandwich, on Flickr
 
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Ah thanks for that buddy, i just finished up today and drove it back home 70 miles and the difference is amazing, no steering play and seriously light. ill give it a check over on sunday and get the last few pics up.
 
So the last few pics from the build are here.
So the first thing i did was make up a new battery tray, This was made out of a little angle iron and some threaded bar;

IMAG1649 by darransandwich, on Flickr

then with the battery attached

IMAG1652 by darransandwich, on Flickr

So once this was done i had to run all the pipes and adapt the wings to accept the steering rods. the wings were cut around the box as below.

IMAG1656 by darransandwich, on Flickr
The hoses were p clipped to the chassis across the front cross member

IMAG1655 by darransandwich, on Flickr

then once it was all done i had a little pose with it.


IMAG1665 by darransandwich, on Flickr
 
Had a productive day on the landy today but no pics. Ive been busy fixing my mates 90 for the past week or so, welding the bulkhead, new wheel bearing, welding the exhaust, re wiring the lights, fitting new propshaft bolts so i thought it was time to give mine some TLC. got up this morning and fitted a new indicator stalk, new sidelight bulb and then some new wheel cylinders on the back.
here is a pic of his bulkhead, i was a bit lazy so only got the rough plate and first seam, this was the plate made up and test fitted.

IMAG1671 by darransandwich, on Flickr

then with the outer edge welded up.

IMAG1672 by darransandwich, on Flickr


after this i took her for a test drive and the fu-cking gear for the overdrive stripped coming off a roundabout. :wack: Luckily these things seem to have stopped shoclign me so i tried sticking it in 4wd and all gears before coming to a stop as i had no drive.

Went home and whipped off the inspection cover to confirm what i thought, no dive getting to the overdrive gear and a loud grinding noise.
as you can see all looks well, but nothing is spinning :(

IMAG1675 by darransandwich, on Flickr

so ive been towed home then driven up to leicester to a mates farm to get a spare output gear from when i last replaced the gearbox. ill have to fit it in the morning so the old girl is useable so that will be an oppourtunity to take some pics.
 
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Right so this morning, i finished off unbolting the overdrive, then before i removed it took out the linkage pin. this little bugger tool a while as the split pin was a pain to get out :(

IMAG1676 by darransandwich, on Flickr

Once this was off i made myself a nice big pile of sheet and mats and prized out the overdrive. then let it drop on to the mats for safe keeping.

IMAG1677 by darransandwich, on Flickr
then with it out i could see the problem. The teeth have worn down really badly and wernt engaging in the overdrive.

IMAG1680 by darransandwich, on Flickr
While this was out i started her up and checked the gearbox output worked in all gears and was very relieved that it was ok.
 
On to the removal then, i had to bend back the locking tab and spin off the castled nut, this let the gear and retaining washer slide off leaving an intact shaft.

IMAG1682 by darransandwich, on Flickr


IMAG1689 by darransandwich, on Flickr

so once it was out it gave me the chance to have a propper look at the wear. here are some better pics of the worn teeth and as you can see its pretty toast.


IMAG1685 by darransandwich, on Flickr


IMAG1686 by darransandwich, on Flickr

Ill have to order a new clutch gear and probably input shaft as the other half of the spline is a little worn too, thats not going to be cheap
 
Right so it was then time to fish the new gear out of the boot of the 200sx, had a nice little blast up to my mates farm in it last night and it sounds really happy now :) had been a little tappy for a while where i have barely used it so a long run has obviously filled the lifters up nicely. seems like maybe the odd 150 mile drive is what the old girl needs
here is the gear and it looks in great shape.

IMAG1688 by darransandwich, on Flickr

so it it went and was all bolted up. slotted in nicely when i remembered to put the box in bloody neutral :wack:

IMAG1692 by darransandwich, on Flickr
then i fitted the support bearing for the main shaft and gave it a test drive.

IMAG1698 by darransandwich, on Flickr

So now all is good and a i had a nice run through some green lanes this weekend. As i now have no overdrive i think it will be time to fit some discovery diffs to the old girl as it feels like its revving its tits off to go anywhere :(
 
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