Restoration

[disco2hse]

Looks good. It will be interesting to see how the adhesive holds up against the rigours of movement and chemicals from roading, etc.

What did you use for the adhesive?

[Cliff4WD]

Well, after a lot of research and realising I'd need to remortgage the house to pay for the 2 part epoxy systems in the quantity I'd need (Permabond ET515 for example), I decided to be bold and experiment a bit and went for an MS polymer adhesive (sort of silicon/mastic type). I chose the Unibond waterproof no nails stuff as it's easy to apply, is rated for aluminium (its sold for mounting mirrors and ally bathroom fittings to walls, etc.). Now, this may turn out to be an error but nothing ventured, nothing gained. So far I'm impressed. Everythings seems to be stuck fast and strong.

I thought that as the parts won't really be under any real load and in any case, will be supported by the floor supports, that it was a risk I could afford. I can always drill a few holes and pop a few rivets if the need arises. The tophats are there to stiffen the sheet ally floor but the new floor is 3mm sheet, so already much stiffer than the thinner original.

Time will tell!

[Cliff4WD]

The tub floor replacement continues. Due to the galvanic corrosion on the rear body mounting, I had opted to replace this part as well as the floor supports. This required drilling the spot welds on the corner brackets fixing the mounting to the rear panels, and a few other spot welds holding it all together. Again, the vehicle revealed that it had had the nearside (LHS) side replaced at some point in its life; it has black primer underneath the limestone. After a considerable amount of aligning, levelling, plumbing, checking and double checking, I clamped the mount in position and riveted it in place. It really shouldn't take any time at all to do this but having been messed with before, as ever, nothing seemed to align quite right. Anyway, I got there eventually.



so I now had a nice rectangular space to drop in the floor panel.



Of course, I was praying that I'd position those top hat strengtheners in just the right place so that they would slide neatly into the support brackets at the bulkhead end of the tub.



I carefully measured and trimmed the top-hat ends to fit (they were supplied full length of the floor)



Dropped it into position ...



... and gave a sigh of relief; all good. I took it back out and applied a bead of the mastic adhesive around the flanged lip and then dropped it back in and bedded it down. This will help seal it and hold it in place while I get to do the riveting.

Next then is to fix it in place. I'd been supplied with some nice big rivets (thanks Neil) but I only had enough for 3 of the 6 floor supports. I found that they were a little too short after I'd added the thickness of the 3mm floor, foam insulation between the supports and floor, and the bead of mastic, so I ordered up some blind rivets, 6.4mm x 20mm.



These seem about equivalent to the original size used, although of course Land Rover used the pin rivets (Huckbolts), but without the specialist rivet gun needed for those the blind pop rivets seemed perfectly good enough. At the end of the day, the floor sits on the flanged lip and the cross supports are affixed to the top hats and are then fixed through the lip and to the floor, so there's no great strength issue here, only the possibility of the fixings working loose. Well, if they ever do, it will be simple enough to replace the rivets and bolt it together if need be.

Now the next problem is how to drill the holes in the correct place while the floor is loose in there; I needed to drill from the underside? Obviously there are several ways to go about this, with one end of the floor clamped to the body mounting, I opted to up-end the tub and drill a couple of holes at the bulkhead end and get one of the brackets in place and riveted. This held the floor in place so that I could then turn the whole tub over and drill from the bottom side.



The rivets of course go in from the top side, so it was turn back over again and do the riveting.



A right royal pain the backside I can tell you up, down, back and forth, but got there in the end.

All in place and fixed tight



To recap, I have foam insulation between the aluminium floor panel and the galvanised floor supports, and a bead of adhesive between the floor panel and the flanged lip it's sitting on. Fixings are aluminium with stainless steel mandrels. Hopefully there'll be no more of the galvanic corrosion going on in the future.

Attention now turns towards re-painting, so that means prep! I made a start and removed the galvanised cappings.

The original side in limestone



and the previously replaced left hand side in black



Got stuck-in and started sanding the old paint



There's a LOT of sanding to do.

[disco2hse]

Congratulations!

I know how nerve wracking it can be to plan to have multiple variables at play, hoping the plans all work out.

[Cliff4WD]

Cracked on last week and got the surface paint sanded down ready for priming. Hard and horrible work in the hot sun, but got it done.





I had to order up the paint and underseal, so that was it for a couple of days.

My order arrived this morning, so back to work. The plan was to get the underside coated with some underseal, I'd ordered some 3M 08861 for this. Step one was to wash and degrease the new ally floor panel and supports. I used panel wipe and then brushed on a mordant wash on the galvanised supports. I noticed that the mordant solution was also giving the aluminium a slight etch, so I applied it to the whole thing.



This will be enough to give a key for the ashfalt to adhere although I'm pretty sure this stuff will stick without too much extra encouragement.

I used my Schutz gun to spray the underbody seal.

I sprayed one section and checked it was all sticking properly ...



... and then finished the job



It was done in no time. Used 2 x 1 ltr tubes, 1 on the floor and the other to redo the arches.

Left that to dry overnight. Tomorrow I should be able to spray the body with the primer. I'm using 2k Epoxy Primer for this.

[Cliff4WD]

Still waiting for a decent day of weather so that I can get on with the painting. The limitation of being stuck with painting in the open is really slowing things down. The wind keeps blowing, leaves and other detritus are falling from the trees.

[Cliff4WD]

Talk about annoying losing precious time due to weather. I was about to buy a garden gazebo but the waiting time for delivery would add another week, and then the dry weather will no doubt end. So, I rigged up some temporary cover and just hoped that the wind would stay down. I could at least get on and prep and prime. Painting under a Birch tree is really not a great idea!





A lot of hot sweaty sanding down work getting the surfaces prepped, panel wiped, and then sprayed with epoxy primer sealer. The body panels are all pretty straight and undamaged, so at least I don't have to do a load of filling. Just as well as I think I'd probably die judging by the effect the work I've done in the heatwave we're now having has had on me, I was absolutely shattered afterwards. I will be spraying some high build primer next, just to fill any small blemishes that do exist; however, I'm seriously going to have to rethink how/where I'm going to be able to spray the colour coats.

[disco2hse]

Looking spick and span there. It'll be worth the effort, I'm sure.

[Cliff4WD]

Well, the painting is still going on bit by bit. After de-nibbing the epoxy primer sealer coat ...







... I managed a couple of coats of high build on the tub sides. I've decided to finish the painting with the tub back on the chassis, that way I'll have it undercover and manageable, I'll just have to mask off and cover stuff in case of over-spray.



In the meantime I've refitted the fuel tank and run the new fuel lines.







The PO had fitted a diesel tank that has the fuel return pipe on it, so had to block that off.



I also stripped the paint that was slathered all over the rear cross-member, ...







... then unbolted the tow bar drop plate (this was not as easy as it looks as the bolts were tight as hell and I don't have the right sized large spanners/sockets. I managed by using my torque multiplier with a 27mm socket and some more contortionist bending. I also fitted the fixing plates to the tub rear cross piece, and got various struts and brackets into the electrolysis tank for de-rusting.



Plan is now to get some help to lift the tub up and back onto the chassis.



I also bit the bullet and raided the bank and ordered 5 new tyres. I've procrastinated over this for a while not being able to decide on which tyres to go for. I eventually decided to go for BFG ATs, so an absolute fortune for 5 of the buggers!

[Cliff4WD]

I decided it was about time to boot up my now refurbished wheels and move on with a rolling chassis. I'll not be back on the road as it were before next year as there's a lot of bodywork/painting to do yet, but it will be easier to be able to move it rather than it sat on the axle stands as they slowly sink into the ground. I'd mentioned elsewhere some of the difficulties I encountered with the fitters; I've now found more issues and realised there's a few things I don't know about wheels, etc.



Having had the tyres fitted yesterday to my set of 8 spoke 7" steel wheels, I discovered today that one was completely deflated. I went to check the valve, and bead with soapy water, and no air at all it seems. I was about to pump it up but the flippin valve pushed into the wheel. Now, I had been offered off road stubby valve stems with the tyres, so I'd accepted that option. Seems that, at least 2 of my wheels have 15mm valve holes in the rims and so require the larger grommet diameter TR415 valves, seems the regular sized valves were supplied and the pillock fitted them even though they were too small. I hadn't given this a thought when ordering as it's not something I've thought about before and so not particularly aware of, add to the fact that the valves were offered with the 235/85/16 ATs when I selected them and purchased them from 4x4 tyres. I got the impression that the young fitter was a bit of an unknowledgeable cretin when I was with him, I now have it confirmed. Also, them not being able to balance the wheels as the centre bore being too big for their balancer, got me thinking and measuring. The centre bore is definitely large on those wheels, 125mm diameter, so I'm now thinking that it's not surprising it doesn't fit, I' thinking that these series LR wheels are 'Lug Centric' wheels and not hub centric like modern alloys, etc. To balance lug centric wheels, they need to be attached to the balancer on a lug adapter. Maybe somebody could confirm that 8 spoke steels (as fitted to series, RRC, and Disco 1) are indeed lug centric. I'm assuming that they must be seeing as the hub and driving flange diameter is only about 120mm

Trying to find out the diameters of the various parts, hub, flange, wheel centre bore, valve hole dia. etc, has proved a fruitless search and I've gone half blind trying to read endless posts, ads, manuals, and so on.



What I need to know is am I correct that the wheels are lug centric and so don't need to worry about any gap around the hub? Also, my really stupid question for the day, will having a stumpy valve stem inside one tyre be a problem at all, ie., will it make a noise? I've got some larger valves coming so I'll have to fit these myself and then reinflate. So much for ordering fitted by their approved tyre fitters, clearly they are not tyre fitters, just a garage taing on work they don't have expertise in.

[disco2hse]

Can't answer your question, but my assumption is that the hub on later model LRs would not be the same diameter as series because of disc brakes, different axle and bearing design, etc.

[map1275]

Yes there are two basic stem hole sizes. A Land-Rover wheel usually requires a tube with the fatter stem or with a narrow stem the plastic collar can be used. Despite having had to fit a lot of tyres over the years I haven't struck tubeless stems for the larger hole. I'm amazed it held any pressure for any period. Be thankful it's not the Benz metal stem for G-wagons which are awfully fiddly.
A loose stem inside the tyre can cause problems. If it was the middle of nowhere and you had to move in a hurry it wouldn't matter. Since the tyres are newly fitted you should be able to pop the bead easily at home and with a little playing around extricate the stem.

Generally speaking any Land-Rover steel wheel don't centre locate on the vehicle's hub. But in regards to balancing, the relevant generic cone is chosen to quickly centralise it on the balancer. Stud hub adaptors come with or are available for most balancers but rarely used. They have to be adjusted to suit a given PCD, plus choosing a stud diameter, installed removed... Generally a pain to use unless you are doing one wheel type regularly. Unless you are talking low profile road tyres on modern all wheel drives, traditional 16" tyres aren't particularly accurate to balance. 100 gram wheel weights are a starting point.

[Cliff4WD]

Yes there are two basic stem hole sizes. A Land-Rover wheel usually requires a tube with the fatter stem or with a narrow stem the plastic collar can be used. Despite having had to fit a lot of tyres over the years I haven't struck tubeless stems for the larger hole. I'm amazed it held any pressure for any period. Be thankful it's not the Benz metal stem for G-wagons which are awfully fiddly.
A loose stem inside the tyre can cause problems. If it was the middle of nowhere and you had to move in a hurry it wouldn't matter. Since the tyres are newly fitted you should be able to pop the bead easily at home and with a little playing around extricate the stem.

Generally speaking any Land-Rover steel wheel don't centre locate on the vehicle's hub. But in regards to balancing, the relevant generic cone is chosen to quickly centralise it on the balancer. Stud hub adaptors come with or are available for most balancers but rarely used. They have to be adjusted to suit a given PCD, plus choosing a stud diameter, installed removed... Generally a pain to use unless you are doing one wheel type regularly. Unless you are talking low profile road tyres on modern all wheel drives, traditional 16" tyres aren't particularly accurate to balance. 100 gram wheel weights are a starting point.

Thanks for that Map, most informative and useful. I have the larger stems coming so will replace the offending pair (and I guess check the other 3 - they are a different manufacturer). It's daft detail like this that us amateurs miss out on; you'd expect the 'professionals' to know though.
Getting closer to having the restoration completed now. All the mechanical work is now done apart from tightening up and checking torques, fluids, etc. Still got the whole vehicle to paint and I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to repair the door frame bottoms. All new lights are on my to-do list and I also have a pile of parts for re-galvanising.
I never realised it was going to take me so long or that my health would slow me down as much as it has. I just hope petrol is still available when I do finish as I refuse to put an electric motor in it

[map1275]

Well funny you say that;

https://www.jauntmotors.com/news

(the Land-Rover link didn't work for me this time)

updates from the nutty professor (owner's persona) have stopped. I wouldn't mind having a close look at one without the sales hype. As a friend said, if he lived in Adelaide he try for a job there. Their UK sourced Mini conversion of course doesn't suit Australian Minis...