Restoration

[Cliff4WD]

The new springs arrived





Bloomin heavy! Will have to crack on now and get the rear axle back on.

[Cliff4WD]

Fitted the springs and axle today. Naturally, I chose the most awkward and arse-about-face way of going about it, talk about making hard work for yourself. Even with jacks and and a crane, this was a real struggle on my own, anyway, I got there eventually, but I'm now shattered.





All back together. Need to tighten up nuts etc., and decide if I should get new dampers?



That's about it now with the major mechanical work. It's pretty much going to be bodywork and painting next. Still a bit of welding on the bonnet frame to do, but I think I'm there now with the heavy work. I'll get the fuel tank, exhaust, and prop back on tomorrow, if I can move.

[disco2hse]

TBH, I don't there is an easy way to get a Salisbury back into position. So many moving joints that need to be exactly lined up...

Your springs are the same as my new ones. I found them to be quite soft compared with the previous standard duty springs. Not overly impressed with them, given the price. I doubt they will even last as long (the last set went through two foundry resets over a 15 year period).

And yeah, I would be replacing the dampers with something to counter the softer spring action.

[Cliff4WD]

TBH, I don't there is an easy way to get a Salisbury back into position. So many moving joints that need to be exactly lined up...

Your springs are the same as my new ones. I found them to be quite soft compared with the previous standard duty springs. Not overly impressed with them, given the price. I doubt they will even last as long (the last set went through two foundry resets over a 15 year period).

And yeah, I would be replacing the dampers with something to counter the softer spring action.

Who made your springs; curious now?

[disco2hse]

Not certain. I ordered them through our local Landie spare parts dealer. I think they may be Rocky Mountain,

[Cliff4WD]

Not certain. I ordered them through our local Landie spare parts dealer. I think they may be Rocky Mountain,

Ah, I see. Well, mine are original spec springs made by Jones Springs here in the UK, they are not Parabolics. Jones state:-

Spring steel to grade 251 A58 (EN45A) is sheared to the length required by the specification and processed through the required manufacturing operations, including eye forming, drilling, punching, and wrapping.
The leaves are then passed to heat treatment (1,000 - 1,050°C), shaped and oil quenched to give a quenching temperature of no less than 890°C. After draining, they are tempered at 500 - 560°C to give the correct hardness before final adjustment to give correct shape and camber.
On the final assembly line, the required components are added, i.e. bushes, clips, centre bolts, etc. to complete the spring, which is again checked against the specification sheet. The spring is then either painted or finished to the customer's requirements.

They are not the same as yours and I'll be most disappointed if they are in anyway "soft". Of course, we'll find out when it eventually gets back on the road.

[disco2hse]

Mine are also not parabolic. They are 10 leaf springs, two as helpers. They have no maker stamped on them and I don't know who did.

[Cliff4WD]

My new dampers arrived this morning.

Oh No, Britpart, Panic!



Jeez, please don't frighten me like that; Relief!



Yesterday I ran the new rear, through chassis wiring harness. It's been sat on the shelf waiting.

checked the cables and colour codes for the various lights.

[Cliff4WD]

I fitted the new rear dampers



Both sides on and ready for initial spring height setup



I used straps under jack and over chassis rail to compress the springs to get the specified gap between axle top and chassis rail. I'd already fitted new bump stops.



It's set to 160mm on 109 rear. I then tightened up the hanger bolts and nuts. (I'll do it again when I have it on its wheels).

It was slightly fortuitous that I did this (I did think it was a bit of a waste of effort while it's still off the ground) as I discovered that the nearside tapped shackle had its thread stripped so wasn't torquing. Slightly annoying as I hadn't ordered new bolts and shackles to save a bit of money. It now costs me double as it's another delivery charge! I dread to think how much money I've spent on couriers since starting this project.

On to the front. It's much easier to fit the dampers on the front apart from the split pin on the bottom. Even with all of the various clamps that I have available, it took a bit of messing about and head scratching to work out a way to compress the rubber bushes enough to get the pin through its hole



got there eventually.



I have to fit the front bump stops and rear axle straps, but I had to stop for the football match.

[Cliff4WD]

Football was abysmal! So back to the job in hand.

Fitted the rear axle straps



Postman brought a welcome package



Can't praise Blanchards enough, very efficient. This box has the threaded shackle and bolts I need. Turns out one of the bolts that the original restorer had used was incorrect with too short a thread. Probably one of the front hanger bolts. I'll replace and re-do the spring later.

The plan for today was to paint the wheels as it's getting nearer the time I'll need to order boots, get wheels on, and have a rolling chassis once again. I set up the wheels on a pair of trestles.



I'd already primed them all with epoxy primer a while ago now. First of course, I had to rub them all down and provide a key for the paint; not my favourite job. Today I'm putting on a light grey undercoat.



I'm happy enough with the result, the wind started to blow but fortunately not too much dust. Wheels are not that critical all said and done, so should get away with to top coat the same way.

While the paint was drying, I redid the rear offside spring and fitted the new shackle and bolts. It was a bit of a faff and I had to remove the damper and that strap so that I could manoeuvre the spring enough to line up the bolts. I just love doing everything twice! Anyway, beer o'clock.

[Cliff4WD]

All top-coated (2 coats) with limestone (LRC007). Typically, after waiting for some still, dry weather, the sun comes out on the heatwave scale. Seems OK though.





Should I bother with the clear coat? See how I feel tomorrow I guess. Makes you lazy this hot weather.

[Cliff4WD]

Had a bit of an enforced break having to deal with my Discovery 2 starter motor problem, followed up with a major vehicle wash which escalated into a block paving jetwash. I need to re-sand the drive now but of course, it's been raining ever since. I did manage a short stint and re-fitted the rear exhaust pipe. I'd ordered up the replacement rubber hangers, brackets, etc. God only knows why LR made it so blooming complicated to hang an exhaust pipe; fiddly as feck!





I then spent a while trying to work out if the flexi brake hose on the rear axle is metric or UFR. The unions I have both go on but I couldn't remember which one binds when attempting to tighten up or which one is loose on the thread. I think I'm tired!

Plan this week is to get the rear brake line made and fixed and maybe re-fit the fuel tank and run the fuel line. I did have to drop the tank when I was removing the tub so maybe I should leave it off until the tub goes back on.

It's all going to be bodywork and painting from now, I just have to find a small fortune to pay for the rest of the parts I need to sort the tub, etc.

[Cliff4WD]

Deleted this today and re-made my brake lines to suit.

[Cliff4WD]

After all the rain, it seems we're now having a heatwave. It's far too hot today to be outside working on the restoration, I did want to do a bit of paint stripping, cleaning, and pre-paint prep on the tub before continuing with the work I've been doing to it but these conditions are not ideal, so I've made this write-up for the diary since I'm staying in the shade today.

Having more or less done now with the major mechanical work, I've turned my attention to sorting the tub. First task was to somehow get under it and get the rotten floor supports out of the way. Being on my own and having limited strength these days, I did wonder how I was going to do this but I managed to flip it up on end and get at it that way.



This was a few days ago now and typically of course, the wind started blowing, so I braced it with scaffold board while I reinspected that state of it. Those supports, what's left of them, were completely rotten.



The rear body mounting was also badly corroded.



I set about removing the rotten parts. It wasn't even worth trying to undo rusty old nuts and bolts, so it was straight in with the grinder and cut the old fixings. The PO had used nuts and bolts to attach the floor supports.

A gust of wind caught it just as I was completing the cuts, and down it went; thud!



Well, I needed it back down anyway. The full extent of the galvanic corrosion was now very obvious, with the top-hats and floor all full of holes. I hadn't realised before that there was a lot of filler stuffed into the floor holes and painted over, so hiding the full extent of the rot. More of the PO restoration short cuts when it came to the body.



All six of the offside (driver's) inner arch side supports had also lost the right-angled section that sits on the edge below the floor supports.



Curiously, the supports on the nearside are relatively fine by way of comparison; however, they have drain holes in them whereas the offside ones didn't.

My dilemma now was how much of this should I replace, or should I attempt repairs? It's quite an added cost that I wasn't budgeting for, not to mention a real faff I could do without. After pondering the ins-and-outs and various solutions available, I decided to bite the bullet and replace the floor too. Another order went off for a floor section and a few other bits, e.g. seatbelt anchor brackets. Having made the decision, I cracked on. First I had to get the tub up off of the floor and onto a pair of trestles, it was just agony of back pain trying to do anything on my knees. I have to say, this is not easy on your own, but I managed somehow



I could then crack on and remove the floor ...



... and those side supports



I drilled the spot welds on these carefully so that I kept the interior side surfaces intact, I then used an old scraper blade to detach the remaining bit of the spot welds. Hopefully, I'll be able to glue the replacements on, I don't want it littered with rivets if I can help it.

Interestingly, once they were off I discovered they were packed full of dirt, seems the lack of drain holes in them has led to their demise.



I had to also remove the spare wheel well so that I could access the supports beside it, so that took yet more time and messing about crawling underneath to drill the rivets.

Well, that's it for now. Lots more to do, but I do want to get things a bit tidy for paint before I fix all the new parts in, so I'll wait for it to cool down a little.

[Cliff4WD]

I decided to affix the side supports and floor tophat sections with adhesive rather than spoil the surfaces with an over the top number of rivets. I started with the inner arch supports. I have six of these to fit to the driver's side.
After grinding flat any remaining spot weld and cleaning the surfaces, the supports were affixed with a generous bead of adhesive. After pushing the support firmly in place against the side panel, I used a clamp to ensure that it stayed in place and tight while the adhesive cured.





It should be fully cured in 24 hours but the clamps can come off when it is dry to touch.




Next, I had to fix the long tophat section floor supports. This was going to be more challenging as it's not so easy to clamp the top hats in place. However, using a technique I used to use in tabletop repairs in my furniture restoration days, it was reasonably straight forward.
I needed to work on a large flat surface so the only one available was the garden lawn.

I laid out the floor on some bearers


... and got everything prepared ready for the glue up

Clamps and top bearers ready to go. I had already marked out the positions where the top hats should sit so it was now time to prep the surfaces ready for the glue up. After sanding the tophat flanged surfaces and the corresponding area of the floor section, adhesive was applied to each tophat in turn and pressed firmly into position on the floor panel. Once I had all 3 in place, the top bearers where put on top and clamped at each end so as to apply downwards pressure across the width and thus, in all 3 supports.



It was a a bit of a race against the clock in case the adhesive started to go off and prevent being able to press the supports in place, but it seemed work out.

Next job will be actually fitting the floor and the rear cross support, etc.