Howdy, Names Stirling

Introduce yourself and your vehicles and post (or link to) photos
disco2hse
Posts: 1637
Joined: Sun Apr 27, 2008 3:51 am
Location: Auckland NZ

Post by disco2hse »

Just thinking here - probably a dangerous pastime - but what about running a metal pipe around the exhaust pipe and chanelling hot air past the evaporator?
Alan

1983 ex-army FFR 109 Stage 1
2005 Disco 2 HSE TD5
stirlsilver
Posts: 339
Joined: Tue Nov 21, 2006 9:45 am
Location: Wheelers Hill, Victoria, Australia
Contact:

Post by stirlsilver »

Well, I'm sure with enough effort you could get such a system to work, you would need to add some big fins to the evaporator and a fair bit of hot gas to get enough heat transfer. Pretty sure either way you look at it the coolant system is far more reliable method of keeping the device from freezing.
stirlsilver
Posts: 339
Joined: Tue Nov 21, 2006 9:45 am
Location: Wheelers Hill, Victoria, Australia
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Post by stirlsilver »

Bit of a delayed update, had a bit of a frustrating weekend dealing with the valves on the heads. I had gone to the trouble of fitting ALL the valves on the heads and then realised that I probably should have given them a light grind before putting them in to seat them... So, ended up getting pretty quick at the operation by the end!!

Left hand bank with the valves fitted:
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Right hand bank with the valves fitted:
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Engine before receiving the heads:
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The depressing photo of the car in it's current state:
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Heads on and bolts torqued up:
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stirlsilver
Posts: 339
Joined: Tue Nov 21, 2006 9:45 am
Location: Wheelers Hill, Victoria, Australia
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Post by stirlsilver »

Ok, so the home stretch:

The rocker pedestals needed shims made up to set the appropriate amount of preload on the hydraulic lifters.

To do this, I mounted the rockers on with the lifters and pushrods and slowly wound in the rocker shaft bolts until I measured 0.6mm under the circlip in the hydraulic lifters (unfortunately I didn't take a photo of how to do this). Basically I just made sure that I had as a minimum 0.6mm clearance across all valves.

To achieve this I found I needed some 1.5mm shims, luckily I had some material lying around the workshop which was perfect for the job.

Roughly cut to size, and half way though wirebrushing the surface rust off the material:
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Drilled the holes:
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The shims right at the front of the engine need an extra hole drilled into them so that the oil passage up to the rockers is not blocked off.

I used some flange sealant and placed the onto the heads, you can see right at the front, the shim with the cutout to clear the oil passage:
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All the valve gear fitted:
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And it is oh so close to finishing:
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After the photo above, the crank pulley and seal was fitted, along with the oil pickup and oil pan and also the alternator braket.

So basically the engine is done! When I take the engine off the stand, I'll have to fit the rear main seal, flywheel and clutch and then mate it up to the gearbox to fit it into the car.

I'll hopefully be pulling the car in to the workshop next weekend when I get back from Thailand!
Kiwistage1V8
Posts: 130
Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2005 4:07 am
Location: New Zealand

Post by Kiwistage1V8 »

It looks nice with the fuel injection manifold etc sitting on top.
Stop Global Whining.
stirlsilver
Posts: 339
Joined: Tue Nov 21, 2006 9:45 am
Location: Wheelers Hill, Victoria, Australia
Contact:

Post by stirlsilver »

A milestone!
The car is back in the workshop!
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A number of hours were put into cleaning up the workshop and shuffling things around so that I could pull the car inside. And finally I got there! It's a little bit squishy, but livable.

By the way, the thing under the plastic is the discovery ute... which is currently on hold until this thing is finished.

I discovered that the trolleys I made to sit under tyres work very well for a complete LT95
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When I was pushing the gearbox around I noticed that the transfer case gear selector has become disengaged internally from the selector forks because the shaft shifted sideways. So I got a washer and split pin and fitted them to the portion of the shaft that protruded the other side of the transfer case.
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Because the car had been sitting outside exposed to the elements, there were a few areas where surface rust had formed. I took a wire brush to the areas and applied some black kill rust paint. I'm not too concerned about these areas, being a land rover, pretty soon oil will make its way down and act as a corrostion protection system.
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That's it for now. Next I imagine needing to fit the rear main seal to the engine, fly wheel and clutch and then mate the gearbox onto the engine.
disco2hse
Posts: 1637
Joined: Sun Apr 27, 2008 3:51 am
Location: Auckland NZ

Post by disco2hse »

So close Stirling :)

Yet so much to do.
Alan

1983 ex-army FFR 109 Stage 1
2005 Disco 2 HSE TD5
stirlsilver
Posts: 339
Joined: Tue Nov 21, 2006 9:45 am
Location: Wheelers Hill, Victoria, Australia
Contact:

Post by stirlsilver »

Ok, more progress.

The rear oil seal was installed on to the crank. I initially had some difficulty getting the seal in as I didn't have anything I could use to push it in square. In the end I discovered that the flywheel was perfect for the job.

By having the oil seal just started and sitting square, I positioned the flywheel on and fitted the bolts, then simply wound the bolts in to push the fly wheel against the seal and push it in. It worked perfectly, once the fly wheel was hard up against the crank flange, I simply took the fly wheel off and tapped the seal in to position with a soft faced hammer.

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Then refitted the fly wheel and torqued up the bolts.

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Before the gearbox input shaft bush could be fitted onto the engine, I soaked it in oil for an hour or so first. I was surprised by the amount of bubbles that came out!

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Since I had pulled 2 gearboxes apart to build up the new box, I had a gearbox input shaft kicking around the workshop. It was just perfect for aligning the clutch on the engine.

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So the engine is done, and ready to be mated up onto the gearbox.

I wanted to test the gearbox so I went about making up a handle so the gearbox could be turned over while it was checked that all the gears engaged properly.

To make the handle I used the clutch that came off the car.

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Ground off the lugs holding it all together which gave me access to the splined plate.

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While I could have just welded on a piece of bar to act as a handle, I decided I needed to practice my machining skills, so I machined down some bar stock so that thin brass pipe could be slipped over it.

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Slipped on the brass pipe and welded a washer on the end to hold it in position.

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And welded the items together.

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Its purpose is pretty self explanatory.

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On winding the gearbox over, we discovered that the reverse relay arm which pivots on a bolt on the side of the gearbox was actually pushing the reverse selector over slightly and making contact with the 3rd/4th selector shaft making it stiff, so it was simply a case of backing out the bolt and engaging it onto the relay arm one thread closer. That freed up the 3rd/4th selector shaft but I think has added a bit of play to the reverse selector shaft now... I'll have to to decide if I want to keep it like that.

When testing going through the gears, it was found that 4th gear is quite stiff to engage, but does engage. I'm really not sure what could be causing that... I'm hoping that the gearbox needs to be run so that everything settles in... I really really do not want to see the inside of that gearbox ever again...
stirlsilver
Posts: 339
Joined: Tue Nov 21, 2006 9:45 am
Location: Wheelers Hill, Victoria, Australia
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Post by stirlsilver »

Just a quick update:
Put the majority of the clutch assembly and throw-out bearing together.
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I discovered that I'm probably going to need to buy the components to rebuild the clutch slave cylinder... there was a LOT of junk in there... probably from one too many water crossings.

Perhaps I'll put the wading plug on this time.


After that I mated the engine on to the gearbox (woo hoo!).
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I also fitted the engine and gearbox mounts (not shown in the photo). I also discovered one small problem. I used the bell housing which came off the gearbox casing (1977 year) I swapped my parts into. I tried to bolt on the flywheel cover (1981 year) and discovered that the fly wheel cover I have is smaller than the opening on the bell housing! And I don't have a cover to suit!!

Anyway, will deal with that when I get back from thailand on Friday.

Till then.
stirlsilver
Posts: 339
Joined: Tue Nov 21, 2006 9:45 am
Location: Wheelers Hill, Victoria, Australia
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Post by stirlsilver »

I got a bit slack with updating. I actually installed the engine and gearbox into the car about 2 weeks ago. I was able to do the whole operation by myself in about 5 hours. A good portion of the time was trying to figure out the best way to sling the whole assembly. Turns out all you need is a simple sling around the bell housing just behind the engine and it will all be perfectly balanced!

Anyway, the engine and gearbox bolted into the car was a major milestone :D

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Today I was in the workshop again, I started off by sorting out some of the wiring and tubes that ran over the gearbox and bolting them down. Also I fitted the selector shaft cover on the gearbox with a gasket, it is something I should have done before putting the whole assembly into the car as a couple of bolts are difficult to reach... but anyway, I got there in the end.

Once I had enough with dealing with the mess of wires and pipes on the gearbox I moved on bolting up the exhaust which fitted on without much hassle:

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After that I moved on to the drive shafts, I grabbed the rear drive shaft and discovered the spline was seized in the yoke... after a whole heap of belting Wayne and I were able to eventually get the yoke separated. In the process of doing so, the cap on the end of the spline burst off from the pressure of the grease...

Anyway, I pulled the whole thing apart and cleaned it up. Below is the yoke and the cover of the spline sitting on the vice:

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By using a round bar and a hammer I was able to open up the metal which was rolled over the cover originally to allow it to be reinserted. Once the cover was in position I used a small hammer and tapped the metal over the cover to hold it in place. (I'm sure I could have used better terminology here...).

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I discovered that the seal on the spline was perished and broken:

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Since I didn't have one of these seals, and didn't feel like leaving this until I could go and buy one I decided to get creative. The gasket and seal kit I bought for the engine was actually a vintage seal kit which included graphite impregnated rope for the rear main seal. I did not use this rope and fitted a proper seal to the engine, so the rope seals were left over and just perfect for this application.

The kit even included the knife for trimming:

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I wrapped the rope around the drive shaft, cut it to length and chamfered the ends so they would overlap onto each other:

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Not too shabby if I say so myself:

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I greased everything and put the whole thing back together with a new universal joint.

The front drive shaft was fine (although covered in dirt, oil and grease), so I just greased it up and it's ready to go:

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I'm planning to go in to the workshop tomorrow and fit the drive shafts, then the half shafts on the rear axle. And perhaps move on to some more plumming/wiring.
stirlsilver
Posts: 339
Joined: Tue Nov 21, 2006 9:45 am
Location: Wheelers Hill, Victoria, Australia
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Post by stirlsilver »

I wasn't able to spend too long in the workshop today, but progress was made:

Rear drive shaft fitted:

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Front drive shaft fitted:

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Nothing too exciting.
stirlsilver
Posts: 339
Joined: Tue Nov 21, 2006 9:45 am
Location: Wheelers Hill, Victoria, Australia
Contact:

Post by stirlsilver »

Well, more progress to report on from the last couple of weekends. It's getting close now :D

The water pipes to the LPG evaporator were hooked up. I connected the incoming water feed to the tapping I created on the left hand cylinder head:

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As I fitted an electric thermo fan to the car a long time ago, I used to have it controlled by a Davies Craig adjustable switch (see below), unfortunately the switch really isn't designed for water crossings, if it got wet either the fan would be stuck on, or wouldn't turn on at all!!:

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I figured I needed to replace it with something that was a lot more durable. So I measured the threads of the existing sensors on the EFI manifold and discovered that the tempeature sender is M12 and the strange 35deg temperature switch was M14. I ended up finding a 95deg on and 90deg off temperature switch with an M14 thread. Turns out it is a part from the M30 BMW's.

Below is the original bosh 35deg switch and the replacement BMW 90-95deg switch:

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The new switch fitted:

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I bought a new clutch slave cylinder and fitted it, you can just see it in the bottom corner picture below:

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I tried my best at bleeding the clutch by myself, but that wasn't successful... Wayne, if you are reading this, i'm going to need to borrow you next time you are in to do this :P

After packing the oil pump gears with vaseline, I primed the oil system with a two speed drill and a crushed piece of pipe to engage on to the oil pump drive. Below is the very sophisticated tool:

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What I discovered when first turning the pump over with vaseline is how incredibly hard it was in the first few turns! It almost ripped the drill out of my hands. Anyway, within a few turns it eased up and was getting oil pressure. Basically, I was winding the pump over until pressure built up, then I turned the engine over by hand until the oil pressure dropped completely, then repeated the process untill I got oil up at the rocker shafts and all the hydraulic lifters filled up. Hopefully when it starts the lifters won't rattle.

The radiator was installed, coolant pipes and the distributor fitted:

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The car used to have an issue where the throttle would stick partially open, which was a nightmare when 4wding and you would try to go down a hill as gently as possible to find the throttle sticking on you! I discovered the cause was that the disc of the throttle body was not centered correctly, on loosening the screws and shuffling the disc around, I found a position where it no longer stuck.

I moved on to temporarily energizing the LPG solenoids, I wasn't sure if any of them would have been stuck after sitting in the same position for a year. After energizing them I got gas out of the evaporator so that is all looking fine.

Intake air pipe fitted, throttle hooked on, oil put in to the gearbox and transfer case and this is where it is at now:

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At this stage, all that is needed is for the ignition system to be hooked up and the engine is ready to start!!

I've spotted in the workshop some stainless steel ignition cable which I am toying with perhaps using to make up some new leads. As there is no EFI system on the car, there is no reason why solid core leads cant be used - Wayne, got anything planned for the stainless steel ignition cable? :twisted:

That's it for now.
landdani
Posts: 274
Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2008 12:40 pm
Location: damascus

Post by landdani »

Hi, could you pout more photos to the coolant system please?
Are you considering (water proofing your motor and the electricity system?
perhaps second alternator ?
wonderful sport!
1984 SeriesIII ex-melitary, 109 inch, V8 stage one
stechkin
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Jul 16, 2010 9:20 am
Location: auckland NZ

Post by stechkin »

Hi stirsilver, your LPG evaporator is not instaled properly, must to be parallel with lenght of the vehicle, and if freezing, means that head gaskets are leaking and gas buble forming in the higest point of the cooling system make evaporator without coolant to freeze.
disco2hse
Posts: 1637
Joined: Sun Apr 27, 2008 3:51 am
Location: Auckland NZ

Post by disco2hse »

Good stuff Stirl :D

So, you going to run the air intake through the side of the guard?
Alan

1983 ex-army FFR 109 Stage 1
2005 Disco 2 HSE TD5
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