Landrover Series 3 Restoration

Re-Wiring my Dashboard

2009-05-05T21:23:00.001+01:00

Apologies for the gap in posting, what with cold weather and having other things to do I haven’t updated anything in a while!

So, I took my new dash binnacle that arrived last month and decided to fit it.

What follows is lots of pictures of my wiring, with some brief description to help other people out. Took me 2 hours in all, including having a rolly, finding tools and having a cup of tea!

This is the back of the Water Temp and Fuel gauge pod. The layout (on mine anyway is…)

1 Green wire that splits into 2 go on both the fuel gauge and temp gauge.

This is the light for the pod. It was black when I pulled it out, nice and clear now! Much brighter!

This goes in the bottom of the Fuel gauge.

The Green only one goes to the water gauge.

And finally, this pulls out to reveal the cold start light. Again, pitch black!

This is what the pod seal looked like after I’d removed it. The Speedo one wasn't much better. I just used an elastic band on both when re-fitting.

My fuel gauge. Didn’t take the water temp one out as it was spotless clean, and VERY fragile!

I presume this rusty specimen has something to do with the Speedo is here. Dark Green went on the left, Light Green is on the Right.

The far left is the Oil Pressure light.

White/Green in the middle is Beam

Beam light again, with an earth lead coming off. This fixes on the earth point with the light blue wire.

White & Blue/White is Cold Start.

This is the master light switch (off, side & side + main)

This is the heater switch. Which doesn't work at the moment as the heater needs to be wired up.

The left side is the old wiper switch. I have no idea how to wire up the proper switch so will be making forum posts and updating this accordingly. Right is the wash switch

Everything fitted. No random holes, cracks etc. Need a new fuel and water pod as the glass has cracked but it’s only cosmetic!

Amazing what happens in 2 hours.

Saturdays Log

2009-01-17T18:26:00.001Z

Had a really good day today. But the batteries in the camera were flat, so had to use my phone. For a 5mp camera, it takes appalling shots, so apologies!

I started off by removing the rear drivers side driveshaft, and everything attached to it, see below pictures…

The rear brake hub looked like this:

Which wasn’t as bad as it could be but still bad! But all the bearings were in great condition!

I dunked all the bearings, bolts and other fixings in white spirit (using gallons of it atm!) which promptly turned black. I then ran the steam cleaner over them to rinse them off and filled then back with grease, resealed them in bags and put them aside. I then painted the rear brake hub with primer, and set about assembling the brakes. Whilst it went fairly well, it was an epic challenge to get the shoes on with the springs attached. Also, being britpart springs, they were made by a 4 year old. The ends weren’t bent properly, so after an appointment with the vice they were amended. In the end, I got the bottom one in, one half of the top, then put the spring in the leading shoe (they are different) and levered it in with a big screwdriver.

In the end I had this! The primer was very grubby by now, but not too fussed as it’ll get filthy when its on the vehicle.

Whilst I was waiting for the primer to dry, I ventured inside the cab (not literally, as the rear was off the ground with a jack and axle stand) to clean a window. Whilst I was using the steam cleaner, I had a go at the drivers window, and it got the paint off in a flash. So, I took the drivers seat out and set about the rear quarterlight. It came up amazingly well. There was spray paint, emulsion paint grease and some rock hard stuff that isn’t 100% off all over it. So, a good steaming, then a good scrub with white spirit, a rinse with windowlene then a buff with some furniture polish and it almost looks brand new!

All the mould and crap came out of the rubber seals as well, which is good. The paint came up ok as well, in places it took off the top bodged overspray and revealed the original lighter shade of blue, others it did nothing but cleaned the new paint off. I gave it a quick buff with the polish for fun and it shined it up a bit. It’ll never be perfect, as the paint is rough and badly applied, but hey, it’s better than it was!

I put the 6x9 in behind the drivers seat as well, using wood and a bit of thin aluminium. Very Blue Peter, but it works VERY well! So I can now have music on without having the speaker thrown on the passenger seat. To celebrate the occasion I burnt disc 1 of The Best of Symfo Rock, and listened to Paintbox! Below are some pictures of the interior…

You can see the switches for the rear lights in one of them as well, I’ll paint up the bracket and find somewhere to fit it later, for now it sits in the dash. The seats will also be replaced, the passenger one has collapsed and their too big for the vehicle. Shame, as the drivers one is VERY comfy!

Until Tomorrow!

Some Pictures

2009-01-16T21:43:00.001Z

Just after I pressed upload on the last post, I found some more pictures I took, so here they are (Dial-up users, look away now, or upgrade!)

The Oil Bath Air Filter. It’s no wonder it runs oddly! All it took was an hour some white spirit and lots of rags to get it to the top picture. I also sprayed WD40 on the cloth/rubber hose, to stop it drying out. I may put a K&N filter on eventually, if not I’ll prime the unit and hammerite it in some funky colour! I’ll put a new air intake hose on as well (possibly!

All the current pics I have of the interior. Dash hasn’t changed much, apart from getting the wipers working, but the radio cassette has gone, as has most of the random LIVE wires lying in the dash. To the right you’ll see a plate with a switch in. That now houses 2 light up toggle switches that control the fog lamp and rear work lamp. Eventually, when I find a place that works it’ll be fixed to the dash. Will take updated pictures tomorrow for you!

Some random pictures now, The truck hot off the press. That was taken outside Evans house, after the long drive back from Stoke!

The rest are the door on the drivers side. I pulled the old newspaper that was filling the hole, ground all the useless metal off and primed it all up. This means there are some gaps there but I’d rather have all the rust taken out and converted than leave it there. Then there’s the serial tag from the heater matrix, a nice front on shot, the state of the old heater/coolant hoses and the engine, along with a working watertight thermostat housing (where the big rubber pipe at the front comes out of the engine)

And some tools and fluids I bought from Halfords. That red tool chest is £50 at the moment, with 10% off as well! Seems good so far, has tackled some big bolts on the front hub.

Drill was £15, and does a good job of undoing nuts quickly!

And an action shot of the work light and fog light working. Eventually the other fog light will work, but I need to grind the cage off the left lights, and take the ruddy crane off to get to the wires that run across the truck. The numberplate light needs replacing too. The 2 back steps may or may not go back on the new rear crossmember it needs. The Landrover badge is in the garage waiting to be painted.

A delayed update!

2009-01-16T21:04:00.001Z

Well, I did some work last weekend! I also found a program called Windows Live Writer, which works just like Word, but updates the blog without having to use Bloggers appalling site!

Anyway, back to the landie!

(With funky effects!) We have one drivers side rear shoe set. Which was a pig to put together. So in the end I haven’t done it. I attempted it..

As you can see, the shoes fit. But the springs are a different story. On the initial offer-up, I could get the top spring on, but only on the outside of the shoes, which I’ve been told is INCORRECT. I have the right springs though, which is good. So, after a trip to my favourite forum, I was given the idea of taking the whole hub off. This offers 2 advantages. Firstly, the reason the springs are such a pain to install is the driveshaft is in the way. I couldn’t even get the bottom one in, so with it all off, I can work with just the brakes and back plate. The second, and probably most important reason for doing it is I can have ALL the parts on the bench, in the warm and light, don’t have to have the radio loud to hear it on the drive and don’t loose washers in the gravel, or loose the light!

Therefore, I have to take the driveshaft's out. I took the drivers side one out, mainly whilst I was procrastinating drinking a cup of tea!

It’s in pretty good shape, and the large nut in the picture above this one shows it’s not been bodged about with (theoretically the only thing that hasn’t!) Again, using this method should save ALOT of faffing around, and enable me to overhaul the whole hub assembly too. The only thing I’m worried about by doing this, is the truck hasn’t moved much since the first picture, where it’s on the drive having all the rust hoovered out of it! Therefore, it’s got to be turned around to get to the passenger side! So I’m thinking of doing the rear and front drivers side brakes/hubs, connect the new brake pipes up, fill the system and bleed it enough to enable it to be turned around.

That brings me to the engine coolant problem. My fix didn’t work! I’m going to have another go with the epoxy, as I’ve got nothing to loose, but ultimately I’m looking for other methods. Answers on a postcard please!, as the vehicle is pretty much useless with that problem.

On a more positive note, Evan lent me his old HT leads, after he bought some new ones to troubleshoot his engine, and it turned out to be the distributor. So, with those in place the engine fires up, which means it won’t freeze/seize and the new oil can be sloshed around. I’ve only had it running for minute long bursts, revving it for the last 5 seconds and filling up the engine with a watering can! Also, by replacing the fuel sender the fuel gauge works! I put a jerry can of fuel in it, and it currently rises to just above the E mark, which is promising. Also means the wires are not stuffed!

Talking of wires, I spent an hour sorting out the front light that doesn’t work. I didn’t take any pictures sadly though, but the story is…

The drivers side front light turned off one day, so I left it, not driving it, but it bugged me. I checked the current carrying wires, which were all fine. I then dug around for the earth. The earth, for the front lights consists of a 4 way bullet connector, where 4 earth leads, 2 for the main ones and 2 from either the side lights or indicators plug into. This was white with corrosion. So, I unbolted it and scrapped it. I then, using the old trusty dremel with a wire brush on took the metal underneath down to bare metal and put a smear of Vaseline on the metal to delay corrosion.

That done, I took all 4 earth wires off one by one, and overhauled the connectors. I bought 1--- assorted ones from fleabay for a fiver, so am going to be lavish with them! I renewed them all in the end, as the wires were mouldy and thin. I then crimped on ring connectors to the earth point end, filled the crimps with Vaseline and heat shrunk it all together. I then connected it up to the lights with female spade connectors and IT WORKED! Brighter than before as well! Being a negative earth, the earth completes the circuit. It’s amazing how much current a little bit of corrosion takes away! And how much current comes back after 5 minutes cleaning it up!

I must point out that I’m not using bona fide wires. I’m just removing the outer insulation of normal appliance wire and using that. I’m only using it for low voltage bits, mainly lights and the stereo. As and when (and if) I replace it I’ll use proper wires. I then cable tied everything neatly together!

Lastly, tonight, I made myself a new tool, a PC for the garage! Cobbled the parts together out of the garage, so I can stream radio, stream music and video from my main pc, post here and mainly ask questions on forums. I used my laptop last weekend to ask the question mentioned earlier, and although I used an old keyboard and mouse I was so scared I’d plaster oil all over it! So, one pc running a thinned out version of XP that can get as dirty and bashed as it wants with no worries!

A lot of my inspiration has come from Mark Evans, and his great series ‘A 4X4 is Born’ As I write this, I’m watching ‘An MG is Born’ which is equally as good, but not as landie related! I’ve also come to the conclusion that I need to invest in Air tools! So, Julie (boss) if you read this, can I have a pay rise?! A welder and a course on welding would be invaluable too, given the state of my chassis!

Until tomorrow my Landrover Friends…

Not much progress I'm afraid!

2008-12-27T20:19:00.000Z

Another Saturday Gone

2008-12-06T16:27:00.007Z

Woke up with a hangover this morning, and stumbled out at about 10am. Last weekend, I took the water thermostat housing off, mainly to overhaul and clean it up. Upon taking the cover off, I was greeted with this:

Lovely! However this was the last of my worries, upon removing the gasket I found out that a corner of the manifold had corroded away. So, one landy that is going nowhere fast! I went to the local rip-off DIY store on thursday and got some metal filler/adhesive. I made a load up and stuck the 2 parts together this morning, hoping that it would make a watertight seal. It was still wet and wobbly at half 3, but the packaging does state it takes 6 hours at least to set, so will leave it the weekend to see if it creates a waterproof seal. I dont think the bracing temperatures help!

So, whilst that was setting itself, I set about changing the oil. After realising the drain plug would not budge I resorted to a blowtorch and hammer. Once implemented the plug came out, as did oil. But not as much oil as I would have liked. The engine can hold roughly 6 litres of oil, and about 2 came out! I left it draining for a few hours whilst I did the fuel lift pump. This went in simply enough, with the old one..

going straight in the bin! I need to get a new pipe to fuel pump, and new fittings, as the old ones were rusty and brittle as, and only just went back together with lots of PTFE tape and swearing. However the fuel guage now works (I think). When I turned the ignition on the guague moved up to the e mark (sod all fuel in it!) and went back down to rest when I turned the ignition off again. I'm hopefull, but won't know until I put some fuel in, which wont be for a while yet. I earthed the pump to the same point where the rear fog is (ring crimp on a bolt) as the old mounting point was falling apart.

Once done, I carried on with the oil change. Nothing special here really, put 6 litres back in. Haven't started the engine yet, due to no coolant so the dipstick shows waaay over full, as the oil's just sat in the sump. Hopefully with some revving and idling that'll go down and level itself out. Once I got cleaned up I moved onto the spark plugs. I'd noticed that 2 of them were covered in oil, so took them all out one by one and overhauled them. I dont think I dropped too much crud into the engine, and poured some redex down each hole in turn with the main HT dizzie lead out to clean it out, when I start her up tomorrow that should smoke and clean out nicely. The average condition of each spark plug was this

which is worrying to say the least. 10 mins with a toothbrush and some white spirit and they were good as new (still going to replace them though) and went back in. I need new HT leads too, as I pulled 2 apart getting them off, and not too happy with the way their crimped back together, but they still work (turned the engine over until it fired up then turned off again.)

I started to pack away at this point, and then did some more fitting to the cd player. I fitted the mounting bracket and ran a new earth lead out the bulkhead and earthed it on a washer hose mounting bracket. The CD player now works without cutting out due to the bad earth. Still got to work out a way to mount the 6x9's!

I found a rather nasty looking hole in the rear tub today as well. Was fitting the lift pump and noticed some filler. Stabbed it with a screwdriver and it crumbled away, and I hoovered up loads of wet claggy crap from under it. The rear tub HAS to come off at some point to properly assess things under there (job and a half though!)

Tomorrow I hope to do some more to the never ending brakes saga. I have all the correct parts apart from the brake pipes which I need to do some more research into yet, and brake fluid. Will see if the epoxy on the engine is cured too, in which case I'll fill the rad up and test it. If that doesnt work then I've been offered a whole new head for a tenner by a nice guy over at Land Rover UK Forum, only snag is it's in Herefordshire, and rather too heavy to courier down economicly. Still, one never knows!

Small Update

2008-11-25T17:53:00.004Z

Not much is going on this week, due to good old work and dark afternoons.

Got the CD player wired in, and in the process sorted alot of bodginess out, like the wire connected to the live side of the fusebox just casually laying in the dash, occasionally sparking merrily when in contact with the bodywork! I need new fuses as well, The Service Manual states that the fusebox requires 4 35amp fuses. Currently I have 2 17amp and 1 20 amp fuses in the box. There was a 4th one but it fell apart the first time I took it out.

One tastefull fusebox! (possibly in need of a renewal at a later stage.

So, I have audio (via 2 6x9's laying on the bulkhead!) I need to create 2 wooden templates to hold the speakers up behind the seatbelt braces.

Over the weekend I overhauled the cab heater matrix. The fan doesn't work, again due to the wiring I presume. The switch isn't wired up properly I think, yet to work that one out!

After pulling this

out of the matrix, I soaked it in steradent for an afternoon inside and out. The water turned bright green! Will flush the engine coolant out this weekend hopefully once all the pipes are properly connected, so that should de-scale everything. Need a new fan-matrix hose.

I fired her up earlier on for the first time in 2 days. Apart from the lack of fuel, and indeed fuel lift pump it started fairly well. The exhaust smoked like heck though, which I think is either an exhaust or head gasket. Indeed, one of the exhaust manifold bolts aren't tightened up properly!

Payday on thursday! Need to go to Hellfrauds for engine oil, dot4, antifreeze, crimp connectors, fuses, gearbox and transfer box oil. Then off to the local DIY shop, that has some xmas offers on for an angle grinder and socket set.

The rear brakes should get overhauled this weekend as well!

Yey!

Overall Thoughts.

2008-11-22T17:47:00.000Z

With this being my first car, let alone my first landie, my thoughts are , overall, great! I love it! I love the fact that it sometimes doesnt start, that it's straight 6 engine probably isn't at straight or six as it was, that the wiring leaves ALOT to be desired, as well as the interior. I expecially love the fact that the brakes are non-existant, as well as the rear shock absorbers and floorpan!

I love it because it's a project. This landie will never be perfect, and I will bodge bits up whilst fixing her up, then once it's complete I'll start REALLY doing her up. For now, I'm content with tinkering. I bought her off an irishman called Terry from Stoke-on-Trent. A nice fellow, we sealed the deal at £650, with £20 fuel thrown in. As I have yet to pass my test, I brought along my fellow landie nut and best mate Evan to drive it home for me. Once we'd said goodbye to my parents, who were driving the back the long way looking at boring old trees and footpaths, we had to face the realisation that we had to get this thing back 150 miles on a Saturday Lunchtime. So, after ALOT of clunky gear changes, hairy moments on roundabouts when we found out the brakes didn't not only not work, but pulled the vehicle violently from side to side if going any faster than 27 we hit the m6. We then realised that the fuel guage didnt work, that the windows were so covered in paint mirrors were useless, the radio didnt work and the wipers were worn down to the plastic so if it rained we were shafted! We took her up to a steady 70, then cruised at 60 for the rest of the way, a big change from the steady quiet 90 we were doing on the way up in my stepdad's Zafira!

Fuel time came when we worked out that it was probably averaging 20mpg and we'd done 30 miles on £20, so we pulled in. I proceeded to put £70 in for the rest of the journey, and lost £10 on the forecourt through a perished fuel filler pipe. Wonderfull! Upon further rustling over the weeks that followed I unearthed the fuel lift pump, the first stage of the fuel's journey out of the tank, and almost fell over with horror!Exhibit A - One Ful Lift Pump. The green live wire is held one with the friction of the rubber grommit against the plug, the earth isn't held on at all and the rubber hose is rusted on. Upon breaking the metal locking washer into a gagillion peices, and hoovering the whole thing clean so nothing would fall into the fuel tank I gingerly lifted it up to see a rusted dry 'thing'. Needless to say, a new one will be on order next week for the bank breaking sum of £13, and will upload pictures along it's replacement. I reckon, going by the state of the pump that the main pump is just sucking the fuel up without assistance, which would explain (or go part of the way to explaining) why it splutters and sometimes stalls when idling!

Anyway, I'm rambling! We made it home without too many other problems, and proceeded to give it a thorough going over. There was no:

Gearbox Oil
Engine Oil
A hole in one of the coolant pipes, leading to there being no water
The brake shoes were worn right down and cracked, hence the interesting brakes
The wiring was all over the place, luckily the lights almost 100% work!

Currently, I've re-wired the rear work light, overhauled the rear side lights and wired up the RH side fog, the LH one has no bulb which needs to be bought. I've also fitted new seatbelts nad fixed the front seats in properly, which will stay until I source some new, proper seats. The chassis has been sanded down with an angle grinder at various points to see what condition it's in, and apart from a totalled rear crossmember is pretty good. Eventually, I'll take the rear tub and other bodywork off and thoroughly sand down, prime and hammerite the chassis, and fill it with waxoyl.

It's payday on Thursday, so I have a long list of goodies to buy, including brake shoes and cylinders, brake and clutch fluid, engine and gearbox oil, washer pump, fuel lift pump and 2 new front sidelights.

That's all for now, more tomorrow when I finish tidying the cabin wiring and finish the coolant pipework!

The First Post.

2008-11-22T17:42:00.000Z

Well Welcome!

I bought a Landrover Series 3 109" 1978 2.6 straight 6 as my first car last month. I've always wanted a landie, and now I have! In it's current state it has an old Harvey Frost crane on the back, broken Saab seaths in the front and general rust and grime everywhere else!

I aim to restore it to a tidy condition, then fully refurbish it afterwards, whilst learning to drive in it!

In this blog, I aim to keep you updated on my progress, as well as provide information on how I acheived certain things. Looking around the net there are a few landie guides, but none that have the info I need!

Hope you enjoy, and if you have any questions, email me!