Valve clearance measurements 28-2-08

I remembered to bring the valve clearance measurements home today and this is what they were..

BULKHEAD

BEFORE AFTER
0.45mm 0.25mm
0.45mm 0.25mm
0.5mm 0.25mm
0.7mm 0.25mm
0.9mm 0.25mm
0.45mm 0.25mm
0.5mm 0.25mm
0.55mm 0.25mm

RADIATOR

I also tightend up the little grubber screw on the gear shifter as it had come very loose, this made the gear lever much less wobbley and now I can find the gears. Hard to explain so there is a picture to come.

start up after valve clearance adjustment 21-2-08

Today I managed to get everything back together i.e. rocker cover back on and conecting all the removed pipes. I thought I would have to charge the battery up, but there was still plenty of juice in it so she fired up with the usual but of throttle. I had been told there may be a reduction in smoke and there certainly was, there is still some smoke but a havn't touched the injectors or timing yet. I took the Landy for a spin around the football pitch (working on it at school) and i think the engine is a bit more responsive ( its hard to tell as i havn't driven it in a few weeks). Once again I forgot to bring the measurents home from the old valve clearances but they will be on hear soon!

Adjusting valve clearances 4-2-08

My school has been kind enough to let me keep the Land Rover in one of their garages at school for a few weeks. I am also allowed to work on it in CCF while my classmates are being army men! Over the last few weeks I have been adjusting the valve clearances which were quite badly out, I am waiting to get the rocker cover back on and start her up to see what differene it has made. I have recorded the clearances from before I adjusted them and I will add them soon. Hopefully it may bring back some of the horses (power) back that is lacking. We will see...

things done since bringing land rover home 2-2-08

I am trying to get this blog up to date so that I can add each thing I do, the day I do it. For this reason I am not going to be to detailed about what I have done until now.

As it is my first Land Rover or car I have spent a lot of time seeing what needs doing and just fiddling about. I have also spent a lot of time doing research and finding dealers. Originally I was going to put a new half chassis on but as the chassis is the centre of the project I thought it best that I do the job properly and put a full galvinised chassis on. The front part of the chassis and the outriggers would have needed extensive work anyway.

This is a short list of jobs I have done in the past few months, it appears I havn't done much but as I said I have spent a lot of time finding my way around the Land Rover:

Starter motor:
On turning the key the starter motor didn't engage but just whheered. I took it to pieces and the clutch part was completely shot... it turned both ways and never engaged. A few other working parts were worn and needed replacing. I found a web site that suplied the parts for lucas starter motors but it would have cost about £35.00 + p&p for the parts needed so I checked John Craddocks and they had a non genuine one for £55.oo and free p&p on orders over £50.00 so I decided that for the extra £10.00 it was worth the new one, I fitted it and it starts first time.

Some pictures of the old one in pieces:

Battery cable:

Another reason the starter motor didn't have much umph is because the power cable going from the battery to the starter motor had three very odd joins and a hole half way though it; I think it may have been rubbing on something?? I had an old welder that was home-made about 45 years ago, you can imagine how dangerous it was, but it taught me to arc weld. So I took the cable off that and used that for the battery. It works very well as it is very flexible and extremely heavy duty. I also replaced all the connections and put the earth onto a better place.

Chassis:

The chassis was and still is in a very sorry state, as I hadn't realised the extent of the rot I started cleaning it up to find this, and yes the chassis is actualy bent! In some of the photos you

can see the state of the fuel tank outrigger.

I have had to replace the no.4 fuel pipe coming from the injector pump, this was a very vertical learning curve as I had to work out what I was doing as I did it + it was one of the first mechanical things I had done to the Land Rover.

I attempted to tighten the wheel bearings but I think I need to replace 3 out of 4 of them and replace the bearings in the swivel pins as well.

I knew these diesel engines were noisey but this was serverly amplified by a hole three-quatres

of the way round the pipe attached to the silencer, this had to be replaced.

There have been many little parts replaced such as missing filler caps and covers, most of which I bought from ebay.

Many hours have been spent removing things like tow bars and seatbelts brackets, I think a wise investment would be a small grinder... all I have is one of those huge masonary grinders which are perhaps a bit big for little bolt heads.

Amazingly the most benificial thing I have done to the engine so far is service it a run it, as I mentioned on a previous page the engine oil seemed like tar. Just from regular running of the engine I no longer have a battle ship sized smoke screen behind me but a land rover sized one!

Recently I have been removing all of the electrics just leaving the glow plugs, starter motor etc. connected, when I do the rebuild I will build my own system using a fuse box from a mk1 golf or something similar.

I started fiddling with the brakes but descided that I will put a whole new system in as they are completly shot and I want to be able to stop.

Apart from this I have just been working on the body work and preparing myself and the land rover for the chassis. I am postive I have spent as much time if not more doing research as I have actually spent working on the Land Rover. One of the things I have been amazed by is how interested people have been in what I am doing, many people have also offered me much more advice than I could ever have hoped for.