Articles - Land Rover Series 2a Restoration

PK
31/05/2026

May 2026 – Various Bits of Stuff

This one is going to go all over the place, I finished up the electrics in the last one to keep that separate. Will try to keep is short and sweet, but no promises. Ultimately however with all the stuff in this one, and previous articles about electrics, when I do finally start, or attempt to start the engine, if it does run nicely, I would potentially be able to drive Isobel round the garden, albeit with no brakes.

So hear goes.

First up, and in no particular order is the Low/High gear stick. I cant remember if I mentioned it before, but with the gearbox in the car and the bulkhead in-place, pushing the gear lever forward to select High Range, it fowls against the bulkhead, ad only just engages. I did post a question on the series 2 club forum, and the answers, one in particular was surprising. While I asked something slightly tongue in cheek, got a surprising answer. What I asked was, were the different profiles of HL gear sticks, and guess what, yes there are about 6 different profiles, all slightly different and some bent other not, longer and shorter brackets on the bottom, all sorts.

Anyway, what to do, well I decided to bend mine…

You can see by the image on the left, how much I bet it, took two attempts to get it to a profile that didn’t fowl the bulkhead. Here it is back in-place, fully forward engaging high ratio.

Clutch

Next up, simple one. All I needed to do was to poor in some brake & clutch fluid, bleed the the system at the clutch slave cylinder (You can see that in the picture above just about, with the bleed nipple just about in shot).

I bought a very simple bit of kit, a plastic pipe, with a none return valve inline.

All I did was attach the bleed pipe to the bleed nipple, put the other end into a glass jar (which eventually had a little bit of fluid in), topped up the brake ad clutch reservoir (pictured) and kept it topped up thoruhg the process.

With the nipple open, pumped the clutch peddle a few times until no more air was coming out and then tightened up the nipple.

Thats it. Tested it by putting it into gear, and manually tried to rotate the gearbox output shaft. Of course, when the clutch was not pressed, it would not move, but press the clutch peddle in, it does. Now it will need a little more setup, but fundamentally it works.

Propshafts

Bit longer this one. I replaced the UJ’s on both Propshafts (twice) sometime ago, I also purchased two sets of Propshaft bolt sets, one for the front prop, one for the rear.

So I set about putting the rear prop shaft on. Ok, so heres a catalogue of errors.

I bolted the rear pro to the gearbox, I did think these bolts are a little short, ok, must be ok. Then went to bolt it to the rear axle. 1st school boy error, wrong propshaft, the front and back are different lengths, I was trying to put the front prop onto the rear.
Took it off and re-bolted the correct prop to the gearbox. Bolts still seemed a little short. Went to bolt it to the rear axle, and realised the bolts left in the pack for the rear prop are too long.
Had to remove the prop, remove the back of the gear box and replace the bolts, as they are fixed into the dear drive shaft.
Finally, started to make some progress
Last lesson, I should have bought a special socket that allows it to get past the UJ’s, so had to resort to spanners, which took an absolute age.

Anyway, finally got the rear and front prop’s on. I did need to jack up the front and back wheels on one side so I could rotate the gearbox to align the front prop’s bolt holes.

Towbar

Nothing is easy putting this ting back together.

Here’s the final thing.

The issue with this is that of course it needs to be bolted on very securely. When I read about this, people suggested that there needs to be spreader plates on the back of the crossmember, so I had to hunt through all my saved junk (I haven’t thrown anything away yet) to find them. I knew I had them as I took a picture of the towbar when I took it off.

Found them, cleaned them up, painted them.

The other issue, is that at the back of the cross member there is a channel, with a small v cut out to allow the bolt to go all the way though.

The challenge here is that the bolts need two nuts on, but two nuts wont fit in the channel, as well as the spreader plate. So decided to buy some heavy, high tensile lock nuts. Amazingly, with the Spreader, a washer and the lock nuts they just about fit into the channel, so finally manage to get it bolted on.

Exhaust

Nearly last for this one. Finished putting in the last part of the exhaust system.

I didn’t add any sealer on the exhaust joints for now, will come back to that later along with many other things, but my focus for now is to get it pretty much all together.

So now, if the engine does happen to start, technically I could drive it.

To finish the day, did something else completely unnecessary, but good to see it starting to all come together, added the windscreen and put the front grill and radiator back on, and this time plumbed it into the cooling system.

May 2026 – Electrics Continued….

When I left off last time, I had completed some work on the side lights, indicators etc. Since then, I have pretty much completed the wiring harness. I’m not going to make this a tutorial, there are plenty of those our there and following the various diagrams available, it is pretty straight foreward.

Here’s a selection of images, starting one the left, the main loom in the engine bay, connected to the “fuse box”, I put that in quotes, as there are only 2 fuses in the entire loom, and both are 35amp, so actually pretty bloody useless!.

Middle picture, the loom making its way through the bulkhead into the cabin (behind the dash).

And the third, on the right, the dash al wired up. I have to be honest, I was not happy about using the mode modern connectors, but this was all I had and needed to get it done. It will work perfectly well, just not entirly period.

And finally the front of the dash, temporarily attached.

I did have one small problem.. When I turned on the lights, one of the wires got a bit warm. I had wired up the rear number plate light incorrectly. A stupid mistake, but mostly due to the fact this is a positive earth system, and if your not careful it is so easy to wire things up wrong. So ended up with a short circuit. Luckily, managed to disconnect everything before too much damage, and after checking wires, continuity etc, all was good.

I did continue to test some other bits and pieces, including the headlights, the dip switch, horn and various other items.

Now when it comes to headlights, I only have one working one. I had a quick look for a second, but there was a warning suggesting that the new ones are a little more powerful than the originals, so would probably benefit from the installation of a relay, which I will probably do.

For info, when using a relay, the original light wires go to the relay, and act only as switching wires, they trigger the relay to switch. The relay takes power direct from elsewhere, using thicker wires. The idea being that the original wires carry less current, minimising the risk of overheating and ultimately fire, as the higher current is supplied onyl from the relay. Anyway, will come back to that later.

One final thin on the headlights. I sent a few items of to be re-chromed, two of these were the headlight surrounds, they look fantastic.

So thats it, there is a little bit more to finish up, but really only connecting things up and routing the cables properly once all the bodywork is on.

Updated:

I put the Dynamo on a while ago, but before using it, it needed to be flashed.

This ensures the polarity is set correctly.

It is a simple process, connect the battery upto the Chassis (Positive) and touch the other side of the battery onto the small connector on the back of the Dynamo. You get a little blue flash, and that indicates it is polarised corretly.

May 2026 – Side Lights, Indicators and Rear lights

Contining on from last time, while I am waiting on some replacement parts for the Dash panel, carried on with the electrics. I have to say, while the harness looks daunting, it is all pretty straight forward.

As I mentioned, the “full” harness is not a full harness at all. One of the missing parts is the tail leads for all of the side lights, indicators and rear lights.

This will be a fairly short one, while over a long weekend, didn’t feel like I got much done.

Started with the front lights, side lights and indicators.

Pretty simple really, cut some of the correct coloured wire (actually made a mistake here in my haste, the indicators have different coloured wire for each side not the red shown here). Crimped a bullet to one end and fitted it to the bulb holder.

In this case, black is positive? Thats because this is a positive earth system, so the black is the earth, which is actually the positive feed, slightly un-intuitive, but guess it makse sense.

Went on to do the same with the rear lights. This time, two indicators (with the same coloured tails as the front, for each side) but the rear lights of course are the rear lights and brake lights, as such have 3 wires, Red (for rear light), black (positive/earth) and coloured for brake lilghts.

I did test the holders before I wired them up to make sure the right colour was used for the right light i.e. rear or brake.

Finished them off by crimping a bullet on all the ends coming out of the rubber covers.

Each if the light units were bolted in-place with 4BA screws, spring washer and nut.

I did have to add some plain washers to cater for the corroded wings, where the holes were not complete.

Finished off by connecting the two black tails into a single connector.

I will later run a lead from these to the chassis somewhere to ensure a good earth.

And here they are from the other side!!

While the wings look shiny, they are a bit dusty and marked. I will have to sort this when all the body work is on.

To get the rear lights on, I had to fit the two galvanised corners. These went on fairly well, although did have to re-do a couple of rivets as the galv capping didn’t sit flat against the body work.

Thanks Reuben, these rivets cannot be done alone, they need two people.

You can just about see here the harness coming up through the floor of the tub. I did manage to get a grommet over the cable and into the hole, this will serve two purposes, keep crap out and stop the wires chaffing against the body.

You can also see a small plate I made at the bottom of the lamp. I had to do this because the light fitting only attaches to the capping, not the body work. and because the capping was not sitting flat, needed something to pull the body work and capping together.

Bit of a bodge, but does the trick and wont be seen, as these are all covered with a corner panel.

Got one side done, and fitted the lenses (which are glass, not plastic, so really nice) and the chrome surrounds.

I think they look pretty smart, and am very happy with them.

I couldn’t do the other side as I ran out of 4BA nuts! Really frustrating I was sure I bought some more, but the workshop is a bit of a mess right now, so will get down there one evening this coming week and see if I can find them before ordering more.

While the Land Rover didn’t come with a number plate light originally, when I got the lights (for my Birthday a couple of yeas ago, I thought would be done quicker than I am!), I got one, so fitted that. That needs to be re-done, the 2 wire tails need to be a little longer than I made them, and wont quite reach the bullet holders for the earth and live (actually negative) feed.

To finish the day off, I (with Reubens help) fitted the petrol cap holder with domed solid rivets, and using dozens of pop rivets fitted the side galvanized capping’s. Didn’t need to, and not the most important thing right now, but makes me feel good and helps keep the motivation. I think its starting to look really smart.

Hopefully next time it will be finish off the left had rear lights, fix the earthing lead at the rear and then onto the dash panel wiring. When thats all done, and I can turn the car on and off, onto the next massive stage I have been talking and dreaming about for ages, which is trying to start the engine. If I have time, might just fit the prop shafts aswell.

April 2026 – Steering Wheel, Prop Shafts, Petrol Tank and Electrics

Well, I did say I would move away from Topics, to thigs as they happen, and this is a true example of that with a real mix of topics covered.

So to keep it in some order, I might just link to other pages, for the detail

Propshafts continued…

Whats up first? Well, how about prop shafts. If you look back at a previous post December 2025 I mentioned the work on my propshafts, namely trying to put in new Universal Joints, which, was a bit of a disaster. None of the three I did were anywhere near god enough, they were all super tight.

So, I bought myself 3 new UJ’s, and set about a little more research. I found a video by someone who I have watched before, and it kind of gave me some “oh, I could try that moments” so I did.

Heres the video, by Steamwally

First thing, was to really spend some time cleaning the journals (or whatever they are called), I did clean them last time, but not enough. Also, I made sure the circlip grooves were really clean.

Before trying to insert the bearing caps, I also applied a little grease, to help the bearing cases in.

Second, which I probably should have done the first time around was to fill, about 50% of the bearing cap with moly grease. Taking care of course to make sure that none of the roller bearings come out.

I then gently positioned the bearing cap in the journal, and pressed it half way home.

Now here’s the difference from last time. Last time it took considerable effort to get these caps in, this time, it took only gentle taps to get the in.

Ignore the hammer marks on the journal I do appreciate that this has probably un-balanced the prop shafts, but this is how bad it was getting the last lot in and then out again.

Anyway, With the 1 cap in, the UJ was positioned, and then the other cap positioned in the other side. Gently tapping in, until the Circlip would sit in the grove.

To finish off, a couple were a little tight. but as I learned from others, give the prop a gentle tap to make sure it settles in and it should be OK. And guess what, they all were, all are not loose, but certainly not super tight either.

When I bought the first set of UJ’s, I also purchased new prop shaft bolts.

To get these in, I had to take off the back of the transfer box, to get the new bolts in, as they are in-accessible when its all together.

You can see this part towards the bottom of this picture.

Here’s the finished prop’s ready to get bolted on.

Petrol Tank – re-visited

Something else hanging around was the petrol tank. My painting was not great first time around, so had taken it out cleaned it up and re-painted it again. But more importantly I had tried to save the petrol sender, the bit that shows me how much fuel is in the tank If you think about your toilet, its a little like the bit in the systern, its a floaty thing, that goes up and down with the petrol, sending a signal to the petrol guage. Anyway, the original one was not reliable so I bought a replacement.

The old one is in the middle, and as yo can see the new one is in two parts. These have to be connected, giving the same length as the old one.

I cut the bar connected to the sender unit first, and then making sure the length was the same, started to firm the other bar, so that it was not simply laid along side and connected.

I feel sure that adding some bends, will stop it twisting when its in the Tank.

I then connected them with some little clips supplied, and then went on to solder them together.

It felt pretty strong, so see no reason to doubt it will work as expected.

I thought the obvious thing was to put the tank back into the chassis, as it went in last time trouble free, that was without the rea tub on, now the rear tub is on, the neck of the fuel tank needs to come up through a hole in the tub. Now this is where I got really pissed off, it the neck of the tank would not go through the hole, it looked like the tub was too far back, but it cant be! its attached to the rear cross member, so can only be where it needs to be! Nope, it wold not go, so in my frustration took my hacksaw out, and cut away part of the tub, to make the hole a little larger, and elongated. Anyway, its not back in, and with the pipes on.

Electrics

I had done a little bit of this before, but thought, now’s the time to start fitting the harness (or loom) whichever term you want to use. I fitted the Voltage regulator, fuse box (for what it is!) and coil before, so obvious next step, feed the harness through the two holes in the bulkhead. Easy Hu! especially as I bought a rather expensive EXACT replica of a 1965 series 2a bulkhead, well no. One hole was perfect, the second, there is no way the loom will go through that! So I went to my old bulkhead to check, ands sure enough, 1 hole is larger than the other. So the bulkhead is not exact…. and what really pissed me off again, I had to enlarge the hole, ruining the e-coat, and exposing bare metal. I did paint the hole (well not the hole, thats impossible, the edge of the new hole!).

I will write this up a bit more in detail, as I have seen so many posts on various forums about asking questions about installing a Auto Sparks Harness, and I think I have it pretty much mastered.

Anyway, here’s a couple of pictures of where it is so far, and then after the pictures another little bitch.

On the left, view from the engine bay, on the right view from inside the cab. Even for a simple thing like a land rover, plenty of wires to figure out where they all go. So far have all sorted apart from 2!!

Right, so I said after the image another bitch, so here goes. Before I bought the harness/loom, i emailed Auto Ssparks, and asked a simple question “Does it come with the harness that goes to the back lights?”. I asked the question because when you buy it, there are various options you can also buy, its not just one harness, so thought I would check. I got a response…… A rather short response, its a complete harness…

Ok, thats good then. Well, I can tell you its not a complete harness! I might be being a little unfair here, because actually having been a wireman in the past, making looms like this, it is really nicely done (oh, apart from the odd bullet connector that was not crimped properly!! so I had to re-do those, and that brings me back to the bitch. The “Complete” harness does not contain ANY of the trails required to connect to the side lights, indicators, number plate light, so had to buy some wire and more bullet connectors to do this part, and also, there is one wire from the coil to the distributor that is also not there, unless I am a complete numpty (entirely possible, I suppose) I couldn’t find it.

Anyway, apart from that little bitch, it was still well made and priced very competitive. My Brother works for a cable company, and before I bought the harness, and given I used to do this stuff for a living asked if he could source the cables, connectors, wrap etc, which he probably could have but it would have cost nearly the same as the one from Autosparks, especially if there were minimum order quantities required.

Related, I also bought a new dashboard, well second hand one, but a period correct one, so set about sorting that out and getting it painted, and populated with some stuff. Only a couple of pics of that.

Steering Wheel

OK, so the steering wheel!! I started to clean it up and found some ominous looking cracks. I’m getting a little tired of spending money on this thing now, so set about a repair. Cut out the cracks, mixed up some JB Weld, filled them, rubbed them down and then painted the whole thing. I used a gloss black plastic paint, and then did a couple coats of lacquer. Also there is not much shiny stuff on a Land Rover, only yer headlight surrounds and the steering wheel center. So thought I would get them properly shinnied up! (re-chromed!). Waiting for them to come back

Well, thats it. Long one I suppose, but lots and lots of little bits going on. One final thing, I am pretty ready to attempt a start of the engine, so seeing if I can get some of my nephews valuable time to give me some moral support, and s shed load of knowledge, but while prepping for that have noticed a rather disappointing thing and I am really reluctant to say it, but will as it will likely mean Engine Out again at some point. the rear crank shaft oil seal seems to be leaking… and that is a B’std to re-do, it took me 3 attempts while building the engine, and clearly still have not got it right. So I might have another go myself, or, if I can get the Landy mobile get someone who knows what they are doing to re-do it, might end up being cheaper in the long run. Anyway, thats one for the future.

Leave a comment InApril 2026

PK
06/04/2026

Electrics continued….

When I say continued, maybe I should say it will continue.. I started looking at the wiring loom today, partly to make sure I position the components, Voltage Regulator Fuse Holder and Ignition Coil in the right places, but also to start to understand where everything goes. That was of course after I took the wife and 2 remaining “kids” at home out for Breakfast, which I think we have found our new favorite breakfast haunt, Swanborne Lake Cafe in Arundel.

BUT!! before I get into all of that. I did mention I “might” try to see if the engine turnsover. Well I did, and while not very exciting for most… was a great moment of relief for me, to know that at the very least, it does turnover on the starter motor.

I did remove the spark plugs and also removed the rocker cover before trying, and I also squirted a bit of oil into the piston bores and over the rocker, just made me feel better.

Guess what? it sounds like an old engine turning over. Hopefully next time I try this, it fires up and goes brumm brumm, and does not sound like an old engine.

As well as looking at the loom to figure out the locations, I also took a look at my old rotting bulkhead to see if that helps. It did a little, so took some rough measurements.

What this did mean, which bothered me a bit, is that I need to drill some new holes in my nice new, painted bulkhead. HeyHo, they have got to be fixed somehow.

Sorry for the large, not very intresting picture of, well holes and a padded envelope to catch the metal bits :-). When I did screw the parts on, I did cover them in copper ease, hopefully to stop the freshly exposed metal rusting. Here goes, another large picture, bit more interesting this time, showing the bits fitted.

From left to right:

Voltage regulator
Fuse Holder, oh, yes, this car as 2 fuses… everything else relies on well, a little bit of luck and good fortune to not catch fire.
My new Ignition Coil, as I had no idea if the old one ws any good.
and scattered over the engine, my main loom

Thats pretty much it, I did spend quite alot of time staring at my wiring loom, and then more time trying to match it up to the diagrams online, in the haynes manual and my land rover workshop manual. I even turned to AI, and asked if it could find me a definitive diagram (the others should really have been enough) and it did, it found an autosparks one.

Here is a snip of the Autosparks one. (Sorry Autosparks, if you dont want this here, let me know, I’ll remove it)

Anyway, the full file can be found here: https://www.autosparks.co.uk/media/pdf/LR202.pdf

I am sure there are more, but I’m only interrested in this one. It can be found when navigating to the loom your interested in, and clicking Further Product Information

I will look to see if tey have more of the ancillary looms also.

For completness, heres a snippet from the workshop manual. Bit difficult to read this one. Pretty sure is from a scanned copy of the manual, but even my purchased manual is not easy to read, so the autosparks one could be useful.

Anyway, heres my main loom and acillary looms.

I’ve decided to take the loom back into the house, and as soon as I am done writing this, then spending more time correcting spelling errors (or not if I cant be bothered) , I will see if I can start labeling it up.

I finihsed up the day, putting the choke mechanisum back together and fitting it to the lower dash panel.

Sorry, forgot to take pictures of that before I covered isobel back up for the week, so will add some next time.

Lastly, I have a bit of what I think is dash panel, but have no idea where it goes. It does kind of fit behind the lower dash, but then it would interfear with the choke mechanisum, so not sure, anyone have an idea let me know.

Thats it, actually a little longer than I thought. Back to work tomorrow, and hopefully through the week I can make sense of the wiring loom and start properly fitting it next weekend.

Leave a comment InApril 2026

PK
05/04/2026

Electrics – Earth and Battery Cables

I mentioned in the last one, that it leads nicely onto this one. Well no in terms of topic, but in terms of Isobel moving under her own steam. Well, to do this Isoble needs some electrics. So, started today to fit parts of the new Autosparks wiring loom, namely the earth straps, battery and starter cables.

These are the cables in question.

I created this image, to share on the Series 2 club forum. I was pretty sure I knew where most of it went, but wanted to check the earth straps.

And as per usual, clear and concise answer came in pretty much directly. Series2a club costs me a little money every year, but worth every single penny.

The first one to go on, was a strap between the chassis and transfer box. Now, this is a positve earth system I’m installing here, as per original, but in any case earthing is a critical aspect of the wiring, because without it, nothing will work. The principal is that the battery (in this case + terminal) is connected to the chassis, and then this strap, connects the gearbox, engine and accessories like the starter motor to the chassis.

What I did do is check for continuity between said items, and it was really good, very little resistence.

I will be adding another earth strap (when I buy one) between the chassis and engine.

The reason, the starter motor will draw alot of current, and the more straps the better, otherwise the current might just try other routes, like the clutch cable and speedo cable.

I then fitted the battery earth strap.

This is conected to the battery tray leg, so cleaned up the paint, and bolted the strap on.

Again, checked continuty between this cable and various bolts on the engine and again had very little resitence.

Next up was the starter motor leads.

Before doing that I fitted the starter button.

You can see from the picture, there is a bit of folded card, to seperate the terminals. This was acually broken, so I removed it, as the new cables have rubber covers, which will serve the same purpose.

This is the button inside the cab.

I have actually owned a car that had this same setup before, so its not that unusual for me.

This is the final connections with both cables on. The one on the left coming from the battery, the one on the right straight to the starter motor, with the supplied rubber boots.

So thats it, the starter motor is now connected, the starter button is in-place, all I need is a battery and I can think about turning over the engine. Might do that tomorrow, will see how I feel becuase that will be the first real test of my engine rebuild.

To finish up, I fitted the dynamo.

Now this was bloody awkward, and I am not sure that the arm you see at the top should be on that side of the dynamo, but fitting it on the other side seemed less right, and by placing a straight edge from the crank pully and the water pump pully, it seems to be perfectly in-line.

So I will leave it like this until someone says to me, what the f have you done there.

I did go to fit the fan belt, but have bought the wrong one, way too short, so quickly ordered another one.

Thats it pretty much for the day, although I did take the doors off, to make access a little easier into the cab, took the front grill off, again for ease of access, and re-fitted the steering column brackets that I had to remove to align the bulkhead, so all in all, a pretty successful day.

More to come tomorow I hope, maybe even a little video of the engine turning over on the starter, if I can get some charge into an old battery, which will be both exciting and nerveracking at the same time, that is after I have taken on some sustinance, in the form of a full english breakfast with Kim, Caleb and Reuben.

Leave a comment InApril 2026

PK
05/04/2026

Brake Pipes – Part 2

Easter Weekend, and the plan was for a full 4 days on Isobel. But…. Scuppered by the weather again, wasn’t too bad but damp, windy and chilly. So sat indoors Friday and most of Saturday, working on another little project, nothing to do with Isobel, but exciting nevertheless, more news on that when the time is right, ay GV :-).

Anyway, back on topic. This will be a fairly short one. Sometime ago I fitted the brake pipes to each of the 4 wheels, and more recently fitted the pedals, including Brake and Clutch with new master cylinders and for the clutch a new slave cylinder.

So, its time to start mopping up some of the jobs that have been playing on my mind for some time.

So started connecting the clutch master cylinder to the salve, this required a small bracket being attached to the bulkhead, and a flexible pipe from the bracket down to the slave cylinder.

The bracket was pop riveted to the bulkhead.

Then gently bent (using round pipes of various diameter) the copper pipe from the bracket to the Front port on the Master Cylinder.

This will carry, hopefully, brake fluid to the clutch.

Then onto the Brake pipe from the master cylinder to the fluid reservoir. I kept all the old pipes, so used them as a pattern. I checked online for the correct routing, and this seems the best, most common, and in any case, I had already started bending the pipe’s a while ago.

Now the observant among you, will notice this pipe goes to the front port as well!

This had me stumped at first, as I assumed it would be the same for both cylinders, BUT, its not. The Clutch cylinder is a AC type, the Brake is a CB type, which is more original, but an older design.

Anyway, I am pretty sure its right.

Fast forward, I thought I took more pictures, but seems not.

In this picture, is also the pipe from the clutch cylinder to the reservoir tank, and also the brake pipe that goes down to the 4 way connector located on the chassis. This was added when I did all the pipes.

I think it looks pretty good, all the pipes have nice bends, they are out of the way, and “think” attached properly.

Next part on the brakes of course will be the brake pads and new brake drums, but dont plan on doing that until later, and as such cannot start adding fluid just yet. That also poses me the next big challenge with all this. Setting it all up, and then of course bleeding the brakes, which by all accounts is a right dog to do, especially with the CB type brake master cylinder. Will worry about that when Isobel can actually move under her own steam.

And that, leads nicely onto the next chapter in this saga.

Leave a comment InApril 2026

PK
22/03/2026

March 2026 – Bulkhead and Tub Fitting

The last time I wrote about Isobel, was back in December 2025, where I talked about the Propshafts and some other bits and pieces. So lets catch up on that first. Propshafts, well I started fitting the new UJ’s, but ran into a frustrating problem. When I got them in on one prop, the UJ’s went really tight, I’m not entirely sure why so have parked that job for now, until I top up my UJ stock, and will probably pay my Nephew Lee a visit so he can oversee what I do.

OK, so onto March 2026. I have been staring longingly down the bottom of the garden where Isobel is, week after week, frustrated that the weather has been absolutely crap, and loads of other things going on meaning I had to postpone anymore work until now. But, weather has turned (for now), and other things are on the back burner for now so cracked on with the next jobs.

My plan (Ha, not sure what revision I’m on), is to fit the tub, align the bulkhead and then move onto adding all the other bits to the bulkhead to finally try and get the engine started.

Apparently, which does make sense, is to start at the back of the Land Rover, fixing the back of the tub to the Chassis. Its done this way, as that is an immovable position, and sets the position of the tub.

10 Bolts, with star washers on the back secure the Tub to the chassis. (I actually did this over Christmas).

When they are on, the tub is pretty much in its fixed position. The only adjustment is at the front of the tub, which has a little up and down movement but not much, and another thing to consider is the tub supports, which are intended to sit on the chassis, so not a lot of movement available.

The image on the left, you can see 2 of the supports, and the image on the right, the underneath of the tub with the rubber pads fixed which need to sit on these supports. Bolting up the rear of the tub, these pads sat perfectly on the supports.

The next part then is to fix tub to the 2 front supports, now this is where it got a bit interesting. Before I moved onto that, I did make sure that the tub was square, and checked the alignment with the bulkhead.

To do this, the way is to run a string line from the back upto and around the bulkhead, making sure it sits comfortably in the top of the curved section. I did this all the way around, down one side, across the front and back up the other side.

It works surprisingly well. It did show me that the tub needed to be pulled to one side a little.

Did that by using a ratchet strap to pull the tub slightly sideways, until the string line sat correct.

You can see the front tub fixing points in this image, on the front outrigger.

If you have been following this blog, then you will know that I had some repairs to do to the tub where it attaches to those supports.

I did fix it, and drilled the holes where I thought they should go.

Perhaps I should have waited, because they were in the wrong place so had to be re-drilled to match the chassis supports.

Another thing, apparently, is that it is normal to have to put shims between the Tub and these brackets. I did buy a few on my last order, but when I looked at the gaps, I didn’t have enough, there was almost a 15mm gap between the tub and the bracket on one side, and 5 (ish) mm on the other side. Didn’t have enough, so made some more out of slightly thicker aluminium.

The only really difficult part about this, apart from when I repaired the tub I used pop rivets, and one was in the way, and the holes being in the wrong place, was the space between Isobel and the workshop. Being a tad larger than I perhaps should be, it was a really tight squeeze to get the wheel off, and even harder to get it back on, which needed to happen so I could get under the wheel arch.

With the tub now in position, it was time to line up the bulkhead. Now, the gap between the tub and the bulkhead apparently needs to be 34 3/4″. I have read a variety of dimensions, some as low as 34″, but measuring the door’s 34 3/4″ seemed right.

To get this gap, I needed to add a spacer washer between the bulkhead and the chassis to push the bulkhead forward a little.

Not wanting it to drop completely, supported it with a ratchet strap and jack, while I eased in a spacer washer.

I might have to come back to this later, as while I got really close to the gap, it was a little tight.

With the bottom spaced, very nearly correct, it was then just a case of adjusting the top.

Using yet another ratchet strap, I pulled the top of the bulkhead back, until I had the same gap measurement. Then continued to fix all the brackets in the engine bay to hold the bulkhead in position. (no pics of that, sorry).

To check it all before tightening everything up, I did actually hang both doors, to make sure it was close enough and gave me pretty even gaps all round. (I dont think this picture does it justice, the gap were pretty parallel both sides).

The reason I said I might need to adjust the bulkhead a little more, the passenger door, had tiny bit less door gap. I think the bulkhead needs to go forward about another 1/16th” or 1/8th”.

So thats the tub fixed, the bulkhead pretty much in the right place, and I now feel confident that I can crack on with all the bulkhead and engine bay accessories, so that will be the next job.

To finish off, a couple of other bits I did.

While I was looking for the shims, that I had put away in a safe place, I thought I would add the windscreen locking fixtures and the Air conditioning vent brackets and vents.

Also, over Christmas, I wasn’t totally idle. Apart from the propshafts I mentioned earlier, I also thought I would glaze the windscreen.

This was a pretty simple process. Stick some butyl tape around the frame, cut off excess and position the glass, pressing it home firmly, but not enough to break it. Finally, screw in the aluminium edging to hold it firmly in-place. I did actually add some more gunk (Cant remember what it was now), around the edge of the glass to make sure it was sealed properly. I wont add the windscreen to Isobel just yet, dont want to risk breaking the glass (as pretty sure its the original glass, from 60 years ago), and in any case not sure it will fit under the car port.

Thats it for now, will see what the weather does over the coming couple of weeks to see if I can carry on, as its all outside work now.

2 Comments InPart 10.1 - Tub and Bulkhead Fitting

PK
01/01/2026

December 2025

Its been a while sincle my last post, back in September 2025, when I completed the engine build. Since then, I;ve beemn busy doing lots of other stuff in and around the house, my wife, brother and sister in-law took a short break in the New Forest, and more recently, prepared for Christmas. All the time thinking about Isobel and what I should be doing. Took a couple of weeks off over Christmas, with the plan to crack on, which I did.

This one then is a bit of a mix of topics, as I spent alot of time doing stuff I dont really need to get done, partly becuase I was short of a few parts, but also becuase I dont do cold very well, so here goes.. A bit of mix and match.

Engine and Gearbox

My last post was completing the engine re-build and getting it and the gearbox, along wiht a new clutch into the chassis. One thing I did forget was to grease the bush in the flywheel and also the clutch withdrawel mechanisum. So, first job was to remove the gearbox and grease those parts up.

Next, was to put the bulkhead onm which I did manage to get done although with some difficulty, as I did it on my own with the engine crane. Anyway, all on and loosly bolted up.

Before the bulkhead went on, and before my break, I did install the peddles along wiht the master brake and clutch cylinders. Another little error here, I had to correct, I had the wrong master cylinders on the wrong peddles, no idea why I did that, but I did. Swapped them over, so all good now.

Now I have the bulhead on, I can move the land rover back in its car port a bit futther. to do this I put the tub onto the chassis, and just could no resist the tempation to all a little of the galv cappings and try the tailgate on. Only did the corner cappings.

The next obvious thing would be to bolt the tub onto the chassis and line it up, but didnt have enough of the right size bolts, so parked that bit for a while. The tub needs to be put on, lined up before the bulkhead can be fully tightened, and probably want to do this before adding too much else right now, so needed something else to focus on.

Propshafts

A couple of things have been tucked up in the corner of the workshop I’ve been avoiding for a while are the two propshafts. So decided to start restoring them.

This one, has been cleaned up a bit, they were both way more crusty than this, and took a while to wire wheel them clean.

After cleaning then up as much as I could time to take out the old Universal Joints. I tried with a socket and hammer, no luck, so got my borrowed press out. Even with this, it was not easy, kept adding pressure until a couple of them went BANG! as they finally released from the casings. Oh, yes I did take out the circlips before I tried 😉

Anyway, same as before, pressed it as far as it would go, took the roller bearing cap off and then pressed it back the other way.

Finally got all 4 out.

Somehting I did learn before I did this was that they all need to be kept in the same orientation, to maintain as much as possible the balance, so used a little masking take as in the picture, but also stamped the shafts and ends so they can all go back together in exaclty the same way as they came apart.

Went on to then clean the up properly, and got a coat of hammerite – direct to rust black paint.

Cant finish them as dont have the new UJ’s, s onto something else. How about putting some stuff onto the front grill?

Bolted my new, rather expensive radiator on, added the strip across the top with little rivets (Not sure I got these round the right way, but happy with how it looks) and bolted on the bonnet release machnisum.

So thats now reay to go onto the chassis and be plumbed in for when I try to start the engine.

Something I noticed a while ago, but had’nt really thought too much about it was the door stops. Basically its a bar that is located in the bulkhead and attaches to the door, to stop it flying fully open. When I got the Land rover, this never seemed quite right, so investigated.. and this is what I found.

The image on the left and the middle one are actually series 2a doors. The right image is a later series 2a or series 3 door. As can be seen, the door stop mechanisum is a little different. So what do have, I have a series 2a bulkhead and what looks like later or series 3 doors. So I need a way to use the door stops with my seemingly wrong doors! Now, you can buy an adapter for series 3 doors to work with series 2 stops, but while not stupidly expensive, still looking at £30 – £40 for the two, and I have plenty of other stuff to buy, as I will mention later.

So, I decided to have a go at making some… Bit of 2mm steel sheet, and cardboard template and a little bit of fabrication, I did. Not painted yet, and not finally riveted in, but I think they will work just fine.

You can also see the check strap in the last image, this, as was everthing on this Landy, very crusty, so out came my zinc plating kit and I zinc plated these, and also some other bits an bobs.

ONe of the other bits I plated was a part of the windscreen locking brackets. Now, when I had the galvanising done, I sent this part also, but didnt realise that a rivet that holds the screw part was aluminium. During gavanizing, which is done at I think 400 degrees, the rivet melted and I lost the screw part!. Cant buy these, and didnt think I could make one, so bought a couple of old parts, took the screw bar off and bought a couple of the rivets. The new/old parts were rust and crudy, so zinc plated them aswell.

Waht I started with, how I riveted them back together, and what i ended up with.

To finish this one up, I have mentioned a few times, Didnt have this or that, all this meant that I placed 3 orders woth my 3 favorite suppliers and bought lots and lots of new bits, including loads of nuts, bolts, wahsers, Propshaft UJ’s, sealer for the windscreen, seals for the rear door / tailgate plus lots of other bits.

Big downside, none of it will turn up until I’m back at work, so will have to continue messing around other bits until I can get some more free time.

Engine Build Completed

The last post was all about the carburettor, and while not entirely straight forward was completed, prior to that I wrote about the final engine build parts, which were not totally completed. I also mentioned that I had a bit of an issue with the manifold’s. So thats where this one pretty much starts.

Before I start with that, I decide to put the Engine into the chassis, for 2 reasons, 1 clear out the workshop a little, getting a little crowded in there, and 2, will be easier to add the other parts.

So employed a little help from Dan and Alysda, although wasn’t expecting the posing, I only wanted a simple picture.

Was very grateful for the help.

With the engine in, 1st addition was going to be the manifolds, Exhaust and Inlet. This is where things started to go a little wrong, in fact, it was a weekend of things going a little wrong. 1st up, totally my mistake and demonstrated perfectly my lack of knowledge, I put the manifold studs in wrong way round, and spent ages trying to figure out why it wasn’t working. turns out, the short threaded part goes into the head, not the long. stupid mistake. Took the studs out, and because i had messed a few up replaced them with bolts, which all went in perfectly.

I torqued up all the bolts, no issue and then went to torque up the nuts on the studs that hold the Inlet Manifold onto the exhaust Manifold. this is where it continued to go wrong, 1,2,3 all good, number 4, humm, feels a little odd, and doesnt feel like its tightening up.

SNAP…. the f’ing stud sheared off.

Oh, crap was my first thought, how the hell am I going to sort this out the next thought, and then came the bright idea. Cut them all off, drill them out and re-tap the holes and put new studs in.

So I did!

Cut them all off, drilled the old studs out on the pillar drill and re-tapped the holes.

Got some new studs and put them in.

Now they weren’t perfectly straight, but good enough to put the Inlet manifold on.

So, went to tighten them up, and 1,2 & 3 fine, number 4 however didn’t like it, it stripped the thread in the manifold..

It was at this point I was thinking, OK, so I dont have the skills or tools to do this properly, but what I can do, is spend money (like it’s going out of fashion), and bough a new Exhaust manifold and some new studs.

Long story short, got the new studs on, joined up the manifolds, put new studs (the correct way around this time) into the head and put the manifolds on, with a new gasket. torqued it all up and finally….. its done.

The next thing to go in is the Distributor.

This should be really easy, just slide it into the hole Shown in this picture ->

BUT! you can just about see it, there is a cork gasket that sits in a recess, that the distributor slides through, except it doesn’t, it is super tight and took a bit of gentle sanding, some silicone grease to finally get it in and seated properly.

Lets block up some more holes in the engine!

Spark plugs, with the gaps set according to the book to 0.8 mm.

And then finally new points and rotor arm, but forgot to order a new condenser and disti cap, so they will go on later.

Used the old cap, and fitted the HT leads.

Thats the engine in, all fitted out with the important stuff, including the starter motor. One thing left to go on, and thats the Dynamo, need to figure out exactly how the brackets fit together as its not entirely obvious. Hopefully, Mine and Kims trip to Amberly Museum, to a land Rover show will give me the opportunity to see some finished engine’s so I can take loads of reference pictures for stuff like this.

Talking of museum’s and a little side topic, took my wheels to beaulieu, Vintage Tyres who fitted some new Avon Traction Master 7.00 X 16 102/100L tyres. as close to original as I think is possible these days.

Bit taller than the 6.00’s that the Land Rover might have come out of the factury with, but still a standard size..

Tyre choice is a topic in its own right, so might write about that separately.

Back to the engine, well actually the Gearbox. Decided to put this on, now I have 4 wheels again and can move Isobel to where I can get the hoist into.

Started with the new Clutch, using a piece of dowel, exactly the right size to keep the clutch plate lined up while I bolted on the clutch plate cover.

Using the Hoist, and again some help, got the Gearbox lined up and attached to the engine. Really pleased with the way it look, just hoping it all works as good as it looks.

A couple of bits to finish off, gearbox mounts to be properly bolted up, a few more nuts and bolts to hold the gearbox in the engine, oh, and take the gearbox back off, as I forgot, in the excitement of getting it on to grease up some of the clutch mechanism. That should be relatively easy, but will need to wait for next weekend.

Getting closer to the real test of all this work, and thats seeing if I can get the engine started. Before I do that, will be building up the Bulkhead with pedals, and some other bits before that goes back on and then should have everything needed for that attempt at starting it, exciting, but something I’m extremely nervous about.

I think from now on, these posts rather than being topic based, which is what I’ve tried to do, they will be more about the process, i.e. as things happen, we’ll see.