The last time I was stripping down the gearbox, more specifically the Transfer Case and Front Output Shaft housing. I was faced with a snapped bolt that is supposed to hold the 4WD lever.
I mentioned what I would try, which was to try a bolt extractor, which I did, and which didn’t work, it made no impact on the bolt all.
Next option was to drill the old bolt out and re-tap it. By this time I had the new bolt which just happened to have 1/4″ Whitworth thread. Oh crap, another new tool needed.
Anyway, the upshot is, that by carefully drilling out the old, and re-tapping the hole until the new bolt went all the way home, It is now sorted.
Before starting to put things together, bit of evening work to clean up some parts and get them painted.
Onto the re-assembly. the first thing to address is the Speedo housing.
The Speedo housing is pretty simple, cleaned it all up, fitted a new ‘O’ and put it all together.
The speedo housing needs to be fitted to the Transfer case before anything else, as this sets the pre-load on the Output shaft. To set this, according to the green bible you put the speedo housing on, without any shims (see pics below) and gently tighten, until the pre-load is set to between 2 and 4 ft lb
These two pictures show the shims that sit between the speedo housing and the transfer case, and the method for measuring the pre-load. (I thought I had taken a picture of this, but seems I didn’t).
On the left, these are the shims.
Because I didn’t change any bearings, I assumed it would be good with the same number of shims. Not the case, had almost no resistance.
Adjusted the shims by removing one, which gave me the correct readings.
The method (from the green bible). Basically you wrap a cord around the Low/High selector wheel and pull it with a fish scale.
On this, the green bible says to wrap the cord around the selector, however when I watched various videos on how to do this, they wrapped the cord around the smaller gear. I ended up with just over 2lb ft around the selector, and just below 4 lb ft on the small gear, so as far as I can tell, all good.
I then, although I didn’t need to, put the intermediate gear back in. There is also a measurement to be taken here also.
I probably should have remembered to put the Low/High selector in before I did this, so had to take it back out to get the selector in.
This is the selector in the right place, ready for the selector shafts to be inserted.
Next up is to position the 3 shafts into the output housing, being careful to ensure that the coupling is positioned correctly. Also remembering to put the 4wd locking dog in.
This is the coupling and shafts.
Once they are in, its simply a case of offering the whole thing upto the transfer case, and bolting it all up. Well, easier said than done. Firstly, there is a big spring in there keeping the two parts apart, secondly we need to put the Front Output shaft in, and locate it into the 4WD locking dog, as well as putting a gasket between the two cases and not breaking it and finally locating the selector shaft through the selector.
Did a dry run first, before adding the gasket, also to make sure that it all seemed to work before committing.
Once it was all in, bolted it up and tested the selector shafts again. I’m pretty sure they are all working as they should, selecting low/high range and the 4WD selector kicking in when it should.
Fitted the rear output flange, and handbrake back plate, and finished off the front with the forward flange, the 4WD selector lever and the dust cover for the shafts. Also put the Low/High lever in position and tried on the new 4WD lever.
Put the bottom cover plate back on the transfer case, just to keep it safe and all together as this will need to come off later, and the intermediate gear out again when its attached to the main gearbox.
Everything tested ok, I guess I will only know if its completely right when it is put into use for the first time. The only thing I might change is to get a new 4WD pin, the old one is a little cruddy, and a little tight in the hole, no big deal, easy enough to change later, and not expensive.
So thats the Front output housing and transfer box pretty much sorted. What I should have mentioned was that I changed all the seals, just in case. Next job, onto the main gearbox.
After being distracted by other bits and pieces recently, finally got back to the Gearbox. As with all things, it all starts by stripping it down. The whole gearbox assembly is basically in 3 parts, Main Gearbox, Transfer Box, which houses the Low/High selector and transfers the Gearbox output to the Front Output Shaft Housing, , which contains the mechanism to select between 2 and 4 wheel drive.
First decision for me was whats the goal of doing this? I’m no Gearbox expert, in fact I have never stripped down, let alone re-built a gearbox before, Oh, apart from one on a RC car, not the same I think. All I want to achieve is firstly clean it all up, make sure all the gears and internal workings look in good condition and bearings have no excess play. The only parts I plan on replacing are the Gaskets and Seals, that is unless other issues become obvious. The other thing to do will be to check the various tolerances, end float, pre-load etc. Will cover that when I put it all back together.
First job is to separate the Main Gearbox from the Transfer Box. To do this, there are a number of bolts on the outside, but also 3 I think, inside the Transfer Box. To get to these, remove the bottom plate (after emptying the Oil), and remove the pin that holds the Intermediate gear in-place. (thats the gear in the picture on the left, in the middle of the box). The inside bolts can now be undone.
I jumped ahead a little in this write up, in fact I jumped ahead a little in the strip down. The Picture on the right, the rear of the Transfer Box, and shows the Handbrake mechanism. This all has to come off, and the bolt in the middle is tight and attached to a shaft that rotates. Afterwards I read that the best way to undo this is to lock up the gearbox by manually selecting 2 gears at the same time. I didn’t do this, I ended putting a bar on the other end wedged between the prop shaft bolts while I got this bolt loose. Not ideal, but it worked ok. No more pictures of this part, I was getting frustrated and irritated. Also behind the handbrake, is the speedo casing, no pictures of that either at this stage.
This is the other end of the Front Output Shaft Housing, and you can see the 4 shafts, one is the Low/High selector (top one with the bolt on) the two to the left of that are for the 2/4 wheel drive selector shafts.
The bottom one, is the front wheel drive shaft.
This was all separated from the transfer box, allowing all the inner workings to drop out, well nearly, a couple of other bits from the top of the transfer box had to be removed first (the bolt holding the selector fork and a plunger for transfer selector shaft, sorry, no pics of those either, will get some when they get put back together).
To get a better idea of whats inside this box, here is the inner workings from the parts catalogue.
Next job was to inspect all the gears that came out (not shown above) and bearings, which seem to all be pretty good, no play in the bearings, now obvious signs of wear on the gears or bearings. So set about cleaning up the cases and a creating a list of all the bits I will replace.
Before that however, I have one problem to sort out. When stripping down and recklessly removing bolts, without paying much attention, one of them snapped.
You can see it just under the drill bit, and the remains of the bolt towards the bottom of the picture.
This is a special bolt thats supports the 4WD selector leaver, so it has to be fixed.
I drilled a small pilot hole, and tried to wind in a bolt extractor to un-screw it. Didn’t have the right size drill, so will need to finish this when I get some new drill bits. Will drill a hole in the bolt remains, and with a bit of heat and an extractor try and wind it out. If that doesn’t work, will have to try and drill all the bolt out and re-tap the hole, but I think this is a whitworth bolt, so that will need the purchase of a whitworth Tap.
Onto the clean, this took a while, the cases were covered in caked on old solidified oil, grease and muck.
Wire brushes, soft brushes, de-greaser and elbow grease got them looking pretty good.
The part in the image is the Transfer Case and as you can clearly see I didn’t take it completely apart, didn’t feel the need, as mentioned before, bearings all felt really solid so no need to make work for something that will go back exactly as it came out.
Before the whole thing get put back together, I tried the shafts, just to make sure they were all ok, and more importantly, make sure I understand exactly where they need to go.
Its all pretty simple really, on the images above the middle on, you can just see the selector is off the splines, this allows the rear output shaft to turn without the font turning. In the last picture, you can see the shuttle has been pulled over the splines, hence locking the front output shaft to the rear, i.e. 4 WD. simples! The Low High, is actually in the transfer box part and cant be seen. Will get some pics of that when it goes back together.
All the parts, cleaned, sorted ready to go when I get my latest parts order, which consists of some special bolts, replacement ‘O’ rings and seals.
You can see the fork (Sitting on top) for the Low/High selector, which goes in that space in the hole underneath it, and bolts onto the low/high selector shaft.
The final part, is the Speedo housing and components, which also got a bit of a clean up and a list of bits needed.
The next step is to put it all back together, after fixing the broken bolt, checking tolerances, get a few covers and levers painted and after my parts orders arrive, hopefully during the week ready for the weekend. (Yes orders! couldn’t get all I wanted from one place, so had to bite the bullet on shipping charges, really annoying and not helping the budget at all).
Thats it for now, hopefully next update next weekend if all goes to plan, But! based on previous experience, that is highly unlikely, but no harm in trying.
Oh, one more thing thats been done, not by me, but a local firm is all of the body capping’s, windscreen frame, spare wheel bonnet support and lots and lots of other old galvanized parts have gone off for proper blasting and cleaning, ready to be dropped off at another company to be Hot Dipped Galvanized, more on that later.
If you have read the first couple of articles about when Isobel arrived, you might remember that when I took a look inside, to somewhat of a shock, I noticed that all three gear levers were missing. Since then, its been playing on my mind, mostly because to source a period correct main lever, people are asking lots of money. I saw one at a Land Rover spares day early on in my journey with Isobel, when I asked how much, had I been sat down, would have nearly fallen off my chair, £140 he was asking for.
As it happened, I didn’t buy that one, thankfully, but did buy one that was not 100% correct, the knob was a push on one as opposed to screw on and the ball at the end of the gearstick didn’t have the ‘O’ ring.
Just for reference, this is the drawing of the main gearlever from the parts book.
Also, the one I bought didn’t have the inner workings.
I have been keeping an eye out for all 3 levers ever since, as was not happy with the one I bought. Finally, and patience is a virtue, I found one being advertised on FB marketplace, and not only the main gearlever, they also had the Low/High lever, both at reasonable prices, so made them and offer for both, which they accepted, thats 2 out of 3.
Soon after, I saw a 4WD lever being advertised, again at a sensible price, so bought that one also. Fantastic, I now have all three gear levers, and all for less than the guy at the LR Spares Day was asking for. So I set about tidying them up. Not much else to say, other than here are the before and after pictures. they are all wrapped up and stored for later.
Now for those uneducated in Land rover Gears, as I am! here is a brief “very simple” explanation of why there are 3.
Main Gear Lever
Has a Black knob, and us used for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and Reverse gear selection
Low/High range
Has a Red Knob, ( don’t have one yet) and allows the gearbox to be switched between High and Low Ranges, in effect increasing the number of gears to, well, here’s the end of my knowledge, I assume to 10 gears. 5 in High Range, 5 in Low Range. Now I dont actually know if Low High also applies to reverse! Will find out later I guess.
4WD lever
Yellow knob, allows the drive to be put into 4 wheel drive. The normal position is rear wheel drive only, only when off road should 4 wheel drive be selected. Again, will learn more when I get to drive it.
Not a very exciting one this time, but necessary, nevertheless. I had high hopes for progress over the Christmas break, but didn’t actually get anywhere as much done as I had hoped, and didn’t even touch the bit I planned to work on, the Gearbox.
Anyway, did get some stuff done and one of those things was the Pedal assemblies. First, needed to disassemble the pedal boxes, all fairly straight forward but one bit had me stumped for a while until I managed to borrow a Hydraulic 12 Ton press.
This is the drawing from the parts book. the bits highlighted in red are what holds the pedal in the pedal box. There is a shaft (23) that sits inside two brass bushes (20). the shaft is held in-place with a pin (24) that locates through the shaft and the pedal box.
On my brake pedal assembly, the whole pedal was seized tight, and it was these parts that clearly had seized together and needed replacing.
Decided to do both pedals.
Managed to get an order in just after Christmas, after I realised I wouldn’t get to the Gearbox as planned, which, fortunately was delivered soon after.
The image on the left shows the pin (Holes) and on the right the shaft being pressed out, using sockets and upside down bolt to press it all the way out.
With everything in bits, as well as the accelerator parts, off to the blast cabinet, for nearly a day and half of sand blasting to clean it all up, ready for some paint.
I did spend some more time cleaning them up a little more and degreasing them before priming with Anti-Rust primer.
Clearly, making sure all the areas not to be painted were masked off first.
2 coats of primer, and 2 coats of Gloss black later. Oh, and all these parts hanging up around the house to keep them warm when they dried.
So onto assembly. To start with, the Accelerator assemblies. Now, I’m not putting these onto the Land Rover yet, will wait for the weather to be a little drier & warmer before I do that, but can lay them all out to make sure its all there. Also sorted out all the Nuts and Bolts I need when I do come to fit it all.
The Brake and Clutch pedals are pretty much the same, and again, will assemble them and then store them for when I do fit.
The brass bushes I mentioned earlier, according to the Official Land Rover Green Manual (I have just ordered one, to save me having to constantly read a pdf on my iPad) says they should be reamed to .750in. Now one of them , the bushes went onto the shaft and felt really nice, not tight, not too loose, and went ahead and re-assembled that pedal assembly. The other one, when it all went together, was too tight, so that one will need to be reamed, new tool (Adjustable reamer) ordered, so that will have to wait to be fully assembled until I have that and can get back down to the workshop.
I also noticed the some of the bolts that hold the pedal box to the bulkhead were not screwing in great, so spent some more cash and purchased a cheap UNF/UNC tap and die set. I’m sure that will come in useful later.
Little bit of a clean up of the threads sorted that, and they are all now perfect.
Thats it pretty much, not what I had planned, but all jobs that need doing and easier to achieve, even when you do have Man Flu for much of the time after Christmas.
Hoping you had a good Christmas and Happy New Year. Talking of New year, it was always hoped to get Isobel on the road before her 60th Birthday on the 1st November 2025. My feeling is that its going to be tight, as such am now thinking Summer of 2026 is probably more realistic, but, we will “keep on keeping on” a quote from a great Winston Churchill film “Darkest Hour” if I remember correctly.
The next part was going to be the Gearbox and Engine, and thats still true, I have started to strip down the Gearbox, and so far that looks pretty good. But have been side tracked onto keeping the wife sweet, and promised to do some decorating before Christmas, so the Gearbox will have to wait. But that doesn’t stop me working on some of the smaller jobs, like some of the electrical accessories. Namely the Windscreen Wiper motors (Lucas type), the Indicator stalk (Magna Tex) and the Headlight dip switch.
I will cover each of these off in separate sections, so lets start with the easy one, the Tex Magna indicator stalk. First off some pictures and the insides before I started work.
Tex Magna Indicator Switch
In the images above, left to right, the unit as it came off the Land Rover, not pretty, painted case, worn cables, rusty bracket. The next is the inside, showing the switch, and the remains of a bulb, which I have to say took me a while to figure out what it was! The last image shows the rubber surrounded wheel, which had started to disintegrate. This wheel runs on the outer case of the steering wheel, so when to centralise the steering, it rotates this wheel, turning off thee indicator. Simple but effective.
Before going too far, tested the switch, which worked, but worked even better after a spray with some switch cleaner.
First thing, get the case (shown is the headlight dip switch also) off to JC Vapour blasting for some gentle, but very effective cleaning.
What a fantastic job he did, they came back looking amazing.
Next, dig out the old rubber wheel, and replace with a new one. Apparently, the way to do this is to drill out the rivets (you can just about see them on the top), separate the two parts, put the new rubber in and use bolts, nuts or screws to re-attach them. I didn’t do that! I cut the rubber wheel, in line with each of the rivets, and gently eased the rubber into the gap. Worked perfectly, with no damage to the actual wheel.
Cleaned up the bracket and painted them a nice shiny gloss black, re-assembled and re-wrapped the cable with a cloth wrap. Not exactly the same as original, but pretty close.
Fitted a new bulb also. Job done, cant wait to get it back on the Land Rover, but for now, will be stored away nice and safe, and importantly somewhere I can remember where I put it.
Headlight Dip Switch
This switch was not really working very well, and wanted it cleaned up in any case so I set about, rather roughly taking it apart. Its much easier to know how to take something apart properly, after you have done it once, and broken it! The black bit, with the connectors on, I broke into many many small pieces.
With these 2 images, you can work out how it works, you press the button on the top, which rotates the star piece (Right image) which in turn rotates the two parts at the bottom of the top image, which switches between the three connectors on the black base. Sorry, really crap explanation!
Finally got it back together, although the vapour blasting did cause a slight issue (another lesson learned) it came back full of cleaning material, my mistake not Josh’ from JC vapour blasting. The damaged black connector base, I glued all the little bits back together with JB weld, sanded it and painted it. You will never know I broke it. So how should I have taken it apart, well there are two bits of metal tube to “rivet” the case and black base together, that are rolled over, I should have taken the top of these of before trying to force the black base out, hey ho, I know for next time 😉
Anyway, I got all the cleaning material out, fixed the base, cleaned all the contacts, sprayed it with a clear lacquer, so thats also ready to be fitted later.
Lucas Wiper Motors
Now this is the interesting part, my Land Rover has two, separate wiper motors, which if you look on eBay are being sold for stupid money, £200+ each.
So, lets get to it. The images below show what I had to work with. 1st issue, neither of them actually worked, and it soon became obvious why.. Seized up, rust and lots of almost solid grease. Fortunately, after taking them apart, I tested the motors and they both worked, so they are good, as such, they are both serviceable.
Looks a mess!Rotten and RustedGrime and dirtSolid greaseMore solid greaseNo wonder they didn’t work
So, here we have both of the motors, in their component parts, lots and lots of parts.
All were degreased, cleaned and inspected to see what needed to be replaced.
Spent some more money and ordered a service kit for all the bits that need replacing.
As with the Indicator stalk, the cases were vapour blasted, inside and out and they came out perfectly.
The internal wiring needed some attention, so renewed with new connectors and insulating block
Cleaned all the internal contacts, internal cases and added some lubricant to the brass bit in the middle (that supports the motor shaft).
Re-assembled the gearing after a good clean and some fresh grease.
And you can just see the front part of the casing, which I painted gloss black.
I applied a clear lacquer to the rear of the case, new gasket and new stainless steel components and seals for the front.
New connectors and there we have it, or them, two beautiful wiper motors, that in my opinion look amazing, and importantly as you can see below, 2 working Lucas FW2 Wiper motors.
So, thats three important items ready to go, but all will be stored until they can be fitted.
Now on the electrical side, something all of these things need, is to be connected up to the main wiring.
The wiring loom on the vehicle, was basically falling apart, and had lots of non-standard modifications.
So waiting in the wings, is a brand new Autosparks wiring loom, ready and waiting to get fitted.
Also, latest news, for my upcoming birthday, a new set of side, indicator and rear / brake lights are on order from Emberton Imperial.
Thanks Kim.. Exciting times to come, perhaps more for me than Kim.
That will pretty much be it now until the New Year, stuff will be done, namely the Gearbox, but not much else completed to write about.
Just a sneak preview to whats going on with the Gearbox.
Never, ever have I done anything like a gearbox before! Wish me luck.
SelectorsTransfer Box4WD / Low High Selectors
I have a decent break over Christmas, so assuming I dont drink and eat too much, much much more to come in the New year. Now this is important because the plan was to get Isobel on the road in 2025 for her 60th Birthday. Its going to be tight.
Until then, have a great Christmas and Happy New Year, and thank you for being patient with my sometimes long, miss-spelt, rambling posts.
OK, so a rather short one this time. I was going to wait, but there is lots going on and hopefully lots to write up in the very near future, so thought I would get this one out of the way.
Last time I re-fitted a new front axle case and added all the brake cylinders for each of the wheels, this time I fitted the brake pipes. So, need to get my wallet out again and buy some new parts. This is a snapshot of what I got. I am staggered each time I buy parts, whether new or second-hand, the smallest parts are stupidly priced for what they seem to be!
I didn’t buy everything new, there are two brass connectors, this one (The cruddy looking one) shows one (the clean one I didn’t actually need) and another which is a 5-way connector. I cleaned these up and treated them to a bit of etching clear coat to keep them looking good.
What I did buy, was a complete set of pre-made pipes. I dont have the tools to do brake pipes, and didn’t fancy spending more on tools I will never use again. (I Hope).
I also had to recover a part from the old chassis, the little bracket that holds the 5-way connector in position. I cut the screws off, salvaged the part, cleaned it and painted it. So talking about price of things, to buy a new one of these, which is just a piece of bent metal with a couple of holes in, more than £13.00. Now thats not a lot on its own, but it adds up, and for a simple piece of metal, that I could probably make myself.
First off was to get the pipes across the back axle. A 3-way connector was bolted to the axle case and gently routed the pipes from the connector to each of the wheels, using P-clips and grommets to support them as necessary.
My only slight disappointment with the pre-made pipes was that the right hand one, seemed a little too long, so had to make a, what seems like an unnecessary S bend in it.
Next up, fix the 5-way bracket to the chassis, using the old chassis as a reference as to where to put it. Gently bent and shaped the front right pipe, and got that connected up. Bending them is pretty easy, just need to be super careful not to kink them.
Routed the next pipe to the rear axle, which was pretty easy. Added a number of clips to hold it firm on top of the chassis. Oh, here’s another thing that pissed me off, the price of these little clips, nearly £3 each!
Final part was the left front, or Near side front. this one needs to head off towards the back, from the 5-way connector and then along the gearbox support up the other side and then to the front wheel. First time I did this, had it routed really nicely, but it was short!
Had to re-do it, which meant more small holes in the chassis (not ideal) and it not being as I would like it.
Ran out of time, so will come back to this and tidy the routing up a little. (you can just about see the pipes, not looking ideal).
Thats it, said it would be a short one. There are loads of other bits I have been doing, so will write those up as soon as they are finished (just waiting for some bits to come back to me, will be clearer about that when I do finish them).
All this effort is focused on clearing the decks of as many small, outstanding jobs as possible so I can start on the last (hopefully) big jobs, Gearbox and Engine.
Last time I had spent lots of time repairing, preparing and painting the body panels, which the majority of them are now located in a spare room in the house….
This time, it;s all about taking another look at the Front Axle. If you read previous articles, you will know that the half shaft on the Near side front would not go in properly, without effort, and even when it was in it became stiff. Clearly that is not right. So I took another look.
First thing was to take it off Isobel, and strip it down.
I then need to work out if is actually twisted or bent. So, bolted 2 pieces of wood, exactly the same length to each end (A & C (not sure what happend to B?). I then measured X and Y, in theory they should be the same.
But they were not, they were out by 5/10mm depending on which holes I bolted the battens to. So the conclusion is that the front Axle case is actually bent. Back to the Series 2 club trading place on the forum. “Anyone got a Series 2A front axle case for the 1965 SWB?” Again, it came up trumps, in-fact 2 people came back to me. The second one, didn’t actually have one, but will in a week or 2, so I reserved that one, but at the same time spoke to the first chap and we agreed a price and pickup. (my nephew and his wife were actually visiting family, about a mile away from where this guy was, so they kindly picked it up for me).
Got he Axle back, and tried the Diff, Swivels and importantly the Half shafts, and voila, it all went together perfectly. Only issue was it was for an earlier vehicle, and pretty sure for a 109, but it would work. Just as I was planning to clean it up and paint it, the other chap came back to me “I’ve got one now, and it looks in really good condition, and is the right age and one for my vehicle. So I arranged to go get that one as well. Just so happens, he is the Chairman of the Series 2 Club, which inevitably lead to a long conversation.
So in an attempt to keep this short, Cleaned it up a little (was pretty good anyway), and got it onto Isobel.
This time, rather than doing temporary fix’es of all the bits, did them all properly, Checked the swivels, wheel hub bearings, fitted the brake cylinder and torqued everything up. Including the Springs, which also allowed me to fit the shock absorbers.
Tightening the road springs is not just a case of tightening the bolts, they need to be set to a certain distance from the chassis.
So, with a trolley jack, straps over the chassis, compressed the springs to the right distance before torqueing the bolts up.
Did this on all 4 corners, so the rear was also done at the same time.
finally, and this will test my work, added some oil and grease to the Swivels (One Shot, which is a little thicker than oil, and should help stop oil leaks), and 1.75 Litres of EP 90 in each of the Diffs.
Will check back in a week or so to see if I have any leaks!
So thats the axles all done, finally… Oh, except for one thing, the U-bolt nuts. Which need to be torqued to about 60 lb ft. Did one, and it stripped the thread…. Not too worried, will get a replacement and tighten them over time as the UBolts do (apparently) stretch over time.
While all of this was going on, also got on with a few other bits and pieces. Need to clear the decks of outstanding jobs before starting on the next part.
Seatbox tool tray / battery box. This was rotten, well parts of it, so decided to take the angle grinder to it to cut out the rot. I originally planned to make a new one, but bending steel, even mild steel is not so easy, to get nice straight bends.
But, they do say it’s who you know not what you know. During a small get together at my brother In-laws, was chatting to his brother in-law who has an interest in cars, and showed him Isobel. Just happened to mention my plans for the Seat box tray, at which point he said, I’ve got a bender, you can have it if you would like! Ummm, Yes please, so exchanged it for a nice bottle of red. I cut out the shapes, and set about making replacement parts for the rotten bits.
Not too bad for yet another first, metal fabrication. Off they went to my Nephew Lee, who by the way has just gone out on his own as a Mobile Mechanic, LG Mobile Autos to be welded into whats left of the original box.
Also thought I would paint a few bits that have been sitting around for a while, Battery tray, Handbrake mechanism & Fuel tank. Also set about another tidy up of the workshop.
Nearly forgot, on the front axle, and other places there are a few exposed metal bits not painted. While I have been busy with other stuff, they had started to develop some surface rust. Not a good look, so cleaned them up and sprayed them with a clear, gloss, etch lacquer. Be interesting to see how they fair over the coming weeks.
So thats it for another article, Will be finishing off some of the bits that still need finishing, like fitting the supports to the underside of the rear tub, trying to put in some solid domed rivets on the bonnet to secure the bonnet frame and take another look at the foot pedals, which need a bit of work.
But, the more exciting part will be a new shopping list to allow me to move to the next stage. This will include all of the brake pipes and fittings and also a new wiring loom or rather looms. Both of which need to get done before the rear tub can be put back on the chassis for good.
Again, hope you enjoyed the read, bit all over the place this time, but edging closer and closer to the next big jobs, Gearbox & Transfer box and the Engine.
After working on the bodywork as best I can, its time to put some colour onto Isobel. I previously mentioned I knew what I wanted and where I would get it from. Most of that stayed true, except for 1 thing, the colour. When preparing the bodywork, it was clear there were two tones of green, so which to go for? one of the existing tones, or something new. I knew it would be green, but looking at Paintman Paints, the people I decided to buy the paint from have 26 different tones of green. On the registration documents it just says Bronze Green, so that makes it easy, yes? actually no, there are 2, Mid Bronze Green and Deep Bronze Green, also called Bronze Green and Ascot Green. I thought this part would be easy!!
Mid Bronze GreenDeep Bronze Green
I dont know which one you prefer, but I originally decided on Mid Bronze Green, until I started placing the order when I changed my mind to Deep Bronze Green. I will let you know if I think I made the right decision later in this, rather long article.
So what exactly did I order, well, in terms of money, quite a lot.
3.5 Litres of Light Grey Coach Enamel Primer
3.5 Litres of Green Undercoat
3.5 Litres of Land Rover Deep Bronze Green LRC001. I actually ordered another 2.5 Litres afterwards. Better too much than not enough.
3.5 Litres of Clear Coat (Kind of like a varnish)
2 Litres of Thinners
1 Litre of Prep Clean 2800 (to clean the surface before painting) That was all the paint, but also needed some other bits also.
Scotch bright pads
Various grades of sanding disks for my orbital sander (which I also bought)
600 grit wet and dry
Tack Rags and finally some lint free cloths
Oh, one last thing a new LVLP (Low Volume, Low Pressure spray gun) I got this as I only have a 50Ltr, 14cfm compressor and anything other than a LVLP gun, It will struggle.
Respirator mask (Not my normal dust mask. The reason will be come clear later)
White disposable suite, that made me look like I was cooking up some illicit substance.
So, to plan the work, I watched loads of videos on how to spray a car, some of the best were from Paint Society on Youtube. There were many more but these were the best in my view. Now there is one big challenge with these videos, most if not all focus on modern painting techniques, using 2K paints, which as far as I can tell need some serious safety equipment. I didn’t buy 2K paint, I bought Coach Enamel, and most of the videos covering this type of paint are about painting by hand, which is the traditional way to paint Coach Enamel. I’m not going to paint by hand, I’m seriously not that good with a roller and brush just ask the wife! and certainly not good enough to paint a car, without any brush marks in the paint, which did actually prove to be true!
So armed with a little knowledge, lots of paint and equipment I booked 2 weeks off from work, and started praying to the weather gods for, wait for it, 2 weeks of not too hot, not too cold, not wet, not windy and not too humid weather. What are the chances? Well as it turned out apart from 1 day at the beginning being way too hot and a couple of the days at the end that were wet the weather gods were kind.
1st thing was to get all the panels sorted, lots and lots of sanding, a little bit of filler here and there and more sanding. These panels are never going to be perfectly straight, without more skills than I am never likely to have, so got them the best I could. Started by Etch Priming some of the panels where they had gone back to bare aluminium, put the door skins back on the frames with the help of a little PU sealer and adhesive and put the floor back into the tub with some adhesive and some new rivets.
Just quickly on the rivets front, much to the amusement of some of my newly found Land Rover friends, I bought pretty much a complete set of original rivets! Much more on those in later articles.
Onto the painting. The last car I painted, more than 40 Years ago, on my own was a mk1 ford escort in light blue and it has to be said, it was a disaster. The two previous cars, a Morris Minor and Ford Cortina Mk3 were much better, but then I had my Dad doing it.
So whats the routine, normal modern paints you spray, leave the paint to Flash Off, and then do another coat. With Coach Enamel, not so easy! Paint and then wait a minimum of 24 Hours before the next coat, so the plan will be Paint in the Morning, leave it until the afternoon the next day to sand back and then spray the next coat the morning of the following day. Now each coat, Primer, Undercoat, Topcoat and Clear Coat needs 2 coats of each. Do the math, 2 full days for each coat = 16 Days! thats pretty much my entire 2 weeks holiday accounted for. Will definitely need to make up for this with my family.
Now the other thing they say you need to spray a car, is a clean environment, well ventilated and temperature controlled. What do I have, well a rather large gazebo (8M X 4M). Spraying creates lots and lots of spray dust, well would if you do it properly, so lined the entire thing with plastic decorators sheets, and strategically placed a large fan at one end to try and extract lots of the lovely smelling fumes! Made a hanging thingy (used the same for the chassis) and a bench type thing to spray on.
Because I am spraying, the paint needs thinning. According to Paintman, anything between 5% and 10%, depending! Depending on what? seems everything, temperature, air pressure and and and. So I started at about 5%.
Loaded up the gun, with the Air pressure set to about 25psi cleaned all the panels with Prep Clean and tack clothed each one before painting, and off I go.
Oh, forgot to put the white suite on, didn’t forget after, I had paint dust everywhere!
1st coat on, looks ok but there were issues, the biggest being that it went on a little dry. Once it had dried off for 24 hours, rubbed it down and checked that it had stuck properly. Second coat went on much better after re-watching a number of videos about how to avoid dry paint. Seems there were two issues. Not thinned quite enough and spraying technique, i.e. being too far from the panels, allowing the paint to dry a little before it hits the panel.
5 Days later, its time to apply the undercoat. Exciting, its going to go green! This time I thinned the paint to about 10%, the weather is still perhaps a little warm, which is why the first primer went on a little dry. This worked so much better, but introduced some other issues.
One of the issues was that more paint went onto the panels. Thats a good thing, except it opens up the opportunity for runs and sags, and I had a couple.
Waited for the surface to start going off, and then with a sharp blade very carefully took the top of the runs off, allowing the paint beneath to dry.
With a little wet and dry, plenty of patience I was able to remove them all, back to a nice smooth finish.
Thats 2 coats of primer, 2 coats of Undercoat and every little bit of every panel rubbed down, cleaned with prep clean and tack clothed off in-between every coat.
Onto Top coat. This is exciting. And while this article is becoming quite long, its not as long as the process took to get to this point!
Mixed up some paint and set about spraying, again Thinned to about 10% and increased Air Pressure, upto about 30psi at the gun.
Oh, look at that, it actually looks good and thats only the first coat.
As with the undercoat, had a few runs and sags so addressed them in the same way.
BUT! had another issue when I got to look at the results, the top of the front wings! Looked like absolute crap. Gloss paint shows up everything.
Clearly I had not done a good enough job with the old paint, it was patchy and lumpy.
Had to deal with this, as when people get to see the finished car, this will be the first place they run there hands over, and would inevitable lead to “Humm, thats a bit rough”
Sanded it back down and spent some time doing my best to make sure the lumps and bumps were all gone.
Not wanting to waste too much time, cleaned up the wings and hand painted some undercoat, and then sprayed a top coat.
All OK, except some brush marks are slightly visible on 1 wing, told you I cant hand paint properly. Will deal with them when I tackle the final top coat.
Onto the final top coat. I mentioned I had bought clear coat, this is like a varnish that is applied in a very similar way to the other coats, giving a deeper shine and providing some protection for the paint. The final colour coats are supposed to be high gloss, and this got me thinking, does the final top coat need sanding before applying the clear? I sent a message off to Paintman with that very question and the answer somewhat surprised me, which was no, leave it un-sanded but still allow the 24 hours before applying the clear coat. With modern paints they flash off in a few minutes and can then be re-coated, but Coach Enamel doesn’t work this way. The problem I see is if I paint clear over un-sanded top coat, will it actually stick properly, and if I do sand the top coat, with those scratches show through the clear?
What to do? I searched endless forums, watched endless more videos but didn’t really find an answer. It was then, purely by chance, Facebook showed me a group I might be interested in? Funny, isn’t it how apps know what you are even thinking about! Anyway, I looked at the group and applied to join. The group is a Coach Panting Old Cars group. Seemed a great place to ask the question, albeit with some apprehension as Coach Painting is painting by hand, not spraying, and wondered if my question would be frowned upon, given that I am not strictly Coach Painting.
Seems not, had some great answers, and was sent a few pics of what others have achieved using Paintman paints and clear coat. One answer got my attention, mostly because the picture he sent me was incredible, the car, an old Austin 7 looked absolutely amazing. So how did he do it? Well, according to him, mix the final top coat 50/50 with clear and thin as normal, really? will that work was what I was thinking.
Well, does it work I think is answered with this picture!
Simple answer, yes it does, works an absolute treat. what you cant see from this picture is the colour, too shiny.
While it looks amazing, well I think so, there were some issues I had to deal with after the 1st top coat. In addition to thinning properly, technique I realised also that while my Air Compressor should keep up with the spraying, I do need to wait sometimes for it to top-up the air tank.
Also, if you look really closely, you can see some orange peel effect. Not so much I feel inclined to re-do another coat, I’m not a car sprayer, that is clearly an art form, but I’m super happy with it. And to that end some more of the finished panels.
I think they look pretty good, and now you can see the colour I went for, Deep Bronze green, and I love it!
At the time of writing this, I am not completely finished, I still have the 2 wings to finish and paint, the bulkhead and the two doors, but we are expecting some crappy weather in the next day so, so I will get to those when thats passed.
I mentioned my new respirator, well here it is, several filters later and after 2 coats of paint!
If not for this, all that green on the filter would be in my lungs! not the healthiest option I would say.
Oh, and my nice white suite, well thats now a rather pleasant shade of green! Certainly saved me turning into the same colour as the Hulk. Not a good look, same colour, but not the same body shape.
So, what next. Well this paint will need some time to cure properly, weeks, if not months so once it is hard on the surface, it will all get wrapped up and stored until it needs to be fitted, hopefully sometime next summer. All apart that is the bulkhead, that will need to go on as lots of stuff needs to be attached to it, such as pedals, electrics and a few other bits, so that will go onto the chassis in a week or 2, being super careful not to scratch it.
As for the project, taking break for a few weeks but when I get back to it I will be sorting out the troublesome front axle, suspension, torque up all the stuff thats already on the chassis and then move onto brake pipes, exhaust and over winter tackle the engine and gearbox with the plan to start to put Isobel back together during next year, drivable for her 60th Birthday.
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it, maybe learned something and hopefully like what you see. Until next time, bye for now.
In the last article, I looked at all the bodywork issues that I would need to look at. In this article, most of those challenges have been sorted, kind of! This is a really long one, so sorry for that!
Before continuing, let me be clear, there are certain skills needed that I dont posses, and also needed to be conscious of budget and to keep as much of the original as I reasonably can, to try to avoid more comments like “Its turning into Triggers Broom!”. So what does this mean in reality? we’ll some might say I have bodged certain parts of this process and would prefer to see things done in a different way, for example weld the body panels, but I cant weld and certainly cant weld aluminium, and dont know anyone that can, so took an alternative route! Hey Ho! have to work with what I’ve got. I have also never done any serious bodywork, yes, used filler in the past, and painted a few cars before, with varying results, but nothing like this will need.
So here goes, and please be kind!
Doors
first part to look at was the doors. there was two challenges here, a smallish dent in one of the doors, and the door frames of both doors rotted out at the bottom.
Slight Dent
Bit of rust!
First thing was to separate the door panel from the frame, its not too difficult, you just need to unfold the edges of the panel away from the frame and prise the frame off. Being super careful, as the aluminium can split, and did in a couple of places.
First up the door frame. I bought 3 lengths of replacement frame from Paintman Panels.
These need welding on, so a quick phone call to my Nephew Lee, and off they go along with the Front Panel and the sills to be welded.
Lee is a quality mechanic, working partly in a garage and on on his own, mobile.
While the welding was being done, I cracked on with the rest of what is needed to be done.
Tried my best to gently beat the dent out of the door panel, and while not perfect, much better. Had to anneal the panel to make it workable, and used very gentle taps with the panel beating hammers and dollys.
I got a new panel beating kit for fathers day, uncanny how Caleb and Reuben knew exactly what Dad needs, even after a few weeks of very gentle, subtle and some times not so subtle hints.
Also, stripped all the paint off these panels, will talk about that in a later article.
I didn’t think I was making too much noise. But after bumping into a friend at the monthly Spur car meet, who lives opposite (Chris I know you waste plenty of time reading these, thank you 🙂 ), commented he could hear I was upto something! Humm, maybe got some not very happy neighbours now 🙁
Front Wings
Onto the front wings, which also needed some attention.
The mud guard brackets were completely rotten, due to galvanic corrosion between 2 different metals. Using a piece of 5251 grade aluminium, which is the closest grade to the original Birmabright aluminium, a new piece was cut out, with the original spot welds drilled out, all the way through. Counter sunk pop rivets and a little bit of JB-Weld, and a new bracket is in place, minus the holes needed to mount the mud guards, the holes will come later.
Mud guards, rottenNew bracket MadeCountersunk Pop RivetsPop
Bit of filler across the top and it will look like the original spot welds, until you look underneath.
Another issue with the wings were the other mud guard holes, they had rotted through also, so cut out the corrosion and formed a piece of 5251 to sit in the behind and in the holes, again JB-welded them in, will probably add a little filler to tidy them up a little.
Finally, the last issue with the wings was damage to the outer wing panel, the bit everyone sees. Here there were two issues, 1 being the panel was quite badly bent, and second, a re-enforcing part on the inside of the wheel arch was damaged.
In the top part of the first image, you can see the damage, the bottom half of the image my “suspect” attempt at panel beating. Its along way from perfect, but it now resembles the shape it should be. The process for PB is not entirely straight forward. The Birmabright work hardens, so the more you work it, the more brittle it becomes, so needs to be annealed often, which means heating it up and allowing it to cool, beat some more and repeat. I could keep going with this but took the view I am more likely to make it worse rather than improve it significantly. The second and third images shows the re-enforcing bit, which had become bent and detached from the panel. This was re-shaped, spot welds drilled out and again, using JB-Weld and countersunk pop rivets re-attached.
Rear Tub
Seems every panel needs something doing!
The tub had a few issues, the rear quarter and also the fixings where the tub bolts onto the chassis.
The rear quarter of the near side has clearly taken a whack at some point in its life, which has caused the panel to be creased, bent and stretched. The stretching can be seen by the panel bulging in one area and when pressed it pops in and out, the re-enforcing strip had also become badly bent and there was a small split in the wheel arch.
The bottom (top in the picture) profile was also badly bent, completely out of shape.
Beat the panel out to something that resembles the right shape, again, not perfect, but OK, I think.
Also JB-welded a patch behind the split after drilling a small hole at the end of the split to stop it splitting even more.
The only other options to doing this was to buy new tub panel… expensive, or get a proper panel beater, also very expensive, so will see how this turns out later when painted.
With the panel beating, I also had to try to solve the stretching of the panel. So, I tried my hand at shrinking the metal. Heat it up to not too far way from the melting point, beat around the stretch and then cool it rapidly with a wet cloth. To my surprise, no more, or much less bulging and no more Bing Bong of the panel, I would call that a result.
The next part was where the Tub attaches to the chassis, i.e. holds it in-place.
This is an example of what is there to be dealt with.
There are 2 points of attachment (to the chassis) at the front of the tub and 5 across the back. 2 of the back ones are also through the body work, which have corroded. basically, because these are aluminium and they are attached to steel they corrode.
I used the same basic process for both the front and back, only real difference the front ones (in the picture above) have three layers of ally, with one layer being thicker, 2mm, rather than the normal 1.2mm.
First, get rid of the corrosion, so it was all cut out and cleaned. I also read somewhere that soaking the corrosion area with white vinegar neutralises the corrosion. I guess we will see if that works in a few years time.
Excuse the finger nails, need a trip to the Nail shop to get them sorted. Anyway, for the rear two, created a patch to slot into the cut out area, and sit behind the panel. These were cold welded in, not rivets as they are visible.
For the front, did the same thing with the thicker material and also for one side inserted two other pieces where they were corroded. Also, the front two were riveted for added strength.
I would love to have the skill to weld these in, but I just dont, and need to keep an eye on budgets. While many I am sure will cringe at this, I’m pretty happy with the results. I guess there is an argument to make to make repairs visible, its a part of the character and history of the vehicle. I’m convinced by the argument, and the repairs will be mostly invisible unless you look underneath.
Last issue with the tub, for now was the floor. Will keep this one simple. basically there are 3 supports that help support the floor, These supports are steel, the floor is aluminium, hence the corrosion of the middle support. the corrosion was cut out, strips of aluminium were cold-welded and riveted in and a piece formed to sit over the top, which was also cold welded and riveted on.
Nearly there. In fact, will keep these final 2 parts shorter and sweeter.
Bonnet
The bonnet is pretty simple, much like the doors, it is made up of a skin and a frame that sits underneath. I decided, thankfully, to take the frame off the skin to clean it up, which revealed lots of little holes. I considered a couple of options here, but you can only, as far as I know buy a replacement H section, not the two end parts, one of which was like a piece of holey cheese. The other option was to buy a complete bonnet and hope the frame was in better condition. I considered asking Nephew Lee to weld it up, but to cut out all the rust and corrosion would leave nothing left. So, what I did, and please dont ridicule or judge me, was to form some pieces of mild steel to sit inside the frame and cold weld them in. I did this after taking off as much rust as I could and treating it with rust converter. The fix, you wont see when its all back together.
So final part, the front grill. This is the part, when Isobel is on the road, most people will see in their rear view mirror. The bottom of the panel was basically falling apart. Another repair panel from Paintman Panels, off to Lee to have the rot cut off and new panel welded in, really happy with the results. Little bit of fettling to make the welds invisible as much as I can, but a massive improvement.
Ok, so a really long one this time, if you get here well done, and thank you.
Next up there will be lots of sanding, cleaning and perhaps a little filler (but not much I hope). All with the goal of getting everything ready for some paint at the end of August 2024.
Now I have painted 3 cars in my life, 2 with my Dad, a Morris Minor and a Cortina Mk3, which turned out pretty good and one by myself an Escort Mk2, outside, down the side of the house with a rather suspect compressor which to be fair, was a really crap job! So hoping for a much better result when I tackle this one with a newly purchased LVLP spray gun.
So, I have the list of paint and stuff I need, I know where I am getting it from, I know what it will cost me, all I need now is a bit of good weather, a bit of luck and you might, just might, be seeing some nice shinny, Mid Bronze Green body work in the next article.
Thanks for reading and as mentioned, with a little good fortune, some decent weather Isobel might have a body to be proud of.
If you look at the Plan, I was supposed to do the Engine and Gearbox first, which seemed to make sense when I wrote it. But I also say, the Plan can change but the goal stays the same, well the plan has chaned.
I will “try” to get as much of the body work cleaned, prep’d, repaired and painted before the end of summer 2024, so I can focus on the Engine, Gearbox and other bits over the winter. So, lets get started.
First thing was to strip down all the final bits of the body work, Number plates, Lights and all the galvanised capping’s and other galvanised bits, they will go off to be re-galvanised at some point.
Next step, get everything together, give it all a good jet wash and take a proper look at what needs doing.
Onto the examination, which soon made it apparent I had a shed load of work to do to get this into a reasonable state. As I have said before, this will not be a concours restoration, but I want it to look good, even with a few blemishes. So what needs to be looked at?
Looking at each part in turn, starting with the doors, but in the picture above, the front grill needs a new piece at the bottom, bought one of those, and that, along with other bits have gone off to be welded on.
Couple of things here, the door frames are rotten at the bottom, both doors, so the frames needs to come off the door skin, which helped with the next problem, there is a big dent in one of the doors.
It is hard to believe sometimes, but there is a huge market for Land Rover spares, so purchased new pieces of frame to weld in. I cant weld, so that went off to someone, will talk about that more later.
Next part is the wings, and as with the doors, a few bits to look at.
Mud guard supports, rotten.Bit of panel beating.
More panel beating needed.Wing outers removed
First, mud guard supports have corroded. The body panels are made out of Birmabright, which is a type of Aluminium. Aluminium doesn’t rot/rust! But… when in contact with another type of metal it does corrode as can be seen. They need fixing.
Bottom of one of the wing outers is quite badly miss-shaped / bent. This will need sorting.
One of the wind outer panels is a little bumpy, worth a look, but will probably need more skills in panel beating than I have, we’ll see.
Best way to do all of this I think is to take the wing outers off, will be easier to work with.
Seat box! mostly OK, but needed to remove a few more bits and pieces and looking at the tool tray, which is steel, not aluminium its pretty nasty, so that comes out.
The plan at the moment is to make a new one, so ordered some mild steel for when I feel like giving that a go.
The bonnet is in pretty good shape, so only intended to remove the spare wheel carrier on the top, which I did, but when I looked at the framing underneath and started to clean it up a little, lots of holes appeared, so that comes off to be repaired.
One thing to think about, taking off all these bits is that there will be a shed load of rivets to put back in, Pop Rivets as well as solid rivets, that’ll be fun and also gives me something to think about, like rivet before painting, rivet after so they stay aluminium colour or more likely a combination of both.
Final part to look at is the Rear Tub.
Bit bent!Looks OK, at first glanceeFloor outNeeds sortingFloor supports
A few things with the tub. Took the floor out and the braces off, which showed up some corrosion in the floor supports, that will need sorting. the Offside rear quarter of the tub is badly bent, and has several small splits so that will also need sorting. Finally the areas where the tub bolts to the chassis is also badly corroded, they need cutting out and repairing.
All in all, there is loads to do, which is why I have decided to write this part up separately. Next one will be about the repairs. What I wont cover is my failed attempt to strip the paint off. Used some strong paint stripper “professional use only”, which took the top layer off, but noting else, so sanding will be the way.
Next we’ll look at some of the repairs, where a myriad of new skills will be needed. Panel Beating, Annealing, Shrinking, Riveting, Gluing and maybe even a little aluminium welding/brazing.
