Short one this time.
Got the Rear and Front axles on, with some challenges still to sort, the last part is to get the steering on. As with the axles, I had done some work previously on the steering components, I talked earlier about the steering arms and the drop arm on the steering box being a bit of a challenge, which are now sorted. I did have to buy a new drag link arm, the old one where the Ball Joint would not come out turns out that the thread in one end was a little knackered.
There are three main parts to the steering, the Steering Box, Steering Relay and the Steering Arms.
Now I have not done everything on the steering just yet, but did re-build the steering box and did do some work on the steering relay.
The relay has a huge spring in the middle, and I have read many many stories about this coming out at speed. Even in the Land Rover Green Books (workshop manual and repair and operation manual) they suggest putting a sock over the end to catch it as it escapes.
I didn’t fancy doing this at all for two reasons, 1, while not having the prettiest face in the world, want to keep what little looks I have ideally without the imprint of a spring on my face and 2, more importantly when we got Isobel, the steering all felt pretty solid.
I did however change the seals and gaskets and re-filled it with fresh EP90 oil, which took forever.
If you look closely you can see the little bubble coming out of the top hole. Just had to keep feeding oil over a couple of days until no more air came out.
Other than cleaning up the case, painting the bottom support that was pretty much all I did with the relay.
The Steering box on the other hand, I did a full re-build. This was pretty straight forward.
New Bearings, Bearing Races top bottom and new Bearings in the bit that sits on the worm, seals and gaskets fitted. The only challenge was the bearings top and bottom, really fiddly to get them in, and keep them in while everything else goes together.
The final part was to add shims on the bottom plate to ensure that the steering arm turned nicely without any end float. As I say, all pretty straight forward.
Last part was to fit the brackets to the chassis, install the steering box and relay and connect up all the drag links and steering arms.
All this went pretty well, other than buying the wrong length bolts to fix the steering box bracket to the chassis.
Not only does Isobel have wheels now, can move with a bit of a push and pull, she can now also go round corners.
This pretty much brings this part to a conclusion, there is lots of stuff to finish, everything needs tightening up properly, but this is enough for now. So what next? Well, I should probably look at the engine and gearbox, but what I’m thinking is that I start on the body work. If I can get that sorted, and by sorted I mean stripped, fixed and painted by the end of the summer, I can work on the engine, gearbox and other bits over the winter, but lets see, plans can and do change.
I am guessing it will be some time before the next proper article but am contemplating a To Do list, lets see.
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