New inspiration :-)

I had low point in entusiasm during the fall, I even considered selling the landy during one period. After the exitement of fixing the engine and getting it on the road, my energy for it just died... But now its back!'

My next project is the LHD conversion. This past weekend I bought an old Range Rover Classic front axle which will donate parts to my Ninety. The axle is in pretty bad shape but I hope to be able to get the parts I need off it. Pics to come...

Bought another special tool

I love special tools, they make difficult jobs easy. My latest addition is a Crankshaft Locking Tool from Glencoyne 4x4. I haven't used it yet, but it should make it much easier to loosen/tighten the crankshaft bolt.

X-Cap installed

I installed a small item today, an upgraded radiator cap called X-Cap. The original crappy plastic original cap is very hard to remove without destroying it.

Starting

I was reading my old post about replacing the battery cables and rebuilding the starter. I just wanted to follow up on that. Starting is a joy! I had never started this landy before I did this work because the engine was broken when I bought it, but compared to the 110 I used to have (same age/engine) it is a great improvement!

Bulkhead solid, some rust in the floor

Today I removed the floor in the cab to assess the extent the of rust that could be seen where the footwells meet the floorboard. Not too bad, on the passenger side it is just the upper, thicker, sheet that is rusted and no holes thru. On the drivers side there is a hole where the footwell meets the floorboard, in the middle under the brake pedal.

The good news is that the rest of the bulkhead seems solid, went over it with a hammer and as far as I can tell there is no more rust anywhere :-)

I also spent some time checking out the chassis for rust, and apart from some surface rust it also seems solid.
I am thinking of having it rust-proofed, I don't know what it's called but wax stuff they spray inside the chassis might be a good insurance for the future.

Baptism by fire!

Yesterday I took the landy for it's first long drive since I rebuilt the engine. A friend had bought a car, a non runner, up in Norrtälje and asked me for help to tow it back to Stockholm. It's about 72 km one way from where I live. The drive up was un-eventful, with the water- and oil temp meters going up to normal and staying there, rock solid.

The tow back was real easy, I hardly felt that I was towing at all, this engine might be low in horsepower, but it aint "weak". It has really good torque. When towing you want to avoid gear changes as they cause yanking in the line, but I didnt have too, I just put it in 4th and kept it there. Hills or sharp turns were no problem.Where other engines would have stalled, this one just kept pulling. I love it!

BUT, it was *really* boring going so slow, took like two hours coming back, so my next sub-project will be to install the towbar that I have lying around so we can use a trailer next time!

Inspection (MOT) passed :-)

This morning I finally took the landy for its inspection (MOT), and it passed with just one minor note in the protocol. The left-hand headlight is pointing a bit too much to the left, but they left me to fix that on my own and I don't have to come back for another inspection :-)

As expected really, but I am always a bit nervous that they will find something that I didn't know, or that a lamp will go out driving to the inspection station.

Oil cap popping off!

Since long the engine has had a problem with the oil cap popping off, and as a result oil was spraying up and over the whole engine making a total mess.  I had been told that this is probably because the engine is worn and that compression is passing by worn piston rings and pressurizing the sump. I didn't quite buy that explaination as the engine starts and runs perfectly without any smoke whatsoever. My suspicion was that there was something wrong with the oil return system connected to the oil cap, that there was a blockage somewhere.

So first I tried to just disconnect the hose that's coming from the oil cap and re-routed it into an old oil can:

This solved the problem, so now I knew that the problem was indeed where I suspected.
The oil return/separator system looked like this:

I put a question to forum.landrovernet.com, and got some good tips. It turned out that top item in the picture above is not needed, so I removed it. I also found that because of this extra item (don't know what it is, my guess is a non-return valve) the top hose had a bad kink in it which I hadn't noticed before. After re-connecting it it looks like this:

After this I took a long drive which would normally make the cap pop of, but when I got back it was still on and no leakage along its edge either. Case closed :-)

Hand brake done!

Just came in after putting the hand brake back together, works fine now!

Hand brake cleaned

As the ouput shaft oil seal is leaking, the hand brake drum had been soaked with oil rendering it useless. I had ordered new brake shoes from the UK, but I ordered the wrong model and they don't fit :-( So I googled about alternative solutions and opted for burning of the oil with a propane torch. I think it worked quite well. After burning them I used a sandpaper so sand them down and they now look like new! We'll see about function when I have put it back together :-)

This is a pic of the hand brake assembly, less the drum. The propshaft attaches to the four bolts in the middle.

Besiktning (MOT) next

I have booked a time for besiktning (UK MOT) on the 18th of June, the first available date. I still have some small jobs to do before the inspection. The hand brake need cleaning as its filled with oil and doesnt work, and the i need to adjust the headlight beams. I think the winscreen washers are out too. Anyhow, I'll do a check all around to make sure it passes first time.

Put the headlights back in, light booster kit installed

The headlights was very hard to adjust due to an accumulation of mud in the bowls, so I took it all apart for a good cleaning and greasing (of the adjustment screws). I also a installed "light booster kit". The kit basically bypasses the original loom to get juice for the headlights directly from the battery, thus increasing the output. It's a good, easy way of improving the light on an old vehicle.

Engine started!!

I finally got the engine back together, and attempted a start. I had heard that this engine is very difficult to start after this type of work and indeed it was. Lots of pre-heat and after the third 15-second crank it sprang into life! It runs perfectly, what a joy to hear after all those hours of hard work :-)

New timing belt installed!

Today I installed the new timing belt, and then reinstalled the cover, the crank pulley and the waterpump. I put copper grease on all the bolts so that they will be as easy to remove next time as it was this time.

Today I had help, so this went along a little quicker ;-)

Got the torque wrench today!

Pretty speedy delivery for USPS, usually takes weeks. Looks fine, as described on Ebay :-)
Looks like it's ex-Army, suitable for my ex-MOD landy!

Bought a torque wrench

Today I bought a dial type torque from Ebay. This type of wrench is specified for tensioning the timing belt, and I want to get it right!

Starter rebuilt

In an earlier post I wrote that the starter tested OK, unfortunetly it wasn't. It turned out that the gear clutch (?) was worn out so I decided to replace it. When the shop took it apart they also found the solenoid to be in bad shape so that was replaced too. They also cleaned and lubricated it so now it should be as new.

Waiting for parts

Today I ordered all neccecary engine parts from LRSeries.

Found the problem!

I was finally able to remove the timing cover too inspect the timing belt. The good news is that there was no oil inside the cover so the oil seals seems to be OK.

After lining up the timing marks I could see that when the crank and pump pulleys is correct, the cam pulley is about two teeth early. My ecucated guess is that the belt slipped and this is what made the valves hit the pistons and bending the pushrods.

New battery cables

I just collected my new battery cables from Skyllermarks. A big improvement over the standard cables, especially 25 year old standard cables. These actually bend ;-)

They are 50 mm², same as the originals, but with much finer strands. According to the guy who made them for me they are equivalent to a normal cable of 70 mm².

My hope is this will improve starting in the winter.

The viscous van spanner has arrived

Finally, the viscous fan spanner has arrived from the UK! Since ordering it I have realised that this type of spanner is not unique to Land Rover and that I could probably have gotten it here in Sweden, but thats fine, the price was right even with the shipping.

Small jobs needs to be done too...

I am a bit restless waiting for the fan spanner to arrive in the mail, I wanted something to do, so I started to clean up the cylinder head bolts. Took me almost as long as the whole disassembly of the head, about two hours so maybe not such a small job after all ;-) But of course, they don't really need to be as clean as they are now, i just wanted something to occupy me...

Sat out on my balcony enjoying the spring sun while working

Before and after picture

Did some more thinking...

Maybe it wasn't a hydrolock that bent the push rods, maybe it was bad timing so to speak :-) Maybe the the timing belt slipped, that could account for these damages too, hmm... I am very exited to look inside the timing cover but I have to wait for the new spanner to arrive :-(

Cylinder head is off

I have now completed the job of taking the cylinder head off. I am not sure what to make of it, but the head gasket has some damage. I am not sure if that damage is what caused the breakdown. I inspected the head, block and pistons but could not see any cracks or other damage. My next job will be to check the timing belt, but for that I need a special spanner to remove the fan, which I don't have. I have ordered the spanner from Ebay.co.uk and hope to get in the coming week.

Bent pushrods :-(

Last night I started the job to take the cylinder head off. I got everything off exept the actual head before it got too dark, have to continue another day. When I took the rocker cover off discovered that one pushrod was broken and a couple of the others bent. My guess is that the head gasket broke and the engine hydrolocked, but I will know more when the head comes off.

The pushrods, except the broken one which I forgot to bring home for the photo:

Starter tests OK

I have tested the starter and it seems to work fine, must be a problem with the wiring in the car.

Finally some work done!

With the spring here I have finally been able to get some work done :-) Today my plan was to remove the starter, which I believed would be a tough job but it wasn't. To remove the starter you first need to remove the exhaust downpipe. I have never before been able to remove any part of an exhaust without breaking anything as it is usually all rusted solid, but today was different :D All the bolts came of without any problems.
The downpipe:

After that it was pretty easy to get the starter out:

I also removed the engine earth strap, chassis strap and positive lead so I can measure them and have them replaced. I havent decided yet if I will replace the starter or try to repair it.