Year End Update

Well 2017 did not go exactly as planned - an unexpected building project took priority over work on the Land Rover when the builder that was extending my daughters house decided that he had over committed himself and simply walked off site leaving my daughter with a "just started" house extension. Getting the extension completed knocking through into the house took up most of my weekends over the summer and while not working that I had an already started building project of my own to get completed.

With the end of the year imminent, the building tools have been put away and work has just restarted on the Land Rover in earnest

Although no real work has been undertaken since June, some progress has been made as the Cylinder head has been away for machining (skimming, valve seats, valve guides and pressure testing) and new valves have been installed. All the works to the head were carried out by W S Diesel Ltd, who also honed the block for me

Block stripped and ready for cleaning

The block being "Honed"

The gear box and transfer box were sent to Ashcroft Transmissions where in addition to the standard rebuild, the R380 gearbox had upgraded rear support bearings installed, a new HD pump and a new input shaft - http://www.ashcroft-transmissions.co.uk/manual-gearboxes.html

The LT230 Transfer box was fitted with a sleeved casing, an automatic torque biasing centre differential, new flanges and new bearings. - http://www.ashcroft-transmissions.co.uk/transfer-boxes.html

Why change the standard Land Rover differential for Ashcroft's automatic torque biasing centre differential to the transfer box? Rather than explain it myself I have taken the liberty of using Ashcroft's own words:-

"A little background on the LT230 centre diff. The centre diff is there to allow the props to turn at different speeds when cornering to stop drive train wind up. The speed difference is quite small and the centre diff gears are only designed to cope with these low speeds. If you are Off Road on snow or ice and you get wheel spin from one front wheel, what will happen is the rear prop will not be moving, the front will thus be going double speed, this means the small centre diff gears will be spinning like fury and after a matter of only a few seconds the planet gears will friction weld to the cross pins and the gears will fail etc. Of course in this situation the centre diff should be locked to avoid failure.

There are instances when it's not convenient to keep the diff locked or to constantly lock and unlock the diff as the available traction dictates, i.e, when racing fast on a low traction surface, the vehicle will not handle well when locked but is likely to wheel spin when unlocked. 

Another example of where the ATB would help would be when rapidly changing from high to low traction surfaces, i.e. when driving on snow or ice,

In both of these examples the ATB will limit the amount the difference in prop shaft speed and transfer torque to the axle with traction.

The two big advantages are increased traction when unlocked and eliminating the weakness of the stock unlocked centre diff.

Note the ATB centre can still be locked like the stock unit when required, locking the diff is still advised when prolonged wheel spin is anticipated."

The gearbox as removed 

Stripping the gear linkage etc ready for shipping to Ashcroft 

The amount of ferrous material on the sump plug magnet was a bit worrying 

Gearbox and Transfer Box ready for collection

Gear Box and Transfer Box arrive back - nice and clean!

 My other large investment was in the turbo!

As I am undertaking a complete rebuild of the engine it is a good opportunity to improve on what was turned out from the factory. On a good day the 300 tdi lump will produce 122 Bhp (ex factory) which will drop with age and mileage. On a bad day (and it appears there were many of these!) the engine may only have had circa 112 Bhp when it left the factory.

The easiest way to get more power from the engine is to increase the size of the Inter cooler, a modification that more efficiently cools that air between the turbo charger and the engine. This in turn allows the injector pump to be reset to provide more fuel as cold air can carry more fuel than hot air.

Taking this a step further by increasing the size of the actual turbo, installing an even larger inter cooler and resetting the pump, the original 122 Bhp can be increase to circa 156 Bhp, not exactly an earth shattering figure but a reasonable increase.

More importantly from my point of view given that I am building an overland vehicle which will be on of the heavier Land Rovers out there the engine's torque should be increased from 195 ft.lb to 262 lb.ft making it more suited to hauling the heavier camper body up hills and across rough terrain.

Having looked into the tuning options that are available I opted for The Stage 3 kit from Allard Turbo Sport.

Allard are recognised as one of the leaders in the field of improving the performance of the basic Land Rover through turbo charging and have supercharged and turbocharged many Land Rover models, both petrol and diesel engined, going back as far as 1959 more than 20 years before the Land Rover factory introduced turbocharged engines!

The Basic Stage 3 Kit includes :-

• A full width high performance air to air all aluminium inter cooler, together with fitting kit comprising: mounting brackets, silicone hoses & clips, 
• EGR replacement kit and aluminium pipes when required. 
• A special build higher performance Garrett turbocharger which is supplied supplied complete with actuator, gaskets . 

Given that the 300 tdi engine can be prone to overheating I was concerned that mounting a large inter cooler in front of the radiator would if anything make the engine run hotter, I opted to replace the standard radiator with a larger one which is both wider (the width is increased as the inter cooler that takes up part of the available space on the standard radiator will no longer be present) and deeper.

The radiator is also being supplied by Allard and although part of my original order has still to be delivered.

The first parcel from Allard Turbo Sport

Rebuilt Turbo and new Inter cooler

 Before starting to rebuild the engine the block was degreased and after a thorough cleaning painted in Duck Egg Blue heat and oil resistant engine paint.

Painting the Block

Before starting the engine rebuild I spent a day tidying and cleaning my workshop as chaos had descended to it over the last 6 months and I wanted a clean and tidy environment in which to lay parts out and start the assembly. I also took this opportunity to fit a couple of LED spotlights above the work area to supplement the fluorescent tubes that provide back ground lighting.

Pistons ready for cleaning

Top marking on the pistons

Lucas Assembly Lube

I am using Lucas Assembly Lube during the re build as it will probably be a few months between the engine being put together and it actually being run

Refitting the crankshaft

New bearing shells covered in Assembly Lube

What colour - July 2017

So work on "Wolfie" has had to be put on hold as I have a couple of building projects that have to take priority, however these I hope will be out of the way within the next couple of months and I can get back to the rebuild.

In the meantime I have been giving some thoughts to what colour I want to paint the body work when I eventually reach that stage (2018?). Part of the reason for moving away from the current green colour is that I do not want Wolfie to look too much like a military vehicle as this may cause some issues at border crossings.

While wanting to get away from the military green I also want to avoid going down the line of using a dark or a metallic colour as found on some of the newer Defenders as I don't think these really suit the Pulse body.

Thanks to Nick for the renderings shown below which reflect some of the options under consideration

In Military Green - to be replaced with????????

Off white / Black

Off white / Blue

Off white

Khaki 

????

7th May 2017 

With an overland trip to Nordkapp and then Russia pending I found myself needing to move "Wolfie" out of the car port to allow me to lower our Maggiolina roof tent from its storage position (hanging from the roof) on to the top of our current 4 x 4 a Toyota Land cruiser. This would necessitate fitting wheels to "Wolfie" and rolling it out of the way. Before this however I had a few jobs to finish.

New brake callipers had been delivered during the course of last week. To make them look a bit better and more importantly give them a longer life I decided to paint them with Halfords heat resistant brake paint which necessitated degreasing them before I could apply 3 coats of the red paint.

New front calliper

New rear calliper

Painting begins

The paint went on easily enough and I found that by the time I had painted the fourth calliper the first was touch dry which allowed me to immediately apply  a second coat. The third coat was applied 24 hrs later.

Before the callipers could be fitted the brake back plates had to be refurbished. Heavily contaminated with dirt and rust I cleaned them back to bare metal using a rotary brush on an angle grinder before shot blasting the harder to reach corners. Once clean I gave each back plate two coats of Hammerite Krust anti rust treatment and then 2 coats of Hammerite direct to metal satin black paint

Painted caliper mounted on rear axle

Once the brakes were fitted I fitted the back wheels - only two nuts were used on each as they will come back off soon- and removed the axle stands from under the chassis.

New callipers (painted red) with new disks and refurbished back plates

Completing the front axle proved a bit more problematic.

With the offside CV joint having been destroyed by being run dry and full of dirt (courtsay of the MOD), I had ordered a replacement from Paddock Spares. Changing the CV joint should be a relatively straight forward affair as it should simply be driven off the end of the half shaft with a few taps of a hammer. Unfortunately this was not the case as the dirt that had worked its way inside the joint was preventing the circlip type clip that retains the CV joint on the axle retracting, which in turn made it impossible to drive the CV joint off the axle itself. 

The solution was to force the CV joint back on the axle far enough to allow me to get a sharp chisel under the clip and remove it from its groove. After this the CV joint came off easily enough.

Rare 26 spline half shaft (CV Joint end)

With the old CV joint removed it soon became obvious that the new joint would not fit on to the half shaft as the shaft was of too large a diameter and had a different configuration of splines from the new joint.

After checking that the part number was correct TDJ00010,  I contacted Paddock Spares regarding this problem. Paddock were unable to help, so I contacted John Craddock who were also initially unable to help, so started a phone trawl around numerous Land Rover specialists all of whom were unable to shed any light on this problem. 

On consulting a number of forums I could find nothing on line about this - plenty of posts about half shafts and CV joints but nothing about 26 spline half shafts.  The problem was that apart from the larger diameter of "Wolfie's" half shafts, the ends had 26 square splines as opposed to 32 found on the modern Defender shafts. Even specialist after market part suppliers were unable to help.

Half shafts as fitted to "Wolfie" do not have the brass spacer

Other commitments stopped work on "Wolfie" for a few days during which time I received a call from Paul at John Craddock who was obviously as keen to find out what shafts "Wolfie" had as I was and after taking further details offered to do a bit of research and if he found out anything call me back. 

A day later Paul called back. After having spoken to John Craddock, himself Paul was able to advise me that the shafts that "Wolfie" had were a limited edition shaft that the MOD had trialed in the mid 1990s and that they were now no longer available. 

The solution was to either fit upgraded and very expensive aftermarket shafts and joints such as the ones made by Ashcroft Transmissions or Kam Diffs or to simply fit standard Defender half shafts. 

Given the price difference and the likely use we will put "Wolfie" to I opted for the cheaper standard half shaft option (Kathleen please note this cost saving!)

Internal fitting of CV joint showing square splines

With no time to wait for the delivery of the new shafts the front axle was lowered on to the workshop trolley to allow "Wolfie" to be temporarily rolled out of the car port.

Nearside (LHS) drive shaft with CV joint in better condition

Having changed one half shaft I am tempted to replace the other shaft and CV joint while the axle is stripped.

With the chassis back in the car port I fitted the front anti roll bar which was the original bar which had been cleaned back to bare metal, treated with Krust and given 3 coats of paint. Along with the bar I fitted  new poly bushes and ball joints

Front anti roll bar ready for refitting

New (rather bright) Poly bushes

"Old Man Emu" steering damper fitted

23rd April 2017

Front Suspension and Drive Train

During the course of the week another two boxes arrived from Paddock Spares - a new swivel housing to replace the damaged near side one and a set of covers to protect the swivel housings from dirt and mud.

The swivel housing rebuild was fairly straight forward enough with the supplied shims for the top bearing providing just enough turning resistance when fitted. Using a small spring balance that we use to weigh our travel bags I dutifully followed the fitting instructions in the MOD Land Rover Workshop manual to measure the turning resistance after the new housing and bearings were fitted.

New swivel housing being assembled

Britpart - Swivel housing gater kit

With the swivel housings reassembled I installed the Britpart gater kit that I hope will prolong the life of the seals and of the housing itself by protecting them from road dirt and spray.

The kit contained the two gaters, a pair of latex gloves, a tube of super glue and two metal wrap around ties. The gaters are fitted around the swivel housing and then the open end is closed together using the super glue. 

Wearing the gloves supplied I was extremely carefull to avoid contaminating the edges to be glued together with oil or grease before I applied the glue.

The gaters are an extremely tight fit and it was virtually impossible to get the two faces together. After holding the joint closed for nearly 2 minutes I left each gater to set for an hour before I fitted the retaining plate that holds the gater and the swivel housing seal in place.  The other end was secured using the metal ties provided with the kit.

Overall I was not that impressed by the kit and i would recommend that anyone else looking for one consider some of the others that are on the market.

Both rebuilt swivel housings were then refitted to the land rover along with new heavy duty steering rods and ball joints.

Swivel housing mounted on the cleaned and repainted front axle

The old steering box was an unknown quantity as it had been drained of fluid and partially removed from "Wolfie" when I bought it from the MOD. Rather than attempt and refurbish it myself I opted to replace it with a fully rebuilt exchange unit which came from National Power Steering in Leicester.

Suspension in place - heavy duty steering rods also fitted

 The standard steering damper which was fitted when "Wolfie" arrived was bent and unusable so It was replaced with an upgraded unit made by "Old Man Emu"

"Old Man Emu" Steering damper adds a bit of colour next to the new steering box

Before I can complete rebuilding the front axle, I need to install the new nearside CV joint which unfortunately was not delivered in time for last weekend. The original CV joint was damaged to the point of near failure through the nearside swivel housing having been previously run dry and when I removed it two of the ball bearing that should be contained within it actually fell out.

 

18th April - Suspension

The Easter weekend allowed me to spend a bit more time working on "Wolfie" and over the weekend I managed to get the rear hubs rebuilt, the rear suspension finished and a start made on refurbishing the front axle

Rear hub - new bearings, seals and brake disks

The rear hubs were reassembled with all new bearings, seals and brake disks before being fitted back on to the axle housing.

The last thing required to complete the rear suspension was the "A"frame which connects the rear axle to two forward mounting points on the chassis. The A frame itself consists of two cast steel members connected to form an "A" by a substantial bracket containing a large ball joint that bolts on to a bracket on the top of the differential housing.  

The two cast members were covered in a heavy coating of dirt and rust which came off pretty easily using the rotary wire brush fitted to one of my angle grinders. With the rust removed I treated the prepared surface with a coating of  Hammerite Kurust Anti-Rust Remover Protection Primer, and then two coats of Hammerite.

With a new ball joint fitted the "A Frame" was in turn fitted to the chassis completing the rear suspension.

Rear "A" frame member ready for cleaning

Despite significant surface rust the member was still in good condition

Inserting the new poly bushes using a through bolt and over sized washers

With the rear suspension completed it was time to strip the front axle back to component form.

The nearside swivel housing was dry and instead of containing oil it was full of grit. Both sets of swivel bearings had been destroyed to the extent that only parts of the outer shell were present. The needle bearings in the stub axle had also collapsed and the outer facing of the housing was severely pitted.

The offside housing was in good condition still full of oil and with a good outer surface, but out of prudence I will fit new bearings and seals to it when I re build it.

The offside front swivel joint was dry and full of grit

Not how it should look like

Swivel joint housing ready for cleaning

Swivel joint housing hung outside for painting

Looking a bit better

Rather than replace the front suspension turrets with the original enclosed turrets I have opted to upgrade them to heavy duty tubular units, which I managed to obtain for slightly less than the standard ones.

As with the rear suspension I have replaced the original springs with like for like ones, but have upgraded the shock absorbers to "Koni Heavy Track Raid" ones.

Front suspension in assembly

Rear suspension final assembly