Feb 2017

Working only part days at the weekends when I am back in the UK, this is obviously going to be a long term project.

The first milestone along the way was getting the chassis stripped and ready to go for Galvanizing. This was achieved early in February when I removed the last of the components fitted to the chassis and I loaded it and the new bulkhead on to the trailer ready to go to Highland Galvanizers in Cumbernauld the following weekend

Sunday 6th of February - chassis and bulkhead ready to go for Galvanizing

The new bulkhead is not in fact new but has been salvaged from a 2015 Defender. As the bulkhead is from a Puma vehicle it has a few basic differences to the one that I have discarded. These are basically

• The vents on the scuttle panel are missing due to the more modern heater and AC system fitted to the Puma
• There holes through the bulkhead for the heater unit are slightly different
• The length of the flange for the transmission tunnel  is much longer

Of these differences only the length of the flange needed to be addressed as the other differences will suit future planned alterations to Wolfie.

As the shape of the flange was the same as the old one I simply cut it back using a 4" angle grinder. I will re-drill the fixing holes after the bulkhead has been galvanized.

Trimming back the flange around the transmission tunnel on the new "Puma"bBulkhead

Arriving at Highland Galvanizers

The chassis on a 130 is a significant bit of steel and needed two forklifts to unload it

With the chassis out of the way I could start to strip the 300tdi engine.

When I bought the engine it was sold with the engine"not turning" which I took to mean the engine was seized. The engine in fact does turn over freely when turned by hand, but there are some obvious issues with it. It looked as though someone had previously tried to strip it as the alternator and steering pump were partly removed, nearly all the hose clips were missing and some of the wiring loom had been cut out. What the history of this was I have no idea - it did not appear a vert military thing to have done.

The engine came apart pretty easily although I had to get the assistance of a friend to steady it when I removed the flywheel bolts.

The water pump when removed showed signs that it had failed completely as the bearings had collapsed and the impeller had gouged a large chunk out of the housing. Surprisingly the water pump actually appeared pretty new and the housing was painted in the light green colour associated with rebuilt parts for the MOD.

I can only think that the water pump had failed and the engine had overheated, which may have been the final straw as far as the MOD was concerned after which Wolfie was parked up and sold - who knows!

Removing the cylinder head was really the moment of truth as only then could I see what internal damage there was, and I would know if the engine was savable or whether a new unit was going to be needed.

The head itself looked OK - later investigation showed that one glow plug had its head missing, the injectors were pretty caked in carbon, two valve seats were cracked and the valves and guides needed replacing. But at least I do not need to buy a new cylinder head

The 300tdi before stripping

Inlet and exhaust manifolds removed

Rocker cover removed

Timing belt assembly - note the covering of oil

With the head removed I could examine the bores. It was great to see that they were in pretty good condition and that the block will be a good unit to rebuild the engine from.

The block minus the cylinder head - all the bores look OK

Things get messy - sump removed to remove crankshaft and pistons

The pile on the bench grows!