Summer 2018

June 2018

Due to my working overseas work on the Land Rover project had been "on hold" for the last 3 months or so, but now with 6 weeks or so back in Scotland I could resume where I left off alst summer

As I am rebuilding from a bare chassis this is a good opportunity to add a second fuel tank under the drivers seat. I picked a tank up locally on EBay which was in pretty good condition, however giving it two coats of primer and two coats of topcoat was not going to do it any harm. The idea behind the second tank was that it will supply the heater (diesel burning) and also act as a reserve fuel tank. 

A number of military Land Rovers have a second tank, with the flow of fuel being controlled by a mechanical hand operated valve arrangement. While I am sure this works well for the military, these valves are horrendously expensive and hard to come by so I will go for an easier and cheaper solution and install an electric fuel transfer pump that will allow me to simply pump fuel to the main tank if and when required.  If ever needed I could use the same electric pump to supply the fuel to the engine if the new mechanical pump on the engine ever fails. I will fit a second fuel gauge when I rebuild the dashboard at a later date.

Reserve tank in primer after after being sanded back to bare metal.

The good weather was also a chance to strip and repaint the inner wheel arches. The arches were in good condition with very little oxidation so after sanding and two coats of primer they were given three coats of topcoat so hopefully they will last a good few years.

Inner wheel arches in primer

After the second of three coats of black top coat

With the paint on the reserve tank dry I positioned it on the chassis and then sat the seat box in position. This allowed me to measure for and make some heavy duty mounting brackets. I may fit a tank guard at a later date.

Mocking up the reserve tank.

With the engine and gearbox in place it was time to fit the bulkhead, but first I needed to paint it as it was still a nice silver zinc colour after having been galvanised.

Before preparing the bulkhead for painting I washed it thoroughly with mordant solution, which turned the silver zinc colour black as an indicator that a chemical reaction has taken place and that the surface will now allow paint to adhere to it.

Once prepared the bulkhead received two coats of primer and three top coats.

Creating a spray booth with polythene sheeting

Bulkhead after first coat of paint

I also wanted to spray the seat box at the same time as spraying the bulkhead but first I cut out the battery box and replaced it with a new one. This was a simple job as all the panels are riveted together.

Assembling the new battery box before fitting it to the seat box

Spraying the seat box

Bulkhead - trial fit after painting

The engine and bulkhead will never look so clean again!

Preparing the new rear prop-shaft for painting and fitting UJs

Brake servo painted and refurbished master cylinder fitted

Starting to think about wiring - this pile is part of the original loom

One of the things that I wanted to upgrade during the rebuild was the heater. Initially I considered putting in a more efficient matrix such as the high output matrix manufactured by Allisport, however at the time I needed it it was out of stock so I decided to simply stay with a stock matrix and replaced the original one with a new one from Bearmach on the basis that I can always upgrade this if needed at a later date. I did however make some modifications to the hot air passages and I also insulated the box itself as well as insulating the ducting behind the dashboard which hopefully will increase air flow and reduce the heat loss through the bulkhead.

New heater matrix

Insulating the heater box - bulkhead side .              

As the new bulkhead that I had fitted was for a newer "Puma" model a number of small alterations were required. One of these was increasing the size of the air flow opening behind the heater box.

This alteration I understand is also common on the age related bulkhead as the air opening in the bulkhead is actually smaller than the air outlet from the heater box.  It was also necessary to close the opening which is in the top of the passenger side foot well as this is only needed on newer models of Land Rover which have a completely different heating system. I used 2mm aluminium plate to close these openings well sealed with silicon to prevent future water ingress.

Refurbished heater box fitted 

Dashboard heater ducting was cleaned and painted

Insulating the heater ducting with Dodo van insulation

Starting to refit the dashboard

With the bulkhead in place it was time to think about fitting the wings. Before painting I carried out a trial fitting as some modifications would be required to allow me to install the heat exchange matrix for the air conditioning unit.

Trial fitting the wings - the red pipes are breather pipes 

Preparing the inside of the wing for painting

Inner wings spayed to match bulkhead - black paint is stone guard

Painted wings (inside only) fitted to Land Rover 

With the wings fitted to the chassis it was now time to add some shinny bits!

As part of the engine upgrades I was fitting a larger high flow radiator and a larger intercooler which were supplied by Allard Turbo.  These were purchased when I bought the uprated turbo and came complete with mounting frame. Bought to be functional, they also would add a touch of "bling" to the engine bay.

A couple of home made mounting brackets 

As mentioned earlier in this Blog, I am fitting the air conditioning from a Bedford truck to the Land Rover rather than fitting standard Land Rover AC. For anyone who has priced a defender AC system, you will know just how expensive it is, so the Bedford one not only proved to be much cheaper, but should in theory have the capacity to effectively cool the much larger body volume of the Ambulance. The main problem that I needed to overcome though was how to fit the much larger components of the brand new Bedford system to the much smaller Land Rover?

With the engine bay now enclosed by the wings and the radiator, I could see exactly how much room I had to mount the heat exchanger for the air conditioning. The obvious and easiest place to mount it would have been in front of the radiator and intercooler, but as the heat exchanger was larger than one normally found on a Land Rover, this would a) slow the air flow through both the intercooler and then the radiator and b) it would push the radiator grill forward potentially making the front of the vehicle more susceptible to stone or other damage.

With any space below the radiator earmarked for a gearbox oil cooler the best option was to make use of some of the available space against the inner wings.

The solution which I settled on was to mount the heat exchanger lying flat just under the offside wing within the engine bay. It would be mounted on to a fabricated support frame and a bespoke wing scoop and baffles would direct airflow down through the heat exchanger with the air then passing out of the engine bay down the side of the engine. It will be interesting to see in the future just how well this works!

Another length of salvaged steel ready to be cleaned and cut down to size for the mounting frame

Fabricating a mounting frame for the heat exchanger

Measuring up for mounting points and inner wing clearance

Trial fit of the heat exchanger

Mock up of top cover and baffles

Air inlet scoop - Mad Max?

With the bulkhead in place it was time to fit the brake pipes, run fuel lines and fit the axle, gear box and transfer box breather pipes.

New brake pipes

New braided flexible hoses wee also fitted to the brakes.

When running the fuel lines I used pipe protectors to make sure there would be no rubbing where the lines crossed or ran close to the chassis or other fittings.

Fuel lines - yellow, Breather pipes - red.

The windscreen motor and linkage went back together without any problems once I found where I had stored them. As the Land Rover did not have a windscreen when I bought it and had been sitting exposed to the rain for months (years?) I was unsure what condition the wiper motor would be in, but bench testing it proved it to work perfectly well.

I decided to replace the wiper spindles and drive gear as the old ones were in a bit of a state and the new ones were a minor cost. better to change them now that wait until they fail as they are mounted well behind the dashboard.

New wiper spindles and drive gear

Insulating / noise proofing the bulkhead before fitting the dashboard

New wiper drive gears

When I bought the Land rover it came with two batteries of indeterminate age and condition. One battery proved to be OK but the other one was dead - this possibly was the cause of the burnt out starter as without a 24 volt supply the starter will not turn and the solenoid can easily overheat / burnout.

In the workshop I had one new Bosch 80Amp (S4010 battery) that I had not used on another project so I only had to buy one new battery to get a matched pair.

Another bit of small fabrication gave me a new battery clamp as the original one had been removed before I bought the Land Rover. Despite the picture below which makes the clamp look too long, the clamp is a tight fit when it the batteries are in the vehicle

New engine batteries

To protect the steering and the gearbox oil cooler I replaced the fairly useless (and damaged) standard MOD spec protection tube with a proper steering guard. This is manufactured from 6mm aluminium and should offer much better protection to the steering components unless of course as with all Land Rovers the suspension is fully extended in which case the steering bars hang down lower than the guard due.

More shiny bits!

With the larger mechanical works pretty much complete (famous last words) it was time to start refitting the dashboard and instrument binnacle. To be honest this was not something I was looking forward to as a lot of refurbishment was needed due to rain damage from the previously missing windscreen. After this, the logical progression would be to start rewiring, something I was definitely dreading given the numerous cut wires, obvious alterations and poor workmanship that I found when I removed the wiring from the vehicle when disassembling it.

Refitting the dashboard

Having removed and done away with the EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation)Valve when I rebuilt the engine, there did not seam to be much point in keeping the control system for it so I removed that with the intention of using the space within the between seats unit to house the air conditioning control gear - not sure if I will stick with this though as I may build a cubby box there instead.

Removing the EGR control unit

EGR Control Unit

Installing the AC control unit and additional fuse box

While not sure if I am going to use the chassis side rails and sill panels or not I thought that I would strip them back to bare metal and repaint them anyway. This may be a waste of time (and i suspect it will be) but at least I now have the option of doing so, and if I do not use them, I know someone who will.

Yes - these have seen better days

Battery box cover in primer

Before packing everything away as I was due to return to work in Africa I wanted to complete the hydraulic systems. With the brakes already complete that just left the clutch and the steering. 

The clutch proved to be a bit of an issue as when I filled the system I could not get a pedal. After a lot of time spent bleeding it (no air bubbles were coming through) I carefully withdrew the slave cylinder so that I could see if the piston was in fact moving. This was a good idea in theory, but a bad one in practise as when I removed the cylinder the actuating rod jumped out of the clip that holds it in place on the clutch lever! 

Unable to get the clip back on I had no alternative but to remove the gearbox and re attach it.

The reason that the clutch did not work was eventually traced to an airlock in the top of the master cylinder which I eventually managed to bleed out by slackening the brake pipe connections at the master cylinder itself.

Running out of time I had to leave the refitting of seat box, drive shafts and numerous other bits until my next time at home.

Unexpectedly lifting the gear box out again!

Before leaving the UK I took some photos and measurements of the ambulance body as I was going to have a number of months to plan its conversions and start ordering parts.