A Landy is reborn

[tractorman]

The Hermes lady appeared with a pack of treats for the dog on Friday - no parcels though!

The Landy hasn't progressed much over the weekend, though I have managed to get the foot-well out and was intending to clean the flanges up this afternoon and make a start on welding the new one in. However, my sister and brother in law arrived, so that was the afternoon lost! However, my B-I-L was a wagon driver in the army for nearly 20 years, so was able to make interesting comments about the military side of the Landy! He has always hated Montegos, so made various negative comments about the engine!

I chickened out with the cut and shut on the fuel tanks - there would be three or four places to weld and I have a feeling that the good tank might be rather warped by the time I had the military filler in (I have some stuff to seal the tank, so the quality of the welding/brazing could be a little less than 100% perfect). I've ordered a nice filler neck and cap that should more or less fit straight on to the original neck, so I'll have less "welding" to do - with less chance of distortion or leaks!

One bit of useful news - the spare gearbox has found a new owner! I put it on eBay last night (for £5.00 less than I paid - as "Spares or Repair" and collection only) and it was sold to someone not too far away within a couple of hours! One thing I didn't want was a "distance sale" - whoever buys it takes it away and has seen it first. That saves a fortune in carriage and a lot of hassle! It also "gives" me a boost to the rebuild budget!

[tractorman]

There are days when you wish you stayed in bed. I had high hopes of getting some stone chip sprayed this morning and, after making a cup of coffee, I went to the garage to try and remember which panels needed doing (there are a few bits in the shed too). Oh dear, a wet floor, it must have rained hard during the night. I had a quick feel along the purlings and there weren't any wet ones near the water. Then my nose detected the bouquet of white spirit, so I checked my two containers - one new one and one nearly empty. Nothing there. Then it dawned on me that it was actually old diesel! The silicone sealer for the plastic fuel tank had given way!

It took an hour and a half to wipe the floor with old towels, then spray it with Gunk followed by the pressure washer and loads of detergent to clean the floor. By that time, the dog was ready for a walk - and chose today to decide to go paddling. She used to go in the water every day (to "catch" stones), but can't manage it now - she falls over when negotiating the stones in the river bed.

However I did get the stone chip sprayed on most of the panels I wanted to do - I used just under three litres (there was an opened one from doing the Passat's back wheel arches - seven years ago!) and had to wash the containers in thinners to get enough dregs out to do the last panel. I'll need some more soon - the next job is to fit the new footwell and that will need to be done with the stuff!

[tractorman]

Not much of an update - sorting the footwell has taken a while longer than I intended - especially as I ran out of gas on Friday and had to do a "mad dash" to get some more before the "workers" had their early finish.

The footwell is in place, seams sealed and just needs a little filler here and there (the welder would either stutter on the new metal or make large holes on the old stuff). If I get some filler sorted this afternoon, I might get some more primer on and it'll be ready for stone chip and paint. I need to clean up and paint the support in the inner wheel arch (for want of a better description) and lower wing stay before I can put the wing back - but I need to sort the wing's mounting plate for the splash shield too, so it will be a few days before the wing goes back on.



I managed to get the stone chip on most of the bits (but ran out of stone chip). There are one or two things that need a better coat (I had the stuff well thinned towards the end) and there are one or two things left to do - like the end of the middle seat storage box that I missed (I think the tin of stone chip had run out and I forgot where I had been). I'm looking forward to getting in the shed sometime:



I did most of my weekly Hoovering this morning - downstairs at least - and the belt has broken: the second this year!! Mind you, I did find a lump of weld with it while I did the sitting room carpet!

[tractorman]

I thought that the footwell was sorted until I remembered that there should be a stiffener on it (mainly for LHD vehicles, but it also braces the mounting to the chassis rail). I tried unpicking the one from the old footwell and decided that it was going to be too distorted (and had been patched), so another one (£5.00) is on its way. I had thought of making one from an old boiler flue that the neighbour gave me a couple of years ago (a rectangular sectioned 2mm steel "tube"), but at a fiver, I thought a ready made one was sensible! I also sanded and filled and sanded and sprayed with high build - and ... the bit of bulkhead below the windscreen, where someone had patched a hole with filler. That looks a lot better now and I will turn it blue when I finish the footwell (and I'll spray the sills at the same time).

I finished off the heater fan this morning - I sprayed the motor and bolts etc yesterday - so it is ready to fit and the shine from the left-over gloss paint will soon die down! I need to do the heater itself, but don't want to drain the water just yet (I want to get it running first!), so it will have to look really rusty for a while longer.

I had intended to do a bit of worn on the fuel tank (Plan G I think it is now) and got caught by the neighbour - who was sorting out rust on his A6's front wheelarch. It had a "Supermarket Scrape" a year of so ago and it had eventually gone to a hole or two. After giving him some advice about filler etc, I ended up going round and rubbing his primer down and spraying a coat of high-build over it. It won't be perfect, but it will be a lot better than it might have been; I will go back in the morning, rub it down and pray more high-build and repeat until I am satisfied! He was on about a scrape on the back wheelarch, so I had a look, then realised that he'd masked it off when he sprayed over another scrape The "scratch" was the primer showing along the edge of the new top coat!

So I got back to the fuel tank, put some of that cleaner stuff (from Frost's) in and sloshed it round. Then noticed a little dribble coming out! Luckily, it's on the top of the tank - where the seam goes across. As I'll be putting some tank sealer inside, I suspect that I can block it quite easily with that. The cleaner has to be left until tomorrow evening, so that's tomorrow's plan scuppered!

Oh yes, the spare gearbox has moved to a new home - it sold a week ago, but a friend of the buyer was coming to see his sister, who lives about five or six miles away (he'd come within two miles to get there), so he came this evening with the necessary beer tokens and a nice VW van and went away after a long chat about all sorts of non-Landy or Tractor things! I gather I know his sister - she works at the local doctors' surgery!

[tractorman]

Some progress has been made - though it has been far too hot to do much recently!

The neighbour's Audi is ready for a final rub down and polish - though I did manage to get a sag with the lacquer that I had intended to sort this morning. The neighbour turned up at ten and said he had to go out for a while - and hasn't come back yet!

My apprentice seems to enjoy bodywork - though I suspect she really likes to go next door for a few Shapes. She goes and finds the lady of the house and demands feeding! They haven't had a dog for about two years, but spend a fortune on Shapes!!

The stiffener got welded in place yesterday; though it isn't the best example of spot welding, it has made the top of the footwell a lot firmer for the heater and fan. I need some shorter bolts to got through the top join and then I will get some paint on it and can start putting things back together.

Thinking of bolts, I must have spent somewhere near £100 on the things in the last week or two (not to mention J-nuts and U-nuts - I bought a large box of those!). It wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't got two boxes of unified nuts and bolts that are either just too short or much too long!



The heater fan has been painted and put back together. It will look a lot better than it did. I need to sort the heater out; that can wait until I drain/change the antifreeze and do one or two other improvements with the cooling system.



I spent a while this afternoon sizing up the fuel tank in the back of the chassis. Yes, it's the first one I bought - the other will make something like a flower planter next summer! I spent a happy hour or two sloshing "Metal Prep" in it the other day and, after rinsing and letting it dry out (it did that very quickly in the sunshine), poured in the sealer and sloshed that around on Friday. I have half a tin of "excess" sealer that should be useful for something - the instructions say leave it with the lid off until all the paint hardens, then throw it away! As it looks like thin smooth Hammerite, I think I will use it as that and paint the outside of the footwell with some of it - it should seal any gaps and I had intended to paint the engine bay silver (I have a lot of silver smooth Hammerite from some job or other!).



The new filler neck is on the breather pipe at the moment, though will fit nicely over the original filler neck if I use the new filler hose that I bought when I thought I could get away with putting the tank under the driver's seat. The "square" of silver on the top of the tank covers the pinhole leak - there are two or three coats of the sealer to make sure! The jacks won''t be there when the tank is fixed in position!!

If I can get the tank and mountings to look reasonably tidy, it should be OK for my needs - there's a good 350mm ground clearance below it. The large box section (I think it's 120 x 50) may get used as an extension to the rear crossmember so that there is a bit more protection for the tank - and a decent mounting for the tow ball and drop plate. I don't really want to tow anything: partly because I don't trust the welding on the rear crossmember and partly because I have two tractors that can tow heavier loads!

The guard dog was on patrol, but she finds it difficult to stand for long. I think she was angling for a second wobble round the "triangle" (the grass across the road). Having said that, she was helping in the garage yesterday: until I started welding.

[tractorman]

I had high hopes of progress yesterday, and managed to get the neighbour's Audi somewhere near finished - the second coat of lacquer ran on the offside front wheelarch (I had sorted the sag on the other one!). So it was half past three before I got near the Landy.

The bolts arrived yesterday morning and were duly put in place and some seam sealer was used to hide many of the mistakes around the stiffener! I then painted the panel where the heater sits with some silver "Smooth Hammerite", though is is about ten years old and a bit thick! So I thinned it a tad - but should have done it a bit more as it sagged a bit because I couldn't get it thin enough!

Undaunted, I sprayed the floor with underseal and managed to get some on the chassis while I was doing it. I'm using a "free" aerosol can of the stuff that came with an can of stonechip that I bought to do the edges of the Passat's wheel arches (in about 2004/5) and I prefer a good old fashioned brush for underseal on flat surfaces! I also sprayed some etch primer on the tops of the chassis rails that the "restorer" had left untreated when he undersealed the rest of the chassis - the bits beside the gearbox - the easiest to reach!

I had hoped to get something done today, but went back to the Audi, rubbed the runs out and put a final coat of lacquer on that. The neighbour was trying to sort the boot lock - he has just found out that it didn't lock at all - he thought it locked with the alarm, but he's only had it for about twelve years! Unfortunately, he was removing the catch motor when I caught up with him. The locking servo is rick solid and the link to the (also solid) lock is missing! I left him with that one because my mate Phil (a different Phil!) is coming later as he can't work out how to get at the back lights on the Delica and wants to wire his tow bar (of socket on his tow bar).

The old dog decided it was a day to walk on the foreshore, so that took a long time. Even moreso because her boyfriend (a short-legged broad-built collie) was in the water and, to his owner's surprise, left his stick to come and see our dog! Not that they did anything other then sniff the same lump of grass, but he hasn't seen her for a couple of months and wanted to say hello!

Looks like another Landy day lost!!

[tractorman]

The dog only wanted a short walk, so I have a few minutes to spare!

Progress has been slower than i hoped, partly because I ran out of wire for the MIG and partly because I actually gave the Golf some "quality time" the other day (including an oil change, just in case the new engine had thrown a few filings into the mix).

I have sorted the extension for the rear crossmember and, this morning, got it more or less securely welded! I've tacked the two bits of angle that will support the "back" of the fuel tank as well as bracing the joints between chassis rails and crossmember. A little more work with the grinder is needed and then I can get some more welding done and move on to the two front supports. I don't know why, but the MIG decided to make "rusty welds" just before I finished this morning. My new flowmeter reckons there was plenty of gas!



One piece of advice - when you spray paint, don't lean against it straight away!

As an aside - I bought a pair of sleeves the other day (I wear a tee-shirt most of the time and the welder's apron only protects so much). The sleeves have made life with the grinder a lot more pleasant - especially when grinding the "inside" the crossmember. Another thing that has improved my welding is the new glass on the mask!



This side is a bit rougher - I don't expect anyone will see it when the fuel tank is in place. The two lengths of angle will support the tank (remembering that one mount on the tank is half way up, the other at the bottom, so the offside angle is longer). Once the angle iron is welded properly, I can get on with the front mounts: similar stuff welded roughly where I cleaned the underseal off on the side of the chassis.

You can see why I hate underseal in that photo: I went over the top of the chassis with a wire brush in the angle grinder and the surface rust is fairly obvious!

[tractorman]

Today is almost a milestone - the last major welding is complete and the tank is in place! There's a little welding to do to make a frame for a filler flap that will have to be made in the floor, a mount for one of the tub supports and a support to make and fit in front of the tank but I can cope with that!

One of the tub supports should have gone between the middle one and the back of the chassis - just where the filler neck is. I am undecided at the moment if I should mount it at the back (there's a new rail to fit across the back of the tub) or not. The new support at the front of the tank and protect the return pipe's union and I have a length of 50x50 angle to bolt across bottom of the front of the tank - just in case something gets up there (the diff is lower than the tank and the silencer goes in between the two, so it should be well protected! It needs to be bolted so that the tank can come out from under the tub.

Note the cunning vent pipe! My heating engineer friend gave me a coil of 3/8" copper pipe some time ago (I used it as conduit for the electrics on the little tractor) and it is a neat fit inside the original stub for the vent pipe. The new Land Rover rubber pipe is a snug fit over the copper and, with a couple of jubilee clips, will be leak-free. The vent will go to the top of the back panel (where the tail lights are) - unless I have cut it too short - and the rubber will stop it from rubbing on the chassis.



OK, that was taken before work started yesterday. The tank is now in place and only needs eight 3/8" bolts tightening before it is secure - I ran out of time last night!

I had a bit of fun putting the handles on the back crossmember. As it's a home made affair, there aren't cut outs behind the inner holes. A bit of agricultural experience came in: a long screwdriver with an open-ended spanner taped to it was employed - with a little tape on the back of the spanner's jaws to stop the nut from dropping off. A little bit of a fiddle and four nuts were soon tightened up.

That crossmember is starting to look like a real Land Rover one now - though it's slightly deep (to protect the back of the tank).



It would have looked neater if the tank had a flat top and truly vertical ends, but this was the best I could do with what I have! The bottom isn't horizontal, but I suspect few will notice. The drop place helps with protection as much as being a mount for a towball (or winch!!). The flash makes my "sanding" (with flap disc) look rougher than it looks in normal light. There's a tiny bit of filler there to smooth the weld - less than a golf ball sized lump - that's all I had!



I got too keen after fitting the tank: I put the bulkhead support on and tightened it up. A daft thing to do because I deliberately left it off to make it easier to fit the new battery lead and fuel lines. No, I didn't fit either before I put the support in: that's today's job!



Time to get back to work - the dog has just got up!

[kstrutt1]

You may also need to loosen the bulkhead bracket to adjust the door gaps when the tub is back on, on mine i used ratchet straps from the top of the bulkehad to the bumper (with wings off) to pull it into line, then tightened up the brackets and it stayed in the right place.

[tractorman]

Thanks for that tip - the doors weren't too bad (they actually closed properly!), but I suspect that the n/s one will be wrong now!

I managed to get the sender and pipes fitted to the tank yesterday and made a start on the feed pipe to the engine. However, I forgot that the original pipework is wrong (it goes to the main filter before the lift pump), so have to alter the route slightly (and the coil of pipe is the wring side of the throttle cable (bodge-up job to connect to the Montego engine).

I surprised myself and remembered to fit the straps around the back axle (to stop the axle dropping to far when I fly over the bumps in the road!!). I don't know if I'll get use to the idea of putting things ON the Landy - I'm so use to taking them off!!