Offroad-Express

I have new wheels






Its a 1997 Defender 110 300TDi

Pretty rough round the edges, but its all stuff that can be tidied up in the shed with a bit of time.

Its also got a fair few k's on the clock, so http://www.landroverspares.co.nz is gonna be getting some more buisness

Nice bro, looks tidy enough from the outside. Doing the bang bus conversion again? You should just quit work and start up a shop haha

The engine was in need of a front end overhaul, so put my order in with www.landroverspares.co.nz for a cambelt, tensioners, idler, water pump, all radiator and heater hoses, gaskets, air bleed plugs, rocker cover gasket and seals, the whole works

While I was waiting for the couriers to sort their stuff out and deliver my new parts, I started attacking some of the more urgent cosmetic issues........

The rear door in all its glory (apparently an issue straight from the factory):


Basically the weight of the spare wheel causes stress cracking and failure of the internal door structure.

Top center of the door below glass:


Top Left support and corner:



Bottom corners:



Top left prepped for weld before being plated:


Top plated and repaired:


Bottom corners repaired:



Passengers front door also had a gaper:


Couple more patches sorted that out:



A bit of urethane and black paint later it looked fine

Is that 88" Landy in the background yours too?!

Two big box's of Engine parts arrived from http://www.landroverspares.co.nz, hose's, belts etc. Was pretty exciting, the camera got forgotten, the front end of the motor got stripped, cleaned, rebelted, retensionered, regasketed, and rehosed

Kinda looks all bling and clean in there at the mo:



Also, thought the intercooler and radiator set up was pretty cool


I must say that the cambelt change wasn't totally smooth sailing, I had to make two Land Rover Special Tools ( bodge up back yard styles ), one to get the crank pulley off as my hydraulic puller wouldn't go wide enough, and another to pull the bottom cambelt drive gear off the crank, plus a pin to lock flywheel.

Then there was the three attempts to get the injector pump timing right bla bla bla...

Not to mention the Emergency After Hours call to http://www.Landroverspares.co.nz to get a new cambelt drive gear delivered on a Saturday morning, awesome service!!!!!!!!

While I was playing with the engine, the wife got stuck into the interior.

Ordered a couple of roll's of $10 tint film off tardme and went stealth styles with 5% on all of the rears and 35% on the front two.



The front got a bit of a scrub up and our sheep skin covers swapped in



The rear bench seats got stripped and and stashed away for safe keeping, the interior got a insta-bling coat and a scrub, and about two hours cleaning the very grubby roof lining.



Chassis also got a steam clean and coat of paint (Cheif mechanic inspecting oil leaks for me)


Found that the drivers side windscreen wiper was held with tape and silicone back to www.landroverspares.co.nz for a new wiper arm

Nice you work for that place? lol

The usual issue with a new truck is what tyres to run???

I have three sets of rims that will fit, well, four sets, but one of those belongs to the S1 in the shed

The standard 16" steel rims in the above pic's don't have the right offset for nth island tracks, they sit inside the guards by at least 35mm.

It also came with a set of 15" alloys, which are pretty scruffy but sit in exactly the right place.

I have a set of classic Range Rover RO-Style rims, but they aren't quite right either.

The alloys need a clean up, and they'l do as road rims.

I want to try running a tall narrow tyre for a change. So I want to keep the 16" rims, about 7" wide max, and maybe some 285's.

That will mean modifying a set of rims to get what I want .

I tryed the rims off the S1 out of interest. These are standard 16" LandRover rims that have been widened, flipped, and new centers fitted back in the day. They are exactly what I had in mind!!! (yay for 750 16 SAT's )


Perfect offset for touring:


I would say these are the rims I am going to have to get copied, might be a trip to see The Steel Surgeon in Manukau

Had a bit of a go at cleaning up the alloys. The clear coat was all peeling off, they looked pretty rough

I hit them with some paint stripper to remove what was left of the crusty clear coat:

Worked a treat!!


Gave them all a big scuff up with scotch bright:


Almost left them just like that, but I had to continue!! (could always attack them with paint stripper again if they look like crap )

Anyway, end Result:


They look ok on the truck too (wasn't convinced to start with though )

db you are the tart up king of 4wders, watching with interest

Please tell me that didn't happen all in one day

New wagon is looking awesome DB - Super clean (i'd expect nothing else from you) and lovin the black & white trim with the tints and black paint on the Alloys.

My dream truck

guys in oz fit big water tanks underneath for extended camping/touring. with twin arb's and some sliders and back bar protection, not to mention winch youll have the perfect setup truck in my mind so jealous!!

Awesome Pete Great to be involved

Nice work so far! Love the Defender maybe one day I'll get myself one, don't tell the wife though ....

Rims look sweet dude , all that time prepping Piad off.
But still like the SAT s better.

A word of caution about the cheif mechanic , he has been known to take bribes of the venison variety and spending all his time pursuing kitty.

But then agian any farkups he causes can be fixed with parts from http://www.landroverspares.co.nz

crap moderated a tad to much (might have lost your whole second page of likes db )

That is a really excellent looking piece of tarting up. The alloys look great, unusual but actually pretty good. Shame they aren't 16".

I agree, the SATs look better, but if you are going 7" x 16" you'd be looking at BFG KMs?

Interested to see how it all turns out.

Every now and then I threaten to get a Deffie but SWMBO says she wants to keep the auto from the Disco

Amongst other stuff at the weekend, I fitted a Water Temp, Boost and Oil Pressure gauge.



Although the motor had excellent results on the compression test, I have been hanging to get the Oil Pressure gauge in, as with the high K's the motors done I was pretty sure it would be in need of some bearings. The OZ guy's are having big end issues at 300,000k's. This old girl has a fair few more K's on it than that

Sure enough, I had quick pressure build up and reasonably good pressure when cold, but a noticeable drop when hot, lucky if I was getting 10psi at idle. Pressure build on hot start was still instant though.

Another visit to www.landroverspares.co.nz for some bearings was in order

So tonight out came the knackered bearings and in went some
new ones Luckily the crank journals were MINT and measured up with in tolerances (just).

Rooted Big End bearings:


I don't know if I should post this next bit

I'm trying to squeeze a bit more life from the engine, just a little bit more, then I'll throw a 2nd hand one or a back yard rebuild at it.

Sooooooooo, I did the Main Bearing dodgy

As we all know, the Big Ends wear on the top shell and the Mains on the bottom shell.

To get the Main bearings out you need to drop the crank. That was far to much work this time round, so I just wiped the caps off and replaced the bottom shells which are the ones that wear. Dodgy as, really not good practice, you wouldn't do it to a good motor, but not such a big deal on this one

Bottom Main Shells:


Sump back on tomorrow night and see what the oil pressure does

Andrew likes this

I'm a fan of 'replace one replace the other' but as a (somewhat qualified) engineer I enjoy your risk taking

Dont know if it can be done on those motors but Ive replaced mains top in place by very carefully with a flat blade screwdriver pushing the shell around ( locating tab end coming out first). Loosned off all main caps. Pushing new shells in the reverse order. With all mains loosened it gives an extra few thou to play with.

Pete, the old trick we used in the days when mechanics did motor overhauls or at worst --- patch ups is to get a brass rivet (brake shoe or clutch type) loosen all main caps and then remove one at a time fit rivet stem into main bearing crankshaft oil hole and then rotate the crank by hand and the flat head of the rivet will spin the top shell out, lock end first, refit the same way lock end last, check clearance with a strip of plasti gauge.

FITZY.

Like the rivot trick Not sure about the plasti guage accuracy as the weight of the crank will squeeze it. Only use when engine up side down on bench

Landy Rover, I would agree with the weight of the crank giving incorrect measurements if this was a total overhaul and we where looking for precise measurements but I would check for what is there as with the other caps fitted I don't believe the shaft will be to far down and as I have struck one block and caps that had been line bored oversize and on another occasion incorrectly marked shells I like to have an idea of what clearance is there. Don't tell anyone but I had an old Hillman when I was young that had low oil pressure and was a bit rumble in the bottom end,took the sump off , cut suitable sized pieces of baking paper fitted them under the bearing shells and bolted it all back together , sounded real good as the new owner drove it away , that took

TWEENTY HAIL MARYS AND FIFTEEN OUR FATHERS FOR FORGIVENESS,

FITZY

Better than banana peels or sawdust in ya gearbox to quieten things down. The shit I've seen people do is horrendous.

Cool, Ive got dark secrets as well like shaving out with a razorblade a 30 thou under big end shell to fit a Hillman Imp crank that was standard with one nakered shell, and that went for years. I used to own a fleet of the horrible shitters in my student days
Amazing what one can get away with!

Landy Rover wrote:Cool, Ive got dark secrets as well like shaving out with a razorblade a 30 thou under big end shell to fit a Hillman Imp crank that was standard with one nakered shell, and that went for years. I used to own a fleet of the horrible shitters in my student days
Amazing what one can get away with!

go to sleep ya old barstard

Now that the engine work is done for now (still got bugger all oil pressure ), I have been busy fitting out the interior.

The requirements were:

Sit in the back with a table
Sleep two adults and a child
Be able to sit up in the bed
Modular construction for easy removal and installation
Retain 3 seats when fitted
Other seats to be able to be fitted with out removing the whole set up.
Sufficient space for storage
Light weight
Quick and really easy to set up

The end result:

Folded away for travel


Table


Cabinet


Bed set up




What it looks like under the matresses





The hinged parts of the bed




The compromise between being able to sit up in bed and having the third seat which won't fold out of the way enough lead to Quick releases being fitted to the mounts (wonder what the Wof man will think) so you can pull it out and stash it in the front. It will be part of thed 3rd sleeping position in the future




Bit rough but should do the job

Now, back to the oil pressure issue.............

you are a marvel pete, a true marvel


if i had an emoticon for huge thumbs up you would get it

i think DB needs to go into the hall (no last name pun intended) of fame as a master creator now there are hordes of people wanting to get 110s!!!

Damn, I think that is one of the best set ups I've seen.

Still lot's of storage too. You have room in there for a gas bottle?

Cheers