I just got a Landie

It's a 1982 Series III - I'd have hoped that they might have standardised by the end of the run, but remembering other BLMC cars I've had from the time it's probably got bits of prototype Defender and whatever was left over from the lightweight and god knows what else on it.

Series motors always were the poor cousins of parts bin specials, weren't they?

If I keep it, I'm considering a flip-top mod I saw last night - weld the bonnet to the wings, put a strut along the bottom and mount the radiator on a separate subframe. Stick a set of Maxi tailgate gas rams either side and have the entire front of the car lift away for maintenance.

P.

Most bodywork and engine is AF (hex head). The gearbox (excepting the propshaft bolts) will be mostly Whitworth, inculding the ones holding the handbrake drum on.

Worth investing in a set of Whitworth and AF spanners/sockets if you intend to be doing a lot of work on it

Alex

On or around Mon, 01 Nov 2004 22:23:56 +0000, "Paul S. Brown" enlightened us thusly:

I had an 86" series I like that once, briefly. 'twas handy for getting access to the 2.4 Jag engine that someone had fitted into it. JTX267, where are you now?

Blimey, you get everywhere! :-D

The Series Land Rover HBOL is pretty decent.

Depending on age, you might come across Whitworth threads in some places.

And pretty inaccurate. Go look at the section on front axle, it informs you that you must put 1 pint or 1.4 litres of EP90 in the swivel housing. Well, good luck attempting to put 1.4 litres in it. If they can't even get that right.....

Which indentally leads me to another item, this time in a Haynes Book Of Lies for a much later car (Vauxhall Carlton/Senator/Omega) which informs me that I to replace the wishbone balljoints I must drill the rivets out with a 12mm drill. Had I followed this I would have been buying new wishbones as well, as the resulting enlargement from 8mm to

I'm too long in the tooth to get caught out by Haynes any more

Alex

But a 12mm drill would remove the head of the rivet nicely and you'd punch the rest out, surely. Whenever I remove rivets, which is not very often admitedly, I use a large drill to remove the head and stop drilling there.

Worth investing in them anyway if you find them cheap enough. I got a King Dick set from Stoneleigh Town and Country Festival a few years ago for 15 quid. Also got a King Dick 1/4 drive BA set for a tenner.

Its doesn't say "remove the head of the rivet with a 12mm drill" or "drill off the head of the rivet with a 12mm drill".

It says "drill out the rivet with a 12mm drill" The two are quite different. To the untrained novice, and easy mistake is here.

I remember another Haynes manual which said something along the lines of "tighten the hub bearing nut to 35lbft and secure with split pin" completely failing to mention that you tighten it to 35lbft, back it off and then nip it up, followed by a split pin. The end result of which meant someone coming to me whinging about the hub bearing they'd replaced (rear of an old Astra, IIRC) had failed again in 200 miles.

Funnily enough, I checked an older edition of the HBOL (the one with the text in 2 columns, not three) and it mentioned the correct procedure. The later edition (three columns) had been re--worded with the above result.

Alex

And after a day skinning my knuckles and discovering that I really want to buy one of those little 12v impact drivers from Halfords the answer is.....

Rear diff is dead.

Yay to those who thought it might be.

Replacement on order from Paddocks - £70+VAT - along with gaskets and a replacemnet set of propshaft bolts.

I was going to buy one from my local recovery place, but it turned out they'd told me a mistruth when asked if they had an S3 rear diff - they had something that would fit, but being a Rangie diff I'd also have to replace the front one, which isn't happening.

The diff should arrive Friday. I'll try and remove the old one before then. It looks like an uncomplicated job (not easy - nothing is ever easy with a landie).

P.

Nige

It is. That's a 2nd hand one.

The cheapest recon one I could find was £147+VAT at Dingocroft. The cheapest new one was £250+VAT.

Landrover list them at 347+VAT with a £500 deposit against the old one.

P.

As per my post a couple of days ago - it's easy. The hardest bit is lifting the heavy lump out and lifting the new one in.

Taking the propshaft off should have been "easy".

The fact that one of the bolts was made from potmetal with a high tensile core and had adhered to the drive flange and rounded as soon as I put a spanner on it made it far from easy.

I ended up removing the bolt (not the nut) with a cold chisel.

Uncomplicated - not easy.

P.

F*ck. I put one in the skip a couple of weeks back...

Any surprise you see people at showsm, sodbury selling suspect diffs and cylinder heads? And cylinder head that may be no good for a car is still worth keeping as a exchange unit should you want a recon.

Alex

Mental blockage time, it's been a long time since I had a diff in my hands. Do you have to remove the halfshafts to get it out?

Or is it the planetary gear (I think that's what its called) that meshes onto the crownwheel? or am I talking a load of old bollocks?

Nige

yes

Probably

the pinion meshes with the crown wheel

nick