Project lightweight

Down on the farm where I live/work, my boss has a series III lightweight Land Rover, which he plans to get back on the road after a number of years sat on one of the barns, but re-engining it with a slightly more modern 200 series 2.5tdi engine. Over the years the chassis has been patched and had parts replaced, but one of the reasons it has been laid up recently is due to chassis rot again, this time on the main chassis rail on the topside, under the floor panels.
There are at least two ways of gaining access to this area, removal of the rear body tub and, more simply, removal of the rear floor. Since we are not keen on making too much work for ourselves and the floor is corroding through in places, it was decided to lift the floor panel. This was done in an hour or so after drilling out all of the rivets and carefully prising the panel up. With this panel up the chassis can be cleaned up and decisions made on how much to repair it, just need to wait for some steel to be delivered before I start the welding.




















Meanwhile, the GT6 has been receiving a bit of attention, with some of the smaller jobs being finished off and tidied up. The wiring under the dash is now, hopefully, complete having added a momentary switch for the screen wash pump and connected the inertia switch to the two fuel pump switches.
In the engine bay, the coolant header tank has been sited in what was the battery box, the two lower connections going through holes cut in the bulkhead support panel and the whole lot given extra support with a small bracket underneath the tank.

Polished rocker

Been doing a bit of maintenance for the saloon and preparation for the GT6 by servicing up a couple of sets of rockers for the six cylinder engines. A problem I had been having with the saloon was accurately setting the valve clearances; this was in part due to a slightly worn rocker shaft, but largely due to the worn faces of the rockers.













New rockers are available, but seeing as I had the time and inclination, I decided to service the ones I had. First off the shaft was stripped down and the components left to soak on paraffin for a couple of hours before being scrubbed clean using a wire brush on a drill and any oil ways cleaned through. The ware face was then carefully polished using WD40 on 600 grade glass paper, taking good are to alter the polishing angle as I went along, to maintain the radius on the face.
The rocker assembly was then re-assembled with copious amounts oil on a new rocker shaft.















Back on the saloon after the clearances were set, the valve train sounds a lot quieter now, so a successful job then, which was then proven with a trip over to Carmarthen to have a look at a MkI GT6, the new owner of which has also started a blog.

An Update

There has been a bit of a lull in work on my GT6, partly due to a lack of enthusiasm and partly due to being busy around the farm.
In the meantime, after a bit of deliberation with other people on the DS Forum, I decided to invest in a rivnut tool. This tool allows you to fit a threaded tube into any panel where there is sufficient clearance behind it. The main reason for this purchase was to allow me to neatly route the battery cables from the battery box behind the driver, past the drivers seat and on through the bulkhead to the starter.
One alternative to rivnut was to use self-tapping screws through the panels, but I thought that a bit scruffy to have screws pointing out underneath the car, with a propensity to rust. So instead, aluminium rivnuts with stainless cap head bolts are being used, much better in my opinion.
The battery box needed to be modified to fit in the boot area and still allow the panels to be fitted over it. In order to do this, the box needed to be shortened by six inches, this was simply done by accurately cutting the box in half, sliding one half in the other, decide the correct height, then fix the two pieces back together again using pop rivets and Adhesal.














The more I have been working with the GT6 and it's fuel system, the less happy I have been with the original fuel hose and fittings, these being a mix of mild steel and plastic, especially as it has to carry in excess of 100psi petrol. To improve matters, I have decided to use modern braided fuel hoses to run to and from the metering unit in the engine bay.
The system uses 9/16" (-6 JIC) hose for the feed to the metering unit, requiring an adaptor at the metering unit end to convert from BSP to 9/16" (-6 JIC) and a 30° swept joint to clear the bulkhead.
For the spill back, 7/16" (-4 JIC) is being used, again with a BSP to JIC converter at the metering unit end. I am waiting on this smaller BSP to JIC converter at the moment, seems it is a bit of an unusual size, but once I get it, work can start on laying out the fittings, to decide where best to route the fuel hoses and the lengths required.

Hard at it

After quite a bit of planning, re-planning and swearing, I think I have broken the back of my wiring. The original fuse box has gone, replaced with a multi fuse and relay box. Looks a lot neater now, though I can still see myself re-wiring it again when I change the dash.

In progress















Almost done

Plodding on

The rear half of the wiring loom, from the fuse box back, has been re-covered with the original specification tape after any redundant wires had been removed and any poor quality joints had been re-made. So this section has now been re-threaded into the car and a new twelve way connector has been fitted at the fuse box end to aid quick and easy connection to the rest of the system.
The front interior section of the wiring loom has now been fitted back in the car to check for fit and give me some idea of what length the wire to the additional switches needed to be.

Some thought has gone into the location of the combined fuse and relay box, originally it was going to be fitted in approximately the same place as the original, in the battery box. I have gone off this idea as it puts the relays, fuses and connections in a more harsh environment and would male removal harder. Instead, the box will be mounted on the side of the passenger tray, still perhaps not ideal, but it ought to make routing of wire easier.



As the fuse and relay holders are modular in a carrier, a hole was cut in the side of the parcel tray to accept the holder, with a strengthening plate also fitted around the cutout as the tray is somewhat flimsy even before cutting chunks out of it.






There was a added and unwanted job that appeared over the weekend was that I was longer able to shut the rear hatch.
It had been a bit of a pain to shut and made some grinding noises when moving it, I guessed it was just down to lack of lubrication, so I ended up leaving it down but not latched into position overnight, but it seemed to have moved, with the latch being approx 1/2" out of alignment.
After trying to get it to lign up by slackening off the mounting bolts, I replaced the spring and hinge unit from that side and now is shuts much better than it ever has done before in my ownership. Will have to find some more paint now as I now have one green hinge and one magenta.

As long as no other jobs come up on the car, the next step will be to wire in the fuse and relay box, then see about getting power from the battery to the box, via the starter.

The re-wire - part 2

Another few hours spent on the wiring loom has the majority of the modifications made to the wiring loom. The original layout of the loom used the ignition barrel to switch and pass power to the many circuits in the car, it has now been altered such that the ignition barrel will now only switch power, via a relay, to the rest of the fuse box and switch the stater solenoid when required. This way the ignition barrel does not have to switch and pass through such a high current as before with the added advantage that by removing the main relay the car will be a lot harder to start, an added anti-theft device.

Additional wires have been put in the loom for switching the fuel pump relays, tacho and screen washer pump, the new bottle had one included so I may as well use it. While many other wires have been re-routed to take power and switch from the central fuse and relay box.
To give myself a bit more space on the dash area, the old rocker style hazard light switch with separate dash warning light has been replaced with a combined switch and repeater taken from my long rotted away Dolomite - at least the spares are sill coming in handy.

Upon the suggestion of others, the loom will go back in with extra multiway inline connectors to make removal of the loom or assemblies such as the steering column much easier, as at the moment there is nine connections to be made when re-fitting the steering column, not always an easy job to get right in such a cramped and at times dark area.

Just got to wait on the next delivery from VWP, sure I can find something else to get on with though.

The re-wire - part 1

Part 1, yes I do think it is going to take a bit to get right. Earlier on in the week I had my delivery from VWP, including a stack of different coloured and rating wires and the combined fuse and relay box. Just as I thought would happen, I forgot to order a length of spiral wrap when I placed the order, but managed to pick some up locally.
Having removed much of the original self amalgamating tape, which the loom was covered in, I had planned to replace it only with the afore mentioned spiral wrap, but seeing how it goes on, I have decided in my next order to VWP to get a few rolls of tape to cover it again.
At present, the GT6 wiring loom is in two parts, joined together behind the existing fuse box, the second half supplying switching and power to lights, etc.. in the rear of the car. Both half of the loom are out of my car now, to make it easier to trace, replace and add wires as necessary.

I was a bit daunted by the whole thing when I first contemplated all of these wiring modifications, but now I am getting into it I am quite enjoying it.
The next thing will be to work out what I need in my next order to VWP, self amalgamating tape, switches, inline connectors and anything else I can think of.