Defender rebuild - leave galvanised or paint?

[Rannsachair]

Some weather up there today Tom. Some cracking bikes bikes go by me on that single track road at Loch Awe.

Aye, been glorious, next week forecast the same. Pic of one of my bikes out at work today on My View from the Office thread.

 

[Seadog]

 

[Rannsachair]

Planned to change a leaking swivel seal on the Defender today

Found a pitted swivel, so it's ended up needing a new swivel, lucky I had a kit on the shelf

Hopefully will get it back together tomorrow and fit new rear disks and hubs

Why do I like Defenders!

 

[willie.macleod]

Hi Tom, are you using EP90 in your swivels or semi fluid grease? I must admit the semi fluid grease and gaiters are a firm favourite with me. Looks like you had no issues getting it off, the multipoint heads can be a fight after a few years but yours look good.

DA3057 | Swivel Housing Gaiter Kit | Land Rover | Britpart

This swivel housing gaiter kit (DA3057) for Defender, Discovery & Range Rover Classics models are lightweight and provide permanent protection for swivels.

www.britpart.com

 

[Rannsachair]

Hi Tom, are you using EP90 in your swivels or semi fluid grease? I must admit the semi fluid grease and gaiters are a firm favourite with me. Looks like you had no issues getting it off, the multipoint heads can be a fight after a few years but yours look good.

DA3057 | Swivel Housing Gaiter Kit | Land Rover | Britpart

This swivel housing gaiter kit (DA3057) for Defender, Discovery & Range Rover Classics models are lightweight and provide permanent protection for swivels.

www.britpart.com

I used the one shot grease last build and the swivel I am replacing is an original, the new ones are teflon coated. Gaiters look interesting.

 

[OJCar]

Even the old Military leather gaiter make a heck of a difference to the swivel life.

 

[Rannsachair]

Front axle now rebuilt.
New teflon coated swivel:

Genuine Landrover seal. Pitting on 20 year old original:

New Lemforder track rod end fitted too as slight play and cracked boot on one.

 

[Rannsachair]

Been a long day, just in, thats the rear end done on the Defender: new hubs, wheel bearings, discs and pads.

Old discs were grooved and one stud on each of the old hubs was pulling out when I torqued down the wheel nuts. So had been on the to do list for a while.

 

[Rannsachair]

After a test drive (front nearside abs sensor too big air gap easy fix) I have done some machine polishing of the back end to blend in with the newly painted front end. Even put on resin polish then wax. Wheels cleaned up and poor boys protector applied. Touched up the scuffs on the leather seats with leather dye and a coat of leather food.

Wonder how long til the next job...... Landrovers

 

[Robotstar5]

Looks too nice to off-road now

 

[Rannsachair]

Looks too nice to off-road now

That's what my wife said. It will be like when I first took it off road when just over 2 years old.

 

[dobbslc]

Quick sell it!

 

[addjunkie]

Quick sell it!

Why, its just his grown up meccano. As you know when you grow up your toys get bigger!

 

[lexi]

The Patrol Y60 I drove had the swivel balls, but they have no oil in them. Don't know if that is better or not, but no knuckle joints are available and they were not bolted on if IRC.

 

[mtt.tr]

Looking great,

As @addjunkie puts it, "it's big meccano"

Working through mine, doors are my next big job (good excuse for the pan folder I purchased) and a rear cross member.

Then plan to have it painted, despite the talk of being unreliable they are not you just have to keep to the service schedule. Mines on 225k miles drives beautifully.

 

[Rannsachair]

I managed to fail my MOT after all that work: "Headlamp aim projected beam image is obviously incorrect on both sides", was not a complete surprise, had tried setting the lights o the shed door at night and there was no clear cutoff for the beam, no matter how I pointed them!

So out with the Maltings 4x4 made in China LED lights and back in with the Wipacs! I also had an advisory on a damaged brake pipe I had knocked the bungee holding the caliper out the way and let the calliper drop on the radius arm flattening a brake line (partially) so made up a new brake pipe.

Now have an MOT with no advisories, annoyed at myself for not just swapping the lights back. I noticed the sealed units were getting some condensation, £40 waste of money,

 

[OJCar]

I saw the bungee in your earlier photo and wondered to myself.
I made myself a number of S hooks from wire coat hangers, I find they work better for me.

 

[Rannsachair]

On holiday today and starter motor on the Landy starts playing up, so spent a few hours swapping out in the rain.Lucky I had a spare on the shelf. Why did Landrover use 13mm bolts on the visible fasteners and a 15mm stud and nut on the one you can hardly get to, so you waste half an hour trying to get a 13mn socket on it! The joys of Landrover ownership.

Back in 2020 I swapped out the solenoid and contacts rather than fit the new starter, given its only done about 4000 miles since, was a waste of time.

Took off accoustic shield to just see the top fastener.

 

[Bobupndown]

On holiday today and starter motor on the Landy starts playing up, so spent a few hours swapping out in the rain.Lucky I had a spare on the shelf. Why did Landrover use 13mm bolts on the visible fasteners and a 15mm stud and nut on the one you can hardly get to, so you waste half an hour trying to get a 13mn socket on it! The joys of Landrover ownership.
View attachment 409628
Back in 2020 I swapped out the solenoid and contacts rather than fit the new starter, given its only done about 4000 miles since, was a waste of time.
View attachment 409630
Took off accoustic shield to just see the top fastener.
View attachment 409631

Td5 starter motor is a total **Language**ing pain from memory. There's one of the nuts I didn't bother refitting. I did the solenoid fix on my Discovery and it was fine. Ran it to 165000 miles.

 

[sako243]

Why did Landrover use 13mm bolts on the visible fasteners and a 15mm stud and nut on the one you can hardly get to, so you waste half an hour trying to get a 13mn socket on it!

At least you could get to it. Try changing the starter on a JCB 2CX.

There's an access plate in the side of the engine bay which is inaccessible if the loader arms are down. Even then you pretty much have to do everything left handed as that's the only one you can get in.

Once you finally feel where the nuts are you then find you can't get a socket on them because there's a special CV jointed shallow socket they made to fit in the groove they machined out of the casing. You can get a spanner onto two of the three but the third doesn't have enough space. You then have to cut a 15mm spanner in half to make it fit, remove the coolant expansion bottle and lie on top of the engine to place said custom spanner on the nut. Go underneath, carefully place a small pipe on the end of the spanner taking extreme care not to knock it off and then **** it with a sledge hammer to crack the nut off. Once knuckles babe been suitably skinned you can then return to lying on top of the engine to use two fingers to undo the nut 1/12th of a turn at a time at which point you drop the nut into the mud because that's always where they decide to break down.

Once you have undone the three nuts and disconnected all the wires which are all conveniently JCB yellow then you can proceed to pray that you can squeeze it past the 3" hose that feeds the hydraulic pump from the tank because if you can't that means draining down the best part of 22 gallons of hydraulic fluid.

Oh and the wings are 1" plate and you can't remove them.