1959 Land-Rover Series 2. Seating, and distractions…

[glenanderson]

I dragged out one of the other side panels to measure up the sizes and spacings of the window apertures. Then I carefully transferred the measurements onto the sides on the Land-Rover:



Then, take a brave pill and a deep breath, and start cutting:



With that done, and the holes neatened and deburred with a file, I could fit the glass with some new rubbers:



Repeat on the other side:



And then I fitted the seats. The boy has passed them as a “significant improvement” and, apparently, they’re very comfortable. I do need to look at the seatbelt on the drivers side one, as it’s reluctant to retract, but other than that they’re done. My master plan is to have two short pieces of Unwin track on the passenger side floor of the Austin, which will allow them to be fitted into either vehicle as required. 



I’m pretty pleased with the overall look and the functionality of it all. The seats come out in a matter of seconds, with no tools and, although heavy and awkward, can be moved to allow full access to the load space whenever I need it. I also carried out a successful trip to the tip on Monday, and the staff did not bat an eyelid, so that part of the mission is well and truly accomplished. 😀

I did add one last finishing touch:



👍👍

[grizz]

Very nice job Glen.

And tip run success….. perfect.

[jamesd1972]

Looks good, so much safer with those seats. How you going to get the insurance sorted ? Chuck it in for an MOT or have you got an engineer friend to write you a letter? Have a very similar cunning plan for our heap but I think the frames on the seats need a chop first. Please may I ask what floor to seat base height you have ?
James

[ivanhoew]

those windows came out really well glen , well done . whats that armageddon monster lorry front i see peeping out , a coe sort of thing from the 40's/50's ?

[jamesd1972]

Its one of these !


A BRS Parcels Austin 'Noddy' van
James

[xfu990]

Very posh, you'll be giving it a coat of polish next
Just love a Land Rover in its working clothes.

[glenanderson]

Aug 11, 2021 7:11:58 GMT jamesd1972 said:

Looks good, so much safer with those seats. How you going to get the insurance sorted ? Chuck it in for an MOT or have you got an engineer friend to write you a letter? Have a very similar cunning plan for our heap but I think the frames on the seats need a chop first. Please may I ask what floor to seat base height you have ?
James

I don’t plan doing anything. It’s had “5” seats for the best part of three decades of me insuring it. What’s in there now is better than anything Land-Rover supplied in the 60s, and in the absolute worst case scenario of someone from officialdom surveying a smoking wreckage, then I’d sooner they looked at what’s there now than what was there last week. 

I’ll get the tape out for you, but it’s basically 1” above the wheelbox. 

[glenanderson]

Aug 11, 2021 7:41:28 GMT ivanhoew said:

those windows came out really well glen , well done . whats that armageddon monster lorry front i see peeping out , a coe sort of thing from the 40's/50's ?

Thanks. Yes, I’m quite pleased. 

Armageddon monster is my Austin lorry. An update on which should be coming in a day or two. 

[glenanderson]

A point to add. The rear seating is largely ornamental, or at least, a large and prominent two fingers up to petty bureaucracy. It’s there to satisfy the requirements for entering the tip, not for carrying paying passengers on regular journeys. The only semi-regular backside that will grace them is my lad, currently 12, and slightly built. At some point, possibly not that far into the future, he will be too big to either physically fit, or too grown up to want to. Watching nieces and nephews fledge their nests recently has reminded me that little lasts for ever. As and when Finlay no longer needs to ride in the back then they’ll come out and the bench will get reinstated, because they’re a massive, heavy lump I don’t need to carry around if I don’t have to.

[kevins]

When I fitted similar rear seats to my 1960 series 2 there was no bureaucracy, the reg docuent just said 4x4 utility with no mention of seating and the insurance company were fine with 4 seats, they are miles better than the std Landrover wheelarch mounted death traps anyway.

[jamesd1972]

All I was thinking is that an MOT pass gives you a good tick in the box that someone else has checked it over. You’ve done a really nice job on the runners etc. so nice safe workable solution.
Looking at what you have done makes me think hard about if we fit the seats at all for the same reasons- my boys at 11 & 13 are both big for their age so will run out of space fast.
James

[glenanderson]

I have been halfway thinking about putting it through a voluntary MoT once the power steering kit is all fitted. It was last done August ‘12, so it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea.

The most sobering aspect of having kids is how massively important some things are, for such a ridiculously short period of time. Clothes, toys, uniform, passtimes, all seem to be earth shatteringly important for a while, only to be discarded a few short months later.

[kevins]

yep mine are 23 and 19 now the amount of money we have spent on stuff to only give or throw it away 2 or 3 years later is staggering.

The good thing now is my son is buying tools and because he has not much else to spend it on (might change now he can actually go out etc) generally he buys far better ones than I would have, I now have the use of a bandsaw, good table saw, planer thicknesser, decent bosch pro drills, wood lathe, 3D printer, laser cutter, chainsaws and an industrial sewing machine plus loads of hand tools.

[varelse]

Aug 11, 2021 12:37:40 GMT kevins said:

yep mine are 23 and 19 now the amount of money we have spent on stuff to only give or throw it away 2 or 3 years later is staggering.

The good thing now is my son is buying tools and because he has not much else to spend it on (might change now he can actually go out etc) generally he buys far better ones than I would have, I now have the use of a bandsaw, good table saw, planer thicknesser, decent bosch pro drills, wood lathe, 3D printer, laser cutter, chainsaws and an industrial sewing machine plus loads of hand tools.

Make sure to put HIS tools back in the wrong spot so he knows what it's like!

[glenanderson]

I’ve sort of run out of cash at the moment, and real progress on the Land-Rover requires the investment in a new exhaust at the very least, which is why I have been doing other things. 

I did get time to strip the manifolds off the engine from forkliftfred (and flog them) and offer up the new manifold and turbo assembly to see what’s what. 

I neglected to take any pictures, but I’m happy to report that they all went on without drama. I’ll have to swap some studs about, and as predicted neither dipstick setup is going to go straight on without some fettling. However, I’ve been informed that the third dipstick option, the 200 Defender type, is easily fitted, and that’s what I currently have on the Land-Rover anyway, so I should be able to sort something out one way or another. 

I need to lay in some intercooler pipe work, and have a look at wastegate actuator siting too, but the big hurdle is getting an exhaust system. Once I have one here I should be able to get it swapped over fairly quickly, and once that’s done swapping out the alternator mounting and fitting the power steering kit should be similarly straightforward. 

[darrenh]

do you have defender 200 setup, or discovery ?

[glenanderson]

Aug 20, 2021 8:31:48 GMT darrenh said:

do you have defender 200 setup, or discovery ?

At the moment I have a Discovery timing case setup, which allows use of completely standard chassis mounts; Defender manifolds, which clear the deeper 109” chassis; and a spaced out Series 3 alternator mount that allows a stock fanbelt and alternator. The problem comes with wanting to add a power steering pump. Using the 300 Tdi manifolds (which are the same regardless of Defender/Discovery/Rangerover) means I can use the 200 Tdi Discovery alternator and power steering pump setup. 

[glenanderson]

Hello world. 👋

Things have been steadily happening, although not all has been going to plan...

We’ll start with the bits that have been going to plan:

I finally got around to stripping off the power steering pump alternator and associated bracketry from the the engine I purchased from forkliftfred what seems like an eternity ago. 

From this:



To this: 



Surprisingly, everything came undone easily enough, and all the bits I need are there and serviceable. The alternator is knackered, but it’s not needed as I already have a new one fitted. The bits got cleaned and put to one side, then I broke out one of these bad boys:



Using this bit of it, here:



I could unbolt this bit off the other side. Witness the gap where the injection pump used to be:  😀



You will also notice that I’ve got the injectors out too. These were a swine, but they yielded eventually to a mixture of PlusGas and brute force. 🤣

With the pump on the bench I took the opportunity of easy access to remove the stop solenoid and take a peek inside. It was as clean as a whistle, which was an enormous relief. Hard to photograph though, with the reflections off the fuel in the head:



The timing tool allows you to take the pump off without disturbing the timing cover, or belt. Handy with a 200 Tdi as you would also have to drain the coolant system down and pull the radiator out of the way. A mate of mine gave me a second kit a few years ago when he sold his Land-Rover, so I could repeat the disassembly process on the engine in the Land-Rover without too much bother. It’s tight, but quite doable. 



While the pump and air cleaner were out of the way, I took the opportunity to fit the washer bottle and pump on the inner wing. Pleased with that. 



Investigation behind the stop solenoid confirmed beyond doubt that things were not as they should be:





Again, hard to photograph, but lots of little silvery slivers of metal. Not good at all. 

So, with that lot off, and the injector pipes thoroughly blown through, reassembly was a reverse of the previous steps.




I bled the fuel up and the engine started straight up and settled to a nice even tickover. The lumpy and inconsistent idle, and the low speed surging has gone. Nice. 

[glenanderson]

However, all is not as it seems in paradise...

Despite being smoother, it’s still down on power and a bit smoky. 

Bumhats, as they say in these parts.

 I had a chance meeting with a good friend of mine that’s an ex Land-Rover main dealer technician, so I took the opportunity to pick his brain. He thinks I am a tooth out on my timing belt. He even had the grace to say “I know that you don’t make mistakes like that, but it’s not impossible to do; if the marks do all line up, then check with a rod down the injector hole for no 1 cylinder that it really is at tdc when it says it is”. 

So so today I had to start stripping it all out to get the timing cover off. Fan off. Radiator drained and out. Crank pulley off. 

I’d just finished sweating and swearing at the main crank pulley nut when I happened to look back underneath the motor.
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Remember I had to change the wheel cylinders earlier this year?



Fox picture. 😡

So, tomorrow I will be continuing the strip down and checking of the timing. Hopefully it will be apparent what the issue is when I can see the belt, pulleys and timing marks.

Then, when it’s all together again, I’ll have to have that rear drum off and find out where the leak is coming from. 

On a brighter note, I have been tidying, sorting, selling and scrapping stuff, and have raised the necessary funds to buy a new exhaust system. Once I have got this lot sorted I will get it ordered. 

[grizz]

Morning glenanderson

Sometimes the like button is more of an acknowledgement. Today it was.

Good to see you back on here, I thought you were a bit quiet lately.

Great progress and this made me chuckle….. He even had the grace to say “I know that you don’t make mistakes like that, but it’s not impossible to do; if the marks do all line up, then check with a rod down the injector hole for no 1 cylinder that it really is at tdc when it says it is”.

Because I have a faint idea of how your brain works.

Still, I do hope you get it all sorted, brakes are a PItA as always.