Wheely Nice

Latest update on this is I have the new wheels in place - the easy way

Steve who runs the Discount Tyres Cardiff Branch lives about 100 foot away and picked her up as his transport to work this morning and dropped her off again on his way home

The was job done at a very reasonable rate which included fitting all the new longer studs. It would have taken me ages and I would still have had to have the tyres changed

He was really good as well and they spent effort balancing the wheels using weights only on  the back to make the wheels look theie best, and they carefully replaced the wheels where they had been and kept the unused spare still unused and tidy

I do like using professionals some times, it really makes a difference to your day when you have a job well done

So now I have three 5 1/2 rims and two 6 1/2 military rims, and 20 used, but reasonable wheel studs looking for new homes if anyone wants to make me an offer

The Wolf's at the Door

Following on from http://landroverkaty.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/boing-part1.html where I replaced the rear springs and shocks on Katy, there was an improvement in the body roll, but not as much as I had hoped. This is really important to me in terms of safety so it's gone ahead of some of the other plans in terms of priority

Having been to Eastnor and had many people's good advice I took the plunge today and ordered a set of Wolf Wheels (ANR4583) These are tubeless rims (my tyres are actually tubeless, but my current wheel;s are not)

Because of a good offset, these will be about 2 inches wider across the rear axle and consistent front to rear so no more issues with that and only 1 spare wheel to carry from now on which will reduce the weight we're carrying up top 

Whilst I was there I bought longer Studs (FRC7577) which should be delivered with them

There is quite a bit of debate on the Land Rover forums on whether you need these longer studs or not in order to pass an MOT, and there is a very good summary of the difference that the wheels make and the amount of stud showing with different wheels here on the Landroverexpedition.com website.

My decision has been that despite the extra cost, I would like the extra certainty. I only have 4 wheels on the ground and to me the running gear is the most import aspect of any vehicle.


I've also inquired about a set of uprated Anti Roll bars  which will be here shortly afterwards if plans come to fruition, more about them to follow

I thought I'd bought a cheap Land Rover  !

Eastnor 2012

We had our first outing to a Land Rover Show this weekend - it coincided with my 50th birthday which makes me twice as old as Katy this year.

Arriving on Friday Night we set-up the camp-site. The weather was not good so there were loads of the members of the SWLRC running around putting tents in the rain up whilst we put the kettle on which was great for us (we did feel quite a bit guilty)

The stand was left until the Saturday morning because of the rain, and even then it was further delayed by the complexities of fetching "lost" and late members of the club onto site. Luckily the team sprang into action and with extensive use of mobile phones and a lot of arm waving we managed to get everyone together

Given the rain of the day it wasn't much of an event to wander around and take pictures, but we did have a pleasant surprise when Ian from the 127 Ambulance club popped over with his recently rebuilt pulse ambulance which was quite a treat for those who managed to get out to see it despite the rain (which you can see on these pictures)

Compared to Katy the  Pulse is quite a beast. it looks quite a lot more aggressive and it is a whopping 20cm (8 inches) wider across the body which does have the possible advantage of putting beds across the body instead of along it if you were to do a camper conversion, but according to Ian is a problem on some narrower roads

Sunday was quite a bit nicer and the club stand started to resemble a nicer place to be (apart from the mud underfoot)

On a walk around I was pleased to bum pinto some more 127 owners (well they called themseleves the
Land Rover Special Vehicles and Defender 130 Club) and they sold very nice jam indeed.

They had another of the 127 variants on show  and in this picture you can see a Locormotors (left) nest to a Pulse). The Locormotors like the Marshalls has a sloping front, but it also has the flat roof.

From what I have been told they were made by simply taking a pickup and adding a new body behind, and if you dril into the corners behing the seats you can hit the curved windows which are still in place 

We had quite a line-up on the SWLRC stand as you can see from the pictures below. From the nice 90 next to Katy, then a Freelander and closest is Nick's old Land Rover Special Vehicles radio truck now in a fetching red colour

Katy being the largest on the stand proved to be a useful flagpole

OK, the place was a complete mud bath, but it was still a lot of fun and we learned a lot

Working for a Living

Katy is retired. Not so for many Land Rovers. I recently had a trip to the Ffos y Fran opencast site to do some fossil collecting

The onsite 90's were nice, but 

We were chauferred around in style.. The Quary Managers personal 110. We were told there would be ructions if we got it dirty inside :-)

As for big boys toys

You can see the scale here

The tyres on the little one are abot £8,000 per tyre... as for it's big brother I didn't ask

The geological wite up is going to appear in my website as soon as I get it written

Anti Roll Bar Linkages

Tonight I did a bit more of the suspension upgrade by fitting new Anti Roll Bar linkages

Getting them has been an adventure in itself, I  tried buying them from Bearmach who were out of stock and then found myself after getting a hole in the radiator in my Suzuki just 100m from the main Land Rover main dealers in Cardiff and was offered them for a cool £44.00 +VAT EACH! which I declined and picked up pair from Unipart for less than half of that

So to summarise the job...

Remove the split pin and the castellated nut that holds the linkage to the chassis

Removing the Anti Roll bar from the linkage with 2 sockets

Putting the new one back with plenty of copper grease on the screw in case I ever need to remove it again

And once tightened up as much as you can insert the split pin into the castellated nut as shown below and once pushed right into place bend one side over to lock it in place

Then put the new bushes in place. The ones I had chosen were the blue polyurethane ones in the middle below. To be honest the old ones on the left and the new ones that came with the new linkages both looked OK, but everyone tells me the polyurethane ones will be stiffer and for £8.00 that's a good inexpensive addition that makes sense  

Tightening things up again and then a quick final shot of copper grease to keep things tidy until I get a chance to coat things in something more permanent

 

 So here it is all together. In this view you can see the linkage at the end of the bar and it's attachment to the axle and where it attaches to the rear chassis

And in this slightly wider view you can see the complete anti roll bar running acroos the fuel tank 

Boing and a bit

I decided to take Katy for a test drive to get some Anti Roll Bar bushes and try out the new suspension

It was a short journey over some twisty lanes between Cardiff and Caerphilly which is where Bearmach are based.

They didn't have what I wanted in stock so a wasted, but faster journey to Stratstone the local Land Rover dealer down the M4 to test higher speed stability. A main dealer that doesn't have parts open on Saturday what use is that!
I got some of what I needed at Unipart, but I still can't do that job  

Still it was a nice run and the stability is definitely improved. It's not where I would like it yet so more work to do

Boing (Part1)

"Time for bed said Zebedee and bounced off"

That's what driving Katy has been like on some roads with a major amount of spring and a lack of dampening leading to a lot of body roll and some scary moments. It had to come to an end !

So the 1st phase of the job has now been to upgrade the rear suspension with a new set of springs and shock absorbers. Here they are, ProComp ES9000 Nitrogen Gas shock and Flatdog Azalai 130 Camper springs as developed for the editor of LRW magazine, who owns a Azalai 130 Land Rover

After a late start caused by a flat battery, The first part of the job was easy, simply lift the rear with a trolley jack to get some working access and be able to remove the shock absorbers. The bottom nut was a bit of trouble with the job of holing the sock absorber in place to stop it turning whilst undoing the nut. A second pair of hands made that much easier

The top one was it anything easier as the nut is well placed for easy access with a socket even if it does not look like it in this picture

Soon the old oil shock is sat next to the new. I can move the old one easily with my hands. the new one takes leaning on which is a good sign
 

After the first test lift we decided that the Anti-Roll bar should be disconnected first to give the maximum amount of articulation, so that's what I did.

The next job was to lift it again. The wheels came right off the floor and still the springs were firmly held in place. A quick check of the Haynes manual and a technique of separating the chassis and axle with a bottle jack was described. so a quick hunt around for a small one and it was inserted and extended.

Up to just about full stretch and all of a sudden with a loud bang the spring separated from where it was attached at the top. As both Steve and I were quite close we got quite a shock.

After that there was a clamping plate to unfasten at the bottom. This was not easy either because the helper spring was in the way, but by lifting that and holding it out of place with a screwdriver I was able to unbolt the clamp.

A quick look revealed it would be easier to remove with the wheel off so that;s what I did and we were soon left with the old and the new together on the floor.

Steve correctly suggested a good coat of liquid grease on anything metal before it went back, especially those hard to Waxoyl without dismantling bit's I'd missed before 

Putting it back would be much easier I thought.. well I was wrong. The hardest part was to get the clamp plate at the bottom back in. The bolt had to go through 3 layers of metal and then into a welded nut. Not easy to get the alignment when you can't see the holes because the helper spring is in the way as you can see from this picture of the stack together

Eventually I got it, and finally about 2pm the first spring was in. Just lift the axle and put the wheel back on.

Having learned from the 1st side the second was a lot easier as the first job was to remove the wheel.

The spring was then levered out at the top with a tyre iron and the job went smoothly without the need for a jack to provide pressure

I said smoothly. That was except the spring did not want to settle as nicely in the bottom plate. After about 10 minutes I gave up and decided it would probably settle the first time I hit a good bump.
 

Finally reattach the shock absorbers, put the wheel on, reattach the Anti Roll bar linkage the and all was done for the day. 

Mind you that spring that had not settled didn't need a bump. I jumped in the back to load up the tools and rubbish and it settled into place with a loud twang

I'm not sure how much better this will be. I need a test drive