Paint your Wagon

[Wheeledbeast]

Hooray I have managed to get on with some work not much though, but I have cleaned up and removed the alternator and dynamo brackets from my two engines. As you can see I made my own Heath Robinson adapter to fit the alternator to the dynamo bracket .



I can probably just shorten the length of studding/all thread to make it fit the alternator bracket.
I think this has got me my first 0.1% of the way to fixing the truck, but at least I have made a start.

[Wheeledbeast]

I have finally managed to make some real progress . The photos below show the empty engine bay ( ..er and gearbox bay) of the forward control Land rover. The result of a long weekends work, struggling to use an engine crane on grass .



Unfortunately I think that this was the easy bit now I have to try and get the new 2.6 Land rover engine back in ( the old engine is a rover 2.6 and there seem to be a few differences.) Also I want to do some tidying up jobs in there, as I am hoping that this will be a once in a life time experience and I will not have to do the job more than once.

[Wheeledbeast]

Managed to get a lick of paint round the engine bay, not sure how well it will stick as it was very oily ( in the morning sorry ).

making some progress, but Small steps and all that.

[Wheeledbeast]

I bought some new engine mounts ready for the re fit. 2.6 mounts and 2 1/4 seem to have the same part number. However if you look at the two engine mounts I have got you can see they are different,



In the picture the larger mount were described as 2 1/4 mounts, but they will foul the webs on the steel parts of the 2.6 enginine mounts on the Forward control. ( look at the left hand engine mount on the photo in the previous post.) Now since my engine was probably a 2 1/4 before it was changed to be a rover 2.6 you would think the mounts would be the same, but apparently not.

I would be interested to know if other engines are mounted in the same or a similar way with webs above the mounting point preventing the use of over size engine mounts.

[Wheeledbeast]

Slow but steady progress at the moment. Its funny how in the bad weather you don’t want to be outside getting on with it , and in the good weather you find you have other commitments . Any way inspired by my trip to Gaydon show I have tried to make some progress.



I have made solid pipes to run from the engine to the radiator. I used 28mm copper water pipe, as this is the same size as the inlets and outlets to my radiator. (Interestingly series 3 radiators seem to have much larger in lets and out lets. Did they have a cooling problem) . I have run the pipe through the upper chassis channel and fastened it to the old fan bearing cross member. I am planning to fit an oil cooler so I have modified the LHS steering relay mounts to hold it in place ( close up photo on the right.)


while I have everything in bits I thought I would just post a photo comparing the oil breathers from a Land Rover 6 cyl enging and a Rover p4. The one at the top is the LR version that swan necks round to feed the fumes into the carburettor. The lower one is the rover version which faces down hill lets fumes or any oil drip on the floor, or down the outside of the sump. My plan is to re fit the rover one, possibly with a length of hose pipe on it to drip the oil away from the engine.(May be even into a chassis leg What do you think)


Final photo, the 2.6 Series Three engine ready to go back into the forward control. My truck was probably a 2 ¼ petrol. The conversion to 2.6 kept the original engine mounts, but made adapters to fit the engine. (red steel plates on the side). This means I need to use the oil filter assembly from the P4 rover to avoid fouling. I have also changed some core plugs, fitted pipes to feed the oil cooler (LHS), and oil temperature/pressure senders. Hope fully this will allow me to monitor the state of the engine and pre-empt any problems .

[Wheeledbeast]

This photo is the result of my first journey in 9 months. It was very short and quite Smokey, plus the brakes needed adjusting. I was so impressed I got out the tape and measured the journey… 18 feet. Off the Lawn and on to drive, whoo!


I still have to sort out some modifications to the engine covers to fit the new engine. The cab floor has to go back in and everything needs cleaning up then I can attempt a trip on the road.

[Wheeledbeast]

The second slightly longer outing of a mile was also a huge success . Outings 3 and 4 moved on to four miles and then six miles respectively. They even included filling up with petrol, and a hot start.the cab was excessively hot, but the engine seemed to run okay. Buoyed by this success i attempted a 20 mile.... unfortunately around 5 miles in the fan bet spat off and was very badly mangled . I am guessing i did not have the alternator lined up correctly, i have ordered a new belt .( and a spare). hopefully i can try a re run this weekend.

[Wheeledbeast]

I have given it my best shot at lining up the pulleys. I put some packing washers behind the water pump and have moved the alternator, again. I am around 100 miles in and so far it seems to be so good. I did a couple of 20 mile plus runs this weekend and the truck seems to run well. There is a noticeable increase in torque compared with the old engine, and it seems to be just as fast, or it did……



This morning the truck was definitely down on power, I could only get 50 on the flat, and was struggling on the hills. It seems to run better at ¾ throttle too. The photos were taken on one of my trips yesterday...

[Wheeledbeast]

Not a very good day yesterday, fitted a “new” electronic distributior, but if any thing that made the running worse . Then this happened

So if any one has got a half decent Michelin xl they want to part with please PM me.

[DasLandRoverMan]

That's a bit of a let down...