Masochistic Early Midlife Crisis - Old Land Rover Content

That looks great. I'm not a fan of painted cappings and screen surround as I think they should be left bare galvanised, but that is just personal preference.

Well worth the wait, I'm sure.

My Series 3 was the same, but it was all flaking off. If I'd kept it, I'd have got the heat gun and wire wool out.

It has been a busy few days. I have been neglecting the bodywork of the Land Rover for a while. The body cappings were rusting quite badly and the two sections were separating quite a lot. This meant that the rear safari door was drooping too and becoming difficult to open and close.

I set about removing the interior - not a massive task, there is only the headlining and the ply sides I installed. Roof bolts all undone and rear of the roof jacked up so I could remove the sides and replace the cappings. I've gone for galvanised one piece versions from YRM. They are stronger than the original two piece ones. I'm not going to paint them - I quite like the Series look of bare galv.  They will tone down quite quickly over winter. 











Day two was spent stripping down the front end. Windscreen out and door and bonnet removed. I was going to leave the bulkhead corners over the winter, but their rapid obvious deterioration made me do it now before the worst of the weather sets in.  I am brand new to welding, but have been practicing here and there, watching various YouTube videos and have a basic idea of what I'm doing. I've also bought some decent gas which helps.

The passenger corner was the worst. I welded a plate in the rear which disintegrated when I removed the screen brackets. I then cut the rot out of the outside and cut the repair panel to match. I discovered that a welder is a great tool for blowing holed in rusty metal, but with a bit of a change of technique, I managed to weld the new steel in and ground it down satisfactorily.













Day three was the other side. The rear needed plating again, but I also had to fabricate the outside of the door seal area. I don't know why nobody makes the inner pieces as these are a well known rot issue. Once this was all welded in, a little bit of grinder, filler and high build rust inhibiting primer and I'm happy with the result. It's all back together now - the windscreen fits with new seals top and bottom and the door shuts line up.










Only job left to do is sort the saggy headlining with some new lining carpet and install a new dash cam.
I smashed the current one removing the screen.

I'm a massive fan of learning by doing. One thing I have learnt, was to order a galvanised bulkhead for the blue 110 project. I have the repair panels, but it is worse than the black one and longevity would be an issue, I think.

They rot due to having layers of untreated steel on top of each other. I will replace this bulkhead with a galvanised version at some point, but it was easy to save for the time being.

I possibly wouldn't do it to a Disco 4, but a Defender is just a giant Meccano set.

I'm seriously impressed.

Saggy, filthy vinyl replaced with van lining carpet. Should make for a quieter, warmer feeling interior.

Just waiting for my new dashcam so I can install it, then that will be all the jobs on the black one for a while.

Are you putting sound insulation in? Apologies is I’ve missed that detail but I’m told it makes a big difference.

A very tidy job.

It wasn't supposed to rain today. Sod's law dictated that as soon as I should crawl under and drain the oil down it would start pissing down.

Anyway, 6 month oil change done with new oil filter and fuel filter. I also dropped the sump and cleaned that up before resealing with copious amounts of RTV. Hopefully that will stop the oil leaks.

I was cold, wet and miserable by the time I had finished so didn't get chance to check the diff oils, but will do that tomorrow if it is dry.

Bollocks. I serviced the Defender a couple of weeks ago, and it is dripping oil as I didn't have a spare sump plug washer and had to reuse the old one.

I've got a big box of copper washers from ebay and was going to drop the oil, but noticed the expansion tank was right down.

There are no external coolant leaks at all. I took the oil cap off and it was sludgy. Started the engine and I get steam out of the oil cap.

I was initially hoping for it to be the oil cooler, but as oil runs at 30-60psi and coolant at a max of about 15psi, when that fails you get black coolant.

There is nothing gas wise in the coolant and the exhaust is clear.

I'm guessing the head gasket has failed between two pushrod holes which is why the crankcase and rocker is breathing coolant!

Gasket kit is £50 including bolts, so I've ordered one and will likely pull the head tomorrow and take a look.

Haha no. It will be staying as bare aluminium.

I've done as much as I can.

As I thought, gasket had gone between coolant and pushrod gallery. Interestingly, it had a composite gasket. Land Rover advise to fit a multi layer steel one due to random failures of the composite ones.

There are four thicknesses of head gasket available for the 300TDi.1, 2, 3 and zero hole gaskets - 1 being the thinnest and zero being the thickest. 3 is the most common, which is what I ordered in multi layer steel. Imagine my surprise when the gasket I removed was a zero hole. This can be a problem depending on piston protrusion - I would rather not have them smack into the head when warm.

Anyway, dug out the engine manual and measured the protrusions in mm. Basically, a DTI gauge is used to determine TDC for each piston and a straight edge used along with feeler gauges front and rear in line with the gudgeon pins to determine how proud they sit above the block. The largest measurement is used and gasket selected.

Specs are:

Protrusion 0.50 to 0.60 mm - select gasket with 1 identification hole.
Protrusion 0.61 to 0.70 mm - select gasket with 2 identification holes.
Protrusion 0.71 to 0.80 mm - select gasket with 3 identification holes.
Protrusion 0.81 to 0.90 mm - select gasket with 0 identification holes.



My highest protrusion was 0.77mm which calls for a 3 hole gasket. Phew. I have no idea why the engine builder installed a zero hole gasket. 

Head back on and bolts tightened in sequence according to the manual.  Injectors, fuel pipes and glow plugs back in. I can't do anything more until parts arrive. Couriers seem to be taking ages once again. 

Jobs left to do/parts needed:

New turbo oil feed and return pipes. 
Reinstall exhaust manifold.
Reinstall inlet manifold. 
New EGR plate gasket (had to remove the pyrometer probe to remove the manifold). 
Reinstall air filter. 
Change oil and filter. 
New coolant hoses. 
Refill coolant. 
Install low coolant alarm. 
Renew fuel injector return pipes. 

Hopefully will be up and running by the end of the week. 

Are they really that blue or is it just the flash photograph? If the former, then yes, you are a tart.