Sunday, February 10, 2013

Outrigger Part 1

Got started on replacing the outrigger yesterday. Right away I was faced with stiff opposition as the bolt holding the outrigger onto the bodywork was seized. I ended up shattering a 3/4" socket before resorting to cutting the head off with the grinder.

I then went from this:

To this:


The expected hole in the chassis. It's slightly worse than it looks as half of the top part was also corroded. What you can see in above picture is the top part of the old outrigger which I also removed. Sorry no pic as I was getting into the grinding 'zone' and forgot. I made cardboard templates so that I could cut new 2mm plate.

Here is the redone section with some chassis paint on it to guard against immediate corrosion.


As you can see above I have retianed the bottom part of the old outrigger as this was in good shape. I then had to do some more measuring so that the new outrigger would fit snugly into place. This was the most difficult part.


I was left with a wee gap right at the bottom for which I will have to fit up another small piece of steel and weld in place and there's some weld to go along the top of the rail.
As I moved inside and started to weld I realised something was wrong. The weld looked terrible. I found that I had ran out of shielding gas ! Honestly those wee disposable bottles are useless.


I will grind into the weld here to see how porous it is then redo.
I still have to attach the top outer to the stiffener for which I will do a bracket for the top and maybe for underneath too.
A proper big bottle of gas ordered, however I am back to work so Part 2 may be a while.

Now scroll back up to the first picture then down to the bottom picture - see the difference :)

Thursday, February 07, 2013

One I forgot

There have been so many !

I also reolaced the track rod ends, PAS drop arm and the swivel housing seals.

TRE's and the drop arm were straight forward after a vice and stilson were used, the swivel seals were a bit more involved and messier.

I removed the half shafts to gain access from the inside.





Oh, did I mention the rear shocks too. A very easy job. You can see the new outrigger in that box too !

The Next Big Job On The Defender: Outrigger

The next big job will be replacing the N/S bulkhead outrigger. It's badly corroded. Initial attempts to 'get at it' revealed this.


You can see it there under what remains of the footwell panel. This panel will be remade and replaced also. The outrigger does have a hole in the bottom from new but is not supposed to have a big hole in the top !!

Special tools are needed for this job, namely a 4.5" grinder and a welding machine. 


This 130 amp Supermig from Sealey should be fine on 2mm mild steel.

Stay tuned for more rock n roll  :)