The Landblogger

Spring Mounts Complete

There's been an hour or two of welding in the past week. [major understatement] After the completion of the first new mount, the others went together with relatively little effort — just alot of time. Now I need to do a bit of sanding/grinding, splash on some paint and they're done. Was it worth it to get just 1.25" of lift? Only time will tell.

Next job in the process will be to knock out the stock frame bushings and replace them with some poly bushings. (Are they neoprene? or polypropolene? or what?!?) At any rate, the idea of installing them is to increase the flexibilty of the shackles to allow for maximum suspension action. I am working on a set of drop shackles for the back — not building them myself, but working with Randy at Breeze Industries to adapt the design he makes for Jeep and Suzuki to work for Land Rovers. He is also developing a traction bar for the rear axle, but I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.
The final photo here shows the frame, still upside down, with all 4 of the new mounts welded in place. Soon it'll be time to flip it over and take care of the few changes to the topside of the frame.

Getting out the welder

As can be seen in the photo, I've cut the side reinforcements for the spring mount. You can easily see the gap on the inside which is fixed by putting a bend on the inside upright. Easier said than done. It actually took a lot of effort to bend the 1/8th plate, which reassured me of the strength of the final product.
I'm just about ready to start welding. Thanks to Andrew for lending me his welder. It is a wire feed 110 volt, which at its highest setting is about the minimum power for this job. By running the bead quite slowly I am able to get welds deep enough, though.
I welded together the 3" tube and the sides in the vise, which was quite simple because I could flip it over as a unit and weld on the flat surface. Once this was done, I then drilled the 9/16" holes to accommodate the spring bolts. Then a bit of cleanup with the angle grinder.
Carefully tapping the finished mount into its spot on the frame, I tacked it into place. You can see in the photo that I inserted a bare bushing tube to eye up the placement. I welded the bottom of the bracket to the frame itself, and seams inside the square tube as well. As a final step a bit of spray Tremclad was applied. The first mount is now complete. I can now breathe a sigh of relief that I haven't screwed up the frame (yet). A quick measurement shows that I've gained 1.5 inches in height from the original mount and about 5/8" backward movement. This first one acted as a prototype for the other 3, with the rear actually being quite similar. I had made cardboard cutouts of all parts in the first place, which came in handy now. the right front original mount came off and was ground to a flat rectangle in no time, as did the left rear. So far, I've left the right rear intact for reference purposes while I piece together the left rear. the major diference on the rear is a bit further length, and the angle I'll use is 0°, not 10° off like the front.
The photo shows the mocked up assembly for the rear.
In the case of the rear mounts, they project backwards at an angle so to get a 1.5" increase in height, I have to measure significantly further out from the base of the tube. This ends up moving the spring back a little as well. My estimate is that I'll end up about 1.5" backwards as well as 1.5" higher. This doesn't hurt my feelings, as I've found the rear axle seems to be a bit too far forward in the wheel wells of the 88, so this should centre it.

Spring hanger extensions

One would think that just getting a decent frame, fully refurbished and in excellent shape, that I'd be happy to slip it under the Rover and carry on. But no, not me. I've got to fiddle with it!

What I'm trying to accomplish is a further modest lift of about 1 - 1.5 inches. The easiest way to do this is to extend the spring shackles at the back of both front and rear springs, but to get an inch, I've got to add 2 inches of shackle length, and an inch and a half requires a 3 inch shackle, which starts messing up the castor geometry on the front end. So, since the frame is bare, I thought, why not increase the height of the fixed spring hangers at the front of both front and rear springs by an inch or so, and then I can increase shackle length by the same amount to get the desired lift. And, the added bonus of not jiggering the steering geometry. This is essentially how the military 109 1 ton is set up, so I figured it should work for me.

Starting with the front... The photos show the spring mount for the front of a (rather rusty) military 109, turned upside down to compare it with the spring mount on the stock 88 frame, pictured above.

After a little bit of testing for size, basically by taking a new bushing with me to the steel shop, I concluded that 3" square tube, 1/8th" wall would be a good starting point as it accomodates the bushing, albeit tightly. The drawback is that 1/8th wall is a little thin for my purposes, as the stock measures to 5/32" and I am intending to lengthen the mount, thus it will be subject to increased leverage from the springs. The military mount is 3/16" thick. I can't copy the military mount precisely without alot of fabricating as it is an entire unit that mounts to the frame horn. Instead, I intend to cut the mounts off of the existing frame and adapt my new mount on the resultant flat square surface. 1/8th being too thin, but fitting the bushing well, I plan on using another 1/8th flat steel left and right to give it rigidity and mount it to the original mounting.

The military mount appears to be set back from a stock 88" mount by about 1.5". I'm not sure whether the rear (of the front) spring bushing is moved back accordingly, but I'm hoping to keep my hole placement about .75" further back, rather 1.5" further back. (I'm thinking here that .75" won't affect things much with an extended shackle at the other end)

So, a couple of days ago, I proceeded to get out the angle grinder, attach a cutting blade and cut off the existing spring mounts from the left front. No turning back, now. I then cut a length of 3" tubing with about a 10° angle so that it would follow the profile of the mount as it comes from the frame. Not knowing yet exactly how tall I intended, I left a long enough length of tube. I also intended to leave at least an inch of the tube intact at the rear in order to maintain the inherent rigidity of the square tubing.(After completing the first one, I've decided that this rigidity is even more important and I'm not even cutting the open side out until I finish welding the reinforcements in place. Due to the heat of welding, the first one ended up warping inward by about 1/16th" and I could no longer insert the bushing until I did a fair bit of hammering and bending on it in the vise — but I'm getting ahead of myself a bit!)

As can be seen in the photo, I've scribed the positions of the new spring hanger hole and the rounded shape I anticipate for the top. The other thing to note when doing this is that the original spring plates are positioned towards the outside of the frame, with the inside edge sitting approximately even with the outside edge of the frame below. By positioning the 3" tube flush to the outside I am within about 1/8th" of the original side to side placement, and have a lip of aproximately 5/16th" to deal with on the inward side of the frame. This will be apparent when you see the photos of the reinforcements.

After reading the green bible I couldn't find much documentation on precisely why the spring mounts were positioned outwards and not centred. An alignment issue? Anyway, thought I better follow the original pretty closely.

Finally got the camera going

The frame arrived last Saturday, but it took a few days to get a photo. It is hoisted on two engine stands so that various bits of work can be done to it with ease. I added another hour to my tally actually getting the frame up in the air, using a come along and a bit of muscle. But now in place it should be quite easy to do the welding and tweaking in preparation for assembly.

Nervous Breakdown

There's a thread on the LRE forum called "New Chassis or My Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown", which is the cumulated work its taken a fellow to replace his chassis, while rebuilding virtually every component along the way. Its been gong on for a couple of years. Although rather informative, and definitely worth the read, this is absolutely not the project I'm after.
I do need a new frame, and since last posting have purchased the rebuilt 88" frame outlined in the post. It's in perfect freshly painted shape, and, with a few modifications will suit me well. But, in another life I played around with aircooled VWs, and somehow ended up with numerous large projects — getting few done. My philosophy with Land Rovers has been a wee bit different: only one project vehicle at a time, and do the projects in small enough bites that you can always drive it to work again on Monday morning. This has served me well — with perhaps the ocassional stretch into Wednesday or Thursday — but always able to see the end of the project clearly.
Replacing a chassis, however, doesn't fall into the same category. I understand the Land Rover labour guide quotes 100 man-hours to replace the chassis. I don't remember when I had a weekend that long!
I guess the next few months will show how long it will really take, and just for fun, I'm going to keep track!
Today, I spend about 2 hours getting the frame home and in the garage, with the help of David, Andrew and Matt. Then I spent another 2 hours tracking down my engine stand and purchasing a second one so that I can set it up one each end to flip the frame around. Another hour was spent at the local steel mart picking up bits, but more about that later... So there goes 5 hours, just like that and I haven't even got any bolts loose (just a few screws!?!)
I've decided that from now until Founders Day on January 8th I'll work on all the little preparations, then after taking the truck to Founders Day, I'll actually start the real job.
Anyone for a frame changing bee? I'll supply the coffee — and the food — and beer! — but only when you're done.