The Landblogger

Roverdrive Installed

Nick came over from Wise Owl to install a Roverdrive with me. It took just under 2 hours complete, and was a pretty logical process. Why a Roverdrive and not one of the other types of overdrives that are out there? Local connection to parts. Good self oiling system. And a rather creative methodology -- using a planetary gear set meshed to one end of a series III sychro hub, from the look of it.

So far I'm impressed with the way it lowers the RPM, but I think, with my 33 inch tires and 2.25 petrol engine, I'll have a bit of a strain actually maintaining speed on the highway due to lack of power. I'm planning an engine replacement at some point anyway, or I'll just have to tickle some more horsepower out of this one. Ray says a bit of port and polish and shaving the head to increase compression will do the trick nicely. It may be worth the effort before going to a full engine swap, as the cost of head tweaks will only be a couple of hundred bucks, a head gasket and my time...

In the meanwhile, its pretty quiet, with a slight whine, which will disappear as the new main gear wears in with the old idler. This is very minor compared to what I heard -- that overdrives could be rather noisy beasts.

I like the smooth, positive shifting. Well done. And the clean well machined castings. Very thorough and professional. The body and guts of the unit are very well put together and were a nice clean fit.

It will be a few days before I have the floor and the rest of the truck assembled, but then I'll take it out on the highway and see what it can really do.

To Do List

Sorry, no photos tonight. I spent about 2 hours wiring the taillights. I know that sounds like a long time, but I hate roughly wired lights and figured I'd spend a bit of extra time and care doing a neat and tidy job. I used some junction blocks for spade type connectors from an older VW. these work great, and whenever I come across a beetle or early Rabbit being wrecked, I always grab the 3-4 that are found by the rear tail light assembly. Usually the wrecker yard just gives them for free...

I also installed the seat base, bonnet and front bumper, although it is only on temporary as a few holes have to be drilled in the frame to accomodate the grade 8 fasteners as the bumper carries all the pulling pressure of the winch.

And finally, I took it out for a drive. No top yet, and the tailgate is still off, but it felt pretty normal. I may have to drive it into Vancouver tomorrow as I am due at Wise Owl to get a Roverdrive fitted, although they said they'd meet me out here. Chances are pretty good I'll be going in there.

I'm at a point where I can list what's left to finish it:
- exhaust hangers at the rear
- rear tailgate and spare tire holder
- finish drilling front bumper bolt holes
- install hump and floor
- install passenger seat and cubby box
- rewire CB antenna
- rewire radio antenna and speakers
- install rear 1" thick rubber matting and seals around roll bar
- install top hoops after shortening them 1 inch (note the sides and back of the top were barely long enough, so a reduction in height for the purpose of getting it in the garage will give me the additional benefit of more fabric on the sides)
- reinstall the winch
- install the laptop mounting bracket
- tape the heater duct back in place and install the front wheelwell mud guards (non original plastic sheeting)
- install rear mud flaps and additional rear wheelwell plastic sheeting
- Install rubber bumpers with 1.5" additional offset from frame.

And three items of fabrication... I have the material here to build rock sliders, so that will be soon. Some u-bolt spring plate sliders will be next, and finally remounting the shocks rotated 90° to reduce binding of shock mounts. By that time, hopefully Breeze Industries will have the drop shackles ready to go. I'm also going to look for a space plate for the rear driveshaft as it is now extended about 1.25 inches further than previously. I don't think its dangerously extended but I'd like to move it back in a bit.

It's Alive!!!

Finally got this bucket of bolts together enough to start it up. And everything seems to be in order. I had to put a u-joint in the rear drive shaft, but other than this things went smoothly.

I have meetings in Victoria tomorrow which will blow tomorrow night for working on it as well, but there is just a (comparitively) little bit left to do before I can drive it: hook up the rear lights -- about an hour; put the seat box and floor in -- about 1 hour; put on the hood -- about 10 minutes; put together the roof hoops and top -- about 2 hours, cuz there's some fiddling involved; and finally put on the front bumper and winch -- about 2 hours because there are some holes to drill out and a bit of fitting.

So one more full day, which will likely be this coming Saturday. In the meanwhile I get a Roverdrive installed Thursday afternoon, so I may as well leave the seat box out until this is done.

Getting out the measuring tape, I was pleased to discover a full 2 inch lift, mostly because of the extended spring hangers and shackles, but also because of the lubed up and carefully adjusted spring shackles that no longer bind the spring bushings.

3 hours spent Monday night and this evening, adding up to a total of 60 hours so far.

Final Fabrications

Skipping Saturday to go 4 wheeling with the club put me behind a full day, but the sunny weather Sunday allowed me to be outside most of the day and put in 10 hours of work. Lots of plugging things back in under the hood, and the big project of mounting the roll bar with the new mounts I had made. This took a test mounting, drilling the final necessary holes, and then taking it off, putting on the rear tub, followed by putting the roll bar back in and properly bolting it in place, in other words, hours of fiddling.

The process went fairly smoothly, including the bolting up of the rear tub. then I mounted the doors and noticed that nothing fit quite right. 2 hours of adjustments, bolt loosening, and redrilling the front tub mounting holes, things now line up correctly between the tub, doors and bulkhead.

Roll Bar mounting

Again Friday I am up to my ears in fabrications rather than putting the pieces back on the Rover. The Roll bar needs its frame mounting completed and welded into place. I am making an adjustment to how it mounts so that it's easier to remove in the future. The other thing I noticed, and may or may not show in the photo, is that the rear drive shaft is now angled too tight now that the lift is in place. My before and after measurements tally up to a total lift of 2 inches. I could drive it on the road like this, but if it articulates at all its likely to bind. The photo of the back axle shows the fix to the rear driveshaft. I went down to the local spring shop and picked up some spring shim plates of 4 degrees. This lifted the front of the differential by just over an inch, which should be enough to compensate for the height increase. Time will tell...

I also ordered extended length brake hoses as these ones are just a wee bit too short, especially the rear as can be seen in the photo. The balance of Friday was spent grinding, cutting, drilling and fitting the roll bar mounts.

I'm taking a break tomorrow and going on the club mud run with the Disco, my wife and the pups. Later tomorrow I hope to get the roll bar parts welded into place and painted, so that I can work toward final assembly of the rear tub on Sunday. Will I be finished by then? Who knows. Another 7 hours today and it hardly looks like I touched it.

40 hours and counting...

Thursday at 4 PM the total hour count was 40, with about a dozen being by Stuart & Andrew, and the balance by me. I feel a bit like I'm treading water, as a full day's work on Thursday resulted in there still being lots of work for Friday as well. We got the engine and tranny in, the firewall back in place and the motor mounts bolted, the brakes bled, the clutch hydraulics hooked up, some front brake line mounts fabricated as there were none on the new frame, and the exhaust hooked up.

Assembling a Spring-Bomb

Typical of so many big projects, there comes a time when you just think you're getting nowhere. Today was that day. I had lots of help, and we got lots done, but at the end of the day looking back it seems like we're at the same place we were at last night. Actually Stuart came over this morning and spent most of the day bolting together and tightening (and readjusting) the suspension, as fast as I was putting the finishing touches on the shackles -- and not always tapping them quite straight, as Stuart can attest to...

Stuart also got the hitch and the rear crossmember installed. After I finished the fabricating of shackles, I started working on the steering relay. Andrew stopped by and gave a hand with it after he finished replacing the valve cover gasket. Also, somewhere in there the front pinion seal got replaced.

Andrew and I pondered the steering relay for some time, wondering how to safely compress the big spring without taking out an eye or an elbow. I first tried mechanics wire in the vise, but found the wire too thick for inserting the steering shaft. We tried several other ways to compress the spring without success. Finally, Andrew found a D shackle that fit over it, with enough clearance to slide over the steering shaft. We fitted the steering shaft into a socket, which we clamped in the vise. One of the split fiber bushing was put on the lower half of the shaft and clamped in place using a standard hose clamp. Then the flat washer, then the spring, then the other flat washer,finally followed by the D shackle, with a long length of wire tied to each side and hanging towards the floor. Andrew put his foot in the wire, and used that as leverage for compression, freeing both hands to guide it straight. I had the other split bushing ready with another hose clamp and locked it in place on the shaft as soon as Andrew had the spring fully compressed. Things were a bit tense until I had the clamp tightened.

Now, how in the world do we get the D shackle offf!?!

We concluded that the best thing to do was sacrifice the D shackle by cutting it in half with the angle grinder. Andrew was elected, since the D shackle was his idea in the first place, and Stuart and I cleared out of the carport in case the bomb Andrew was making decided to blow up in our faces.
After it was ground mostly through, we attacked it with pliers and vise-grip and opened it up a bit and slid it out. Everything went well, but I wouldn't recommend the method to anyone. I assembled the compressed spring and shaft into the relay body with no further complications, but the entire process seriously ate into our time today.

Rough Re-assembly

Today was spent running around town all morning doing errands, so I didn't actually spend any time on the Rover until the afternoon. Removal of the final parts from the old frame was followed by starting the fabrication of 5" extended spring shackles. Andrew dropped by late in the afternoon and we rolled the axles in place under the new chassis. We were surprised at how high it is sitting. Nothing bolted in place yet, but it gave me a good feeling that indeed we were gettign somewhere.

Stripped Down Bare!

The afternoon went rather well, 4 1/2 hours and its all apart. Tomorrow I have a couple of small items to attend to on the old frame -- the hitch, the steering relay, the rear grab handles -- and then its on to the new frame. So far things are going well, but I do have one additional task -- the rear ujoint is shot, so will have to be replaced. Since there's a little bit of fabrication to do along the way, it won't go together as fast as it came apart.

Time to let the WD40 soak in

2 hours this morning and the wings are off, the winch is off, wiring sorted and tied back and time to stop for lunch. A good time to soak all the old bolts with WD40 for a bit. After lunch it will be off to the rental shop to pick up an engine lift, then off with the bulkhead and out with the engine. Hoepfully I'll be done by 5 or so.