'75 Land Rover S3 88" ongoing project... V8 and rollcage!

So basically it prioritises keeping the main battery charged over the second battery? Still not read up on it, way too busy!

All of the terminals into the fuse and relay blocks have been soldered. If and when I start having issues with poor connections in the crimped terminals in the future they'll be soldered too. Time is against me to have this built up, running and shaken down by the end of the month....



I'm sure I'll need the winch at some point. The lockers will give me the confidence to push harder and go further before getting stuck where the ruts are deeper from bigger tyres!

The CV joints are standard early 110 which I've read are the strongest standard Land Rover CV joints pre Disco2. They're also almost identical to the earlier stage1 V8 joints except the distance of the circlip groove from the bearing faces is shorter requiring the drive flanges to be skimmed a little



For now there's no plan on fitting disc brakes to this Landy, though I'll probably buy a set for my 109 sometime next year as that gets more miles and may end up being used for towing too?

Finally got round to re-shimming the pinion bearing on the front diff with ARB locker and fitting the air ring and unions on the casing



Then it was down to stripping the front axle down to swap the driveshafts over and fit the air locker





I removed the standard top railco bush for the V8 bush and had to fit a spacer underneath it to get the height correct on the standard swivel ball, and the standard driveshaft roller bearing was removed and replaced with an oil seal housing







The inside of the swivel ball was blended around the edges of the existing machined surfaces and raw cast surfaces to give enough clearance for the CV joint to fit with enough room to move lock to lock



Then it was simply re-assemble the hubs with the CV's fitted, reattach the brakes and skim the drive flanges in the lathe to clear the circlip groove in the CV stub









I think that's all of the immediate big jobs done, apart from looking into an auxiliary fuel tank to give a proper range considering I still have only a single 45ltr underseat fuel tank and big V8 under the bonnet, and plenty of small tinkering jobs to do.....

The overall look and basic specs yes, the finer details no....

Few people (beyond us readers ... ) will understand the seriousness of that external cage, or how well it's engineered imto the chassis. That said, it must raise the vehicle's CofG?

John

Out of curiosity, what does the CV front axle feel like - steering lock improved and no snatching?

Or is there no noticeable difference?

well considered mods, implemented to a high standard

How's it all been going with this Sowen?

Good to see the old girl being used properly; It appears I am not alone is spending a week of spannering for every day of offroading!
One advice, from experience, once you have waterproofed the bellhousing, is to install a breather pipe to this as well. I have run a 1/2" ID hose from the bell house to the air filter housing. It gets piping hot inside there and if you dunk it in deep water, it sucks oil through the engine crank seal and gearbox as well.

Daan

That looked like fun!

After months of prioritising other jobs on the fleet and around the home I thought I'd better start prepping the little Land Rover for possible shows and another little offroading weekend later this year. The engine install was completed, only to find it was really difficult to start. Seemed like a flat battery, but after trying to jump it I deduced it was the starter motor not working right after it's submerging in mud! New starter went in and it was back to starting happily on the key.

So this left two faults remaining to fix, a very bent bumper and contaminated ineffective brakes.

I bought 3m of 100mm box steel and started chopping and rearranging it onto the front of the Landy





The ends were closed up, angled in and a hole cut for the fairlead then offered up to set it in position to make some chassis mounts





The bumper was fully welded up, drain holes added with M16 nuts welded in to block them up, and primed and painted black





Recovery swivel mounts were welded back on as I went, with grease holes drilled and tapped for grease nipples to stop them seizing up and the original number plate screwed on the front







It's held on with M12 bolts which fill all the original chassis holes nicely, and not loose like the usual M10 or 3/8" bolts. It's also sitting higher and further back than standard which should help with approach angles. Now the steering guard sticks out and wants to be pushed back into the chassis!

The other job was the wrecked front brakes. Design & Development Engineering that supplied the upgraded front axle stub axles and driveshafts had recently released a front disc brake conversion, so I bought the kit, bought the Defender brake parts and set about swapping it all over in a day







I'm pleased with the braking performance. Not a revelation over drums, but should be a reliable setup that'll tolerate abuse and neglect without near complete performance failure that the drums suffered from!

With that, it was back on the road!





And made it to the Gaydon Land Rover show last weekend only suffering from a suspected close to failure clutch master cylinder....