Forkliftfred's Quarantine garage. Cleaning, painting etc

More sharing as requested.... I've been using it very regularly. Driving to a from work. Love the truck, rides really well considering it's lowered and i've got used to driving on the wrong side. The manual gearbox however, is agricultural and this is from a man who has dailied a 21 year old Land Rover for the last 6 years. The throw of the gearstick is ernomous, the clutch is heavy and bouncy and has loads of travel but I love it. I don't even have the radio on most days, I just listen to the V6 burbling away from the very comfy seats. The interior is surprisingly very tidy. The blowers only blow on your feet meaning it can't be used on chilly mornings as it can't demist the screen. If you tip the drivers seat forward to access the rear seats it doesn't return to the same place. All these quirks are making me fall more and more in love.

The bolster on the drivers seat has worn from years of access/egress from the vehicle. No chance of acquiring a new seat cushion so I ordered some high density foam and had a go at repairing it myself. My experience of repairing upholstery is extremely limited. I removed the seat and lower cushion, cut all the damaged bit's of sponge away and roughly cut my new foam to match the contours. Trimmers spray glue seemed to do a good job of holding it. I slipped the seat cover back on and tried it out but could still feel the metal frame so pulled the cover off again and continued building up the level of the foam and refitting the cover until it felt comfortable.





I think I did a reasonable job as you can't tell it's been repaired and it after some use it's wearing back to the original shape so I'm calling that a success. I might try a similar thing with the drivers bolster in the Disco of dailyness as I refuse to spend £86 on a new seat base.
I took it to a local car meet on Canvey Island. Pics.....



















Lovely to have a stroll around in the relative warmth of the sunshine with a coffee and enjoy the sights.

Meanwhile Daryl the Defender has also been receiving some attention.

For a while now I have been trying to tidy the mess of a wiring harness that Land Rover provided. The entire car only has 3 relays. granted there are very few electrics on the vehicle. After some careful tracing and labelling I determined that they control the fog light, the starter motor and the brake fluid level warning light. I wanted to have the headlights, heater motor and windscreen wipers all run via a relay. I also wanted to have the engine ECU and fuel pump relays all in the same place to avoid random electrics screwed in behind the dash to make any diagnosis a whole lot easier. I was chatting about this to a guy at work who suggested maybe I should rip it all out and start from scratch. He then offered me a modular fusebox and relay system he had bought but no longer wanted (he is now using a power distribution module and a CAN bus fed switch panel). This is what he has given me.



This is how a naked Defender interior looks. I have scribed the position of the lower dash panel so I know where to run the new wiring.



I replaced the wiring to the rear lights with a new 7 core cable and 2 core for the fuel sender. I used a Dymo labeller to mark the new cables. I've replaced the connectors for more modern Deutsch ones. Very easy to de-pin and modify if you want change or add something but not cheap.





I got the new fuse box mounted in the original position and there is a bulge in the bulkhead which will allow room for the wiring to be routed behind.



I have made a start on the new harness by running the battery power to starter, alternator, glow plug module and the bus bar in the new fuse box. I had to relieve the gearbox cover a little to allow for easy removal if needed. More epics to follow.

I think I would have preferred an auto gearbox. I'm a big fan of manuals, my daily and project are both manual but in the truck it would just make sense. I have my heart set on a C10 one day. V8, bench seat, auto and rusty.

That drawer's a neat solution instead of having to lean across everything.

Tidy wiring install too (I'd hate to have to do that as I'm colour blind! )

That's such a shame, but indicative of the times I guess.

Had a spare gauge hole in the Defender dash so I filled it with a rev counter.



I lapped in all 24 valves with coarse and fine grit by hand then cleaned it all AGAIN. New valve stem oil seals, springs and collets refitted.



I decided it was probably a good idea to pull the sump off, i'm glad I did.



Yuck. Cleaned the sludge out and then whipped off the oil pick up and the lower brace thing and cleaned those too and while I was laying on the floor, I cleaned the oil pump assembly.







After all the cleaning, I needed to do something else. Rubbing down and painting seemed the obvious choice. I rubbed down and painted the starter motor.



I rubbed down and painted the gearbox cross member.



Then I rubbed down, zinc primered and under sealed the chassis rails where the gearbox sits.



With the gearbox out I test fitted the DMF and clutch. It seems the DMF is too big and the clutch is for a 5 speed gearbox. Bumhats! More money to be spent.

Two weekends after the Landy show was Goodwood Festival of Speed.....which got cancelled due to the stormy weather. Two weekends after that, me and my chum journeyed over to Belgium to watch the F1. Weather also ruined that.



The MOT for the Dodge truck is running out so I thought I had better see if I could extinguish the engine warning light first. I bought a cheap code reader and plugged it in.





Some Googling to confirm which sensor was bank 1 sensor 1 and then a trip to Rockauto.com for a new one. I'd never heard of an evaporative system before. Some chatting to ex car types at work suggested it evacuates the build up of fumes in the fuel tank to stop it pressurizing. If the fuel cap leaks or isn't fitted properly it can illuminate the engine warning light. A new fuel cap seemed to fix the fault. MOT booked for Monday.