1956 Series One Rebuild Project

[Rambler]

Thanks very much for sharing the rebuild. I picked up a series 1 2.0 spreadbore engine recently with the idea to strip and restore as a good one. This post is most insightful. Good luck with everything.
Cheers
Ian

[ANDYD]

Thanks Matt & Ian, I'm actually enjoying it (when its all going right!)

So with the head now complete, it was time to refit it to the block. I had purchased a new copper head gasket as recommended by Cox and Turner and also a light spread of jointing compound . It's often said that the jointing compound is not needed with the copper gaskets but there seems to be mixed feelings on this so I thought it wouldnt hurt to put some on. I used the Hylomar Aerograde mainly because I had some handy.
Head was installed, the bolts torqued up to the required spec and tightened in the order as listed in the WS manual.
I had to remove the Valve Rockers assembly that I had previously installed onto the head because the 4 long Tappet push rods (inlet) needed to be slid in before, but only a 20 minute set back, so live and learn I guess!
The valve rockers were then adjusted to position each rod between the Cam followers and the valve rockers.
Finally it is starting to look like an engine again!

[rayhyland]

Looking fantastic!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ANDYD]

Thanks Ray. Your trip half way around the world in a Series 1 did add some extra inspiration to keep this project moving along ...

The front cover seal was next on the list, the old one didnt want to come out, so I had to basically break it apart, taking care not to damage the soft aluminum cover.
Eventually it was all out and then I added a little sealant and tapped the new seal in place with a suitably sized "washer" that I had laying around. The aluminum cover was quite dull even after cleaning so I buffed it up a little with a wire wheel in a cordless drill.

[ANDYD]

The pile of engine parts is getting smaller so I know i'm making progress!
I cleaned up the engine mounts with cleaner and degreaser and painted with POR 15 and bolted onto the engine with new locking tabs.
Then onto installing the oil filter mount with new gasket.

[ANDYD]

Time to get back to the S1 project after a long summer of camping and club trips around beautiful BC!

I had continued to paint a few engine parts and pretty much dry fit every part, this was partially because I wanted to confirm if I had any parts missing. It was great to finally start emptying boxes of parts and see where they were supposed to go on the engine.

[ANDYD]

Mainly to make some space in my very small garage, it was time to remove the engine from the loaned engine stand (thanks Martin) and drop it into the chassis. I could continue to work on it while sitting on its mounts.
I had previously dry fitted the timing chain, which would have to be re-checked once my search for a replacement flywheel was concluded. I learnt a lot about S1 flywheels over the summer and how many different types there were in just a few short years, but I will save that for another post.
Once the engine was sitting on the chassis I spent some time setting the intake and exhaust gaps, fairly easy to do just following the WS manual.

[ANDYD]

Engine coming off the stand and going into the chassis. I had the gearbox set back a few inches so there would be a gap between engine and gearbox to fit the flywheel .... when I found one.

[ANDYD]

Flywheels .... my flywheel that originally came with the vehicle had a fair bit of damage to the teeth from engagement with the starter motor, it had also been machined down by about 1/4" on the clutch face. There was no way I was going to going to be able to use it. So the replacement flywheel hunt began. My research led me through a confusing amount of conflicting information on the different flywheels that were made for the Series ones and none of them are inter-changeable unless you also change a whole bunch of other parts.
So basically, there were at least 4 different flywheels used between 1954 and 1958. A lot of this was because the starter motor was different around the 1955-1956 years as they went to a "pull-in" type rather than a "throw-out" type of starter. This also changed the teeth from one side of the flywheel to the other and also the chamfer on the teeth that assists with the starter engagement is on a different side. There is one type that has fixed studs that attach the clutch to the flywheel compared to the other type that uses bolts to attach the clutch. Then there is the half year that they changed from machined flywheels to cast flywheels... There is a whole other chapter on the ones that have a interchangeable gear rings and the ones that dont! :shock:

To cut a long story short, on my engine, I eventually came to the conclusion that the previous owner had the incorrect flywheel fitted, hence the damaged teeth from the chamfer being on the wrong side and it was turned down to try and make a thicker flywheel work. I eventually found a good used flywheel (big thanks to Stuart L and Alan S) that was correct for the engine and year.

I knocked out the old center brass bush and replaced it with a new one which was installed using a mix of the correct size socket and some large washers. I gave it a good clean up and confirmed the face was flat and true.

[ANDYD]

The original clutch plate still had a fair bit of material left on it but it seemed like a good opportunity to put a new one in. I noticed the new part was identical except the center spline section was thicker on the old plate (see photo). I don't think this will be an issue but if you know better, please let me know!
The flywheel and clutch parts were now ready to be installed.

[ANDYD]

Putting the flywheel housing, flywheel, Clutch plate all went smoothly, just following the WS manual step by step....

[ANDYD]

It was time to finally connect the Gearbox to the engine. I have read that the alignment can be tricky. I didn't have the special tool to centrally align the clutch plate so I found the correct size socket and socket extension that seemed to do the same job. I used this to get the clutch plate as central as possible before bringing the two parts together.
I had to adjust the lift slings a few times to get the gearbox and engine as level to each other as possible, then rolled the crane lift back to bring the two parts together. The two parts came together surprisingly easily, there was one point where it started to feel like it was sticking so I turned the flywheel a few degrees each way until things started moving again.
Once the two faces came together the bolts were put in place and the gearbox mounts secured.
That was good progress for the day ....

[ANDYD]

While I work on the bulkhead, getting it ready for paint, I also wanted to wrap up any items that are located under the bulkhead and would be harder to access once the bulkhead is installed. One of these items is the pedal shaft. The original was very worn so I had ordered one from Craddocks in the UK including some new bushes.
You can see on the photos what 64 years of wear can do to the pedal shaft.
I also prepped and treated the Clutch and Brake pedals for new paint and installed the new bushes.

[ANDYD]

When trying the pedal levers onto the new pedal shaft I found one of the bushes to be too tight to fit onto the shaft. Not wanting to have to reorder a new bush I decided to try honing it out with a small brake cylinder honer. I only had to open the internal bush diameter by about 0.5mm and it only took a few minutes with the honing tool to open it up to the perfect size.

[ANDYD]

The next step was to install the Pedal Shaft and Clutch Lever Shaft into the chassis. I also dry-fitted the rest of the pedals parts just to confirm that they would line up with the two oval shaped pedal holes in the foot-wells of the bulkhead.

[ANDYD]

The previous owner had done most of the hard work with the bulkhead restoration which just left me a with a few days of sanding and prep work getting it ready for paint.
I was sure I had a few extra holes that had been added through the bulkhead but as I wasn't totally sure which ones were the extra ones so I decided any extra holes I had once everything was installed, I would just install rubber blocking grommets into the spare holes.
Bronze Green will be the finished colour, I had brought a sample tin back with me from the UK and I had a local paint company in Richmond mix me up a bunch more which they did using the sample from England. I rigged up a small painting tent at one end of the garage and painting begins ..... :mrgreen:

[rgallant]

That looks to progressing along nicely

[ANDYD]

Thanks Richard, its good to be putting "big bits" together, makes one think they are making some progress!

After four coats of paint the bulkhead was ready for install. I had dry fitted it previously along with the seatbox and back box. I read that was important to do as there can often be 1/2" difference after replace Chassis parts and better to do the adjustments before the finish paint goes on!

Bulkhead installation went smoothly, as did the two vent flaps. Then onto the steering column brackets and seal.

[ANDYD]

The Steering Wheel that came with my S1 was from a later Series truck, so I went on the hunt to find a n earlier one. The one I found was a little rough with some cracks in the normal places but I knew if I gave it some TLC these wheel can come back to life. I pushed JB weld epoxy into the cracks and gave it all a good sand down.
The masking of the metal wire spokes was a pain... but after a few hours it was ready for paint.

[ANDYD]

The steering wheel center horn was next. I believe the one I have is an early Series 2, but I prefer the horn to be in the center of the wheel rather than on the column as the earlier Series 1 were located. I picked up some "Wrinkly" Paint which was slow to wrinkle, but did eventually wrinkle nicely to give it the proper look!

[ANDYD]

Steering wheel is put in place (dry fit only) and then I spent some time installing the pedals and linkages including new felt pads and grommets that the pedals pass through from underneath. A bunch of bulkhead braces and brackets were cleaned, painted and installed. She's finally starting to look like a Land Rover :D

[bsa_m21]

Hey Andy,

Looking great!!

Good to see you are not wasting all that time at home you now have. :bounce:

Martin

[Dave_F]

Fantastic work Andy 👍👍👍 makes me want to strip mine down and start all over again.

[ANDYD]

Thanks Martin & Dave, Yes I am finding myself at home more lately :cry: .... but I guess the small positive in all these crazy times is I can spend some extra time on the project instead of being out and about in the mountains. Mind you, I have a new R380 Gearbox for the Defender sitting in the garage waiting for installation, so that project might bump this project soon!

Anyhow, back to the grind S1.... So one of the previous owners had decided to coat most of the beautiful galvanized metal parts with a thick black paint, it looks like it was applied with a roller or brush, not very pretty at all. The next job was to remove all the 'orrible black paint around the windsheild and clean up the metal work.
I used Aircraft Paint Stripper which is powerful stuff but powerful stuff was needed to remove the think coating of cheap black paint.

[ANDYD]

While the garage was full of paint stripping fumes, I moved onto the dining table (much to the delight of the wife!) to begin the re & re of the dash panel.
The dash panel was in need of some new paint and it also had a few extra holes in in which I planned to fill with metal epoxy. The dash lights were also a mix of 3 different types, so I would be looking at getting 3 new matching lights. The gauges were in good condition but a little dirty and needed cleaning up. The odometer has 57k on it which I believe to be original according to the documentation. All the parts came apart quite easily, things were made much more simple back in the 50"s