Mechanical repairs

Well, this all started after I had got all the mechanical bits (engine, gearbox, axles, steering box) off the vehicle and safely stashed away.

I was advised (thanks Chris Klein!) to replace the crankshaft oil seals while I had the engine out, which seemed like good advice – I wouldn’t want to be trying to replace them with the engine in the vehicle.

So off I went down to Land Vehicle Spares to get some oil seals. When I asked for them, George grabbed me and gave me a tutorial in how to install them. Now, my day job is in IT. I don’t claim to be a mechanic. I can pull things apart, and clean them, and put them back together again. I don’t have the skills you acquire by doing the same jobs hundreds of times, learning by your mistakes – that’s what apprenticeships are for. And installing oil seals sounded like a trickier job than I wanted to attempt.

It seemed to me that the most realistic thing to do was to get George to do the job. Right, off back home without the oil seals, and back again with the engine in the trailer.

About a week later, I got a call from George – he wanted me to drop by and have a look at the engine. Back again down to Silverdale, and an inspection of the inside of the block.

It appeared that there had been a bit of wear in the engine, far more than was apparent from the small amount of running I had given it prior to pulling the vehicle apart. There was about 30 thou end float on the crankshaft, and the big ends had gouged some lovely grooves in the bearings. The only option was to install a refurbished crankshaft – so that was the decision.

I was a tad upset about this, but anyway . . . the top end of the motor had seemed ok when I ran it, and it had good pressure in the cylinders, so I’m prepared to take it on trust that the top end will be ok, or at worst can wait for another day. At least getting the head off isn’t too hard, and the cylinders looked good from underneath.

Following this revelation, I decided that the only safe route would be to get all the mechanicals checked out while the vehicle was in pieces. The axles, gearbox and steering box all went off to Silverdale for inspection and repair if required.

A couple of pictures here; Brian looking pretty sanguine as he looks at the axles I’ve just delivered, and George looking pretty horrified at what he sees in front of him.

Well, the next good news was about the axles.

The rear axle was OK, and only needed some seals and bearings to make it into a happy axle.

The front axle was a different story. It seemed that it had been sitting in a lake of water for some substantial part of its life, and the front diff was a write-off – I had never actually seen a rusty diff before, but there it was.

But, lucky me. I still had the rolling chassis which was what was left of the vehicle I bought from Gary, purely to get the firewall. The front axle was a later model than my Series II. It had the steering arms underneath, and at some stage of its life had had 11” drums fitted. I wasn’t too unhappy about the latter – bigger brakes with twin leading edge shoes is a bit of a step forward. Of course, the restoration becomes more of a bitser than a genuine Series II, but that’s OK – more on this topic later.

The front axle again got rebuilt, and this time it only needed seals and bearings, so I’m happy.

I brought the axles home when they were finished, and got this nice picture.

Now the axles only need cleaning and painting, and they’ll be in pristine condition – see the section on cleaning up the chassis bits.