Oil everywhere

Just finished for the day, got the front brake shoes off and they are covered with a thick oily sludge (along with the back plate and the wheel cylinders). I guess the oil must have been coming from the wheel bearing oils seals - but I won't know until I dig a bit deeper. On a positive note though the wheel cylinders work fine although I damaged the rubber boots getting off the shoes - so I don't need to replace the cylinders.

started work

At last - back from Europe (and Wales but that's another story).

Got the landy up on stands and after a monster of a struggle I finally got the brake drums off - I had to resort to a lump of wood and a large hammer to get them to move, but with the amount of oil I found inside I'm surprised they didn't slide off on their own !!

The drums are fine - although heavily contaminated with oil but that will clean off, but everything else is probably scrap - shoes, cylinders etc. so I guess I'll need that overhaul kit after all.

Most probably the oil seals are shot in the axles, so it will be a complete strip down with the half -shafts coming out and all the seals, bearings etc. being replaced.

While I'm at it under the front end I'll be replacing the oil dampers with procomp ones and fitting new extended stainless steel braided brake hoses.

Oh well, back to the mucky stuff !!

Progress ? What progress

Seeing as how I've either been at work or it's been chucking it down since my last post I've achieved nothing. However, all is not lost as I've had chance to root through the latest landy mags and found some of the stuff I will be needing to get - for example a brake service kit will all new shoes, wheel cylinders etc.
Then I decided that as I need to replace the dampers I may as well put new braided brake lines on as well, so I found them also - looks like I can do the dampers, brakes and brake lines for under £200 so that's not too bad.

What I don't know yet is how much it will cost to overhaul the half-shafts etc. with new wheel bearings and oil seals, it would be stupid not to do them whilst I'm under there - and I will have to do the swivels as well (found swivel overhaul kit for under £16 a side).

So I may not have actually done any work but I've spent a bit of cash in my head !!.

I'm off to Europe tomorrow for a few days so hopefully get back on track next week.

Plenty of advice

Well as I expected, the response from the Series III club was quick and helpful. It seems the best thing to do is locate the axle stands under the spring hanger plates (use a bit of 2x2 to pack it out) and it will be fine. But my plan to lift both ends at once have been scrapped - nobody thought that was a sensible idea, so I'll chock the back end and lift the front then reverse the process when I've finished at the front.

Cheers chaps on the Series3 board.

Series 3 club

I went out earlier to put the Series up on axle stands, that didn't go far. First off one of my stands is missing the securing peg which holds the centre post at the right height and no amount of searching can find it - so I guess it will have to be an old screwdriver or drill bit in the hole instead !!.

Then I got to jacking up the front end and deciding where to put the stands - completely flummoxed because the received wisdom is to put the stand between the suspension and the wheel hub - but on the Series you can't do that because the half shaft flange bolts through there. Never mind I thought, I can go inboard of the suspension - oh no I can't because the differential is off-set so there is no room on one side.

So I decide to go on the Series 3 and 90/110 club forum and ask for advice, trouble is I haven't been on there for at least a year and my account has lapsed, so I've had to re-register - that's waiting for the moderator to accept. Whilst I was there I discovered that my membership ran out last month, no problem I can just renew it on-line - oh no I can't because I have a Linux PC running Firefox and their on-line payment system has a Java applet that won't run on my browser ( I tried with Firefox and Opera, no luck with either) So I 'll have to call Frank or Marjorie tomorrow and renew over the phone.

It's started !!

Finally got underway at last.

Charged the battery up overnight and this morning replaced the battery and tried to start the thing, nothing doing. So I decided it was obviously out of petrol, drove over to the next village where the petrol station is, got some and put it in - still nothing doing, turning over ok but no attempt at starting.

So now it's out with the WD40 all over, pulled the leads, took out the plugs and distributor cap - everything looked fine, and I could smell petrol at the exhaust so it was obviously getting fuel - obviously something in the ignition system.

So now it's out with the meter, checked the LT supply and that was ok, tried cranking the engine with the HT lead to the distributor held near the engine block, no sparks - ah-ha it is a duff HT lead, luckily I had a spare one so on it went and the engine duly fired !!.

Next question, is it going to move or is it seized in the transmission - no problem, it pulled away as smooth as you like - now it's in it's new home - 10 feet further down the drive waiting to go on stands.

Harry Potter

Well at last the Harry Potter fest is nearly over !! - Wife and younger daughter have finished reading the new book (and no, I don't know how it ends because I've not read it myself yet), Larger daughter is reading it at the moment. Still, at least now I can get back to my project as there is someone to look after small boy - hurrah, but it will probably rain again tomorrow. All I got done today was charging the battery - but it's a start I guess.