On the road again
Ed’s long-running Series III restoration nears completion
AFTER TWO years of applying myself to my Series III rebuild whenever I had spare time, which wasn’t often, the old bus is now almost on the road. It’s an odd build: I’ve fitted a new galvanised chassis, rebuilt the engine and the gearbox, the bulkhead has been restored, and then I’ve fitted the original battered body in its original condition.
The plan has been to preserve my favourite old Land Rover from a visual aspect, but to ensure that everything underneath the body is good for the next 40 years – in fact, probably much more because the vehicle is in for an easier life. Its days of getting rolled over in trials events and hauling heavy boats around are now long gone.
One of the last jobs was to compress each of the suspension springs in turn before tightening the shackle bolts. The spring compression was easily achieved (with the wheels off) by shackling a strong chain over the chassis above the axle, and bringing the chain down in a loop underneath a trolley jack placed under the axle/spring plate. By raising the jack, the axle is pushed up but the chassis is restrained by the chain, thus compressing the spring. When the axle is at the correct distance from the spring (it’s in the workshop manual), the spring shackles are tightened and then the whole lot can be released.
I was delighted and relieved at the result of this operation, because the vehicle was now standing perfectly level. I’ve fitted new leaf springs to plenty of Series models and all have resulted in a lean to the left because of the extra camber of the driver’s side springs. It’s intentional, and this is how they were built, and they usually eventually settle more or less level. But I remember a 109 that never settled down and I finished up fitting left-hand springs to both sides of the rear axle to bring it level, and it always drove fine.
Earlier, when fitting the bodywork, I’d been careful to get good alignment between the bulkhead, doors and rear tub. But during the subsequent weeks something had moved, leaving the driver’s door misaligned and not meeting the latch, so it refused to stay shut. That could only be one thing – the bracket holding the front of the bulkhead to the chassis must have moved slightly where it’s bolted through the main chassis rail.
After removing the three bolts and slackening everything that was attached to the front wing, I could easily tilt the top of the bulkhead forward a tad and hold it there with a load strap attached to the windscreen hinge. That brought the door into perfect alignment, so I pulled the bulkhead a little further to account for give, and tightened the three chassis bolts very firmly to secure it. That did the trick.
But more alignment fiddling was needed when I test fitted a new door top/ window frame on the driver’s door. The forward edge of the door top frame was fouling the windscreen frame at the top. That was rectified by adjusting the interior bottle screw which holds the screen frame to the bulkhead – turning the lower nut upward a couple of turns was sufficient to tilt the top of the screen forward to clear the door window frame.
At this moment I’m waiting for the paint to dry after spraying the new door top, before fitting it. Then there’s just the hood sticks and hood to fit, the seats to go in, a bit of fascia trim, and I’m sure I’ve got a front bumper somewhere. After a final check of all the fluid levels and tyre pressures, we should be rolling.