Building the perfect 90

[erover82]

I could have kept those axles and suspension in place, but wanted to rebuild it all to the same standard as the engine and chassis.

The teardown continues.

Blasted and powder coated many old parts as well as new HD rear trailing arms. Wasn't pleased with powder alone, so finished them in semi-gloss enamel.

Over cleaner and pressure washing every last bit of grease off the axles.

Hauling the axles off to be blasted, in the back of an LR4.

Took a project break at Legoland where the youngest expressed in interest in AAA yellow convertibles with classic squared off design.

Back to work in the paint tent. Classic recipe - freshly blasted, epoxy primer, semi-gloss enamel.

Curing out in the sun for a few days.

Running out of room again. There's a chassis under there somewhere.

Engine, meet chassis. I'd need as much room as possible in the shop to move large parts around, and having an engine floating around on a stand wouldn't help.

 

[jymmiejamz]

Why didn’t you have the axle housings powder coated?

 

[erover82]

Why didn’t you have the axle housings powder coated?

• Didn't trust the powder coater
• Wanted sheen consistent with other parts
• Wanted to leave it partially assembled to ensure it was masked properly
• I know any touch up will match existing finish
• I trust the corrosion resistance of my epoxy more than their powder
• Allowed me to check the blasting was done properly before coating

If you have a proven powder coating shop who's using a high quality powder and the axle is fully disassembled so it can be baked to remove all oil, then I'd strongly consider it.

FWIW, I believe the factory coating is a baked alkyd over zinc conversion coating.

If I was doing something for a demanding client I'd blast, zinc metalize, etch, epoxy, and industrial urethane. Not cheap or easy though.

 

[erover82]

Rebuilding the diffs. Using an impact as pictured is a great way to break Ashcroft's ring nut tool and spend the next hour welding the pins back on.

Shop duck inspecting the latest parts haul.

Diffs are ridiculously heavy and awkward to work with on a bench so I made a simple tool to make life much easier.

Mounted up. Now the pinion can be locked down and the diff setup properly. Rover diff bottom threads are 3/8 BSF!

Setting backlash.

Rear gets an ATB.

Front goes back in.

Before fitting the panhard rod I like to use brass shim stock to remove nearly all play between the bushing and the bolt.

A razor blade trims off the excess nicely.

 

[Z.G]

Tell us more about this shop duck

 

[erover82]

Tell us more about this shop duck

Shop duck is a Mallard we rescued from abandonment. Found it alone in the middle of a river at I'd guess one or two days old. No other ducks around. Boys demanded with big sad puppy eyes that dad risk life and limb to rescue it. Difficult sucker to catch, but probably wouldn't have lasted the night otherwise.

It has two dominant qualities-

1. Cuteness - its like kryptonite for women. If you want to attract the ladies, forget the gym, sell the sports car, and get a duckling.
2. Shitting - it's a biological machine perfectly tuned to intake food and somehow output an even larger quantity of shit.

Sleeps (and shits) on my foot while I'm trying to work.

Inspect parts (and then shits on them)

 

[Frenglish]

This is hands down the best build thread I have ever read on any forum.. But the duck.. I feel the duck needs its own story line here. This is gold.

 

[erover82]

This is hands down the best build thread I have ever read on any forum.. But the duck.. I feel the duck needs its own story line here. This is gold.

Glad it's been enjoyable. Shop duck is the latest in a long line of various species I've ended up caring for. This one was supposed to go to a wildlife rehabilitation center after the first night, but they were unable to accept it due to concerns with local avian flu. Here's a few more pics to derail the thread.


Night time box in the shop

Daytime yard retreat

Child inspection.

Shop duck quickly became full grown and moved on. Now we're back to just the two shop monkeys.

 

[Z.G]

I agree, we need a separate thread for the adventures of shop-duck

 

[erover82]

I agree, we need a separate thread for the adventures of shop-duck

I like the idea but it grew up rapidly and left the property quite a while ago so I don't have too many more photos. It was a fun adventure while it lasted. We'll see what nature drops in the shop next time.

 

[erover82]

Continuing to build up the axles-

New swivel balls, seals, and hardware as the old parts were beyond practical restoration. I prefer to get a torque wrench on critical mechanical parts, but the swivel flange bolts are normally impossible to get a socket on. This inexpensive Motion Pro torque wrench adapter makes it easy.

Swivel balls seal great until they get nicked, but it's inevitable, especially when used off-road. Then they leak , rust, make a mess, and eventually something fails if you don't keep them topped up. To avoid that cycle I elected to install gaiters. Pain in the ass to install, but basically gaiters = no nicks = no leaks/mess/rust = no mechanical failure/less maintenance = worth it.

Restored swivel housing fitted with new swivel pins, Timken bearings, and restored zinc plated oil plugs.

Pair of new stub axles, Japan-made wheel bearings, Corteco seals, and thrust bearings installed and ready to go.

CVs, stub axles, and YRM stainless mud shield installed.

Restored hubs. All threads painstakingly chased and wire wheeled. 15 threads per hub = 60 total! Using the drive flange trick to press new Corteco seals to correct 4mm depth.

Hubs installed with new GEOMET coated rotors. Considered vented rotors but decided they would provide no benefit for my use cases.

New drive flanges installed. Considered using HD flanges but decided a Tdi 90 didn't need them. However, I fitted grade 12.9 bolts as I've seen broken drive flange bolts more commonly.
Also seen below: Setting CV end float to the minimum. Keep your old shims around- it's expensive to build a set.

What do you do when you've remembered to buy every possible LR part except drive flange gaskets? Make some.

Repeated the same process at the rear: new stub axles, bearings, seals, hardware, coated rotors, restored hubs, and grade 12.9 flange bolts. However, the rear gets LOF HD axles to compliment the Ashcroft ATB diff.
Also shown is how I torque down the flange bolts with no wheels or propshafts to counteract the force. Attach a strap to the chassis and wrap it around the wheel studs.

 

[erover82]

Manual press works great for putting bushings in - a lot more control than the 50t. I'm using narrow bushings on wide arms for more flex. The gap is taken up with a single thick washer each side.

Standard coils in the rear, OME light duty in the front as my plans involve a slight increase over factory weight there.

Shocks! I originally planned to use these Konis. Made in Holland, good reputation, and rebound adjustable.

Mounted them up utilizing the brass shim trick from the panhard rod.

However, I soon realized that the suspension travel range wanted a slightly longer length shock.

I wanted the shocks to run out of travel slightly after the suspension fully compressed, and slightly before it fully drooped. I also wanted the shocks to feature both compression and rebound adjustment as the weight of the vehicle would be dynamic over time. Most longer aftermarket shocks are significantly stiffer because the manufacturer designs them for economy of scale for a theoretical lifted and heavily loaded Defender. This one size fits all approach doesn't work in all cases though and I predicted it wouldn't in mine either.

So what to do? I didn't want to do pin to pin conversions or run bro-tastic remote res shocks, so the adjustable Fox were out. Radflo 2.5 were tempting but overkill too. Terrafirma makes an adjustable +2" shock that in theory would work, but I'd never hear the end of it from you assholes if I put Terrafirmas on this thing, and rightfully so - the quality is just too questionable.

Enter Gaz Shocks Ltd, a small family owned UK company (not to be confused with Britpart's Super Gaz shocks).

"Gazzmatic International Limited manufacture a very extensive range of adjustable dampers and suspension kits for the road and motorsport market. The units are hand built to the highest standards in our factory in the south east of England."

I asked if they'd build a set of adjustable shocks in the lengths I wanted. I received a quick reply that it would be no problem as they've done Defenders before and can build nearly any length. The cost was very reasonable considering these would be custom made rebuildable shocks.

5 weeks later (as promised) they arrived.

Each shock came with an individual test report.

Silicone boot removed to inspect and compare the design.

Mounted them up and they fit just right with the adjuster dial easily accessible.

 

[WreckITFrank]

How much change in height was it so that those konis didn't work?

I have the same for my 90, that someday will get installed.

 

[erover82]

How much change in height was it so that those konis didn't work?

I have the same for my 90, that someday will get installed.

The Konis are standard length so of course I could have made them work, but it would have left a lot of down travel on the table. The resting height due to weight, coil choice, and vibration isolators top/bottom will put it about 1" higher than factory. Then with HD cranked arms, narrow bushings, and no sway bars, the axles want to droop way lower than a standard length shock will let it. However, I'm not going for ultra-articulation so the shocks will still be the limiting factor. I found that building the shocks 1.75" longer than standard allowed extra flex without needing to raise shock mounts or extend bump stops.

 

[WreckITFrank]

Way cool. I get such in the endless loop if which height to buy. Currently shopping for suspension with my 130, but keep going round and round trying to match springs, with winch bumper, and unladen rear to shocks and springs. Cool to see this option out there. Thanks for sharing

 

[erover82]

A few more notes on the shocks..

I noticed the Gaz are a bit smaller diameter and while I have no intention of racing it got me thinking about shock fade. Their response:

The largest dia bodied damper we manufacture is 50mm which is the size you have but we do use an oil that is made for us with an anti-fade agent that stops it breaking down when hot & we have run our dampers on our dyno to the point where you cannot touch the damper body & they have very if no fade in the damping. Our dampers are used in many different applications & we supply many enduro race series & some where they have 12 hour races so you will have no problem with the dampers.

If you've been around long enough you'll have seen a few broken shocks where the welds snap, although sometimes due to installer error. I don't think that'll be happening on these - those welds are thicc.

OK, moving on..

 

[erover82]

Rear coils, shocks, spring isolators, calipers, and genuine pads installed. Black powder coated HD cranked rear trailing arms fitted as well. Why? Impact durability, but also because the standard solid axle Rover suspension geometry has the top trailing arm bushing partially binding at standard ride height. This strikes me as odd because it must limit flex and decrease bushing life.

Refinished top links and new fulcrum joint installed.

That fulcrum joint nut is nearly impossible to get a socket on, so I use a modified 30mm socket.

While digging around in the attic I noticed a few mysterious boxes and decided to open them up. Turns out I forgot that I'd purchased a set of Rockware's very last run of accessories from EE.

Rockware pinion guards

And their HD drag link and high-clearance track rod.

Rear pinion guard installed

Front Rockware pinion guard and track rod installed

OME steering damper and Rockware drag link installed

Nearly a rolling chassis at this point

 

[jymmiejamz]

I did the same with the last of the Rockware stuff.

 

[erover82]

We've got an engine, axles, and suspension. The logical next step would be to fill this void behind the engine. A transmission and transfer case would be nice.

NO, it's time for on board air.

Enter, the York 210 A/C compressor

Most A/C compressors used on vehicles are lubricated by refrigerant running through the system. Since it's a sealed system, it stays lubricated. If you use one of those compressors to pump air, it won't get any lubrication and will seize up. You could add an external oiler, but you'd have to deal with separating the oil out of the air and routing it back to the compressor.

Unlike these compressors, the York has an internal reservoir for oil. So if you remove the refrigerant and use it to pump air, it will still lubricate itself.


How to mount it though? I spent a lot of time staring at the timing cover.

The obvious answer is to drill the four blank lugs at the top. These are pre-drilled on 200Tdi engines with factory AC to mount the compressor.

However, I didn't like the idea of modifying the timing cover, drilling it free-hand, having to pull the cover again to clean out the swarf, or that the lugs aren't actually level. I also wanted a solution that packaged the compressor low and tight to the engine, that looked somewhat factory, and was easy to install and remove.

I stared at the engine more and then got out the calipers, straight edge, and jumped into CAD with an idea for a 4-point mounting system. After many more hours, this was the result.

Then laser cut and CNC bent.

Test fitting - fit like a glove.

Off to the blast cabinet to etch before finishing.

The end result.

Everything fit right and the belt alignment was dead on. I intended to use the same adjuster link as the alternator (ERC6266), but it was unavailable, so I ended up purchasing ETC5415 (early 4cyl) instead and swapped the two.

 

[Z.G]

I would petition to ban this thread if you put terrafirma shocks on such a nice build.