Springs, Shocks, Steering, Damper, Oil Filter, Sump(!)

This weekend I managed to get the front springs, shock absorbers, new steering rods, track rod ends, and steering damper fitted. Those dumb irons are really spoiling the view now..

The main steering rod is too long. I ordered as best I could by vehicle and year but the rod itself is longer than the distance the workshop manual specifies to set between balljoint centres. So, she currently has a very large toe-out, but it should not be hard to rectify.

I also fit a new oil filter, and gave the housing a good "clean" while I was there, (as in"Land Rover clean", as in "you should have seen it before I cleaned it..")..

..and stripped the old gasket off the sump and gave that a good clean too.

Next time I get an hour I'll fit the sump back on with a new gasket and some RTV silicone, fill her with new oil.. and start welding!

Oh dear. Wait a minute.. I have to fit our new kitchen first! :O)

Axle Drain Plug Key

My axle drain plugs are the earlier slot type. They can be hard to undo and with oil directly above them the usual trick of adding some heat is better avoided.

There are ways to gain some leverage without resorting to special tools, like using the edge of an open-ended spanner and a length of pipe.. but I was in no rush, did not want to damage the drain plug slot.. and I have a friend who likes an excuse to make things out of metal..

I measured the slot and we decided to mount a tab to fit on top of a large hex head that I could then use a spanner, socket, or whatever I liked on. He then machined the piece from a section of 1" hex bar. Thanks again Jacob!

Oil Pump Checks

I took the oil pump off at the weekend so I could inspect it before replacing the sump with a new gasket and doing the oil and filter change. I do not want to be in the position where I get everything back together and then find I can't get oil pressure for some reason - and have to take the sump off again and break the gasket and drain the good oil because the oil pump is in question..

Oil pumps on Series Land Rovers are purely mechanical, being shaft driven by a skew gear on the camshaft. They are easy to remove (assuming you already have the sump off!), and easy to disassemble and have a look at.

The workshop manual gives the acceptable limits for the end float, backlash, and radial clearance of the gears inside the pump, so all you need is a set of feeler gauges and half an hour to take the thing apart and check the sieve and relief valve (a simple spring-based setup) while you're at it.

Mine is a 'later' type pump; one aluminium gear (idler), one steel (driver)

Checking the end float on the idler gear

My end floats were 0.12 and 0.15mm for the steel and ally gears respectively, radial clearance was tiny, up to about 0.1mm, and backlash was within the acceptable range. (I could get the backlash up to 0.3mm between some teeth, but only if I pushed the drive gear with my finger - unrealistic, if not impossible, with the drive shaft inserted.) So the gearing looked absolutely fine, and no muck or debris appeared to have made it past the sieve. The spring and ball in the pressure relief valve also looked fine, the sieve was clean and unclogged, and the sealing ring between it and the pump housing was still intact.

Overall, I'd say it was not a very old pump - and now I've had one apart I can see there's really not much that can go wrong with them.

I fit it back on the engine this evening, and it's good to know it's in a solid state before I replace the sump and fill her up with nice new oil.

If you've got your sump off and have an hour to spare and don't know the exact condition of your oil pump I would recommend giving it a bit of an inspection as it's easy to do and could potentially save a lot of diagnosis and wasted time at a later date.

Front Leaf Spring Refurb Done

I am now in a position to put the front axle and suspension back together.

The shock absorbers seemed ok so I rubbed them down and painted them and ordered new rubbers, bolts, washers, and split pins for them. I cleaned up and painted the spring base plates and bought new U-bolts (the square one took a couple of orders to get right, but eventually ordering by an 'original OEM' part number got me the square profile I needed for the driver's side axle case). I've already covered the chassis and spring bush extraction and replacement in previous updates.

Reassembling the leaf springs was interesting. I took them apart completely and cleaned up each leaf individually. I would not do this again unless the springs were very old indeed, perhaps almost flat, and were worth the work involved because they could not easily be replaced; say, they were off a vintage vehicle of some kind and not easily replaced, for example.

When I disassembled the leaf springs I opened out the rebound clips (the riveted 'C'-shape type, not bolted) with a bar and hammer. After I cleaned all the leaves with a grinder I then greased each leaf face before clamping them and bolting them back together with new dowel bolts.

When greasing leaf springs before reassembly, less is more..

Closing the rebound clips again was difficult at first, but using some heat, and switching from propane to 'Mapp' gas, softened the clips enough to work them closed with a club hammer on my driveway. I was concerned they would not be as tight as before, even after working them in this way, and was starting to think about finding an Arbor press when I came across the following link on leaf springs, which contained among other things some information about the purpose and function of rebound clips. I recommend it as a good read on leaf spring suspension:

https://www.suspensionspecialists.com/tech0004.html

A lot of people (me included before I read the page above) think rebound clips are there to stop the leaves rotating away from one another - but that's not something that can happen unless there's a serious problem with the springs or the way they've been fitted. Springs always flatten out, and individual leaves break, long before any substantial skewing takes place. Rebound clips are there to stop powerful rebounds from breaking the main leaf on the way back up when it is unable to share the load with other leaves.

Anyway, it turns out there should be a certain gap between the leaves and the enclosing rebound clip, and the gap I worked them back to is almost exactly right.

'Free camber' is the distance between the line joining a spring's bushes and the face of the main leaf, or roughly the spring's height when viewed as an arch. I measured the height of both springs before disassembling them and found them to be roughly the same. This didn't worry me until I learned (again, see link above) the driver's side should have an extra inch or so of free camber. It's this difference that allows it to compensate for the extra weight of the driver and (on average, half full) fuel tank. Well, the driver's side must have compressed faster over time since once the springs were cleaned of rust and greased and reassembled, the driver's side had regained its extra inch.

The driver's side regains its extra inch from a refurb..

I've also found time to clean up and paint the front axle, so I'm now ready to put the front end back together again and get her back on her wheels. It feels like I've been fighting with bushes and springs for a while now, so it will be good to move onto the welding at last!

I said above I wouldn't entirely disassemble a leaf spring again unless it was irreplaceable and I had no other option. I say this from experience now since I believe 80% of the benefit from the springs' refurbishment came from 20% of the work. In future, I would remove the springs from the vehicle, clamp and unbolt them, remove the top three leaves and clean those up - and then instead of opening the rebound clips at all just let the other six leaves naturally part to allow me to clean them up by hammer and wire brush. I could have sprayed grease in between them just the same, and bolted them back together right away. That's how I'll do it next time. Well, actually next time I'll be ordering new springs, for the back, because they are a lot older and almost entirely flat and not worth saving since they are easily replaced.

Awaiting reassembly..

Between the chassis bush extraction and reassembling greasy leaf springs - it's been a challenge. Hopefully bolting it all back together will hold no surprises!