My Landie S2 resto.....

As requested... OK you DID ask........

Background

Castrol, named for the copious amounts of oil he drops on the driveway, is a 1964 Series 2a ex- Australian Military Land Rover.





The Aussie ex-mils are noteable for their cut guards and 2 inch lift (extended spring hangers) and on some, such as Castrol, a removeable gearbox chassis cross member to make gearbox access & removal easier.

Many of the Aussie Military Land Rovers served in Vietnam, but Castrol never made it off Australian shores. After his military life ended he was sold for $2500 to the RAAF, and was used on their base at Fairburn, Canberra. After that he had a number of different owners before coming into my hands in 2007.

When purchased he had been sat on the side of the road for 3 years. He had a blown head gasket and no brakes, so these were the first things rectified. The head came off, was machined and hardened valve seats fitted. The brake and clutch master & slave cylinders replaced, brake shoes, drums, cylinders and lines replaced. His canvas canopy was rotten, but included in his purchase was a brand new one. He was blowing oil out of the oil filler, which turned out to be due to a leaking gasket and the fact that he had no backflow baffle behind the filler....that was an easy fix.

He has always blown clouds of black smoke, which we had hoped was due to the fact that the carby needed an overhaul, so this was done this week. BUT...it also turns out the head gasket was blown and the extractors were leaking at the block due to poor fitting, so these problems have been rectified, and he no longer blows smoke....and once again has some power.



Sept 2010

Soooooo........a sudden impulse to lose coolant has brought the bad news that Castrol has a cracked block. Cracked all the way through from front to back along where the welch plugs sit

I sourced a block.... no idea if it has been rebored, or if it has any damage or scoring until the pistons etc come out. No idea how much of Castrol's bits will go back on and how much will need replacing etc etc. Don't think I'll get out of it cheaply tho



January 2011

2011 and Castrol is booked in at the local landy mechanics for a heart transplant soon...so we started stripping down the donor block. Some of the components will not be needed, so we are stripping it back to the bare block and cleaning everything up, so that the things needed can be used and the rest put away as "just in case" spares.

Part of the reason for stripping the block down is that we need to transport it to the mechanic....stripped down, we should be able to lift it into the RRC without too much trouble. It was a hell of a job getting it in there to bring it home... 4 people, lots of ingenuity and 20kg of kitty litter required

I've ordered a new wiring loom (Aus mil spec) so that will go in while the motor is out.
Then all that is needed are:

Changing ignition back to push start, & installation of immobiliser of some sort
Putting the correct blinkers/parkers on, plus blackout lights & nato plug socket.
Getting the dash back to original configuration
Repairing the filler necks of both fuel tanks
Replacing the rear crossmember
2 new second hand doors
A complete repaint

We cleaned up a couple of things......

Part of the battery/oil bath cleaner holder ( I only have the top half, going to have to get the base made) and the oil bath filter itself, and the horn for the top of the carby.





It's all had one coat of black paint



and that air cleaner painted nice gloss black



and poor Castrol, half apart



February 2011

Spent a couple of days the mechanics workshop. He kindly invited us up to clean up and paint the engine bay and front of chassis while the motor is out.

So the time was spent removing things like steering linkages, miscellaneous electrical items attached to the firewall & scraping, sanding & wire brushing off layers of paint and mud, before slapping on some paint.

Got it pretty well cleaned up and the firewall, inner guiards and front section of chassis painted.



and by the time we finished it looked like this



Then there was other stuff to sort out

Spent a very hot Sunday afternoon doing some paint stripping. We had removed the front bumper and brushbar, in one piece on Friday.

Getting the brushbar off the bumper was a longer than expected process with some of the rusted solid bolts needing to be ground off. Coops is handy with an angle grinder thank goodness, but he was tryng hard to warm his front bits on a hot day!!



Once the bar was off we had a go at it with paint stripper....we found though that a flapper wheel on the angle grinder was much more efficient for removing the "at least 5 layers of paint" though. Then out with a small wire brush to get into the corners. One ready to paint brushbar



The bumper is badly bent. I would seem it has had hard contact with something on one end. So....new bar now being sourced!! I think this one too hard/costly to repair



and then I had a call from the mechanic...it appears the head is also cracked

Never rains but it pours......

First coat of paint on the brushbar, and painted up some of the other bits n pieces

The engine might be crap....but the bits attached are going to look real pretty







Went round to our local landy wreckers to see if we could find a few bits n pieces. Came away with a head, an oil filler tube and a nice hand throttle.

I cleaned them up (after dismantling the hand throttle) and sprayed them with primer

These bits and the mounting/backing plates for the throttle



March 2011

Back at the workshop to clean up the dash a little ready for the instrument panels to go back in.

The panels we have brough home to strip & paint.

This is the dash....





and you should see the motor.... shiney bits like I have never had before. Considering the mechanic was a little reluctant to take the job on originally, he has really put himself into it and is getting quite enthusiastic about it all. I think the fact that I get in and do some of the stuff I do has helped.

Is this good or what?


















Have not been able to source a straight (or even close) S2 bumper. Luckily I had a S3 bumper in the shed that looks like new. Took it down to a fabricator to get new mounts welded on so that it can go on the S2....only the very pedantic will pick it!!

The new wheels



and that once was shiny alloy bar now in primer



Coops painted the rollbar black yesterday. Looks really really good



April 2011

We are now basically waiting to get Castrol back from the workshop but have done a few extra little things. Starting to look good inside the engine bay though



Stripped the bonnet, had the rust in one of the strengthening ribs repaired



Stripped the radiator panel.

May 2011

Picked Castrol up from the mechanics.
No more black smoke
Accelerates up hills

How long do you reckon it will look this good?





Using the bonnet as a test panel for painting we were not happy with the finish Part of the problem is we used an enviro stripper, never again. It seems to have left a thin residue behind and that reacted with the paint in a few places The foam roller idea will probably work better on the flat panels...the rivets on the bonnet made rolling harder



OK so stripping ready for painting has started in earnest. So far we would have put in a good 12hrs solid time and have partially stripped the front and one door. It's hard work!!

The paint layers are:
Original Bronze Green
Olive Drab from Army service
Pink primer of some sort
Blue from Navy service. Somewhere there were stripes on the blue as well (whether in service or after not known)
White (although this could be a primer/undercoat
Camino Gold
Olive Drab
Olive Drab

and quite a bit of bog.........



Lots of sanding time to get this far



Lots more to do on this side



and lots of dead paint and mess



The result after 3hrs of sanding one door....





June 2011

Castrol spent a few days at the mechanics.
Swivel overhauls...new seals etc, but the swivels had deep scoring on them so were replaced with good 2nd hand ones.
New wheel hubs (S3) so I could put disco rims and bigger tyres on......painted black they look tough and because he is such a great mechanic, without my even asking or mentioning it, he painted the hubs and wheel nuts black to match the rims (a job I was going to do when I got it back)

He looks cosmetically a little tatty, but mechanically is now one great S2 to drive







We had Castrol at the panelbeaters, asking advice on where to go next. He looked at the bog and suggested we remove it, as it appeared to have been bogged over paintwork. Our decision on painting has been made.....the local spraypainter is doing it.

We have removed most of the bog (body filler). Some of it seemed to be covering nothing.

How much bog do you need?



By the end of June this is where we are at









The tailgate is pretty dodgy...it will be replaced, as hopefully, will the drivers side front guard which is split where the wheelarch has been cut out. Not to mention that it is the most bogged panel of all so heavens knows what it is like underneath.

July 2011

Castrol is off to the painters. Stripping is complete (outside & rear tub at least, we will do the cab area later). We test fitted the rollbar this morning also.....it is going to look great methinks.









So we decided to let the panelbeater do his bit as he felt necessary. We dropped by and he had repaired (by patching) the tear in the front drivers side guard, and was well on to bogging up the panels.
We will loose the rivet heads along the side (that SHOULD actually be spot welds but the welds broke and it's been rivetted) so he is going to make little indents that look like spot welds.......

We thought he had a lot of bog before. He still will have!! but maybe the same amount just spread over a greater area







We swung past the panelbeaters as he was hoping to have it primered last Friday, but he didn't get it done anyway, but those panels are looking pretty good now

Sweet. Its looking great. The engine looks really good. Cant wait to see the finished item!

Pink may not be primer, pink was often used on desert spec vehicles as camoflauge paint as it is hard to spot in sand.

Assassin wrote:

Pink may not be primer, pink was often used on desert spec vehicles as camoflauge paint as it is hard to spot in sand.

I don't think any of our Aussie ones were though. It was the very first layer of paint IIRC, so likely a primer, and then another coat later on. The white which I thought may have been a primer was a colour according to the last owner. It was white when he bought it, and he put 2 coats of Olive Drab on it. There were so many colours it all blurred into one eventually :shock:

Looking very smart

Picked my landy up from the panelbeaters today. Went armed with the door hinges and windscreen, and when we got there put the doors on, the bumper on and the windscreen on and I drove it round to the auto electrician who is going to rewire the lights and wire in the Nato trailer plug.

Getting excited now it is almost home.

VERY,,,VERY,,,,NICE,,,,,,

top job......

Looks great. I really Like the paint colour.

TJ

Looks absolutely brilliant

Well I've got it home, and we've been putting back on all the bits n pieces like the tool brackets, tac plate holders etc etc etc. We had a rollbar off another project landie we have (which was originally a soft top and it now a hard top) so we wanted to put that on, but it didn't quite fit. So today we have ahd the car and the bar at the workshop to get the bar adjusted slightly and fitted. If I say so myself it looks REALLY good now........







Still needs some stuff doing, like a tailgate, windscreen wipers and a little bit of paint in a few places, but looking almost FINISHED

Vixen:

Over here we have roast chestnuts, but the picture with the angle grinder has put me off roast Australian nuts now.

excelent job,,,well done,,,,,

The engine bay looks exceptionally pretty - superb job!

I am very pleased with it........as you can imagine. With the motor rebulid it's goes really well now

Looks really good :-) thanks for sharing the writeup :-)

Good afternoon,

Firstly mighty impressive rebuild. I am contacting you in a productive manor, I work for Richards Chassis in the UK we are currently producing a chassis for a customer with a 88” series 2a (a-c) with the 1 ton set up for the suspension. Could you please provide me with details for both front of rears and rear of rears.

Please don’t hesitate to call 0044 (0)1709 577477 any further information you can provide will be incredibly useful.

Kindest regards

Spike