Way Past 40.

Well due to personal
circumstances I am having to sell “The 110”.

This has not been a
decision that has been taken lightly, in fact it’s a decision that I
have been dancing around over the last couple of weeks but sadly it
has to be done.

I hate selling
anything, especially motors, as it always seems to draw out the time
wasters who want to come along and kick the tyres whilst
simultaneously sucking air through their teeth and shaking their
heads in a way that they think this will convince you to sell the
motor for a tenner and feel that they are doing you a favour. So what
you will get here is a warts and all expose on this old D reg 110.

I bought this a couple
of years ago and it was a wreck. It seemed where ever you poked a
hole would form so instead of being the quick patch and play I was
hoping for it turned into rather an extensive rebuild. If you go to
www.nickysmith.me and click
on the category “The 110” you will be able to see exactly what
has been done to it. You will also see in lots of places me saying
that I will never ever sell it. Turns out those words were a
poisoned chalice because here we are with the old boy up for sale.

A quick list of things
that have been replaced are as follows starting from the front:

200tdi engine fitted
(Discovery 200tdi)

Starter motor

Alternator

Lift pump

Water pump

Cam-belt

Radiator

Turbo & manifold
(second hand)

Extensive work to the
Bulkhead inc:

Floor pans

Hinge upright bits
(forget the name)

Modified for the turbo
to fit

Full brake rebuild on
the front including new discs pads and calipers.

Exhaust manifold
conversion pipes

New exhaust

Wheel bearings front
and rear

Axle fluids changed
front and rear

Full brake rebuild on
the rear inc brake plate, pads, springs, calipers

New shocks and springs
front and rear

¼ rear chassis

Soundproofed where it
can be

Tinted rear windows

Carpet fitted to rear
tub

All lights replaced
front and rear

Discovery transfer box
fitted

New clutch

Clutch slave cylinder

Seat Covers

Cubby box

Painted front to back

Power steering fitted

It sits on a set of
used G90’s

Heated front screen

And I am sure there’s
more I have forgotten!

I have done less than a
hundred miles in it since it was MOT’d (I think the MOT is until June
18 I will have to check) so it’s still being run in after the
extensive work done on it over the last couple of years. The light
bar is fitted but not wired up yet.

The furthest I have
travelled in it is around 40 miles at once. The temp gauge reads a
little high but I think that may more due to the sender as it just
sits there not moving once its got up to temp. On starting it smokes
a little but this disappears once it has got warmed up! Best to be
honest 🙂

I was going to under
seal it from front to back but now I am going to sell it I wont
bother so anyone who is interested in buying it can see it for what
it is underneath. Nothing to worry about there just surface rust.

It’s old, it’s noisy
and the cab rattles inside when you are on tickover. It will break
down on you because it’s a Land Rover and they all do. It is an
ex-military model but is 12v with a civvy spec inside. Still manages
to leak oil. At least when it’s leaking a bit of oil you know
there’s still oil in it!

It is sold with no
warranty implied or given. If it breaks down on the way home it
does. It is what it is, an old Land Rover that has had the base work
on a rebuild done. This doesn’t mean it’s a new car it just means it
will last a little while longer than it was going to!…hopefully.
It is a sound base for an overlander conversion which was my initial
plan.

If you have any
questions please get in touch via message or on 07398103184.

I have the full V5 in
my name and a full receipt will also be given at the time of
purchase.

£4995 ono

I woke up to the sound of rain hitting the roof hard above my head. I didn’t care at first as I turned back over onto my side whilst pulling the duvet of my comfy bed that I had just spent the first night in a week in.
It was cosy, warm and I desperately wanted to drop back off to sleep but the morning held a job that was a week overdue in the doing already, so with a gentle sigh I flipped the covers back letting in the cool air and dragged myself upright to start the day.

The week’s holiday we have just taken was lovely. Lots of Spanish sun and far too much good food and drink had been had by all but reality had kicked back in as I sat nursing my morning brew looking out of the front window into the typically British rain.
I wondered whether The 110 would start after sitting so long, the battery had been a bit on the low side when I moved it last week but I guess there was only one way to find out.
I chucked on my rain hat along with my coat and headed out into the downpour with the landy keys in my hand. After removing all of the various anti theft measures that are put into place because there are so many thieving buggers about hungry for any Defender they can get and also because you could nick one using a wet sponge, I hopped into the drivers seat dripping water all around the cab.
The key was pushed home into the ignition and with a quick flick of the wrist the engine roared instantly into life.

“Bugger me, it started” I thought to myself hoping that this was going to be a good omen for the day. What was I forgetting though? Oh yea, the big box of tools that I had set up ready in the garage before going off on our jaunt to Spain. I wandered back down the driveway grabbed the box out of the garage and promptly popped it into the back of the motor.

I needed diesel so the first bit of a drive was to the local petrol station about a mile away. Much to my surprise we made it there without any breakdowns…
“Going a bit too well this” I thought moodily to myself because this now meant in my head that the engine would probably explode on route to the MOT centre.
Fuelled up and paid for I was once more travelling along the road building up a steady speed keeping an ear on the new noises that The 110 was making. Seeing as this was our first trip out together I was unsure of it should sound like but seeing as everything was still moving as it was supposed to with nothing falling off I figured all must be well.

Our speed built up steadily to 55mph and this seemed fast enough while all of the new components from the rebuild settled down into their own rhythm. The noise though! Wow! It was like sitting inside the exhaust of a B52 Bomber plane that nose diving towards the ground at a ludicrous speed.
“Need to sort out some insulation then” I figured mentally adding that to the list of future work to do.
The distance passed quickly enough and before I knew it I found myself parking up outside of the test centre. I handed over the keys and wandered out of the way enough to keep an eye on what was happening with the old boy.
I have to admit I found myself smiling thinking that even if it failed it still looked bloody good!

The MOT guy meandered back over a fair while later to give me the news…

It had passed!

Grinning from ear to ear I couldn’t believe that I was going to be able to start having a play finally in The 110. The next list of jobs to do came alive with the next stage of it’s transformation into an Overlander. This next section though can be and will be done over a much longer period of time with no rush involved.

I bimbled home without a care in the world wondering how long I would get before it broke down but no! today he wanted to stretch his legs as much as I did. I will admit to missing the odd gear here and there but apart from that there were no issues at all.

He needed a name now he was alive once more. I thought of “Pukka” at the start of the build using the letters from his number plate but no that just did not suit. Over time on the build I had caught myself calling him “Mator” the same name I gave the Series 3 I rebuilt. So after some careful nosing around online trying to remember where I had seen the recent pictures of the old series 3 I found that the name sticker had been removed and a few other mods made to it.

So bugger it, I introduce to you one road legal, taxed, mot’d and insured Mator Mk2 and quite frankly, I have never been so pleased to see the back of a rebuild in all of my days!

I would like to take a moment to say a huge heartfelt Thank you to all of those people that put themselves out for me and this build especially over the last year which has undoubtedly been the toughest of my life.
Thank you somehow doesn’t seem enough to say or do but I will pass on the help you have all shown to me as and when the opportunity arises in the future.
Life without friends that support, encourage, love but most importantly still take the piss out of you when you are down would be no life at all.

So this motor, The 110, Mator Mk2 has been a labour of love. It has driven me mad had me seething in rage wanting to sell it or burn it but it has also kept me busy when I needed it most. It gave me time to think and reflect on my own and time to spend with my friends as they pitched in helping hold me up when I needed it most.
You see these Land Rovers are special. They are fun. They are frustrating. They are money pits. They are also beacons to pull folks together from all walks of life with a common interest that always seems to end up somehow in laughter quite often with a couple of beers in tow.

Oh and I am never ever ever rebuilding another one!

Bit of an issue really and not with The 110…There was a problem with the trailer so The 110 has been rebooked in for a week on Saturday and insured for the driver there instead. A little frustrating but after all of this time another week or so is nothing in the grand scheme of things!

The 110 is going for it’s MOT tomorrow.
Time to see what I missed….

Doesn’t time fly by!

It only seems like last week I was writing away about The 110 but after having a quick nose through the website it turns out is has been a bit longer than that. So I have a few things to tell you now then…

The 110 is sat on my driveway. Not underneath the carport in the “Try and fix area”. Oh no, it is sitting proudly upon the gravel of the grown up driveway in front of the house.

This is because many little bits have been completed of late.
A shiny new alternator has been fitted after some modification by a friend because I bought the wrong bloody one again. There is now pipework running from the turbo in all directions. I still need to buy a cone filter to get it through it’s MOT then I will look at mounting something a little more permanent.
The oil flush is waiting to be used on an oil change to clean the engine out a little more as it has been standing for a few years now. It will probably be next week for that now if I am honest.
The floors have been secured and painted green again so and the front number plate has been bought and fitted and the spare wheel is once again in it’s rightful place upon the bonnet.

The lightbar is also in place as well. I do like a good light bar! May have to head down getting it some LED’s fitted though as they look a little nicer.

All in all we are very very close to getting the first MOT now. I will be taking the old boy to the test station on a trailer then hopefully getting him insured so the actual pleasure of driving him can begin.

I feel like I owe the readers of this blog a bit of an apology. I am well aware that the ending of this particular series of blogs on The 110 have been more than a little flat. Those of you that know me and follow regularly know this is because I lost my little sister a couple of months ago and to be honest the pull of writing has been missing for the most part since then. It is coming back in dribs and drabs so my drivel will continue on!

Having said that I have also been busy in the background starting the process of setting up a charity in my sisters honor to give other people with special needs a rare old social trip out at least once a year to the seaside or a show etc. This is because Kazzie my sister loved to be out and about meeting new people and spending time with the friends she had already made.

With that in mind the first fundraiser is going to be from me while we finish the charity bits off. I am not having the hair on my head cut at all for a whole year! I am six weeks in now and have gone from a shaved bald head to some grey haired bugger staring back out of the mirror at me!?!
I’m not too sure who he is because I am only twenty six, full of youth and dashingly handsome to boot. My Handsomeness is only outshone by my modesty.

So if you good folks have enjoyed reading the writing I do please feel free to chuck a pound or two into the pot. If you have not enjoyed reading the writing I do then why are you here? Just a chuck a couple of quid in the pot anyway 😉

The link to the donation page is below…

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/Kazziesdaysout

We really are nearly there in getting The 110 on the road! It will seem strange actually driving it for real, like a grown up. This build feels like it has taken forever to do with moving house, getting knocked off of the motorbike and actually renovating the odd room that Wifey insisted I do to make our home “livable”
Still, nearly there now and the pictures from all of the pretty places that I breakdown will soon be coming your way…

www.nickysmith.me

It’s ok I am still around. I am not in the middle of what’s become commonly known in our household as “The 110 despair cycle”, nope I just have been really very busy with work and fitting life in in general.
This is literally the first time I have managed to find twenty minutes to sit down quietly by myself to write a few more ramblings.

It is getting really quite close to MOT time now after putting in a fair few hours on The 110 last week. First point of contact was taking out the faulty steering box again. With all of the practice doing this particular part of the rebuild, I am becoming quite a dab hand at it now.
So I popped the bonnet open to be faced with the popped seals unit.

This literally fell out because it has only been in there for what feels like five minutes. All the nuts and bolts came off cleanly, even the ones under the inner wing.

I was going to try and tackle the inner wing bolts with the wheels still on but it soon became clear that this was not going to happen. So the wheel was whipped off to make it a tad easier. Honestly I think I am going to wear out the wheel nuts before this build is finished with the amount of times they come on and off the motor.

With the old steering box quickly removed I went and grabbed the replacement. This is my second and final stab at using a second unit. Honestly if this one is faulty as well I will just bide my time and save up for a new bugger.
I could not remove the old steering arm that was on the box for love nor money so in the end I very very carefully cut through it as it sat on the spindles using a 1mm cutting disc. When it got near to the spindle I stopped and using a slightly thicker chisel whacked the cut open with a couple of deft blows. This released the old arm and left me with an intact usable unit.

With that done the box was quickly fitted, it needed some adjustment on the steering column arms to make it all bolt up nicely, and everything centred up steering wise once more.

I have no idea if it works or leaks yet as I have not had the chance to pop out and buy some power steering fluid. No really I haven’t, the only parts I have manged to get hold of have been online. These amount to the new turbo oil feed pipe (cost a small fortune), a set of number plates and the bonnet catches.
It wont be long before these are fitted and we are then closer than ever towards getting the MOT sorted. Funds and any disasters pending I am hoping this should be within the next month or so. We can then get to the next round of breakdowns and repairs as we tackle the teething problems of the rebuild!

nickysmith.me

Now you may think that I have not been doing a deal on The 110 but you would be mistaken. The evenings have become warmer and the daylight is lasting longer so I have been merrily pottering around the old wreck getting it closer and closer to it’s finished point over the last few weeks.

I have fitted a full set of new lights! I was just going to replace the lenses but when I saw that the whole unit costs only a few quid I decided why mess around? Now the old bay has a full set of shiny new lights fitted.
These even work as well thanks to the knowledge and help of a friend who came over and played in the cold dark night time under the car port until we had them all shining up in the darkness. Thanks fella, you know who you are 😉

The floors along with the tunnel needed refitting so I had a happy couple of hours yesterday afternoon playing with those getting it all fitting just right. Beer stopped play though when a neighbour turned up and we sat admiring The view from the car port with a couple of cold ones in hand.

The power steering header tank needed fitting so this has been done on the passenger wing just tucked up to the front maximising the space on the nearside. There were a couple of brackets to make up here and there as well as securing the rear brake pipes now the brakes themselves have been rebuilt.

I am still looking for a turbo oil feed pipe and a couple of bits and bobs but finances are tight so until a couple more bits are sold off they will have to wait.

Realistically I can see it being ready for MOT at the end of the month which would be fantastic! Providing of course that nothing else gets buggered up between now and then…

Sorry for the short update folks but with everything that has happened of late I seem to have lost my writing spirit! Work is stupid busy as well. Got to keep you all in the loop though now the end is in sight!

Once again I found myself sat in bed looking at the bottom of a brew thinking about The 110.
I had to go and buy some nuts and bolts for the brake back plates and seeing as it was such a nice clear blue sky sort of day I decided to take the motorbike out for a spin to Paddocks. So at 7:45am I found myself cruising into the Derbyshire countryside, there are far far worse places to be in the sunshine.
The rolling green hills past me by along with the all of the signs of spring arriving. The daffodils are everywhere and the trees waking up in bud once again, it will only be a matter of a few weeks before we find ourselves sat in warmer weather and the heating turned off.

Since the bike crash I have to admit I seem to have become a bit pants on two wheels. I still enjoy it but my gear changes seem to be all over the shop and don’t get me started on my road positioning. The little Bandit needs to come out a bit more often I think so I can get my eye back in once again.
Surprisingly there was not a queue at Paddocks and I was in and out in under five minutes…this has to be some sort of record surely! A quick hop back onto the trusty stead and I was headlong back into a different route home enjoying the sunshine and dry roads.

All too soon I was back home and ready to get cracking with sorting out the back brakes on the Land Rover. I didn’t want to do it I have to admit here and I very nearly walked away but something said to just get stuck in.

Wheel off then armed with a large hammer the drum soon submitted into rusty cooperation falling off onto the floor with an almighty clang!
That was the neighbours up then whether they wanted to be or not.
As I looked up into what was exposed the amount of dirt and muck in there was astounding! There was also some sort of unidentifiable slime that I did not want to be playing with for too long so an old rag was brought into to play then promptly dumped into the wheelie bin.

The hub was next which came off with no issues on this side unlike the other side which snapped a bolt in it. That took some serious heating up to remove I can tell you, I thought it was going to be a drill and retap affair but it seems the Landy Gods were looking upon me favourably today. They must have been pleased to see the sunshine as well.

Brake pads then the caliper were soon stripped out, even the brake pipe came off of both sides without snapping! That seems to be just about unheard of to me but why look a gift horse in the mouth eh. The back plate fell off in a rusty heap after a bit of a gentle tap with a 4lb lump hammer and I was left with nothing but the stub axle in situ.

Time to put all of the new shiny bits on then.
The back plate along with the pre-fitted new caliper, I mean why struggle once the plate is fitted? May as well sort it out before hand to get the dripping brake pipe back into place asap.

Now it was time to battle with the brake pads and new springs. The ends of teh springs needed a small grind down as they were far too long on the hook end but soon found themselves sitting where they should have been. You may notice in the pictures that there is a set of pads laid out under the The 110 exactly as they came off of the old back plate. I do this to make sure I don’t end up fitting the pads upside down or in the opposite way they should be. Helps to remember which holes the springs fit into as well.
Looks great with shiny new bits on though 🙂

Making sure the pads were sitting in the right place I fitted the nice new brake drums too, be rude to scrimp at the very end wouldn’t it. In all honestly I figured that if I had to do this job I may as well do it right. The I also fitted all new bearings and seals onto the hub before refitting, who knows how old the the ones that were in them were.

So there you have it the back brakes are done. I didn’t want to do them and they took all day but I am really glad I have got them out of the way.

The only stop I had really was for lunch. My neighbour popped around so I figured we may as well ave an egg and bacon cob with our brews. As we chatted away the conversation came around to the subject of scrapyards and how we miss them.
We are both old enough to remember hunting around acres of rusty steel looking for the model of car we wanted then rummaging through it hoping the one part that we wanted was still fitted to it.
And lugging your heavy toolbox around the place. Then carrying that along with all of the extra parts you had removed “Just in case” you needed them when you were fitting the part you actually had to do.
We came to the conclusion that we missed scrapyards. Many a happy hour were spent looking for that extra bit of gold in the motor you were happy to hunt through.
It’s a shame that most scrappies these days have already removed the parts and put them onto a shelf. Yes it is easier and quicker, less tiring, less work, cheaper, cleaner, warmer and generally less hassle but I did enjoy the hunt…

nickysmith.me

I get up really early in the morning for work which in itself is ok. I like to see the start of each new fresh day before most folks have even stirred in their beds dreading the alarm clock and after sneaking a quick peak at the clock dropping back off for a few more snug minutes of sleep.
The problem is when I take a holiday. My body does not seem to want to just relax into the warm sheets of my bed in the morning. Nope, it prefers to just keep the normal routine going regardless and as such I found myself reaching the bottom of a cup of in bed well before 7am this morning.

Wifey had already left for work so unable to steep in my own bed warmth anymore I decided to have a poke around The 110 to see what I could up to with it today.
There has been a job I seemed to be pushing back (insert running away from there) for some reason each time I thought about it. This was making up some exhaust mount brackets.
I don’t know why I was so averse to getting this particular chore done but seeing as I had put it off at least half a dozen times I figured that today was the day.

There were only three mounts in all to fabricate up so off into the garage to the old chocolate tin pile I went. There are probably for or five large chocolate tins in there, the type you get at Christmas that the contents seem to disappear from incredibly quickly. This odd effect is usually accompanied by a sick in your stomach feeling due to a large sugar rush. By the time they hit my garage they are bone dry and what tends to happen is any part, nut, bolt, metal, brace, bracket and something small and potentially useful end up being chucked in them.
This is a god send in such situations as having to make up three exhaust brackets from scratch!
A good rummage later had me with enough bots on the workbench to make a start. With some whacking, bending and cutting I soon, about three hours later, had the brackets made up and fitted. Not too bad really as they were all made from stuff other folks would just chuck away!

It’s so nice to have the exhaust actually sitting where it is supposed to be! SImple things eh.
With that done followed swiftly by a cheese on toast sort of lunch I decided that I may as well start putting the odds and sods back into place on the old boy.

I fettled the rear number plate back into position.

Then seeing as funds are very tight at the moment I cleaned up the headlight surrounds and an old grill that was in the shed using some WD40.

I will be replacing these with new items in the future but at the moment they will have to do.
Upon closer inspection it turns out that most of the light lenses are cracked or damaged so I need to source a second hand set of these along with another Discovery 1 power steering box. Going to have to be later in the month though as funds are ridiculously tight at the moment.

A quick lick of paint on the bonnet wheel brace along with a cheeky coat on the light bar and it was time to call it a day. Then I had a quick scramble in the parts shed to see if I had a horn because I had forgotten all about that! Turns out I had on old Disco one in there which when tested on a car battery let off a convincing noise load enough to pass an MOT. That’ll do nicely then and should get fitted tomorrow….

www.nickysmith.me

Now there have been a number of reasons why I have not been posting lately but I am back in the saddle a touch more now.

The 110 has had the odd bit of titivating here and there but nothing worthy of note at the time. I drilled then riveted the wing chequer plate into place so now it does not try to rattle itself off when the engine is running.

I have abit of time off this week so I will be trying to get around to having another poke at the old boy when I get the chance.
Wifey had a few issues with her little Fiat 500 so my attention on Saturday was on that tiny little car. New drop links along with front discs and pads cured most of it’s ails though.
Turns out, so I am reliable informed by said Wifey, that I now have to fill my car up with fuel at Tescos so the Clubcard points can be collected. The fact that I never pass a Tescos petrol station is apparently not an issue because my darling other half is taking my car once a week to fill the bugger up. I still have to pay for my fuel it seems but she gets to keep all of the points…

I learnt long ago to just roll with these sort of things so after watching my motor drive off into the sunrise this morning I stood at my bedroom window looking at this little Fiat knowing I had some mileage to do in it because myself and the youngest daughter were off up into the Peak District to get a bit of a walk in.

I shrugged my shoulders to myself figuring “At least I wont be using my own fuel today”

Well I am man enough to stand here and admit I loved driving this plucky little motor! What a machine! It was like driving a geared up go kart that refused to let go of any grip on any corner regardless of the speed you were doing!
It never let up. You had to work the gears to get the small 1200cc engine going but my word I was grinning ear to ear by the time we arrived at Mam Tor.

I can see why Wifey likes it so much now, I can best describe as like driving an original proper mini. The fun was done though and it was tome to walk the great ridgeway with my daughter who was doing this for the first time.

It was a little breezy at the base but not too bad but once we reached the first summit of Mam Tor it soon became apparent that the day was not going to be what we expected it to be…

We could barely keep standing upright. After a mere mile we through in the towel and headed back down to the car moving onto Chatsworth house for a cheeky picnic instead.

The 110 is not that far off of completion and I am tempted to throw a “Lets get it finished party” where I will supply good food and drink to those who want to come over and an odd job on it…
Anybody tempted?

I don’t booze. No, honestly I don’t! The days of that nonsense are far behind me and as I sit here at my kitchen table this morning listening to Radio 2 whilst tenderly nursing a cup of tea I remember why.
I cant take it. Really, I am a big Jess who can no longer take his beer and I am ok with that. Two days of evening drinking and my voice has dropped two octaves. My stomach feels about three times it’s normal size and sweet Jesus the smell that is escaping from my backside could solve all of the issues in the middle east in a matter of minutes. Even the dog has abandoned me high tailing it for lower ground.
But it was worth it. It was a good friends surprise 50th Birthday party last night and it’s his fault that I feel so bloated…

The 110 was first coat deep when I went outside early yesterday morning to put the second coat on. The second coat is always easier than the first and the finish was looking really good.

So there I was covered in as much paint as the car drinking a brew whilst the headache of the night before was fading when Wifey came and got me to tell me that I had to somehow get my friend Gromit out of the house for a couple of hours because they had to head over to the hall where is party was and set up.
Talk about drop it on me! I was filthy (luckily quite a normal state of affairs) covered in paint and skint to boot. How was I to get my mate out of the house for that long at five minutes notice?

As I wandered along the three doors away to his house with my tea still in my hand I came up with a cunning plan. Well it was cunning in the fact it would get him out but not so cunning that it was going to cost me £50 I didn’t have but if I had to spend it I may as well get something I needed.
With a grin when I saw him I asked him “Can I borrow you and your Discovery to collect some chunky window sills for the conservatory please chap?”
With a returning grin he piped back with “Yea why not”

Then after asking his advice on where to go I lead him towards the furthest away from where we were point and off we set.
Well as soon as we were gone so were the women of the two households to get things sorted for the evening.
My first problem was that there was no traffic at all. Because of this we were at the wood yard in fifteen minutes. Of course we found what I needed in another 3 minutes and had the car loaded within ten minutes of getting there. Right then I need a back up plan here…
“Gromit do you mind if we pop into Alfreton? I need to speak to the folks in the leisure centre about my membership”
He looked at me a bit oddly but said “Alright then Nick.”

Bear in mind Alfreton was about fifteen miles from where we currently were so a bit of an ask really but in good spirits off we set.
Again no traffic so we were soon at the leisure centre and thankfully Gromit decided to wait in his Disco while I popped in for two minutes.
Indeed it really only took two minutes to do what I needed to do so what the hell could I do know? I decided that having a coffee while I thought about it was a good idea!

I dragged that out for ten minutes then as I was leaving I sent a text to Wifey giving them all a fifteen minute warning. The reply was almost instant saying
“No! drag it out”
Seriously!! I thought to myself. my friend is already looking at me like I am taking the michael here. ONly one more option on the way home…

“Fancy a KFC mate?” I asked
“Not really Nick but we can stop for one if you want”

I didn’t want…no I really didn’t. About five minutes before this facade had started I had eaten the biggest sausage cob you have ever seen so the thought of a greasy KFC was more than a little unappealing.

“Yes please chap, I am starving” I replied.

Then there I was looking at the menu wondering what I could have that meant I did not have to eat a great deal but it had to be big enough to look like lunch.

I managed to drag that force fed meal out for another twenty five minutes whilst making small talk. By now I was convinced he was suspecting something but a quick trip to the toilet so I could send the text message that we were coming home now and we were on our way home.

We beat the families back. Not to worry they had sent me a message stating they had gone shopping for shoes so my friend and I had a brew whilst comparing notes on how to cut and fix the newly acquired window sills into the conservatory.
Ten minutes passed and the rest of the tribe returned with grins all around and slight nods confirming all was ready for the off in the evening.
While I had Gromit there we popped the bonnet back onto The 110 and that in place, the front bumper painted black and the chequer plate resting on the wings the old boy looks pretty damned good to me!!

By now the time had really cracked on so operation “Get ready, get out and get to the party before your mate sees you” began in earnest.
We got washed and changed. I had to use a pressure washer to remove the paint off of me. Then we crept out into the darkness of our driveway hopped in the car and sped off to the party hall.
My youngest was snaptwatting (I think thats what she called it) Gromits eldest and it turned out he was still sat on his sofa in his pants and t-shirt not relishing the idea he had to go out to a party that evening.
A little persuasion (read that as bullying) from his three daughters and wife soon saw our friend washed and dressed and on his way.

He had no idea the party was for him and the grin on his face as he entered the hall said it all! A conversation a little later on with him had him confirming he wondered why I was being a bit of a dick asking to be run around to all these odd places that morning. He said he had just put it down to being out and about…

What a day it had been! The 110 was looking the mutts nutts now and really inspired me to plough on and get it finished. I can see once again what I am working towards and this was sorely needed.
But most important of all a genuinely great friend had the surprise of his life with family and friends from all over the country coming to see him…something he has never had before and if anyone I know deserved a surprise like that, well it is him!

Happy 50th Birthday Gromit

Bear with me today I have a bit of a thick head. That “One for the road” last night may well have tipped me over the edge. Still, while I sit here at the kitchen table with my hangover cure sausages are grilling nicely I thought it best to tell you all of yesterdays progress.

The roof is now black along with the bonnet and the chequer plate. But what colour to do the main body of The 110 I hear you ask? Well I think you are asking, if not those voices in my head are back.
After hours of internet searching looking at pictures, I decided I best start looking at Land Rovers before the Wife caught me at it. These showed me motors in all colours so deciding what I wanted was a tough choice.
I ended with Black (obviously you already know that) and………
Green.

Not overly imaginative but I decided upon the semi gloss finish and I think it has come up quite nicely for a first coat.

The front bumper was looking more than a little drab so I etch primed it so that too can be painted black. I do seem to have more than enough paint!

The second coat should bring it all together nicely! I have also added a couple of extra coats to the bonnet and the roof may well want a couple more too yet. The jury is still out on that one as I need to reverse The 110 out from under the car port into the proper light to have a good look.

nickysmith.me

My Wife has a problem with snoring. Sounds of deep rumbling along with what I can only describe as several near death experiences due to what seems like strangled suffocation lead to a Doctors appointment being made before Divorce proceedings could begin in earnest.
Not to worry the Doctor says it is probably something simple and that I should begin with losing a few pounds in weight and trying one of those snoring aid things.
After standing at one of the pharmacy aisles at Tescos bewildered for about ten minutes looking a shelves full of all manner of things that promised to give me good nights sleep I just picked up one that was in the middle of the price range and headed home.

So a couple of nights back just before bed I found myself stood in front of Wifeys dressing mirror in the bedroom with a packet nose strips in my hand wondering just how stupid I was going to look in a couple of minutes time. After a sigh to myself I spent a few moments (read that as about six minutes) trying to figure out how to take the sticky backing off of the damned thing before squinting into the mirror without my specs on affixing it across my nose attempting my best Adam Ant impression.

I am one hell of a skeptic when it comes to these sort of aid things but to my complete amazement this little plastic strip opened up my nostrils making breathing easier than it has been in years! To cut a long story short I have had the best two nights sleep in what seems like years and so it would seem has Wifey. She has even gone to the extent of putting away the hammer and knives that seemed to have ominously made their way to her bedside table. This bloody chest infection that pitches up each time I have a week off is still going strong though. I will have to pop back to Tescos and see what magic isle they have for that…

To The 110 then. To be honest it has just been a pottering around it sort of week in between coughing a lung up and feeling rather sorry for myself. The second primer coat went on easily giving a nice sound bed for the top coats.

WHilst that coat was drying I skipped off to the parts shed to dig out the wing chequer plate. I have decided not to use the bonnet chequer plate as the wheel will be mounted on there anyway so it seems like alot of work for something you won’t really see. If anyone is interested in it before it gets put up tonight for sale give me a shout.
The wing plates were offered up just to make me smile while pretending the truck was finished.

Out came the etch primer because these bad boys were going to be black in the end.

Then I walked away letting it all dry properly. After a sleep or two I came back suitably dosed up on cold relief pills to break out the black paint. Firstly a nice coat went onto the chequer plate.
This was quickly followed by a good coat on both the roof and bonnet. I will aim to get the second coat on today along with the first coat on the main body. If I can stop coughing long enough that is!

I shall open with an apology. I have been rather quiet of late but with good reason. That being family. Mine have kept me busy of late so with work added into the mix I have been rather short on hours.
Seeing as I had a week owed holiday wise I have taken the last couple of days to begin the rub down of the bodywork along with adding the first thin coat of primer.

I have to say it is nice to see it nearly all the same colour for a change…

You have probably noticed that there has been very little on the Land Rover front lately.
This is for two reasons.
The first is quite frankly I needed a bit of a break away from the damned thing. It was starting to grate, as most of you know, on my nerves and the constant working every spare minute was leaving me feeling exhausted as well as fed up with the whole process.
The second reason is that I also have a house that I am doing up and after all of the dedication to The 110 the house was feeling a little neglected.

This years plan for the house after last years running start on it was to get the conservatory finished. That is as much as I wanted to put upon myself house work wise and this seems like a good plan.
Firstly I had to build up the inner wall. It has been well over ten years since I last built any sort of wall and this took me two days along with a raging back ache!
Ten years ago it would have been a day job but even at the spring chicken age of forty three I have noticed I am slowing down in certain areas. Heavy block lifting and wall building being one of them.
Patience it seems is a virtue though and the wall is straight and true meaning that I have not lost my knack, only my speed.

That was a couple of weeks ago so this weekend involved deciding on how we wanted the conservatory to look, then going to buy some masonry paint, then some poor smuck had to paint the first coat onto the exposed brick wall…yep that would be me.

The before and after effects are pretty good even if I do say so myself! We will be going with an “Industrial” type look on the painted brick wall with old lights and conduit piping for the electrics.

With this lot going on I had declared to my ever suffering Wife that I would “Not be spending any money on The 110 this month” because we have just been paid.

That lasted about an hour. I ordered the primer and paints needed to make the Landy look good but “That’s it. Nothing else for it this month” were the next words out of my mouth.
In all fairness to me I lasted about seven hours before a set of chequer plate wing tops and bonnet top came up on the internet at a price I could not refuse…

That’s it though I am skint. I am not buying anything else for it this month. I have given my debit card to Wifey and put parental access controls onto the sale pages and websites that suck away my cash.
Just nobody tell me they have a cheap 200tdi alternator for sale and I should be alright…

Well the paints ordered.
The 110 wont be driving anywhere soon but at least it will look good not doing that!

In all seriousness it will be nice to have a change of direction with it for a little while…

Yes, yes I know my last post had me throwing a tantrum. You saw me throwing all of my toys out of the pram. I spat my dummy out as far as it could go and I was stamping my feet shouting “It’s my toy and I don’t wanna play anymore”
But the sulk is now over.
I have stood still wondering where in the hell I went wrong in the Land Rover life when a friend gave me a bit of a talking to.
After reading my last post he simply messaged “Ring me”.
I didn’t want to because I kinda knew he was going to have some cunning solution to what was going on engine smoke wise and it turned out that he did. That and I am an “Arfur Job” fool.

The first question was “Have you plumbed it all in correctly?” which with a roll of my eyes I answered “Of course I have, I am not that stupid.”
“But have you plumbed it ALL in?” he asked.
“Bugger” I thought to myself “Here we go I am going to feel stupid in a minute” was the closely following thought.
“Well not all of it. I mean I have not piped up the turbo to the intercooler yet” I replied.
“That will probably make it smoke a bit” he told me in a calm manner “Not a great deal but enough from unburnt fuel etc. It isnt the be all and end all but it would probably help. It’s been stood for years and then your knackered turbo will have dumped oil around in places so give that a go because the engine will really need a good run out as well. Oh and while you are at it stick some fuel cleaner through it and an engine flush probably wouldn’t do any harm either. Nick stop panicking and start plodding through the bits I’ve said.”

So I did. I ordered the bits I needed to make up the bottom intercooler feed and popped the fuel cleaner in. The postman brought me the parts yesterday morning so I set to seeing if my friend was right….again.

He was.

After making it all up and fitting the turbo out I fired up the engine and there still some smoke but nothing like what had been before…it was at this point I started to feel a bit stupid along with daring to feel a little bit hopeful.
I let the engine run through for about for about half an hour systematically revving up and holding them to get the heat all of the way through the solid metal lump. I wanted to get the coolant nice and hot as well.

As it ran and revved getting up to and holding its temperature the smoke more or less disappeared. I could not believe it! After all of that feeling a bit sick with disappointment thinking the whole thing would be better burning here I was looking at a much improved picture. Yes the power steering box was still shot but that is a doddle of a job compared to pulling the engine apart. An expensive job but an easier one non the less.
So thank you my friend, you know who you are, you have yet again advised me well and there a couple of beers with your name on when we next meet up again!

Happy as I am that it is all heading back in the right direction I am changing tack and walking away from the mechanical side for a little while. What I am going to do is put the bugger back together wiring up the lights then prepping the bodywork for painting. I want to get the old boy looking like I want him to. It’s looked like scrap since it turned up all of that time ago so I am heading down the “Make it look nice” route. This will show me what I am working towards and I do have this nice car port that I can put it under and seal off to do the job.

My biggest problem now is I had decided months ago what colours I wanted to paint it but know I am not quite so sure!
Best to start with the primer then. The rest can sort itself out from there…

You can actually get past saturation point you know. I did not think that that would be possible but it turns out that it is!

But before anymore of that let us head back to the beginning. Our last instalment showed that the turbo was knackered so I had to try and figure out how on earth I was going to afford a new one. Well a kind friend gifted me a 300tdi turbo so all I had to do was do a few modifications and Bob’s your Uncle. Sod’s law being what it is a few days later another friend called telling me he had a 200tdi turbo that could be mine for a very reasonable price. Skint as I am this month I could not refuse this as it would safe a great deal of messing around so I bought it.

Yesterday was the day to get the old replaced with the new and all went really well for a while.
The old unit came off nice and easily leaving just the old gasket to remove and the face there to clean up. A nice new exhaust manifold gasket was then popped into place.

My luck held as I installed the replacement turbo then less the ninety minutes after starting the hole shebang was all back together.

Happy Days!! I thought to myself as I was putting the tools away. All I had to do now was start it up, admire the not blue exhaust smoke and enjoy the whistling sound of the new turbo as it spun in.
I connected the battery and turned the key. The engine coughed quickly into life and I reversed it up to the top of the driveway to stop the exhaust fumes building up under the car port gassing anyone unfortunate enough to enter.
It was still a bit smokey but not too bad at the moment. I figured it would be burning off the oil that had got into the exhaust system so not to worry.
As it got warmer the smoke did not subside. If I gave the engine some rev’s it got a great deal worse…and blue.

My heart sank. Everything I seem to do on this motor leads to more issues. It does not seem to make any of it any better. Still not to panic, I let it run up to temperature before driving it back to it’s semi permanent spot under the car port.
After a bit of online chatting with friends and folks on forums I decided to remove the exhaust to make sure that it was not full of oil….it was not.
I then ran the engine again to make sure the turbo I fitted was in good working order with no major oil leaks…it was fine, there was still blue smoke.
The bloody power steering box wasn’t happy though.
It took this opportunity to dump every last drop of fluid it had in the power steering system all over my driveway as I backed the 110 up it…I could have cried.

A bottle of Fairy liquid later saw the driveway usable once more while I popped a drip tray under the steering box to catch the remnants of what was held in the system.

I left the engine a few hours to cool then checked the valve clearances. These are all good and still the engine smokes badly in blue. There is no evidence of the head gasket being the culprit but that of course doesn’t mean that it is not.
A friend is popping over later in the week for a quick nose at it and another has hinted it could be the valve oil seals.

A diagnosis will be gladly welcomed but if I am honest here I am now sick to death of it. Today has cost another wad of cash I do not have and before anything else there is the added cost of a power steering box along with an alternator. I don’t think I mentioned the alternator is shot as well. No output at all there…

Unless it is going to be a cheap fix on the smokey side of things The 110 is getting parked up. Mothballed. I may even be tempted to sell the damned thing but I will give myself a few weeks before making any sort of rash decision there.
All I wanted was a Land Rover to do some Overlanding in, a bit of camping in nice places. I should have gone with my first idea of doing this with a more modern Discovery and I have to admit that this idea is once again becoming more and more tempting.
Lets see what Thursday brings but I expect to park it up for a while in anycase because once you get to this verge of hatred point it is best to just walk away.
My other hobbies are calling and I have a week off so from tomorrow morning I will be focusing on those a little more so as to get out and about.
Not a great ending to this post folks and I am sorry for that but I could not be any more fed up with this without taking a large hammer to it….

It felt like I was slipping backwards, all of the hard work putting things back together seemed to be coming back off The 110 in droves. One step forward seemed to lead to four steps back.
This though it would seem is all part of the fun of Land Rover ownership.

After the initial run up of the engine and the modification of the radiator brackets I had to actually mount the Header Tank in a proper permanent position. Now this should be a straight forward affair really but the 300tdi header tank I had bought fouled the suspension cone turret. “Not to worry” I thought to myself “I am a resourceful fellow, I shall make a bracket up”
So that is exactly what I did. I dug out some metal and made up a bracket. This fitted easily and before I knew it I had the header tank fixed into place.

A little later I got talking to a friend about the turbo issues that were going on when, after I had sent a picture of the days work, he pointed out that the header tank was probably far too low to work properly.
Hmm…back to the drawing board then. I set to seeing what could be done I mean I am not that daft to only come up with one solution to a problem so I sat back with a brew and pondered the issue.
A new bracket then but I only had the metal that was already used but not to stress a bit of bending here in the vice and there with a hammer along with some gentle persuasion soon saw it all remoulded for a higher mounting.

Now that header will sit above the radiator and the coolant can now circulate around nicely.
As the tools were out I quickly popped the rad and front panel back into place so The 110 will finally once again start to look like a Land Rover.

One thing I am not looking forward to doing is wiring those lights back up.
I hate Land Rover wiring…

Here we are again then folks, we made it into 2017 alive and kicking.
Some friends and family were not so lucky but that drives home the fact that we should live our lives to the max every day doing what we enjoy.
With that said I have done bugger all for the whole of the festive season on The 110 and that I did enjoy! But all good things come to an end eh.

Before work today I decided that I really had to sort out that issue with the bonnet sitting too high and resting on top of the Discovery Radiator and oil cooler housing.

First things first I had to drain the coolant out from the radiator, luckily i had only put in just enough anti freeze to keep the whole thing from freezing so no great expensive loss there. Once all of that had finished dripping its way out I disconnected all of the pipework forgetting that the oil cooler pipes would have oil in them…that was messy.

A few minutes cleaning up an oil spill later and I lifted out the whole rad/cooler set up popping it into the garage then covering it up with a plywood board. Yes I am paranoid about putting a hole into another radiator!! It is an expensive mistake not to be made twice.
Obviously I had already measured the gap between the wing and bonnet so it was just a quick mark up on the existing bottom brackets before cutting through them then cleaning them back to bare metal ready for welding up.

A few minor adjustments with a lump hammer saw the newly trimmed brackets dropped into place with all of the body panels then offered up and hurrah! the bonnet now closes like it is supposed to.
I dug the welder out which didn’t want to play with the feed coughing and spluttering away giving me just enough cooperation to get the brackets welded permanently into place.

I have left all of the radiator bits off for now as I want to position the header tank properly and get those oil pipes made up and fitted into place, this will make access just a little easier.
When I stand back though I cannot help but think The 110 is starting to look like it wants taking apart again…

***A quick follow up note. At the beginning of this post I mentioned doing what you like every day and a memory came to me yesterday as I ran through the torrential rain with my coat held on only by being hooked over my head that when we were kids we did just that, hooked our coats onto our heads whilst pretending to be superheros.
I was always Batman of course and I have to admit running through the rain yesterday made me feel like I was seven again.
And it turned me into Batman…I am the Batman.

It’s amazing how quickly things end up coming together in the end. After spending as much time as I could on The 110 recently it has got to the point where I am easily putting things back together surging head long towards getting an MOT put on it.
With that in mind I decided that I was getting a little fed up with falling through the gaps where the floor should be whilst clambering over two seats that moved around more than my teenage daughter.
So the first point of call was to get those seats secured for now. They will be coming out again once the motor is on the road to soundproof it better but for now I am happy to keep it nice and functional, just how it was originally designed.

I soon made short work of popping the main tunnel and floor pans back into place. These for now are just resting there incase I need a little better access to the gearbox or transfer box whilst getting the final set ups sorted out.
A freshly charged battery was grabbed from the garage, fitted and secured into the recently welded up battery box.
The exhaust was now fitted so with no fear of being gassed once again I climbed into the drivers seat and turned the key in the ignition to be met by the 200tdi engine bursting into more or less instantaneous life. This was accompanied by the usual grin from me but now was the moment of truth seeing if everything I had refitted would work making the car once again move under it’s own steam.

I dipped the clutch pedal that gave enough satisfying resistance then gently tried to engage reverse gear. It slotted perfectly and smoothly into place. I let the clutch pedal up a little and was soon met by the biting point. I grinned like a nut case once again and let the clutch gently start to bite and the whole 110 began to move slowly backwards along the drive.
To say I was preoccupied in my amazement that I had actually put everything back together correctly would be an understatement and only just in time did I realise that I was about to reverse into the fence that The 110 had been tightly parked up against! In fact I am not sure how I managed to move the fifteen back that I did without bumping into the fence already.
This though gave me the opportunity to see if it would move forward as well as backwards so I selected first gear and smoothly drove forwards with no issues.

I soon had it all the way up and off of the driveway as far from the house as I could to let it tick over warming itself through for the first time in years just incase something went bang or caught fire.

To say I was happy is an understatement. My creation has proved itself by moving at least fifty feet under it’s own steam! Yes it smelt a little burning oily but I just put this down to it being sitting around for years along with the odd spillage here and there when I changed all of the fluids before firing it up.
Nothing to worry about.
Well nothing for about five minutes until I noticed the alarming amount of oil that was dripping out of the Turbo itself…
I literally hopped back into the drivers seat, drove it over the hump of the driveway then killed the ignition letting gravity on my downhill driveway pull The 110 back into it’s semi dry working spot under the car port.

I felt really disappointed. Talk about one step forwards then two steps back. Add to that I am skint and it will take me several months to save up for a replacement turbo I could have cried a little. I was literally ready to throw in the towel proper then, just sell the whole damned thing and buy myself a facelift Discovery 2 instead because at least then I would have something I could use straight away.

Time for a cup of tea then.

Twenty minutes out had seen me take a few deep breaths, go back to this expense peice of scrap I owned and refit the drivers side wing. I wanted to offer up most of the front end because the radiators seemed to be sitting a little high for the bonnet. I was right there too. I need to adjust the mounting brackets lowering them by about 30mm so that the bonnet will actually close.

I also had to trim the outer brackets off of the radiator cage as well as these were fouling the wings.

I popped the front grill back into place so I did not have a repeat of the whole sticking a ratchet through the radiator performance.
All in all though things are still heading in the right direction. There is still other work to be completed while I save for a turbo but I was hoping to have it on the road in about a month. Hey ho things can always be worse eh.

Christmas time is once again upon us! It seems to come around quicker and quicker each year. My home seems to resemble Santa’s grotto more as each passes but I don’t mind that at all.
I would just like to Wish all of you out there a very Merry Christmas! May you all have the best one you can and remember it’s not about what you get given but trying to enjoy time with Family and close friends, then congratulating yourself at the end of the day when they have all left without you killing them…

Merry Christmas All 🙂

After yesterdays success I would quite like a repeat performance of hearing the engine running once more but without the rather excessive black smoke that was like smoking a couple of thousand cigarettes at once.
The first order of business was to get the exhaust fitted. The rear and mid sections were no problem at all of course but the front had to be cut shut and welded up once more to make it fit onto the 200tdi Disco engine.

That done I started to drain the old thick black oil out of the engine. Whilst that was happily dripping out the oil filter grabbed my attention. This had to come off and I had my trusty oil filter grips to use. It did not want to budge.
I managed to crush the bottom of it then dent the middle but still no movement.
Time to take a breather. I lay there under the 110 resting up my arms for a while before putting the grips towards the top of the filter and with all of my might twisting hard it finally budged a few millimeters.
That came with the feeling of relief so I gripped hard and twisted again. It moved more easily this time, finally coming loose and dribbling as much oil out of it’s housing as seemed to be coming out of the sump.

I left the whole thing to drain for twenty minutes or so before refitting the new filter then topping the engine up with new oil.
Tomorrows plan is to tidy up the floor well then start to refit the seats and floors themselves.
Then I can start it up properly and run it up to temperature seeing if we have any issues with what has been refitted…

What an eventful day!
I literally just popped out under the car port for a bit of a potter on The 110. As always I quickly ended up in my own little world tinkering here and pottering there.
First off I had to attach some ends to and ground the two Earth wires that were on the engine onto the chassis after a few good minutes sanded back the underseal to get to clean metal.

Then I figured I may as well top up all of the oils in the gearbox as well as the transfer box. Four litres or so later that was done up and put to bed so I got to looking at engine itself. I really wanted to start it but I knew I probably should change the engine old fist but I have to admit that after all this time getting the lump into place impatience was getting the better of me.
“Sod it” I thought to myself and headed off to get a can of diesel. WHen I got back without anything but excitement in my mind I filled up the fuel filter and using the lift pump primed up the fuel system as best I could.
There were three old batteries in the garage that were ok when I put them in there but I had topped them all up last week.
With a grin on my face I hooked up the first one then with excited anticipation I turned the key…the engine turned over twice before the battery died.
Hmmph. Right not to be phased I grabbed the second one. Same thing, two turn overs before the starter ground to a halt.
OK then it must be third time lucky.
Nope, dead from the outset.

I was beginning to suspect that my very old battery charger might just have given up the ghost. A quick conversation with a neighbour and I had a boost pack in my possession. This was duly hooked up and left for a few minutes to force some charge in.
Then with bated breath I clambered once more across the two seats, sat down and turned the key around.

The engine fired up instantly into life and I learnt two things…

1) You really should change the years old oil in any engine before you try to start it.
2) Make sure you have fitted the full exhaust system as well as replacing all floor panels so the inside of the cab does not instantly fill up with thick black smoke leaving you fumbling for the keys in the ignition to switch the engine off.

So GOOD NEWS!! The engine runs!! It’s alive!!! I have no idea if it drives yet because I could not see my hand in front of my eyes when it was running so a quick oil change along with fitting the exhaust and floor pans back into place should put that right.

Those dreams of heading out onto the open road could well soon become a reality…

Right I need to go to work soon add to that I am full of cold again this is going to be a hard and fast update and not in a fun way!

I started with the power steering. I stood wondering what pipe went where but it was pretty obvious once all of the bts were out as they would only go so far lining up with the correct holes just begging to be plumbed in!

Once done I cable tied the fluid reservoir in an upright position and promptly filled up as much of it as I could with power steering fluid. I will bleed it properly once the engine is running.

With all of that done quite easily I decided to set up and support, with cable ties of course, the coolant system and expansion tank. Again literally took minutes.

And when I stood back looking at the magnificence of my complete creation it brings rather a large smile to my face!

That left just one more thing I wanted to tackle today…the exhaust. Well the down pipe from the manifold. I bought one of those James Parkin (I think that’s what the name was anyway) Discovery 200tdi to Defender conversion kits. It hit the footwell.
So I had to modify the footwell. Well I need to modify it, all I did today was cut piece of the footwell out so the exhaust wouldn’t keep knocking as I hopefully drive around.

It wont take long to fabricate an extra piece of metal to slot in there. I did have to modify a 17mm spanner to fit in on the back bolt of the exhaust (I just cut a spare spanner down in length) so it wouldn’t foul on the engine block.
It was soon all in place though.

Next up will be fitting the exhaust in place and making up some brackets to keep it there. I need to pick up some engine oil and do a quick change before I try to fire it up and I think I have some EP90 kicking around somewhere so the rest of the fluids can be sorted out at the same time.
That’s going to be it for a few days folks as the retail madness of Christmas kicks in at work, I don’t think I will have much time to be doing much of anything apart from work then sleep for a few days!

Are there any other Males, especially Dads, out there that have any idea what Christmas presents have been bought for their daughters? I have to admit I don’t have a clue before hand but as I informed my youngest daughter last night when she brought this up that I personally vet each and every gift when it is unwrapped on the big day,.
If I am honest it doesn’t stop with my daughters either, it runs out to our friends and family who when tell me “thanks for the present, it was just what I wanted!” I tend to reply “That’s great, I am really pleased that you like it. What did I buy you?”
Some would say that I this is really bad not having a clue what has been bought and leaving all of the festive cheer for my ever suffering Wife to sort out, but not really it is for the best.
I am rubbish at buying gifts and even worse at wrapping them!
Luckily the girls are now older and tend to (Always without fail) wrap their Mothers gifts from me vetting them as they go and handing back with receipts in bags the ones I need to change along with a list of what I should change them too. Then they look at me for about two seconds, take the bags back off of me and just put their hands out for my debit card usually muttering “Just give it all here, I will sort it tomorrow.”
You see it’s not for a lack of trying…I am just a little bit rubbish at the whole thing! I did buy a few extra gifts for my Wife today and they are currently sat in hiding waiting for my youngest to get home to tell me how well I have done but one thing is for sure, if the crowds (more like mobs) I saw out today were like that on a Monday I do not want to be anywhere near any sort of store until about February!
Then it needs only to be a car shop.

After that little swaray (I’m sure I have spelt that wrong) venturing into the great retail world I decided that seeing as I am on such a roll with The 110 I may as well have a stab at a few of the little jabs that are outstanding.
I had nipped into Paddocks on my way around earlier so the water pump bypass hose along with the top intercooler hose were just itching for fitting.

The bypass hose was soon out of it’s packet and into place along with a couple of shiny new Jubilee clips.

The intercooler hose though would need extending and seeing as I had just spent what was left of my bank account on Wifey for Christmas I was going to have to be a little creative here.
Off to the spares shed I pottered with the beginnings of an idea forming at the back of my mind if the part was still in there. After a minute of moving things around, I really need to tidy up in there, I found a shiny new V8 exhaust down pipe that was exactly the right width! Now this had been part of a job lot bought a long time back which I had already made my money back on so chopping it up was not going to be an issue.
In my nice dry garage I measured out the length that I needed, chopped it off and fitted it in no time!

The bottom hose is on back order so that will be done later in the week. I decided that as I was already in my dirty work clobber I may as well bleed the clutch. The old fluid was really dark so who knows how long it had been sitting in there!
I have a non return bleed pipe that cost me about two pounds a lifetime ago which still works wonders when you are doing this sort of job alone.
Again it all went really smoothly with me getting the correct pressure build up nicely on the clutch pedal very easily and quickly.

Another few jobs down then. Feels like the reality of driving the bugger is actually an option now in the not to distant future. I did realise whilst stood back looking at it (as you do) that I still need to plumb up the power steering pipes before I fire it up as well.
Not a problem as I have those pipes but not today, I need to do the whole Dad breakdown and recovery thing for my eldest daughter who managed to crash her motorbike once again today. Thankfully she is ok but as for the bike, well, that remains to be seen.

Well I have had a busy couple of shifts on the 110 over the last 24 hours and I have surprised myself at how many loose ends I have managed to get tied up.
It was all nearly scuppered early on last night when the rain started to fall heavily. Now in the last house it would have been game over but with the car port covering most of the land rover and the shiny new garage roof keeping all of the water at bay outside where it belonged, I was happy as a pig in the proverbial pottering about with the dark winter nights being held at bay!

I have been sitting here for the last few minutes since finishing the first paragraph trying to remember exactly what I have done in what order but I am giving up with that! I will just pop in what I do recall as there has been quite a bit!
Firstly I put jubilee clips on the pipes I fitted last week, I had bought a large box off of the internet of the mixed sized ones and they have been a godsend, then it was onto getting the alternator and power steering belts.
I changed a couple of the bracket bolts over so they actually tightened up then after a ten minute mild panic hunting for the belts I knew I had bought in the garage then the spares shed, the belts finally turned up in the back of the 110 where I had put them so they would not get lost.
It took a mere couple of minutes to pop the into place and getting them tensioned up.

The top along with the bottom coolant hose were then fitted but the water pump bypass hose was a no go because I had bought the wrong one. I am off of work tomorrow so I will nip out and get the right one then.
I had bought a pair of intercooler pipe hoses thinking they would be long enough but after messing around with them fitting new O rings it turned out that they were exactly the same length as the ones I have already fitted.

Hmm what to do because I would really like to have a stab at getting the engine running this week and without these pipes I would quickly end up with all of the engine oil coating the garage and driveway, I don’t think Wifey would be too impressed with that and cleaning up could take a while…
As a temp measure I sliced into the old pipes and extended them with metal pipe for now so I can at least get the engine fired up and will once again be able to move the motor about.

What now then? As I was still protected from the weather along with my new under car port lights creating a false daytime I decided that I may as well dig out the new radiator and get that lot fitted.
Out came the old one still in its frame along with the cooler and after a little more rummaging around I found the shiny new one too!

It literally took ten minutes to switch them over and drop the whole caged lot into place with the pipework plumbed in.

It’s amazing how these little jobs take next to no time but make a huge difference!
That was enough for the evening because I was getting a bit cold and tired…the things that my shiny dry well lit work area could not help me with.

The following afternoon though I was in the mood for a little more titillating after all there were quite a few little jobs that needed finishing the majority of which were centred around the transfer and gearbox.
I had to dig out the transfer box linkage out from where it had become trapped somehow between the transfer and gearbox. It again was surprisingly easy…surely my luck could not hold here?

Then I swapped some of the bolts holding the transfer box onto the gearbox around as they had been put in in the wrong places…literally took minutes.

After a quick clean up I remembered that the handbrake cable would need to be attached and with the way things are going it should not be an issue.
Yep this is where it started to get a bit more challenging. Firstly I had fitted a Discovery transfer box to a Defender so the handbrake cable mounting was different. Ha! No problem there because I had the foresight to remove the one from the 1:6 ratio transfer box I removed.
With a slightly smug grin I removed the Disco one and it became very obvious that two of the bolts went into different places. Humph, I am on a roll at the moment so I would not be out off here. Now don’t get me wrong I wanted to cry a couple of times as I tried to modify the defender bracket but after destroying three different drill bits, and I am also pretty sure I have broken my drill, the old bracket now sat proudly in place all adjusted up with the handbrake working.

After sitting back with a brew in hand I wondered at the speed that the whole project seems to be coming together all of a sudden. There seemed to be months when all I seemed to be doing was constantly working on the old boy but seemingly getting nowhere but in what amounts to a couple of days the whole thing seems to be accelerating at a crazy pace towards completion. All of these little jobs are ticking the big jobs off of the to do list which is getting smaller and smaller by the day and it feels great!

So I will be picking up the bypass hose tomorrow which will leave the exhaust to try and get fitted, the clutch needs bleeding then my friends it will be time to to get this beast started…

Sometimes I am amazed by the kindness of strangers. Now this may sound stupid but I have, along with my ever suffering Wife, for a great number of years tried to make someone smile everyday. That person can be someone I know but more often than not it’s a stranger. Sounds daft eh but a kind act or daft joke normally aimed at myself can make a huge difference to a persons day. I work on the proviso that you don’t know other peoples stories so have no idea on what they can be going through, good or bad.

Turns out it’s not only us that do this. A couple of days ago I put out a request for help on teaching me how to change the cambelt in the 200tdi engine. This is something I had never done before, I had read up on the do’s and don’ts which seemed pretty straight forward but really wanted someone around when this was put into practice so I did not bugger the engine up before I had it out for an actual drive.
There were a couple of offers for which I was thankful but after my last blog post went out a chap called James contacted me again to say he had some time straight away if I wanted to get stuck into it!
Now until we met today James was a complete stranger so to say this was a kind offer is probably an understatement but you have to love the fact that there is still this sort of generosity out there.

He turned up in short time along with a great deal of tools then ran through what he was doing as the cambelt was slowly exposed behind the cover. First out was a pully to remove the wheel.

Then the cover was whipped off.

The tensioner was next off as was the other wheel (forget the name, it’s late and I am tired) leaving the cambelt just dropping out. Some cleaner was applied then all of the timing lined up.

A locking pin was popped into place before most of that (yep I am getting tired and forgetful here) and soon enough the new cambelt was put into place. A couple of rotations and a check later, all was sitting well and where it should be 🙂

A couple of brews later along with some very good guidance on the transfer box linkage issues I am having and James was off!
I then set to getting the cover back into place along with the new water pump fitted.
First up was cleaning the two mating surfaces off. I spent a bit of time here making sure all of the surfaces were flat and free of any old gaskets and contaminants. That done I popped on a bit of instant gasket around to help hold the new gasket in place.

Then I cleaned each and every bolt back to a muck free condition and liberally applied some copper slip before putting them back into the holes that they came from through the cover. Once all were set into place neatly through the gasket I ran around them all a few times gently tightening them all up.
Then out came the new water pump (seeing as the old one was in such good condition I have cleaned it up and kept it as a spare) and that along with its replacement gasket were soon set into place.

I do still need to check that I have tightened up the came pulley bolt enough so I have marked this down on my to do list so I don’t forget.
Due to the act of kindness from someone who started the day as a stranger I am now so much further on than I thought I would be for a few weeks. Looks like I may have found the hoses I needed for the oil cooler from another friend as well so I may just have this motor running within a week or so!
Is it me or are things starting to get exciting all of a sudden…

December has arrived. That means, in my house anyway, all of the decorations that have lain boxed up in a dusty loft for eleven months of the year now see the light of day once more. What that means for me is a great deal of work putting up decorations, hanging lights on trees and this year it comes with the new experience of putting lights up on the outside of the house.
The only problem with hanging lights up on the outside of your home is the fact that you have to get right up the outside wall balancing on a ladder whilst holding onto the long length of dormant lighting simultaneously hammering in the wall clips to keep it all in place.

Ten years ago this would not of bothered me but these days I am not overly keen on balancing on one foot on the top rung reaching as far as I can with a hammer wondering why I don’t have two pairs of hands because that would make the job so much easier. My daughter asked “Are you scared of heights Dad?” to which I answered “The heights don’t bother me kid, it’s the falling from them that does”
Funny how as you get older you realise you would much rather not do some of the things you used to do without thinking. I recall running up and down the same extended ladder cleaning windows on three storey Victorian houses in the wind without batting an eyelid. You literally could not pay me enough to do that now!
Still the lights are up and it will be at least a month before I have to climb the ladder again to take them down again, or I could just leave them up until next year…

Progress is being made again on The 110. This week has seen me still focusing on the 200tdi lump I popped in earlier. I decided to have a stab at re-piping the fuel lines and it is here that I must admit that I got it completely wrong.
It looked good with all bases covered but there was just one snag, I had not run in the from and returning to the fuel tank. This may have caused the odd running issue so I posted my bad pipe work online with a big help attached to it and quickly got a large number of responses. I seemed to keep getting this relatively simple task tangled up in my head so I popped around to have a look at a friends motor and as soon as I saw underneath the bonnet I had a “Of course you tool” moment.
It was a tad dark and cold when I got home so the following morning I rearranged the spaghetti pipework and it all now proudly sits where it is supposed to.

I could not find a diagram to easily explain it so I have tried to make one up. Feel free to tell me I have got it wrong!

As I stood with my wolly hat on drinking a brew convincing myself that it was not quite as chilly as my body was trying to tell me I was getting I thought I may as well tackle plumbing the the meagre heater once again. Lets face it some heat is better than no heat at all! I knew I did not have the correct 200tdi pipework but what I did have was a tub full of old pipework, so I dug that out and soon mackled together a system that would work. Its not the prettiest looking set up and I no doubt will return to it in the future to redo the whole system but for now it is functional and lets face it, you don’t look under the bonnet when you are driving along. That and this old beast is not going to be winning any beauty contests any time soon.

The only thing left to do really on this engine is to change the cambelt over. Now I have never done this before and there have been offers of help that I will happily accept as not to bugger up the lump before I begin using it.
First up though was to remove the water pump and those swine bolts that like to snap off inside the engine.
Lessons have been learnt in the past of trying to force rusted bolts then ending up weeping quietly in the corner before having to drill out and re-tap the threads, so caution was the buzzword of the day.

Nearly all of the bolts cracked off and out easily enough but there was of course the two that did not want to move, at all. Off I toddled into the garage to get the long bars and with more force put onto the bolt heads than I ever wanted to use they started to move slowly. I then kept gently moving them back and forward clearing their threads of the rusty crud that was helping to keep them in situ.
Patience was the name of the game even when I started to get a little bored with this game but I was rewarded ten minutes later with every bolt having come cleanly out of the water pump! A rarity indeed!

I did put all of the different length bolts in a piece of cardboard so as to recall where they all go back into so as not to repeat the transfer bolt mix up!

The ease of teh bolts coming out and the fact there is no play at all in the water I have just removed leads me to think it could not have been on the engine for too long before the whole lump was removed. I will still replace it with the shiny new one I have bought though just to be on the safe side.

It really is nice to be on the service and put back together side of things now. It feels like the project is running towards getting an MOT which should only be a few months away…

My youngest was at work. Wifey was out Christmas shopping with her friend for the day, so what does a chap do when the day that lays before him is his own to do with as he pleases? Well what he does is go and grab his friend who’s Mrs was out shopping with mine and head off to look at boys stuff all morning!
We hit an Army surplus store then headed off to get the bugs for my Dragon looking at all the other impressive reptiles while we were there of course and to top it off we headed to KFC to have a fat git bucket meal for one as lunch!

We were home soon enough though so my attention was soon attracted back to the 110. There are a pile of parts kicking about so in the continued fashion of working from the front backwards I dug out some of the easier parts to fit to the engine.
First up was the thermostat change over. It has been known in the past that anytime I touch the bolts on a thermostat housing, they tend to just snap off leaving half the stud behind.

Today though was a good day! They all came lose with a satisfying crack! I soon had them out and the thermostat looked a little past its best.

While this was off I took out the Discovery temperature thermostat then cleaned up the whole area scraping off the area to give a good surface to mate up too.

It is nice when you line up and look at the new and old bits you are about to fit…

Or is that just me?
Everything soon dropped back into place so job one was finished.

Next up was the old fuel pump. I don’t know what was going there before I bought the engine but an old style series engine fuel pump was loosely bolted into place. Off that came and I quickly fitted a shiny new 200tdi one. I found the easiest way to do this believe it or not was to stand on top of the bumper with one foot on the front wheel reaching in with the spanner and socket from above.

Now seemed like a good time to start to reattach all of the wiring to the engine so I steadily worked my way through them adding the odd new end here and there to tally things up nicely.

I have come across one problem though. You see I meticulously put tape onto each wire and wrote on it where that wire went to so as to save confusion much much later on when I came to refit them all. Well there is just one left over on the nearside that still does indeed have its hand written label on it but the problem is that it has got more than a little mucky. I cannot know read what it says so feel free to have a look at the picture and see if you can decipher it.

I will be needing an alternator plug for the loom as well because the old one disintegrated when I took it off of the old engine.

As I sat back warming myself with a well earned brew I decided I may as well hook up a battery and see if the old unit would turn over.
So I removed the seat then opened up the battery box, in dropped the battery and I pushed the keys into the ignition. At this point I thought how disappointed I would be if nothing happened here. It would mean that I had done something wrong with the wiring or the starter was past it’s best.
With a shrug of my shoulders to myself I turned the key around.
To my immense delight the engine turned over without hesitation, what a sound! I don’t think I have ever been so pleased to here an engine not starting before!

This feels like a huge milestone to me. I have had this motors guts out and replaced them with the spec I wanted and blow me it seems to be working! I am so much closer to the end of this project than the beginning it is starting to feel like it may be finished sometime soon…

Unfortunately The 110 is not my only project, you see Wifey did insist that we bought a house now so we could hopefully grow old and grey in it as the years go by. The thing is that she does insist on putting her own mark upon this new home we shall spend out autumn years in so there is now a “list” of improvements that need to be done.
She is one in a million though and is in no great rush to get it all done particularly quickly. That said would not want to impose upon her good nature and just focus upon my own toys all of the time so this afternoon I set to taking down the last pair of 1970’s dark brown and shiny doors off of the living room and study.
I wish I had taken a picture of them in situ but I forgot if I am honest and trust me here you are not missing anything at all. These types of cheap formica doors were all of the rage with their highly modern smooth mass produced surfaces. The ones in this house have been here since the place was first built.

It didn’t take long to get to get them down and in all fairness it was no time at all before the replacements were up in place. As always it took longer to sort out the catches and door furniture than the time to hang the actual doors but the overall effect is quite pleasing, even if I do say so myself.

It is nice to keep doing these little jobs putting our own stamp on the new home.

That done along with a hearty dinner in my belly and I sat down to chill out for the evening. Yea that lasted all of thirty minutes. I am not one to sit around just looking at the TV so I pondered what to do next.
Well I have had some shiny sun shine bright LED lights fitted under the car port so I could work on The 110 these long dark evenings.
Best try them out then eh!

If you recall I was about half way through sorting the steering out on the Land Rover so why not get on with getting it finished? I had popped out at lunchtime to pick up the steering damper so best get on with it eh!
I grabbed the front steering bar, fitted it then attached the damper. I had to go back around all of the front end including the replacement steering box to make sure I had tightened all of the bolts and fitted all of the split pins. Would not want any nasty surprises once we get the old bugger back on the road.

The only drawback I can see at the moment with working outside in the evening in Winter is that it is damned chilly to say the least!
Best dig out that thick old babygrow of mine eh!

After feeling sorry for myself for a while after realising that I was going to have to make some structural alterations to the passenger foot well so the 200tdi’s exhaust does not hit it constantly I wandered back outside to have a look at the motor that seems to be the project destined to last for ever.

The steering is sort of half replaced so I took a closer look at what was left to do. As I was hunkered down I recalled that the front wheels needed setting up straight before I would be able to do a great deal. This would save me having to take off/adjust the track rod ends later on in the rebuild.
Now I do not own any fancy wheel alignment equipment but what I do own is a long length of rope. I tied this around the rear axle then ran it down the side from wheel to wheel which showed me which way to adjust it.

With the first side done and wedged into position I made short work of the other. Afterwards I did a quick double check and great stuff they are both nice, straight and in line now.

Then I set the steering box to its centre position and started to fit on the new drop arm. I was advised to do a bit of a mod here so the drop arm is a Discovery one and the new front steering bar I bought did not have any fittings for the steering damper.

A quick search on the internet showed that although opinions are split on whether a damper is needed or not it does make the drive a bit better when hitting pot holes etc.
Looks like a trip will be needed to exchange some parts that have already been bought but there was a niggling at the back of my mind to check the spares shed out.
A quick rummage through a shelf full of junk and a heavy duty front steering bar that came as part of a job lot of stuff was soon found complete with a damper mount already welded on!

A quick rub down, removal of the old tired track rod ends then a coat of black paint and shiny new ends is problem solved for me.

I do still need to pick up a Discovery 1 steering Damper to fit but the parts I have to return to Paddocks will more than cover the cost of that!
All in all it has been a productive day on the old boy.

Isn’t life a strange thing. You head off in one direction thinking that a small job will take no time at all but within moments of starting you realise that now it’s going to head off in a completely different direction taking up hours of time stood outside in the cold.
I headed off this morning to Paddocks to buy a single nut for the steering box so I could get the front end finished only to find that that one singular bit from the hole of a Land Rover is not in stock.
A quick change of mind and plans saw me buying the whole of the 200tdi exhaust system as that should be an easy job to chuck on seeing as the conversion down pipe was already purchased and sat on a shelf at home.

It was not until I got home that I realised that I had not bought the manifold to down pipe gasket but figured “hey ho” lets get it all offered up to make it fit. I did not get past the conversion down pipe in this.

When this pipe is flush to the manifold it still rests on the passenger foot well which will not bode well when I am driving along, so what to do? Well it bloody well looks like I will have to modify the foot well then. I will have cut it out and then make up some new shaped box that will give some clearance for the pipe work when the engines running and moving on its mounts under acceleration.

On a more positive note I had a tow bar fitted to my daily runaround by the tow bar chap (because I needed an invoice to keep up the warranty) and this was done in ninety minutes with no fuss at all. I didn’t have to lie under it in the rain like he did getting cold as well as soaked to the skin.

So what I have done in light of this is buy a ticket for the Euromillions in the hope that I win enough money to either get someone else to finish the rebuild or so I can go and buy an already finished motor and then take great pleasure in burning this one.

As you can all see from my delays in writing anything I have been more than a little busy of late with life in general as well as family illness including my own, that bug that’s doing the rounds is a doozy!
Whilst lounging around the house generally feeling a bit rough and sorry for myself I became aware once again of the odd moaning and creaking noises it makes. These sounds worried me sick when we first bought the place as I was so damned sure inside of my crazy head that something would fall down or break but now it is a different story. Those sounds are just the house itself as it warms up and cools down. It’s about the same age as me so it’s bound to have the odd moan here and there, I mean the poor bugger is getting on now you know!
But now those sounds that once sent me into a quiet worried despair thinking I had bought a lemon now bring a quiet sense of homely comfort. They go mostly unnoticed as such but when they do reach the surface of my mind, I know I am home.

There has been the odd hour here and there on the 110 though so some progress is being made with my main focus being on the steering box.
This really is a straight forward swapping over procedure. Firstly I removed the nut and bolt from the steering column UJ. Then came off the front steering bar on the box’s drop arm. Four bolts that run through the chassis came undone without too much of a fight and the box then literally dropped off.

I slid the replacement power steering unit on and much to my surprise it bolted straight into place without any messing around with the holes on the chassis.

I do need to go and pick up a new bolt to hold the steering box arm in place though.

It will be nice to have power steering on the motor. Seeing as it will be our camper/overlander I want it to have as many of life’s little creature comforts as I can fit!

There has been a great deal of pondering on what I would like to do seat wise. I have gone from outlandish captain seats through to RX-8 seats in my mind, but after even more contemplation I decided why mess with design and started a bit of a hunt for some standard Defender seats. What I did come across in the end was two separate pairs of seats. One had a good drivers seat and the other a good condition passenger one. The money was right on both sets so I bought them and made myself a good pair.

They are not fixed in place yet as there is still far too much to do on the inside but once recovered they will be spot on. It is damned good to see a pair of seats in the old boy once again though!

Well I am a man who is happy to put his hands up and admit when I got it wrong. And I did get it wrong.
When i refitted the rear propshaft yesterday I put the damned thing on the wrong way round and to say I got a few emails about it would be an understatement!
Happily though all were in a good natured tone and none were mean enough to call me outright stupid!

This morning then was spent doing my favourite job of taking off then putting back on the fiddly little propshaft nuts. In the end it took about forty minutes of messing around but happy days it now sits correctly as it should!

Seeing as I was dressed up in my mucky clothes I then set to removing the pan hard rod on the front, treating the metal whilst it was exposed then refitting the replacement one with the new bushes in.

Not a bad potter for a Friday morning before heading off to work. This is the way I like it, two little jobs done instead of just hanging around waiting to start the work that we have to do to pay the bills. Hopefully I can carry on in the same vain…

It has been an interesting sort of few days. The Disco has gone which has left me to focus just upon the 110 which is a good thing really. You see I have been stretching myself rather on the thin side. The problem with pushing yourself too far with too many things is that you start to lose your focus, my perspective has shifted between too many things like keeping several motors running as well as doing up the house. Add to that the hours at work well things just mounted up.
With the disco gone it’s one less issue to look at and I do feel a damned site better for it if I am honest.

The next thing though is that my focus has turned towards the 110. I hopped back on board yesterday morning with a pair of spanners in hand to get the propshafts reattached after the engine and transfer box swap.
The front one just kind of fell into place and was soon all tightened up.

For the rear I dragged it all into place along with myself to offer it up and wondering why it was all of a sudden too spacey? I lay there on back trying to figure out why the bolts met both ends but what was that space???
Then the penny dropped. I suppose I had better put the handbrake drum back into place first. That didn’t take long either but doing the nuts and bolts up seemed to take an age with me ended up jacking up one side on the front and rear so I could turn propshaft around making access a little easier.

With that done it was time to write a big list of what I needed to buy to get this project up to MOT status. The list was indeed a long one.

A trip to Paddocks it was then because I have sold a few bits this week so the kitty was sitting pretty, well until I got there. My poor little car was weighed down with a full boot as well as the back seat being covered. I have a great deal of parts now that will take me almost until the end of the build.
There are still a few things like an exhaust system that needs to be modified and fitted along with the pipework for the coolant system but I will get to that. I also need a pair of seats and I will go with the RX8 ones I think.

There’s a few things coming in the post as well so I have no excuse not to pull my finger out now. The jobs that are ahead are all smaller in nature, which I like. It means I can potter about with different jobs that have different timescales. Nothing else will be really forced to completion, I can step up and step out at any point so hopefully the build will be plodding along nicely now…

Being a father to four kids I am not easily surprised these days to see one of them sporting the latest trend in fashion or head wear styling. I have learnt over the years to keep my inner thoughts to myself so as to not upset the little dears or sound all old and grown up like my parents did. Well, hang on a moment I am being unfair here to my parents because my Dad just used to rip the mickey out of me for sporting the latest trend with literally no holds barred. Maybe I am just a little more diplomatic with my children…
No that’s a lie as well I do tend to rip the mickey out of them just not to the soul destroying level Dad did it to me. I think the official term is character building.

So to see something several times in one day that makes me stop stop and think “What on earth is that on your head?” is unusual.
When I first noticed this new fad I was walking down a corridor at work when a young chap with reasonably long hair came bouncing towards me from the other direction. I did a second snap of the head look take at his head because he was wearing a plastic hair band keeping his mid length locks back in place. Straight away the Dad in me wanted to take over with a dozen, in my eyes, witty quips but as soon they nearly came out I realised I was at work so I had to hold them back. This though did not stop me staring and grinning at the poor lad like some lunatic keeping back the roars of laughter that wanted to escape my insides.
Now this young fellow is not alone in his funky personal styling with a £1.99 plastic Alice band. Oh no I have now seen at least a dozen pillocks I mean young men wearing these. I may well be into my forties now but I don’t think I am that “Old”. I am all for living life and expressing yourself but come on guys you are really letting the side down here I mean, this must be on a par stupidity wise as the “Man Bun” where you stuck a fresh roll on the back of your heads and covered it with hair!
Still each to their own I suppose and many will think me mad for wearing a babygrow then working on a motor that should of hit the scrap heap many years ago.

Speaking of the scrap heap I have spent a little time playing on the 110. The stage that I am still at is the putting it back together one from the engine and gearbox swap but headway is slowly being made when I get the time.
First up was fitting the shiny new clutch slave cylinder I bought just because I was changing the clutch over and the old one looked pretty damned tired. It was soon set into place after a few frantic minutes of scrabbling around looking for the bolts only to find this nice expensive branded part leaks.

I have nipped it up as far as it will go but nothing will stop the drip of clutch fluid until the reservoir ran dry. It could be the old pipework or the new part but what I will do is replace the pipe first then strip the part out if a good seal cannot be made to swiftly return it to where it was bought from.

It was then onto popping the crossmember back into place. This is an easy job providing you do a couple of things before trying otherwise it becomes a struggle you will not win.
Firstly try to just fit it back into place without any prep work.
Secondly get the damned thing stuck dry metal to dry metal after hitting it with a large hammer to try to make it move upwards.
Thirdly hit it with a hammer and large piece of wood from the top to get it to drop back onto the floor.

After removing it from under the truck give it a good rub down removing any rust build up and grease the hell out of it. Do the same thing to the chassis it is supposed to fit onto. Then my friends it will be able to be gently knocked into place with no struggling, swearing or pulling of shoulder muscles when trying to swing a large lump hammer whilst lying down underneath it.

Next job will be refitting the propshafts now I have pressure washed the 30 years or so of muck build up off of them. Then I best get the transfer box linkages put back together if I can figure out how to do it!

My new approach is definitely “Do a bit when you can” where the 110 is concerned. There is still so much to do on it that the only way I do not get fed up with it all ending up selling the damned thing is to look at one job at a time.
I fell into the frame of thinking that when I worked on the Land Rover it had to be a whole day at a time. But I find myself just getting back into the pottering type of do a bit at a time type of progress.

Today I had a spare hour so I started with popping a bracket into place between the alternator and fuel pump bracket making sure that I had all of the bits that were needed…

With that done in a few minutes I set to popping the wiring back into place on the starter motor…

Then last but not least for the day was swapping over the old type of fuel filter housing for a 300tdi one that will make it easier to change over and service as and when needed…

As I looked at all of the fuel pipes that are littered around the engine bay I realised that I have absolutely no idea where they are all supposed to do. That goes for the linkage on the gear/transfer box as well. If anyone has any pictures please feel free to pop them up!

I did try to adjust the accelerator cable to fit the 200tdi but the outer casing disintegrated so I guess that will now get added to the parts list!
A few more little jobs down now though which makes it just a little bit closer to being finished.

Wouldn’t it be great to have a tail. I was sat last night with my family enjoying a tipple when I got around to watching the dog. She seems to be able to express all of her emotions just using her tail!
I just said her name quietly and received a quick flick of the end of the tail that seemed to express a little hope that she had heard right from where she was lying down but not sure enough to yet come running. I repeated her name loudly and she literally grinned jumped up with her tail wagging happily generating enough wind force to run a small wind farm.
Admittedly everyone would know what we are thinking most of the time if we had one ourselves but I bet there is something immensely satisfying when you get to wag one!

Back to the 110 then. With these 12 hour shifts at work I am finding it hard to get any sort of decent time in on the rebuild at all but I managed to get an hour in yesterday just pottering around. Seeing as we are at the putting it back together stage an hour here and there can make a fair bit of difference.
The gearbox got earthed, the reverse switch put back in then I confused myself as how to make the speedo cable stay in place. One job I wanted to get out of the way was putting all of the studs and bolts back on around the bell housing. This is where it started to get a little weird.
If you think of the circle of the bell housing, the top half of that circle has the threads in place for the studs and bolts but the bottom half has no threads at all, as in none. They have never been tapped!? Is anyone else’s 200tdi like this? I wish I had noticed before we put it back into the 110 but hey ho it wouldn’t be a Land Rover if I didn’t have to sacrifice some more blood and skin whilst lying underneath it in a contorted position…

After a great deal of pondering about what type of wheels I want to go with on the 110 I decided to go with the 16×7 Black modulars.
2 bought with my birthday money and three to go as and when I have the cash!

There were great big heavy lumps of metal everywhere underneath the 110. In fact there was no large metal lumps left at all in the 110 and this left me a little miffed with what lay ahead.
But as with all insurmountable chores that lye ahead you really just need to chose a point to begin then take it from there.
An old friend was up for the day to give me a hand in what was meant to be a quick change over of the transfer box before popping it back into position. Easy eh? But the best laid plans never go to plan.
It didn’t take long to separate the transfer from the gearbox and that really was the easiest part of the day!

With that done my friend, who is a mechanic by trade, piped up with
“Well lets get the engine in then.”
“What!?” I said.
“Lets get the replacement lump in, then pop the gearbox on and finish with the replacement transfer box.”
“Err ok then” I replied.

So with that very short conversation the afternoon had changed from a quick swap and lift into place of the gearbox end into a lets get all the big bloody metal lumps back into where they are supposed to be sort of affair. This I was not expecting at all.

Out came the engine crane along with the 200tdi attached and in what felt like a matter of minutes it was dropped straight into position with minimal wiggling.

Before we popped it in I replaced the rear seal behind the fly wheel (I forget what it is called) because I did not fancy having to pull the whole thing out again to change it later and seeing as the engine has been sat around for a couple of years I figured prevention is better than cure.
Then I scrubbed up the fly wheel itself before we fitted the new clutch.

It was now time to refit the gearbox but would it just drop into place? Nope. We twisted we wiggled I even called a friend in case I was missing something obvious but after a bit more jiggling as well as turning the engine over by hand slightly we had the whole thing in place.
It was at this point that my friend said “Oh you are not going to be happy with this” then he pointed to the clutch release bearing that had somehow dropped out when he was manoeuvring the gearbox around on his legs. So off came the newly fitted gearbox once more and the merry go round started again! It was all good though and before we knew it the transfer box was refitted to boot (along with replacement seals first of course).

After a quick meal we were back out popping on the replacement gearbox mounts. I made that sound easy didn’t I but it was a pig of a job to do. At this point we were both getting to the “more than had enough of this point” but we pushed on until they were in place.

It was now that we realised that we really should have kept the transfer box bolts in order because they are all different lengths. This still needs to be sorted but we had had enough so seeing as the whole lot was now securely in place we both walked away to get washed up.

I am now a damned site further ahead than I planned to be around now and I thank my friend for that. I do need to try and find some enthusiasm for the project again though because I am still pig sick to my back teeth of it!
Having said that I am now once again at the point that I can just go out and potter from time to time on little easier bits. So forward we go folks pushing just a little further each week to get this old beast back onto the road…