Next running repair was the front pinion seal, it
began to leak and destroy our driveway. It was a
simple case of replacing it. The hardest part of the whole thing was
trying to remove the pinion bolt!
Another modification that I've done is, I fabricated lift spacers for the rear springs.
When the Land Rover is
sitting empty, it appears to sit level, very level. When I look at other
90's/110's with the same suspension, they all appear to be sitting with the rear
slightly higher
than the front. Once I have the kids in the rear and some camping gear, then the
front is pointing
upwards.
The internal roll cage, rear
seats with seat belts have added more weight to the rear than I originally
thought.
The two options that I considered were; 1) HD springs, 2) installing spacers.
I didn't want to go to HD
springs, because I like the ride/feel of the present set-up. Spacers could
be bought here in Sweden for 850:- plus shipping, or they could be made ;-)
I set about making spacers
that sat between the original bottom base plate and the axle mount. First,
I cut 2 pieces of 4 mm steel plate into 15 cm circles. Then I cut 2 pieces of 7
mm X 7 cm stock , 15 cm
long. Then I welded the flat stock onto the circle plates. ( running length
wises ) the combined thickness
of these two plates is 11 mm. With my measurements, the thickness of the plate
plus the rise of the axle
spring mount, I figured that I would get a lift of approx. 23 - 25 mm. If you
look at the pictures to the
right, you can see the original spring setup and then the spacers
installed.
Installing the spacers was
straight forward. Placed the spacers on the axle mounts, then placed the lower
base plates on the spacers, next, I inserted the springs and then lined up the
spring retainer plates. The
original bolts were replaced with 5 cm long, 8.8 bolts. But, before inserting
the bolts, I placed 6 washers
under the base plates, at each hole, so that they wouldn't collapse, once the
bolts were tightened.
Once everything was back on,
tightened, the difference in height was obvious! After taking the Landy
for a ride, rechecking the bolts, I measured a lift of 23 mm on both sides.
I'm very pleased with the
lift, nothing extreme, just enough to give me the typical appearance of a
standard 90/110. Of course, with the kids in the rear now, the front is no
longer pointing upwards.
All the work that I've done
the past 3 months, was nothing so serious, that would take the Landy
off the road for more than a few hours. A lot of the modifications that I
did during the restoration,
were done in the garage, so I didn't get the opportunity to really test
anything. Now that it's on the
road, it's sorting out this and that and some fine tuning. Overall, I'm very
pleased and enjoy driving the
Landy. I have a few more ideas/plans for the Landy, so I'll keep you all
posted in a few month's time.
