Bearings: Inner and Outer Front Hub cont'd

Rear oils seals off, and all inner races removed, revealed that all outer races are most likely in need of replacement, and so will put new bearings for all.

Here's a view of a corrosion pit in one of the outer races. All were different: one had as indicated below; one had discoloration and grooving; one had several gouges from possible a metal shard; and one had scratches.

Both hubs apart, with their bearing inner races aside. Next will be to remove the inner races, thoroughly clean the hubs, install new bearings, and then paint the hubs. After that, on to the swivel mounts.

Bearings: Inner and Outer Front Hub

Managed to get the temperature in the garage up to 10 C today, which is like summer compared to the -9 C (windchill -16 C) outside, thanks to a very good and inexpensive small radiant heater sold by Lee Valley. And so, off came the front hubs, for an inspection of the hubs and their inner and out bearings.

View of the inner end of the hub, with the oil seal over the bearing, which can just be seen underneath. Some small corrosion on the seal.

A view of the outer bearing, looking shiny and brand new.

The inner race of the bearing. The brown is just the coating of oil (the little there was left - I'm not sure it had been filled often in its lifetime). The rollers look in good shape, and all moves smoothly, so I'm hoping all is well. All four of the inner and outer bearings of both front hubs look like this. I can't see anything wrong, but will ask the experts to be sure.

Another view, not looking conical due to the camera lens....

A murky view of the inner race. No scarring or scratching, and so here again I am hoping all is well. The inner bearings weren't removed, as if they are in good condition there's no point in damaging the seals, etc..

Radiator Painted; Steering Wheel Center

Managed to create a sufficiently warm 'micro-climate' in the garage to paint the radiator. Used Eastwood's Underhood Black Semi Gloss paint, as it will withstand higher temperatures (250 F). It went on easily and produced a nice finish. Haven't painted the radiator vanes, as they seem ok plus I'm not quite sure how to get the dirt off without damaging things, as they are made of a very thin and rather soft copper. Now, of course, the radiator cap looks bad! But I can live with that. :)

The steering wheel center round, after it's Evapo-Rust bath and some further cleaning and sanding smooth. Here's the inside, with the factory-applied black. I'd read somewhere that these parts had crackle-paint applied, but this center clearly had smooth paint on both inside and out. The chip at top is from where I had to hammer out a dent.

The outside. The surface corrosion (rust) remenants are very visible, but if you run your fingers over the surface it feels as smooth a silk. This will get a coat of rust converter as primer to neutralize any remaining rust, and perhaps a two-part epoxy primer as well, for longevity.



Steering Wheel Cleaning

 Nothing much to it: the paint was chipping off on its own accord, and a few minutes with a paint-removal-wheel on the drill took the rest off. The metal underneath was in excellent shape, and so I can only guess that perhaps a primer would have kept the paint on better - which is what will be done here when repainting. The center cover is presently having a rust-removal bath, due to surface rust. The plastic part will be left as is, although that could change. There's a nice leather cover for the wheel, but that will probably be the last thing to be installed on this project!

From whence it came. Note the heater hose at upper left - completely decayed after half a century.

Grill

The grill gets it's own post only because it took three evenings to get it to look like this, seen here propped up on the front panel. The previous owner had painted it gold, and the paint refused to do much even with the strongest stripper I have, and I have no media blasting equipment - and so, every little segment had to be scraped and wire brushed and scraped and wire brushed on and on, until it came back to the original galvanized metal. I don't want to paint it, as I like the look of the original finish. However, if by some chance the galvanizing has been scraped off in some places and the grill rusts in the future, painting it won't be an issue; but until then I like the way it looks, even if it is just a grill.

Visiting Another Land Rover

Today I had the good fortune to visit Tim and his 1961 Series 2 Station Wagon, in Peterborough, Ontario. Only 8 months seperate the manufacturing dates of our respective vehicle, Tim's being made in April, 1961 and mine July, 1960.  Tim's has the original chassis, fully repaired and in great shape, and the bulkhead has had the footwells replaced. The tub has all the seats and trimmings. The engine and transmission have been replaced at some point, with those from a Series 2 109, according to the engine and transmission serial numbers. Tim's put a lot of work into this project, and it shows. The principle differences I noted initially between out two Landies were that Tim's has the lower steering control arms, plus it appears his came with a Smiths heater (mine has a Kodiak). It was interesting to note that we have both chosen the same replacement tires for our vehicles, although Tim's are 6.50 and mine 7.50. And of special interest to me is that Tim has a media blasting machine, and it may be possible to do my wheels in Tim's workshop!

Also worth mentioning is that Tim's also came with a snowplow...must be a Canadian thing. : )

It's impossible to write everything that's been done to bring this Land Rover in the seven years Tim has been working on it, but it's definately producing one nice example of the type.

On the left in the photo below is the frame for the rear door, with some locally-custom-made channel to replace the rusted areas.

Nice replacement wing outer panels over the new tires and re-furbished wheels.

Our interiors are fundamentally identical, but Tim's seat box has a hinged center panel (mine is just a bolt-down panel), plus a horn-push button on the steering wheel center (mine has it on a seperate arm). Mine also has a double-cranked shift lever, unlike Tim's.

Front Panel Stripped

My daughter being off school today gave me some extra time to work on the front panel, and so was able to strip the paint off plus give it a good sanding to try and remove as much of the surface rust as possible. It seems to have worked pretty well, but I think a coat of rust converter will be necessary to reach down into the bottom of all those remaining almost-microscopic corrosion pits. Interestingly, there appears to be some small repairs (spot-weld-sized brown spots in the photos) to the sheet metal around the central opening, that were under the factory paint. A little product prep before painting?

The front panel after washing. Next on the list is sand down the rear side where necessary.