LP2a SAR restoration

[Phillip]

Thanks Mike,

As this carrier had very little paint left on it and nothing from which I could discern the pattern, I figured I had some licence to adopt the NT colour scheme.

The grey is is as close as I could find to the AWM sample and has been correctly applied using a brush (with stokes at right angles to the line of the curve) over the green. With a bit of practice, it's surprisingly easy to get the curves and they have this sort of slightly sharp/ slightly feathered edge.

[Mike Cecil]

We'll all look forward to some overall images in due course. In the meantime, great work.



Mike

[Wayne Henderson]

Hey Phil, looking good and up to your usual high standard. My favorite colour too, Envy Green.
I'm sure there's a rule somewhere about only painting carriers green and brown
Awesome work!

[Phillip]

Does anyone ever spend a whole evening in the shed and at the end, wonder what they achieved?

The screws holding the bushes in the swing arms for the rear bogies were either missing or too damaged to re-use so I had to make some more. I found a gasket company to cut the seals as well and these should arrive next week.

Started on the fuel tanks, one is bone dry, the other has the congealed jelly fuel residue that we all know and love so much. I've sealed that tank and currently running a few litres of acetone in there to start cleaning out the gunk.

Plan is to use the POR15 fuel tank sealer. I've used this system a few times before with good results.

[Phillip]

The long awaited pinion pilot bearing is currently clearing customs so should arrive next week.

In preparation I re-cleaned inside the diff and fitted the new bearing races. NOS crownwheel is fitted to the diff centre. Here's the matching NOS pinion next to the old one, you can see the amount of wear in the teeth. I guess the old one would have been okay for a while

Diff gaskets and seals are sitting on the shelf, so once pinion bearing arrives, just have to press the new bearings into the diff centre and pinion, then bolt up and fit diff.

Next, suspension......

[Andrew Rowe]

You may already know this but with setting up the diff the preload on the side bearings of the crown wheel is only achieved by the thickness of your gaskets on the two halves of the diff housing. Good idea is to set this up without the pinion in so you can rotate the crown wheel through the hole to get the desired preload, then when you have worked out how many gaskets you need pull apart , put pinion in and seal gaskets and bolt together, just my idea anyway, cheers Andrew.

[Phillip]

Just after the New a Year, I dropped an original exhaust pipe into the local muffler shop to get them to bend the pipes and find some mufflers that were as close as we could get to right dimensions. I picked up the components from the shop on Thursday and spent the long weekend fabricating and fitting them.

There were a few issues, the first being that I could not get the pipes mandrel formed locally, so had to contend with changing pipes diameters caused by press forming. The second issue was that the mufflers are close but not identical to the originals - The main difference being the that inlet and outlet pipes are 2 1/4” (pipes are 2”) and about 1/2” further in from the edge when compared to the originals.

The change in piper diameters was overcome by turning up some bushes, this allowed me to, starting at the bottom, position everything then weld the pipes to the bushes, whilst allowing the bushes to sit snugly in the muffler.

Once everything was cut, assembled and tacked in place, the top pipes were welded to the muffler and the original cut offs on the lower pipes were welded in place before a (incomplete) coat of paint was applied.