restoration Ozzie Saladin

Swapping the bearings was surprisingly simple. Lathed some bits to knock them out, but to put them back I dunked them in a cup of liquid nitrogen for a minute or so and they just dropped in with no pressure needed. Stuck firmly when they warmed back to room temp so very happy! I guess dry ice would also work, or even possibly putting them in the freezer.

The bearings I broke through my stupidity

Problem solved!

However I do have a problem with the left front steering drop arm and wonder if anyone has tackled these? The beast was involved in several prangs and one of these bent the steering arm back so it's a bit twisted.

An older pic and doesn't show all that well but it is definitely twisted about 15-20 degrees.

I was tempted to ignore it but would be good to fix if possible, either by getting it un-twisted at a metalworks or replacing.

So.. my technical notes don't really help with advice on removing this arm, and I'm concerned that there's needle bearings in there somewhere. Can I just unbolt the outer cover and front endcap/lock nuts and slide it out?

Cheers

James

"A bit more light entertainment"..

The answer to my previous post is no! The steering box is held on by 15 bolts and some of those are a trial to get at - would be even harder with all the interior in place. The shaft is mounted in the end caps and they can't be removed without taking the lot off.

Looking at the Saracen, the drop arm is bolted on the front of the box, which seems much more sensible if you need to change it after a prang!

A rod shows the kink in the drop arm - the steering swivel joints would probably cope with this but wasn't confident enough to leave it. (Rod should be parallel to the body)

The main trick for me was to carefully measure the old drop arm before removal, to make sure the new one went back on in the same position relative to the internal arm.

The assembly is basically a shaft that is held by the two end caps. Left to right: lock nut, locking washer, lock nut, spacer, bearing, two oil seals, drop arm, oil seal, spacer, oil seal, internal arm, oil seal, needle roller bearing, lock nuts as per other end. Strewth! End caps are on the floor nearby.

This all sits in the outer lid, Supported in the end caps (not shown in this pic) then the inner cover fits on and bolted (4 bolts) with a fair dab of gasket goo, of course.

Also fettled the Saladin speedo drive onto replacement Saracen bevel box (Saladin one well past fixable). Simple job in the end. Bit of a fiddle fitting the drive on the shaft and replacing the oil seal in speedo housing but not hard.

So now LF bevel box and steering back on.

Sent the engine off today to see if it's fixable (decided that doing it myself is a bridge too far). It's seized but hopefully just stuck valves - fingers crossed! If it's knackered my plan B is to swap the pulley housing onto a Saracen engine.

James

Brilliant - keep up the good work!

Andy

Get a b81 more power. Super Saladin

Get a b81 more power. Super Saladin

They looked at that when Saladins were in service but the Wilson gearbox / fluid flywheel wouldn't take the extra torque. That is why Stalwarts have manual gearboxes. Great shame - would have been great fun!

David

Arrrgh! This is really just a rant - won't help anyone but I need to get it off my chest!

Having fixed RF steering box and fettled the bevel box to take speedo drive and put on the hull brackets, torsion bar and wheel station, my promise to SHMBO for this weekend was to hook up the steering links so the dune buggy could finally be moved to the side of the shed (which could then be "tidied up"). No worries, my love!

The RF wheel station was of course a CR NOS station so I needed to put on a lug to take the front steering link (can you see where this is going?). So I took of a lug from an old station, cleaned it, put it on, then discovered that I couldn't put the steering arm on - nowhere near enough clearance. After some soul searching I looked at the RF station and discovered that the front lugs are different (lower so the steering link will fit). So back to the old junk to remove the correct lug and its studs - an absolute pain to get at one of the nuts - had to remove by hitting it around with a cold chisel because it was impossible to get a spanner on it.

The shiny bit is where the lug goes:

The two lugs - on the left is the (higher) one that links front and centre wheels; on the right is the lower front lug

To labour the point, the wrong lug in place

And the correct one in place

Interestingly, saw that rather than use spit pins for the FR lug they used a length of wire that joined all the nuts. Not sure why - maybe the holes in the nuts are too small for split pins?

Anyway, got it all on (had to put the steering link on first, since I don't think it would go on afterwards) just before I was summoned up to the house for (very late) dinner and another lecture, so hopefully will move it to the side next weekend. Will use wire instead of split pins, though not entirely sure why it was done that way.

Cheers

James

Sorry about this. Obviously talking about LF station not RF. Tried to edit but web page wouldn't allow it.

James

wire locking is a standard practice.. wire or split pins wont matter for you.

You can use either wire or split pins. My guess is that when it was done, the mech had some wire lying around and so used that...

Proper use of lock wire requires some technique and some fancy pliers, so I always stick with the split pins

Cheers,

Terry

Thanks chaps. The locking wire on RF does look a little bit intricate, with the way it is twisted/braided, so I'll happily go with split pins.

James

Wire locking pliers do make it easy as does a twizzle stick but wire locking by hand isnt that difficult.

its all the web.

Any update? I loved following this. 

Sorry fadedsun, just spotted your post. No recent progress on the Saladin. I've been sadly distracted - one of the joys of MVs and life!

The Saladin is on its 6 wheels and parked nose in to side of shed. Engine is off getting restored.

Got a NOS Saracen hydraulic pump that has a single pulley and I need to change that to the double pulley for the Saladin, or change the whole pulley set up to the Saracen type (but that would waste the Saladin PTO). Think it's doable but haven't quite got around to it yet. Soon... 

SHMBO then decreed I "tidy up the shed, or else.." (whatever that means, ) so bought an old forklift and pallet racks and put the stuff that was annoying her up so high she'll never have to worry about it again. The floor looked good for a few weeks.

Got sidetracked with a Ferret that became incontinent of water, oil and petrol. All sorted now (posted about that). Drove the Saracen to a Xmas party - nearly wiped out the missus on a steep hill and it boiled, which is the subject of yet another posting. Feeling confident that it will soon(ish) be back on the road.

Along the way a HMMWV fell into my lap - well, you never know when it'll come in handy... At least it is driving nicely with no issues, although you do need to keep well to the left!

Hmmm, what else.. found the tarp cover for an old landrover series one 80" (thought it was the cover for the barbecue for a year or so) and have just got that back after getting its beading re-stitched. And a new grand daughter couple of weeks ago - worth much more than anything else!

Hoping I'll be back on the Saladin in the next month or two, so hopefully some more-interesting posts before too much longer.

Cheers

James

Its been 5 months any news on the saladin?

Doesn't time fly! Still waiting for the engine - had a call that it was almost ready and would be delivered "next week" but that was some weeks ago, so maybe soon... Haven't done anything on the poor thing for a while now. Reckon I need the engine back to get me motivated again.

In the meantime have decided to up-engine the HMMWV to give it (a lot) more beans. This also waits on stuff being delivered (from US) but should be a fun project and reasonably simple.

Went to John Bellfield's Tank Museum today. At the age of 87 he has decided to sell some of his stuff. Fantastic what he has done and continues to do. If you're after something the UK pound/euro to AUD exchange is in your favour, and I understand most of the stuff he has sold has gone overseas. You could pick up a nice Fire Support Vehicle (M113 with a Saladin turret on it) or various tanks, field guns, trucks of all shapes and sizes (big to huge), amphibian, a leopard tank engine or two, a chev truck used by the long range desert group - the list is almost endless. He also has a paddock full of wrecked tanks etc "for restoration". Makes me feel quite inadequate! Not sure if this link will work but here goes: 

The engine has arrived! Has had just about everything replaced: would have been cheaper to get a NOS but I'm happy that it's been salvaged. The pistons were seized, head needed a shave, sump rotted out, several teeth rusted off the flywheel, carbie and fuel pump full of crud, etc, etc, etc, etc! But now it's alive again. I've started it and ran it for a minute or two (no radiator so couldn't run it for long). Sounds great but don't think I can post a video on here, so just a pic. Now, the only thing keeping me away from the shed is the cold.

Next challenge will be to get the (single) pulley of the Saracen NOS hydraulic pump switched to the Saladin pulley so the belts will fit. Will start making enquiries about that but if anyone has dismantled them I'd be grateful for advice. I imagine the shaft will press out but the frame is an alloy that's rather soft so I don't want to destroy it. Also need to have a look at the gearbox and transfer case but am hoping they'll be OK apart from a couple of seals where the transfer case joins the centre bevel boxes. Then try to work out the wiring looms .... Ah the fun of it!

Cheers, James

Looks good! I have a bunch of army trained mechanics here for the humvee if you have a question. 

Thanks for the offer. Main question is why people in the US are so slack in replying to emails! I've researched the HMMWV (High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle but apparently a.k.a. High Maintenance Money Wasting Vehicle) and plan to insert a Duramax 6.7l turbo diesel with 6 speed Allison transmission (two overdrive gears to keep revs down). Will need a bit of fettling to make right hand drive and some air con. Should be fun but I'm not holding my breath getting the stuff imported. (Not sure if this is a project that's in the domain of HMVF so apologies if everyone's eyes are glazing over.)

I spent my early driving years driving left hand drive cars on the left side of the road in the UK. No real problem as long as you are sensible about it and have a decent size door mirror. I certainly wouldn't bother converting it to RHD.

David

Thanks David.  I'm comfortable driving LHD cars over here but the HMMWV is a different kettle of fish. It is sooo wide that you need to drive on the left kerb, particularly on narrow roads, and any lapse of concentration risks drifting the right side (which is hard to judge) into oncoming traffic. My concern is that I'm tarting it up so SHMBO and the kids can also drive it, so for safety's sake I think RHD will be best for this particular vehicle.

Cheers, James

Back to the Saladin, and now that the engine doesn't look disgusting I've had a look and have/will solve the hydraulic pump problem!

The NOS Saracen pump has 1 belt and the Saladin 2 (pic of Sal pump above).

The pulley on the Saracen crankshaft has the right setup with 2 belts for the generator and one for the pump.

Saracen

Saladin (only one belt on generator at the moment)

The other skinny belts for the water pump (top) and fans all run off the Saladin PTO (bottom right) and aren't connected to the crankshaft pulley at all.

So.. all I need to do is swap the crankshaft pulley rather than risking wrecking the pump while trying to fettle it! Could take it off my NOS Saracen but should be able to get another one and not need to cannibalise that engine (not that I have any plans for it now). Now on the hunt for the short drain pipe from pump to hull (or make one).

Simple!

James

Good to see that this is back on track. Looking forward to seeing it running.