Rangie Ute Project

[imatthew]

This thread will go for a while as I expect the project to take me 12 months.

Just a little history first.
I had a 1984 Rangie. It was it very good condition. But I had it for 10 years and it was time for an update. So I purchased a 93 Vogue SE. Once I had put all the good gear from the 84 into the 93 (diff locks, 4.6, HD axles, 4.11 diffs, Bullbar, winch, flares, etc, etc) it was not going to be worth much, so I scrapped it. While owning the 84, I purchased a 86 for spares. I also purchased a 82 4 door for the motor, but got rid of the rest as a whole unit.

Most of the early Rangie stuff would not fit the 93, so I sold a lot of it off.

I then decided to purchase a 1976 2 door that had been converted into a pickup (ute) back in 1995. Here it costs a lot for such conversions as everything has to be engineered before it can be put on the road. As this had already been engineered, it will be a lot cheaper to do.

The 76 was had a little bit of rust in it, so I purchased another 1982 2 door for parts.

On stripping the ute, I found that not much was really useable. The chassis was bent, the motor was a 76 3.5 with small valves and small oil pump, and there was a little bit of rust in the firewall, etc.

I am still after some good side structures and a few other things, so I am getting parts also from a late 70's 2 door as well.

I had replaced the 3.9 V8 in the 93 with a 4.6, so I have a spare motor out of it.

So you can gather from the above, this ute is going to be made up from parts from a lot of different Rangies over 17 years of models.

So the first job was to strip the ute, photos below. I also stripped the 82.

I have used the chassis from the 86 and stripped it back to bare metal and repainted it in POR Blackcote (pictures below). All the diffs and associated stuff has also been put back to metal and being resprayed (photos below).

The front diff is from the 86 also. I am not sure what years the front swivals, and hubs are from as they have been all mixed up over the years.

The rear diff is a metric one, but I am not sure what year as it came with the ute.

The front and rear diff centres are out of the 93.

The gearbox will be a 4 speed out of the 76 and the motor will be the 3.9 out of the 93.

I will make up my mind about the rest of the vehicle as I go along

[blanche_90]

and your point is?
apart from having a fettish for pulling rangies apart that is!!
bet your neighbours love you!

only joking, just jealous

[teamidris]

Definately a restoration, and nothing looks nicer than a TOTAL strip down, clean and paint Looking forward to the re-build pictures

[imatthew]

[blanche_90]

i've got it! i've got it!
i know i have, i know it's there, somewhere!
HONEST!
now let me think!

here it is,
at last,

[imatthew]

[.]

organised chaos!

[imatthew]

Well it is now back to a rolling chassis. Everything mechanical has been rebuilt. Everything metal has been stripped and repainted. The only hard part so far is working out what bolts to use to connect the various bits.

[blanche_90]

looking good so far.
just be careful you don't end up with a load of bits left over!
you know how you like collecting em and your running out of room

[imatthew]

[mcdisco]

I think you know whats going in your garage Ian...my Rangie!!

We still gotta sort out a lot of stuff...

Angus

[imatthew]

One of the features that Land Rover should never have dropped was the load leveler. It use to make the car roll a bit on the road and this is why they probably got rid of it. But off-road it improves articulation and stability considerably. With the ute it will be additionally benefitial due to the varying loads it can carry.

The only problem with the BOGE unit is working out whether it is still operational. I have asked a number of Land Rover "Experts" over the years how to test them. They have given wild and varied answers and none of them worked. So I decided to make my own testing unit. It provided roughly a 10 to 1 leverage to compress the unit and then cycle up and down to see if it pumped up or not. Of the 4 BOGE units I had, 2 ended up stuffed and 2 were good. So I at least know I am putting in a working unit into the ute.

Below is a picture of my testing rig that took about 1 hour to make out of some scrap steel I had sitting around. It only took a minute to swap over BOGE units.

[burko_uk]

All looking good. There is nothing nicer than some well cleaned up running gear. I stripped my front axle and cleaned it all up. I did consider very strongly throwing away all the black paint I had bought and just lacquering everything as the bare metal just had that "OOooo shiny" thing going on and looked fab.

[alanst]

geat project keep it up

p.s. hope you don,t have to move house soon

[Dengie Boy]

[imatthew]

[imatthew]

Well the LT95 is now rebuilt and fitted. Who's stupid idea was it to make the transfer case and gearbox the same unit. I have now pulled it apart and put it back together so many times that I could probably do it blindfolded now.

Firstly I purchased the ute from a Range Rover workshop, which the vehicle belonged to the owner. He stated that he had "rebuilt the transfer case on it. He had re-shimmed the intermediate gears, but little else. He had refitted the speedo housing without a gasket. The gasket forms part of the preload on the bearings, so instead of 2 thou preload it had about 17 thou. He then refitted an intermediate shaft that the case hardening had broken away. So all new bearings in the transfer case, another shaft, and a change in bearings where the case hardening had gone.

So put the transfer case back together and went to start on the gearbox. Again all the bearings were shot. Replaced all the main bearings and seals, of course you have to pull the transfer case back apart to get the bearing out between the gearbox and the transfer case.

Put the gearbox back together and thought that the slop in the gearshift, when in gear, appeared to be excessive. So opened it back up again to have a look. The LT95 came with a narrow "H" shift pattern in the latter boxes and a very wide pattern in the early boxes. The gear lever where it goes into the selectors and the selectors are different on the two. If you fit a narrow pattern shifter to wide selectors you get a VERY sloppy shift. Guess what the previous owner had done to mine. So the gearbox was apart again to change the selectors to make it a narrow shift box.

When I pull the boxes apart, there was a lot more oil in the transfer case than the gearbox. This is a common problem with oil transferring between the two past seals, etc. On reassembly I was not happy with some of the setup as to how well it would seal, so it came apart again and a modified a couple of things and reassembled it again.

The emergency brake on the LT95 is also notorious for not working. So I also spent a day playing around and modifying it until I was happy that it would work and stay working.

At one stage I thought I would be retired before finishing that box, but it is all back now and it is onto the firewall for the next adventure.

[teamidris]

I spread mine out all over the workshop and studied all the worn bits And then there was document that said "do not snatch tow in reverse". At which point I decded to buy an auto But nice to see one rebuilt, and great to see the build looking good!
I was told to make sure the reverse gear shaft is locked in place, as it sneaks out?

[imatthew]

Have not done much lately as I am having a break from it. But I have finally settled on a colour for it and have ordered the paint. Up to now I planned to paint it the yellow in the photos below, but I have just changed it to the blue below.

[p76rangie]

It is a pity that the completion of the project will never appear on this site due to the author leaving.

[Ray_Jnr]

more dummy spitting!

[mudtrax]

[Ray_Jnr]

I'm a member of a about 7 forums, and I can easily say, This site is in no way heavily moderated, it is very tame in that respect!

Yes fair do's The moderating isn't always consistent as different moderators Think differently, but there is a huge amount of traffic on this forum to keep track of 24 hours a day. The moderators do what they do for free so its all in their own time, you get what you pay for. And well..... we don't pay for this site so we Shouldn't complain.

[Naughty T]

For goodness sake why is the same issue being brought up time and time again in different threads??

There are a few topics now about this very issue and if you have a look in the lounge the admins and moderators ARE infact listening to the members and trying to come to a compromise of sorts.


Just like i tell my children,if you moan about wanting something then you won't get it,be nice be polite and you never know what might come of it.


Also remember that with over 13,000 members we cannot please all of the people all of the time.

T

[(Gray)]

[Naughty T]

[scut44]

I was really enjoying this build & the thread.
Really really sorry that i will not see it completed.

If anyone knows of the build being posted on another forum so i can continue to follow the build please speak up.


Did wonder tho,
after the first couple of posts why it wasnt moved to
'Custom Builds'
& why its not in '4x4's' now.
george

.

[p76rangie]

[scut44]

Thank you muckle.
Beautiful.
Wonderful standard of workmanship.

george


If it could be moved to Custom Builds & more posts/pictures on the thread i would be the happiest bunny in my Institution today.
More contributions from its builder & other projects exhibiting his work would be very welcome as far as i am concerned.

.

[p76rangie]