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The top of the box can then be inspected, the bearings look good, and there was no sideways movement.
I found out that the output shaft can be removed without disturbing the input shaft or the piston shaft. The top cap bolts are removed and then the adjusting lock nut. Then by rotating the adjustment screw, the cap is gradually pushed off. Then the output shaft can be tapped upwards and out of the box, using a soft faced hammer.
The next job is now on the bench. The steering box has slowly been leaking oil from the bottom seal. This is a common fault. You can just change the oil seal, but I think that the bearing has some play in it, which means any new seal will soon start to leak. So, a complete stripdown and inspection is required. The drop arm is quite difficult to remove. I applied a bit of heat and then belted it with a hefty hammer. It soon came off. We shall see what it looks like inside..
While the weather was bad, I decided to try and reduce the amount of smoke that the engine was producing. This seems to have got worse since I changed the cylinder head, and so it seemed like a good idea to start with the fuel injectors. I had some spare ones, so I dismantled them and cleaned the parts. I managed to assemble 5 good ones out of the eight spares I had. Today I finished putting them back in the engine, with new sealing washers. I’m glad to say that the smoke is much reduced once the engine is warmed up, and it idles more smoothly too.
The new brake discs have arrived. These will be stored until I have the front axle reassembled. That will have to wait for the weather to improve.
The work will slow down for a few weeks now, as the weather has got worse. There are still a few jobs I can do in the shed, as long as it’s not too cold. Recently, I dismantled and cleaned out the front wheel locking hubs. These were OK after cleaning, and so I will put these to one side until needed. The 6 screws that hold these onto the hubs are an odd size 8/32″ x 32 tpi, with a non-standard taper too. Some of them were damaged on removal, and so I will replace them with 4mm x 0.7 stainless cap head screws. This is a standard size and similar to the original. I can tap out the thread to metric 4mm, and counter bore the housing to suit.
The front axle is now off the car. I have wire brushed it and painted it with a coat of red oxide primer. Eventually, it will be painted black.
Ok, Hee is a picture of the one on my engine, you can’t see too much, but it looks the same as one I have lifted from the Ummonline4x4 website. Hope this helps.
Geoff
I have also removed the swivel housing do that I can clean it up better. One day, this will all have to go back together, but it will be less rusty.
This is a before and after of the front driveshaft. Once again, the electrolytic rust treatment proves to be effective.
Now it’s time to get on with the front axle. Both sides have been dismantled to this state. The brake discs need replacing, and the driveshafts need new universal joints. The needle roller bearing on this side is no good either. So everyhting will be cleaned up and new parts added as required. The actual wheel bearings and swivel bearings are OK, thankfully.
Hi Val, you may find that it is quicker to get an answer from Fritz if you can leave a message on the UMM Owners Club Facebook page.
Geoff
The second seat is now installed and the door mirror is fitted on the passenger side. It is all looking pretty good now for the Winter. The next big job is to clean up the front axle and fit the replacement springs. In the meantime, I am buying some Dicovery roof rails to see if I can make them fit to the front section of the roof.
I had been looking for some suitable seats to replace the UMM ones. I chucked the driver’s side some time ago, as it was beyond any repair. The passenger side isn’t too bad, but it is better if they match, so I was looking for two seats ideally.
I found someone on ebay who had a P38 Range rover seat, and some extra bits. The bidding started at £5, so I put on a bid, thinking that if the seat was cheap enough, it would enable me to try out if theses seats could be adapted to the UMM. As it turned out, mine was the only bid, so £5 was the winning bid! Bargain.
I went to fetch my purchase, and found that there was a second front seat in bits, and a rear seat too. I just took the two front seats.
And here is the seat installed in the UMM. It had a lot of motors and mechanism in the base, which I removed. Then it was just a case of welding the base frame to a square tube that was drilled to suit the UMM seat runners.
Comfy!
Today, the painting preparation continued. In order to paint the rear panels, I needed to remove the rear door. I thought I would take the opportunity to change the hinges and hinge pins on the door, as I already had the parts.
That was a tough job! I removed the old hinges using a disc cutter, as I knew that the old roll pins were not goung to be easy to get out. Then I put the hinge in the vice and started to press the new roll pin into it. It was a very tight fit, and I needed to use a length of pipe on the vice handle to get enough force to press it in. Not recommended, even if you have a strong vice, as I do. Eventually the first one went in, but I had bent the vice! I was able to remove the vice from the bench and dismantle it. A bit of grinding on the runners, and it was working again. I pressed in the second roll-pin a bit easier, and that was that. It’s a job that I wouldn’t want to do again without a press.
