Hi guys,

Been making some progress on getting my car moving again - working on the front axle 'refurb'.

While doing that, I was undoing the back of the OS radius arm and had a closer look at the EAS tank. It looks more than a little 'crusty', with maybe, some pitting.

With the axles/hubs I've found that a hammer and chisel is an effective way of removing the rust and it seems simply that corrosion has got in underneath the original paint.

I guess this could be the same - remove it, clean off the rust, prep and paint - but it is a pressure vessel.

What do you guys think with more experienced eyes? At the moment the system is drained down to change the front bags, so a good time to pull this out.

Thanks as usual

Looks a bit rough to me..

Mine is a tad rough but no where near that!

A wire brush on a grinder will get through the grot to the proper metal, if there is any left!

Yep, that's my concern really. However my experience with the axles has been that once I chip away the old paint, and the blown rust underneath, then what's left seems OK.

I think/hope this will be the same as a quick look suggests it's not such an easy thing to get hold of, and £310 new....

Looks a bit worse than mine was when Mr MoT man told me to do something about it before the next test a three or so years back.

I got me a used one which, frankly, was not noticeably better although it still had significant paint and a data label. Enjoyed(?) myself with a 2 1/2"twisted wire cup brush on the angle grinder shifting all the grot. Those brushes are very effective but need everything strapped down well or things go flying! I imagine the bigger ones can be quite lethal.

Coat of Krust rust killer, followed by two each of the Blackfriars rust resisting undercoat and grey QD90 metal paint got it looking acceptably smart without needing to faff about with the spray gun so I did a replica label to finish the job. Inkjet print & laminate. Glued on to look the part. Still got the PDF file if anyone wants it.

Shifting the old one took considerable effort and verbal encouragement. The bolts aren't easy to get at and mine were well rusted in. The new one went in with appropriately anointed stainless fixings so it will come out next time. I've no idea whether or not creative cursing about the person who last fitted something has any effect in the afterlife. But I'd rather not find out personally as my verbal assistance tends to be somewhat heavy on the creatively comprehensive side.

Best part of a fortnight elapsed time when all was done, dusted and paint hardened off.

Mr MoT man was happy which is the main thing.

My old one still sits in dry storage waiting for me to decide what to do with it. Sell, trade, gift. As is or paint first.

Clive

It does look rough. I do agree with Clive that dealing with it soon might get you some more life out of it. As long as it keeps holding pressure you're probably okay. On my S2A, there was some ugly looking rust on the bulkhead, which I decided to hit with some Tremclad to buy me a bit of time. Since then I've touched it up a couple of times with the Tremclad, but it's never really gotten any worse, and that's 25 years later!

I'd be inclined to wirebrush it and paint it. If it starts to leak at some point in the future, deal with it then. Yes, it's a pressure vessel but only holds 10 bar so not like it's going to explode, just hiss a bit if it starts to leak.

yep, I just brushed mine back and painted it with hammerite. I'll deal with it when it fails, if something else hasn't already fallen off the car by then

Thanks guys,

More verbal encouragement Clive...?! I indulged in some of that today when trying to get the clips onto the top of the front suspensions bags...

Seems this is just another question mark about last September's MOT.

I think that the point about 10bar or so is important though. I'm too used to 230bar in scuba, so probably overly sensitive.

I will look at the manual, but in the real world, how awkward is it to remove? If I'm going to be using the wire brush on the grinder, I'd prefer not to be doing it lying on my back. I've no reason to believe it wasn't holding air so if the consensus is that it's not a disaster, then dropping it out and tidying it up will be the thing. More mission creep....!

Guess what I did just last week. Installing the refurbushed one is quote easy, three bolts and the air supply.
Did the dryer as well, which was not necessary, as I found out opening later the old one.
EAS suite v4 from RSW was helpfull deflating / depressurizing comfortable the system.
Took me a bit more than one hour from start to end (without wirebrushing the old tank and painting it with rustproof and clear coating.
Anyway, preventive maintenance (as I learned from GilbertD) ...
worth the effort IMHO...

I found the big issue when removing whilst lying on my back underneath was reaching the bolt heads. My collection of extension bars wasn't able to make up the "best" length to get a socket straight on without the breaker bar or ratchet fouling on something. So I ended up with a UJ in the line to get some deviation. UJ may be handy but it makes it harder to keep things straight and heaving.

Especially with those never to be sufficiently cursed integrated head'n washer bolts. Everything is tapered so the socket cant get a proper seat or gip on things and the head material is intrinsically soft with a bit of surface hardening from the forging process. So once the corners go you are stuffed.

Getting into the habit of just putting the Irwin extractors on right from the start unless I'm pretty sure that things will move.

Not the first time I've been seriously tempted to make an extension the right length by cut'n weld.

10 bar of air really isn't too bad because it generally just leaks and hisses. Not like boiling water under pressure with lethally large amounts of energy locked up in the change of state between liquid and vapour.

Clive

Thanks for the further replies. No doubt I'll be along with more daft questions as I tackle this!

However, at this stage, if I was to take it out and refurb, I'd like to use new 'fittings' and I don't mean just the ones attaching it to the car. I have enough 'stock' of regular or stainless nuts n bolts to manage that.

I'd like to replace the air hose entry thing; the big m8 x 22 bolt at the other end; and the drain plug. However looking at the parts diagrams on 'new lr cat' they only really list the whole assembly. Does anyone have another source of part numbers for those bits n pieces?

Clive - I've been pondering doing another PM to ask about your spare tank, just in case I take this one off; attack it with the wire brush/grinder and find that it's too far gone. But I think I'll just see how I go in the first instance. However I'd definitely be interested in your 'sticker' pdf file. I'll PM again in case my email details weren't on the last one. Ta.

Air hose entry is just a collet and pair of O rings the same as on the valve block and air springs. Isn't the bolt just a bolt?

Bolts at both ends are likely to be leak down types with a longitudinal groove cut along part of the thread so any air inside can escape before the bolt comes off the end of the thread. Without a leak path the bolt can be fired off as it reaches the end of the thread. As I remember it the pipe connector end is certainly leak down. Never had the other one off.

Legal requirement on vehicle high pressure air systems I think.

Often a non standard thread to stop folks jamming a plain blanking plug from the local plumbers shop in. Hence ££ or un-obtainium for normal folk. I just measure up and make if I need such. But Clive is not normal!

For the connector end a tapped hole for the standard male BSP thread to O ring fitting adapter would be the easy way if you don't have the official thing.

Ah.. never thought of something like a 'bleed' groove. Makes sense.

In any event, while I was waiting for paint to dry on the OS end of the axle I had a go at this. It's certainly complicated by the fact that with the car on the ground, I can't actually focus close enough to see what I'm doing properly! My glasses aren't designed to work on something 6" off the end of my nose!

I'd assumed that with all 4 airbags empty, there would be no pressure in the tanks. Not so. However I take this is a very good sign that the tank is holding air and worth refurbishing. I bled it in stages via the bolt opposite the air hose. No drama.

Then, it put up a bit of a fight as I assume it's never been off the car, but my garage-fu was strong today, and eventually three out of three of the bolts snapped. Thankfully in a manner that allowed me to remove the tank.

This is the top - still a little rusty:

and the rest:

I'll do the whole wire-brush, prime, paint thing and get it refitted. I think I'll use stainless spire nuts and ss bolts on reassembly, with an anti-galling paste. One less thing for the MOT man to pick up on.

Sometimes I think that good evidence of recent work makes them view a car a little more kindly, and what might have been a borderline 'fail', they'll make as an advisory - being more confident it will be sorted.

You're right there. I took mine in for MoT a few weeks ago, he did the emissions test first, then put it on the ramp. Opened the bonnet and the first thing he noticed was a shiny new intermediate steering column and as soon as it was up in the air, a new drag link too. From that point on, it was more a cursory look round as he knows that I will always sort anything it needs when it needs it not just when it's MoT time. The fact that it was showing just over 400,000 miles and I'd already told him I'd got the best part of 6,000 miles to do in the next month meant he knew that I thought everything was OK.

I don’t know what shipping would be but for some things it might make sense to look at the US eBay. These are $50 USD and like new. We just don’t have the corrosion issues.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Land-Range-Rover-P38-95-02-Air-Suspension-EAS-Reservoir-Tank-ANR5135/333589194708?epid=1323678184&hash=item4dab7727d4:g:KqQAAOSwPp9erOUM

The shipping o that one shows $233 to the uk, I would guess that's a GSP price. Which would give you the reassurance of not getting stung for import duty on top at least, but seems high even so.

Don't know how it works coming this way, but I've bought a couple of Direnza alloy radiators for people in the US as Direnza won't ship overseas. Carriage on those was around £100 and US Customs don't charge any duty on anything with a value under $500. Even though the buyers had to pay the VAT as they were being sent to me and then forwarded on, they still worked out at about half the price of anything similar available in the US.

UK customs seem to charge on everything thats not from China.

My one and only experience with the GSP from the USA earlier this year was less than impressive. Expensive, slow, Stateside tracking data made no sense and I got done for duty on something that should never have attracted it. I suspect the vendor milked the system. But when its new old stock of something that makes unicorn droppings look common you are somewhat stuffed. Annoyingly the American supplier originally got it from Italy at, presumably uber low clearance prices.

Clive