Nice! thanks for taking the time to post the pics anyway - it's very useful to see a 'real world' example and not something the marketing dept has created.

I might actually consider that for the carriers/knuckles themselves, as they are portable and could be put in a bucket.

The question about rinsing, for me, concerned the actual axle casing and the ball joint 'yoke'. I couldn't leave that to soak in solution - without a lot more work, and a much bigger bucket! There's a lot of rust there, on the casing; around the air spring mounts; around the radius arm mounts etc. It's nothing structural, but I don't want it to get any worse, and it'll never be easier to treat than it is now, with everything to stripped back.

Perhaps I'll use a 'converter' there, and the bilt hamber stuff on the knuckles.

(Edit - you know what? I've just taken a closer look at that Deox stuff, and I've ordered a 1Kg bottle. If I don't use it here, I'm sure I'll use it again at some point. Looks like really good stuff.)

My pleasure :)

There's also a gel version which is for items you can't put in a bucket. I've used it in the past with good results although I was using it on a panel rather than super rusty axle parts. You do it as many times as needed so I think it'll take longer than the liquid version in a bucket because you can't just shake the bucket when you walk past it and get fresh solvent on the rusty bits. It's a bit different in use - you paint it on the rusty parts and then cover them in clingfilm to stop it drying out too quickly although I suspect that depends on the ambient temps. There wasn't much risk of anything drying out these past couple of days!

Whichever way you go, get as much rust off as you can before using a convertor and it'll have a better chance of getting all the way down to good metal and stopping further corrosion. As former Fiat owner, I still hate rust more than any other vehicle problem!

Right, time for a wee update.

The rust remover stuff which Morat mentioned worked really, really well. Quite impressed with that, and something I'll keep in my armoury.

The knuckles / hub carriers came up pretty well:

Then on the way to both being primed and painted:

The axle ends were a bit more tricky obviously. I had to go around each nook and cranny with a hammer and chisel first to get the bigger/flakier bits of rust off. There was a lot of this.... After that, a combination of grinder and wire brush; drill and various wire brushes for the same nooks and crannies.

Then I used a rust converter - not the best pic...

and couple of coats of paint - but shiny black paint, inside a dark wheelarch doesn't photo too well.

Actually, the OS just got its first coat of paint today. On the NS this is roughly where I'm at just now:

The pics also show Clive's 'spare' radius arms which changed hands - now painted and installed!
The aluminium tube is my 'work in progress'/Heath Robinson thing which I'll use to try and set the hub height as close as I can.

Will get another coat of paint on the other axle end tomorrow and maybe make some more progress fitting up the NS hub. Off to a Covid-safe 'party' now... so it will depend on the state of my health tomorrow!

Didn't you like my pretty grey paint on the radius arms?

Everything I do under a car ends up grey rather than factory black. Obvious what I've done that way and it brightens things up a bit too.

Wahay, progress! It's all looking very sharp indeed :)

Great progress!

Loving how clean it is under there!

Haven’t been on much lately so miss chipping in on this thread, I do the reverse disc to get the hub out, then a 32 oz ball pen hammer to pneumatic shock anything else, believe me it’s 10x better than a lump hammer, precise and does the job, hub carrier a 2 leg puller on the bottom, a few whacks and they pop,, when Rick popped down we did both sides in 3 hrs with tea breaks, only had one that need oxyacetylene to persuade a top ball joint to move, like Marty I’ve done quite a few ..

Thanks guys.

Chris - I think it's always the case that the 2nd, 3rd or whatever time you do a job it's easier. You'll pick up ideas or solutions that work. I'll know next time....!

Not much progress on the axle itself to report, but the crusty EAS tank has been zapped with the grinder brush, rust converted, and now enjoying its first coat of paint. 2nd coat tomorrow eve, and hopefully make more progress on Friday when I've a day off work.

I've also decided to get a new hub/bearing for the offside. The heat coming off that wheel with the binding brake was just intense, and I recently had to change a wheel bearing on the Defender where heat had clearly affected the grease that was in there, though I don't really know why. There's obviously no logical link between them, but it doesn't stop it playing on my mind!

I've got a timken bearing one coming up, so if nothing else it will be peace of mind.

A miserable day up here, so perfect for spending some quality time in the garage.

In fact yesterday was a lovely day - and I still spent it in the garage! I was working on the O/S and got the radius arm, airspring, shocker and brake fllexi fitted, and then the swivel ball joints into place.

Today I followed the procedure for setting the height of the N/S swivel. I was a little concerned about this (hence my other post about the dimensions of the special tool) but in the event it went OK. The alu. tube that's pictured in one of the posts above worked pretty well as a datum point and I think it's now as close as I'm going to get without the tool itself or a functional copy.

As well as the swivel height, I also fitted the axle oil seal using an old bearing outer race as a drift. Happy with that. I'm not more or less at the point where I can refit the driveshaft, but before I do that I'm going to try and fit a new CV boot to it. Never done this before..... I bought a CV boot 'cone tool' - but I've decided to modify it so that I can fit the boot from the diff end of the drive shaft (given that they're out of the car anyway). That way the boot only has to stretch over the small flange that sits against the axle seal. Sounds simple enough, but anything involving lubrication and stretchy rubber..... well... there may be some verbal encouragement required as well.

I think I'd rather not heat up the boot using hot water - as that will potentially introduce some water into the joint - even if only minimal, so I have the boots sitting on top of the heating boiler overnight. Does boiling water do the job OK without affecting the CV joint??

So here's where I'm at right now on the N/S:

And finally for now, (another) question.

I'm using new anti roll bar links. The manual shows them fitting like this - with the chassis end inside the little 'housing' for it.

However, if I do this, how do I get the nut tightened up? It's supposed to go up to 125Nm, and the ball joint and stud are already turning as I try to tighten the nut. There's a flat on the ball joint end of the stud for a 16mm spanner, but I can't get to it when it's inside that chassis recess??

Is the manual picture a 'typo'? Would it go on OK from the other side? I just can't remember how the old one was fitted when I removed it.

125nm is defo a typo!

I have exactly the same ones and just did them up "tight"

You can slip a spanner on the flats it took me half an hour just fiddling with my 16mm!

Ah well, a joyful time ahead fiddling with my 16mm spanner then..... I might see if I can find a thinner/smaller one in an old bicycle toolbox that can be bent into a more helpful shape. The alternative is to try and 'clamp' the link into the chassis with some plumbers pipe grips and see if they can provide enough friction to allow me to spin up the nut. I'll try that first just because it's easier.

I was actually wondering if the picture/fitting alignment was a typo - not the torque setting. Pretty sure 125Nm is correct - it's in my manual and I've just checked another version online. But there's not much diffference between 125Nm and just doing it up 'FT'...

Agree 125 nm sounds way too high.

Hafta say I didn't look at the book and just went tight, probably in the 50 nm region. Googling around it seems that 40 - 50 nm is the general range for most things. 40 on a Defender I think.

When I have a "looks too tight" issue I either go by the other fastenings list on page 14(?) of the torque values section in RAVE. If I'm feeling techie I'll use the significantly over comprehensive list out of the official BMW workshop manual for the air cooled R series twins.

Having RAVE printed out in lots of loose leaf binders with the pages in individual transparent wallets to permit handling by oily fingers is a great help with this sort of flip back'n forth issue. Two or three folders open at once is easy or I'll make up a special to the task temporary manual with all the relevant pages in one place. Re-filing is a pain tho'.

Clive

Well, pretty good day today actually.

I got the arb links done up - to 125Nm! - that was actually easy enough once I'd got over my numpty idiot moment and realised the chassis 'recess' for the links is actually open at the top..... On the question of torque values it's quite noticeable that the P38 torques are significantly higher than the Defender. I guess it's a big, heavy car, and is capable of travelling much faster.

Got the panhard rod on too, with new bushes. Those bolts are even tighter.... I've found I can 'bench-press' 200Nm. On another forum, discussing Defender panhard rods, someone was saying it's the clamping force of the nuts that make the difference, not the bushes. At 200Nm I can believe that. Panhard rod was actually a bit of a pain.... With the axle so stripped down; radius arms off, albeit one at a time; shockers off; air springs off; etc etc. the only thing holding it in place was the propshaft. So, the axle had actually moved sideways a little, and needed to be persuaded back the other way. I have some sash clamps that I needed to put into 'spreader' mode, but it worked OK.

I also got my new drag link and track rod set to length against the old ones - near enough to get going with when the time comes.

Got the driver's side swivel adjusted - a bit disappointed that it's maybe 1mm 'high' after the final torqueing up - but I'm afraid that's close enough for me today. If it causes problems, now that I've a better idea what I'm doing, I can revisit it.

...and finally, some fun and games with the passenger's side CV joint and boot...... What a pain. There was no way whatsoever that my new boot was going to stretch enough to fit. Not a chance. So (should have taken pics of this!) I suspended the driveshaft and hub from the floor joists and tried to clean out the boot and the old grease as much as I could.

Interestingly inside the boot, which was "attached" at the CV joint end by a loose, large tie wrap, I found the old crimp clamp! Quite innovative I thought.... I wonder if they've done the same on the driver's side?? Might find out tomorrow.

Anyway, got the old grease out; new grease in; used my clamping pliers for the first time, then reintroduced the driveshaft to the axle! Starting to look like a car again.

I meant to say above.... RAVE...? I've never managed to find a useable download of this, so I tend to work off the paper manuals - P38 and 300Tdi.

This https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzxqPPypF5J5b1ZlU3RpMmVwanc/view?usp=sharing is an upload of an iso image file of the original UK factory CD. Download the iso file and burn it to a CD and it will run from that (run the RAVE.exe file). Or, do as I have, copy the entire CD to your hard drive and run from there, which you'll find loads and runs much quicker.

Thanks very much! I'll give that a go when I'm at the desktop, with a CD drive.

I might be wrong, but didn’t the drop links have an Allen key in the end of the thread so you can tighten them up,,

Depends who made them, some have a hex hole in the end, some have two flats some don't have anything.

I did check for a hex head - in one of my more alert moments! Nothing - just a wee useless dimple!

There was a 16mm flat, and that was it. Hey ho. They are in, and that's something else that's behind me.

donmacn ... Gr8 ;-)
been there, done that ...