Series3 ceased clutch & general TLC project

[MattW]

Hi y'all

I'll add to this thread as my little excavation progresses & I take a few piccies along the way. We picked up the S3 (last taxed in 1992) from a chap on Ebay who claimed to have bought it from a local dairy farmer. It had apparently sat in the farmers field for a number of years & once rescued it proceeded to sit in this guys drive way for at least another 5 :roll:. Bulging tyres, algae green windows & a serious spider problem.

We whacked on a part worn set of mud tyres & some LWB wheels from Nene Valley offroad & happily trundled off to Tixover for some quarry bashing with BigRich. A great time was had by all and although completely standard barring the tyres & with a rear crossmember that you can see-through we tackled nearly everything the quarry could throw at us on land & water. A little bumpy on the old leaf springs nonetheless & great until ------- ClUnk!!!! one of the leaf springs went through the rear of the chassis :? Unfortunately we had no bung in the bottom of the bell-housing & so shortly after getting it home (having been wading) the clutch stuck to the fly-wheel.  


After some quick Mud-club foruming we got the advice to start the old girl in gear - drive it really fast on a solid surface & slam on the brakes. This worked with a loud clunk & freed the flywheel. Fantastic! until it ceased again almost immediately & would not free again

3 years later & here we are - back to work :)
= Gallery of photos =

Matt

[MattW]

Current work has seen the floor & tunnel removed (with the need of some angle-grinding & impact wrenching) to reveal the gearbox/ transfer box assembly & an intact but very rusty chassis.


The idea is to pull the whole of the transmission backwards (in situ) and lever the clutch off from the flywheel/ inspect to see if it needs replacing. Fortunately the clutch slave cylinder is easy to get to with the tunnel removed but I don't think it's the problem. The Rear propshaft is off so far & the 2 sections of it are rusted solid. Seems sensible whilst it's all apart to fix the handbrake which is currently a useless mess


Every ounce of steel in or out of the cab is rusty, the plan is to tart everything up once she's going again with hammerite silver / black on the interior / props, springs etc. & black chassis paint.

Matt