Another Land Rover

I've recently bought an ex-army 110 from Grays Online Auctions, sort of by mistake.  Over the last year or so I'd watched 3 or 4 auctions for these units, and noting the reduction in prices in the later auctions I put on a "sensible" bid of $6.5K to see what happened. Turns out it was the winning bid, so I find myself with a 25 year old, non-turbo Landie with only 54,000Km on it. In previous auctions, similar units were going for around $10K (which I thought too much) so was pretty pleased to get it for $6.5K.

Registration was quite easy. It is mandatory in SA to have a keyed ignition switch, but the army never fitted one, so after promising to fit one it sailed through the Regency Park inspection.

Anyway, the point of this post is to show anyone with a similar vehicle how to remove the 24V generator and how to fit an ignition key.

Remove 24V generator

We are using the 110 around the farm, so absolutely no need for all the 24V stuff it came with. So out went 4 batteries, some sort of distribution box, and a heap of very thick cabling. The tricky bit was getting out the 24V generator from the engine bay.

To get this big old thing out, you have to remove the alternator. Not too difficult. I just removed the 3 tubes to the back of the alternator for the vacuum pump/oil lines, unbolted it and swung it up out of the way on top of the  rocker cover.  No need to disconnect the wiring. Oh - don't forget to disconnect the battery before you begin any of this.

I had been warned not to try removing the vacuum pump from the rear of the alternator, as there is a tricky O ring that requires re-fitting when you do that.

Once it's swung out of the way, you get access to the long bolts holding the generator in, and the 4 clamping bolts.

I got the long bolts which attach the unit to the block out first, with an 18mm and 19mm socket with a long handle as they were done up damn tight.

Then I undid the 4 clamping bolts, which allowed the two ring pieces to be slid off. With the clamps on I couldn't get it out, so they had to come off.

Without the clamps, it just pulls up and out of the engine bay easily.

This is what it looks like when you get it out.

I didn't weigh it, but it must be 25Kg or maybe even 30Kg, so good to have it out just from a weight perspective.

BTW - I had trouble getting the fanbelt off, even with the alternator hard up against the engine block. In the end I removed the bottom swing mount and twisted the alternator away from the fanbelt to get it off, but not sure why it was so tight and how you're supposed to do it without removing the alternator.....

Fitting a key

The next job was fitting a keyed ignition barrel. I bought a kit from Rover Parts (part No 395056) which had 3 barrels and 6 keys (all keyed alike): 3 BARRELS AND KEY SET - Ex-Army 110

This was only $36 so quite cheap really.

The trick was working out how to get the old keyless item out!  It took me quite a while to work it out as I had no idea how one of these things worked.

Start by taking off the shroud around the steering column to reveal the switch mechanism.

You don't need to undo any wires or remove any nuts/bolts once you get the shroud off.

Once I worked that out, I went looking for the hole to poke it through, and indeed there was one underneath the assembly. 

If you poke up here, like this with an L shaped poker, you can push the brass pin back and the barrel just pops out!

Easy once you know how!

Auction photos

Here's some gratuitous photos of how it looked when it was put up for sale by the army.