9 March, 2013 
We hurried home after rugby training today so I could make a quick, post-lunch start on replacing the rear springs and shock absorbers on our Land Rover Defender TD5.
For the past few days, assorted “experts” have assured me changing the springs is a “15-minute job”, “nothing more than half an hour” and a “total breeze”. I disagreed, saying that straightforward jobs on Land Rovers inevitably turn into major jobs when the unexpected materialises and, from past experience with previous Land Rovers, that includes “minor” suspension jobs.
Having knocked back a bacon and egg sandwich, I went out to start the job of changing the left-hand suspension as that was the side with the broken spring.
To compress the spring without the aid of spring compressors, I use the two-jack approach: I use the Land Rover’s own jack to lift the back end and a trolley jack to raise/lower the axle.
I started down the route again today and had the rear left-hand wheel just rising off the ground when disaster struck. The rear cross member crumpled and folded around the jacking point.
Despite liberal applications of Waxoyl, the steel had corroded heavily on the inside and was unable to take the weight of the truck when it was jacked up. I lowed the Defender back on to its wheels, worked out a different method for jacking the truck up (moving the trolley jack around the truck and inserting my collection of axle stands before using the jack on the axle) and changed the left-hand suspension.
The old spring and shock absorber came off easily enough. The spring had cracked right through where it seated on its top mount, helped by a healthy dose of rust and friction that had eaten away about 10% of the spring’s thickness. The shock absorber’s piston was slightly bent, too.
Even a Land Rover Defender’s suspension doesn’t take too well to hitting a 12-inch deep bottom hole at 55-60mph.
The new spring went on easily, but the lower fixing for the new shock absorber proved extremely challenging. It took the better part of half an hour to “finesse” it into place, compress the new bushes and get the nut on. So much for it being a 15-minute job—it took just under four hours.
By then, it was getting dark so I’d run out of time to do the right-hand side but a quick test drive over our very rough back roads showed that all was well with the left-hand side. I’ll do the right side after rugby tomorrow. And again, I’ll be expecting another problem to show up—although hopefully not on the scale of the crumpled rear cross member, which is going to cost a fair bit to get cut off and replaced.
Fix one problem and another comes along to replace it. Still, it gives me something to do.
no wonder they call these “money pits”…but when going, they do their job well.
Send us some pics of the damage or post them up on here
Ouch!
I’d love to be able to put a new galvanised chassis under the truck, but they’re beyond our budget and require lifting kit that we don’t have. So, it’s to be a partial rear-end removal to allow the ends of the chassis rails to be chopped off and a new cross-member welded in. Even that isn’t going to be inexpensive.
I replaced the rear crossmember without lifting the body. You can either just weld up the sides and underneath leaving the topside unwelded or you can chop through the floor weld the top of the chassis and then patch the floor. I went for the bodge of leaving the top as I intend to replace the chassis once i get a 2 post lift and a new workshop.
The hardest part is dealing with the loom that runs through the chassis rail.
I would not even think about a britpart rear cross member as they are cheap for a reason. i have one fitted and it is already starting to rot.
I wasn’t planning on lifting the entire body for the rear cross member, just the pick-up tub. That’s do-able, although I suspect more problems will appear. Main problem is having the LR off the road for a couple of days as we only have one car.
We were lucky as the truck has just passed its MoT. I whacked the cross member with a hammer, but didn’t find the problem. Nor did the mechanic who inspected it and also whacked it with a hammer. The rust only revealed itself when a couple of tonnes of Land Rover was focused on a single jacking point.
If your 110 has a separate rear tub for the pick-up then its easy. But suspect it doesn’t look at how the back bulkhead of the cab is mounted.
Hope you get it sorted without too much grief. I was working on our 2002 subaru forester at Christmas time, replacing rear brakes and when i lowered car onto axle stands at the jacking point (sill seams) – one side crumpled due to rust inside the sills… so i had to cut out rotten steel and weld new steel in place.
now one of wheel bearings has worn out, so in process of replacing that – 2 week delay on parts….
Ow. Makes me happy that I only have a large cargo bike to deal with. Of course I also have public transport/carshare for when I need bit more distance, so I can’t get all self righteous…