110 USW campervan

Barney’s Landy said:

Not just one Defender Camper but four!
(Lil is the second from the Right.)

Many more photographs to come..
View attachment 203872

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Ooo. A slag of campers.

Utter filth

Just managed to pick up Lil before the Coronavirus lock down, really pleased with result, a job l couldn’t do myself without it looking pants.
It has two side windows with mesh ideal for those hot nights

A view from front, showing the two cargo rails, ideal for mounting the Rigid solar panel or camping box.

View from the side showing the Gull wing window and the newly fitted LED light.
The roof in the down position.

A few internal photographs showing the bed in the down a up position.

This is probably by far the largest part to the build, many more bespoke items being made and fitted.
Next job- chassis clean and bespoke water tank, tap and level indicator.

That pop top looks great. can you let me know who did it please? Going through a rebuild myself and this is on the options list.

Thanks

Dingbat Defender said:

That pop top looks great. can you let me know who did it please? Going through a rebuild myself and this is on the options list.

Thanks

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Hi, The company is called Drivelodge, and are based near Skipton.
Ask for James. Really nice company.

I have taken the rear wheel off, with a view to add a underbody fresh water tank.
And my tank design has been sent off to be made.
I decided not to buy an off the shelf tank, because l wanted to add a submersible pump
and an electronic level indicator and this item can only be added at the tank build stage.
The tank will be bolted through the rear crossmember and through the top flange into the wheel arch. These have been set at different height to compensate for the angled wheel arch.
The large top circle represents the level indicator, and the lower one is the drain off point.

The photograph indicates the flange l have to remove by angle grinder to accommodate the new tank.

Hey presto.
Decided to give the underneath a good clean and revamp. First job was to replace the inside mud guard screws as these were very rusty. Easy quick job, NOT!
One came out, but the other one seized, so l used the angle grinder again to cut the screw off and cut through the plastic by mistake, so l then had to buy some plastic and make a new one.
The Chassis was cleaned up using a Dremel and wire brush attachments. Two coats of Buzzweld RCP, two coats of CIO and a coat of War. I then moved onto the remainder of the chassis side.
The Dremel was a great tool, but it did spit out the odd wire strand.



All ready for the tank, next step.

Received the tank okay and it was very much how l wanted it.
You can see the level indicator on the top and the inlet pipe on the left hand side.

The digital indicator will be positioned near the rear door.

First part of the installation was to measure the tank and try and guess the location of the inlet tube.

Marked by the yellow arrow, this was not perfect and had to enlarge it.
I removed rear quarter mud shield again and then threaded the 240 V, and level indicator lead through and into the inside of the car (green and blue arrows).

The tank was offered up into the correct position. And secured by two bolts into the top part of the wheel arch, the other two into the rear crossmember.

Once in position l removed the insulation and sound proofing around the inlet.
Because the inlet hole was not in the perfect location l had to make a filler panel.
Luckily l still had the piece of metal l took out when l added the rear window, so l used that.

I measured the area and cut the required piece out.
One tip l discovered when cutting out a hole is to screw a piece of wood behind it, otherwise the cutter will slide.

The panel was then bent and predrilled for the pop rivets, making sure l didn’t drill into the tank!

Finished panel.

The area was then carpeted, top tank bolts and cable can be seen in the photo.
The only thing l needed to do was to mount the rear tap.

All done!

Small update. A 130 Watt solar panel. I was planning on doing this later on the build,
but l had some Spare time, and it was also a bargain
I decided to purchase this panel mainly because it fitted the width of the cargo rails, and 130 Watts
was a good power output.
I first purchased 4 cargo stud bolts and a piece of aluminium angle, l proceeded to cut this up to make four L brackets.

l cleaned up the edges and drilled some holes in the brackets.
Rivnuts were then fixed to the side of the solar panel and the panel positioned. l will reposition the panel again when l decide on the location of the possible roof box.
Wiring needs to be done!

Final view.

My second bespoke item has finally turned up. On with the build!

First l had to fix some cargo track.
l decided on the track Length and marked off every other screw hole.

A large washer and nut were used to secure the rail.

The smaller nut and washer secure the end caps, l just had to make sure that l didn’t forget to slide on the stud bolts first. Similar to the way the solar panel was secured.

Now l can secure my..


Already for my camping gear.
Needless to say l am over the moon with it, and it matches my sketch design perfectly.

Looks superb looking forward of the touring pics

Thank you Kevstar, The conversion has many bolt on bits, but many items will be bespoke using UK and local firms. Hopefully l will get to use it this year!

Looking great but me being me would have just bolted the suitcases straight on the side.

I am rather tight

I didn’t even think about that.

On to the floor! I removed the big rusty double seat striker plate as this will be replaced by two new shiny ones, but l will explain about it later.
l made some wooden templates/blocks and secured them to the floor using existing stud holes.
Also a couple of blocks for the seat mountings.
Thermal insulation was fixed to the top of the sound insulation, sorry forgot to take photographs.
I then cut the flooring out of 15 mm ply in two sections and just laid it on top.
Dodo insulation was added to the seat box.
The remaining thermal insulation was stuck to the floor.

Part 2 of the flooring...
I had to take the plywood up to screw in some fixings from underneath, so l can now show a photograph, l bit boring I know. The rear threshold bar and rubber were removed and l have designed a new deeper one, the design is currently
with the fabricators and now takes into account the thickness of the 15 mm ply and Insulation,

The plywood was marked out for the internal cargo tracks and

The rivnuts were then screwed and glued from the underside, this way they won’t pull through

I screwed the cargo track onto the plywood, just to check the fitting. These were cut slightly short because at a later date I need to slide in the stud bolts and secure the end caps.

I repositioned the plywood back into the Landy and proceeded with the internal cabinet designs...

This is a superb build! Thanks for sharing!

Thank you Sting Ray, I have enjoyed the build so far, and hopefully It will help other Landy owners with their own build.
The only problem is l keep forgetting to take photographs. So after l have finished the flooring l will do a recap on other areas l have not included so far.

Some of the jobs l am currently on have a cross over, because l am mostly waiting for parts or have been hindered by time, or waiting for other people. One job is the cabinets, I actually worked on the cabinets before l started on the flooring.
This is the cabinet first part.
I purchased some very cheap off-cuts of MDF and Plywood, and searched out for some large sheets of card.
I then measured the internal cargo area of the car and made some profile templates, l took three attempts to get the
the profile perfect.
From these profiles l made a first quick sketch, however the unit size did change from this drawing.

Using the wood off-cuts and a washing line support pole, again the wife was not happy. l made the three units, these are only temporary test cabinets, so don’t look too close.
The right hand side cabinet fitted in perfectly under the window trim, although l decided to trim it at the back.
The front corner was removed, two reasons for this was firstly to stop you whacking your knee/leg on it when you climbed into the car and secondly to allow more space between the rear door card and cabinet. The Rear door hinge strut was already moved to the top of the door.
It also made a great surface to add a USB or 12 V socket.
This photograph shows the left hand side.

The covered box in the background is the fridge/ freezer. This will be mounted onto the cabinet worktop again with
cargo rail and straps, purchased this very early, so that It could be integrated into to the design.
The test units were priceless, much better than using just card. I was able to see areas that needed to be
amended. And in this case, l had to drop the unit to allow for the opening of the lid, basic but very important.
This cabinet can be accessed through the second row door and will contain the gas heater and all of the electrical control panels.

Another change l made on this cabinet was the length, realised that you could not push the passenger seat all the way back in it’s current form. All doors sizes too have been amended.
The current stage so far is that l am waiting for some hinges and catches, l have been sent many, but none of them are suitable, The exact ones I choose just need to be added to the scale drawings. These drawings will be made, saved to DXF format and then sent off to the metal fabricators.
Hopefully within a couple of weeks!

Received the switch panel this week. Getting ready for the electrics first fix.
But l think l am going to swap the black for silver, What do you think?

Black!