79 109 hartop camper build .

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ordered up another 1/2 ltr of marine blue, thats a full litre now which should be enough to get everything painted. Probably to much but it will keep if I dont use it all.. also orderd a coulpe of 2k aerosold from the same colour mix , saves mixing and wasting paint . The aerosols are pretty decent, being the same quality paint as the other stuff, they just bung it in an aerosol for you .. great for those areas that are hard to get to with a full size gun., door checks and the stuff you always seem to waste paint on.

Ordered up a couple of suitable 1/4 pipe ends to make up the clutch pipe from the master cylinder to the flexi.. some of this stuff is extortionately priced.. but cant do without it , sourced them from a company called HOLDEN who do lots of odd ball stuff for classics.

other than that just cracking on ( slowly) knocking obs off the list .
 
Set the old banger on some wheel skates today , makes it easier to push and tug it around the garage so I can push it hard to the wall at one side of the shed allowing a bit more space for spraying . then push it to the other side for more of the same . The things you have to do to make a small space work for you .

fitted the passenger side body sills basically for gapping the doors and wings, making sire it all fits before its painted . Demister vent arrived today, e bay purchase seemed to be the cheapest available at £5 and £6 for 2nd class post ?, next nearest was a pair for £25.. !! only needed one .. gauranteed the one I was missing will turn up next week .

I seem to have removed a lot more nuts n bolts than ive put back on.. but there was a load of junk fitted to the car and a host of odd ball stuff that wont be going back on. also replaced a lot of the 7 /16 nuts and bolts securing the wings and things with J nuts and screws .. much less fiddly and quicker , especially when fitting up and tearing down several times. Its getting there .
 
Got the landy fully sanded , ended up taking it to bare metal. That wasnt the original plan but when looking at how much original paint was left in the areas that didnt need a heavy prep, for all that was left it was just as well to turn the lot to dust .. After that I set to on the back door , Using the top hinge as a reference bolted that on with the new door . Door gap at hinge measured 10mm so transferred a 10mm gap to the lower corner , fitted the hinge to the door and marked through the body side of the hinge to the body drilled holes and fitted the lower hinge to set the door .. Remember this was a donor rear tub that come from a pickup.

Got the middle hinge to fit but will have to plate over the pickup tail fixings .. Really need the roof cap so I can set the upper body sides and make sure eberything is going to line up .. I still haven't secured the bulkhead or beefed up any of the body bolts, leaving it loose so I can do all the gapping in one go. List is getting smaller but will probably end up adding additional tasks ..

Thats all for now, had my tea, nothing that interests me on the telly, so its back into the boiler suit and back in the shed .. Will try and remember to snap some pics .. Its looking pretty decent, not something I usually say about my own stuff.. Hope my progress encourages other folk to get out there and get it done .. Its taken me about 12 weeks so far .. probably have at least another 3 to get it back up and running and a couple of weeks to get it roadworthy and MOTd ..

Has anyone in here run a series landrover on Gas ? is it worth the effort ?
 
Just had a thought. Ive put the hinges on without the seals between the top sides and lower body . So Im guessing the holes are now going to be a little to low on the lower tub. which will be a bugger if the seal doesnt squish enough .. Completely forgot about that seal . Fingers xd it wll be OK , will have to check that before I paint it . Might have to weld the holes up .. Sometimes you forget stuff. :(

Heading down to pick up some more paint and materials got the garage swept out last night , and cleaned out the tub and all the nooks and crannys to minimise the dust . Will kep doing that over the next couple of days and give it a day to settle before I mask up and do any painting .. Looking forward to getting this next stage done as it will move things along a fair bit and I can get the doors latched new seals on and wire loom fitted .
 
Crisis averted. Having the new seal and knowing how thick it is I thought the hinges would be well out but what I didnt realise is that the seal sits in a channel so most of its thickness is taken up in the channel . The upshot is it wont matter, got away with it , more luck than design.
Got the upper left side all flatted back , panel wiped and de loused :) set that to one side and prepped the centre profile panel, Will head back out after tea and complete the main prep on the lower left side tub and door checks where the seals sit .

All going well I should get primer on it by Wednesday . Picked up a suitable aluminium etch primer today with some other paint prep materials .
 
pics , not really much to see, My buddy said its a bit to straight for a land rover. That wasn't planned, it just turned out that way. Paint will show up the waves in the bodywork so it will end up more landy looking LOL.

Spent yesterday after tea scraping the paint from all the spot welds and around the rivets . Just as well I enjoy "tedious" 3 hours it took . Dent on the body contour in the first pick come out easy with a light tap, I tried to ignore it but it stood out and hollered at me demanding attention.. would have been daft not to fix it at this stage .

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Pretty much got the rubbing down bit complete . Primed the waist line capping's , took a while to make my mind up on that one . Considered taking them to the local Galvaniser , then decided that would add more cost and time so stuck with a painted finish , all going well I hope to get the etch primer on the tub on Wednesday have another tidy up, get the thing taped up and painted so I can start bolting the body together permanently, move to the next set of hurdles .
 
Okdoke, in the shed tonight I had a tidy up, and a good think about how to proceed over the next couple of days .

There are a few separate components to be painted off the main body and im tight for space so need a plan to get a few things painted without wasting materials and making best use of the space I have without covering everything else in overspray .. Thats the first thought so wrote down a plan of action ..

Then had another look at the main tub and considered what needed doing there and if there was anything I could do that would save repeat work later . The only thing I could see was the removal of the rear bulkhead . Doing it now would be easy as the roof and upper sides were off and getting it out would be one less surface to gather dust and it would let me coat up the inside without any additional interference ..

So a slightly revised plan is to spend a bit of time out from the bodywork prep and remove the bulkhead . Its something that I always intended to do for a couple of reasons .

First off it will create a walkthrough making the camper idea more functional and open out the space available . and probably more importantly allow me to position the seats better since im six feet six and landys are pretty tight for tall fellas like myself .. Ive got a couple of flat bottom leather recarros from an old XJS Jag which are fairly narrow and have the benefit of a head restraint so will see if they can be coaxed to fit . Will have a look at the off the shelf bulkhead bars to see how they fit then probably make something myself to suit .. might do it in ali round tube or box.. Ramsay Ladders factory is along the road from me and I can get them to bend ali tube to suit .. will see how it goes .. All plans are flexible and subject to change :)
 
And change they did. Got a price for the materials and bending , then considered the time to fabricate and weld up the components and it turned out cheaper to pay for the commercially produced bulkhead removal bar.
Got it from Paddocks as they seemed to be the cheapest at £160. Made the order then had second thoughts , mainly due to the cost, but buckled up and convinced myself that it was the path of least resistance. Its a a spend that's not really required but at the same time its a modification that needs doing so I can actually drive the thing with some degree of comfort.
 
No turning back now . Bulkhead removed without any of the drama they seem to have on various you tube videos . Despite how they do it, it will come out in one piece without any problem.

From start to finish it took about 15 mins and that included a quick finish with a body file to flush things off without any grinding . I wasnt worried by the upstand that remained after cutting out the bulkhead. Ive seen other folk make angles sections that they then fit from the underside and cut the original flanges off . There isnt anything wrong with that to claen things up, but when this thing is fitted out the flanges will disappear into the interior and wont be an issue .

Tools used are in the pictures .

Also removed the spare wheel tub and the blanking plate from the passenger side . Plan for those areas is to fabricate some storage boxes that will drop in and rivet secure No rush for those just yet though , will cross that bridge when I start the interior .

So im a wee bit back on the timing for painting, but on reflection It probably wasn't ready for paint, its close but just needs a wee bit more work .. Might as well take a bit more time and do it properly without a rush..

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The next daft idea that poppd into my head the other night was a revised engine swap choice .. Im going to run with the 2.1/4 for the time being to shake the old beater down , but Im kinda searching through the hot rod mindset and considering a hot rod swap for the old rover motor .. NO Not a rover V8 which would be cool, but a Chevy six. Those old stove bolt Chevy motors where torquey old things and apparently suit the landy and fit pretty easy ..

I came across a you tube video of an old series 2 with a chevy six and a search turned up a few others . By all accounts it was a fairly common swap in the USA . An old 235 ci works out around 3.8 litres and 120 brake horse with a 4 inch stroke making it a fairly decent candidate with bags of power and a tick over like a swiss watch, a bit like the 2 1/4.. Its just another daft idea but keeps me thinking and keeps things interesting .

A 250 ci with electronic ignition would be ace but apparently they are a bit to much for the old series box to handle .. but driven sensibly what could possibly go wrong :)
 
A wee add in a hot rod forum I use has turned up a couple of 235 ci sixes but they are builders , and Im not really needing that kind of expense , but it also turned up a complete running "Iron Duke" which was the cut down six in 4 cylinder form . That's a 183 ci Im waiting for more info on the engine, so in the meantime im doing some homework on the swap .. Its not to say it will ever happen but its interesting to find out about these things and keep my options open..

A quick trawl of the net kinda reveals the 4 cylinder as a decent swap but there are flywheel mods to perform and an adapter .. it knocks out 100 bhp wil low end torque but its debateable if its worth the effort .. interesting reading though .. improving my education..one daft idea at a time ..
 
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You still enjoying the challenges then?
You make good reads as you comment on various things that most people would not think about until a rebuild.

enjoying your engine thoughts.most would keep standard. If you do remove the engine & it’s the original 1 keep it. These are getting harder to find.
 
I noticed the other night when looking for engines that the landy originals were getting scarce . Mine is the original 3 bearing that seems to run fairly quiet . The carb was knackered so how it drives is still a mystery . I will get around to a carb rebuild once the biggest chunk of the work is complete . If its a major disaster I wont be to disappointed given that I have a tentative plan to swap the motor , Just means my hand will be forced to do a swap , but im thinking that getting it run and idle on the knackered carb was a sign that the engine is still decent ..
 
Just heading back out to the shed. Managed to get the tops masked and got the inside of the upper body sides coated . It was more or less to tidy them up rather than rely on the coating as a final finish. If someon takes it apart in the future it wont present as to scabby .. basically a waste of materials lol..

There was a wee bit left in the bottom of the tin so just squeezed it ot to give the lower sides a light coat .. its a bit patchy but I will flash it with the spray gun when I paint the tub..

Bulkhead bar should be here on Tuesday .

Looked out the old jag recaros . Had these in the garage for years , looks like the meeces have had a nibble but nothing disastrous , the damage fits in with the condition of the rest of the seat lol. They will work OK in the Landrover .. Had a close call with the driver side upper body panel. When I put the seat in I knocked the panel that fell to the ground , only by some minor miracle the side glass didnt break .. It did damage a wee bit on the top corner but it will fix .. Just glad the glass didnt break.

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Real time these updates , probably to much but kinda helps me keep track .. put it on here and tend to rethink some stuff as Im writing it down.. Anyway, got the sides back off ( that bed liner flashes off real fast and hard enough to handle after a couple of hours ).. and the trim part set on for painting. I dod these with a 2k pre mix aerosol , saves running the compressor, loading the gun and all the cleaning afterwards .. just throw the tin in the bin, job done .
So taped some masking paper on the tob, dropped on the trims and made them limestone via the magic of aerosols .. touch dry after one pass , and remember that its actual car paint they put in the tin that's mixed at the paint place I use .. these are professional quality aerosols not the crap you get from halfords .. mind you they are probably twice the price ..

Any way the finish is good and the paint it dry and that is another tick off the list ..

Dumped one of the the Recarro's in the drivers side to see how that will work.. Fits well and its kind of comfy .. its also heated not that I will wire it but its an option.. If I remember rightly they come out of an XJS yeas ago when folk used to break them .. had them laying around for years .. might as well use them.. They need a good clean and a feed but other than a little wear on the drivers seat they are pretty decent and will do a turn.. .

Had a bit of paint left so painted the grille trim .. custom stylee.. lol..

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Looking at these pics I realise there is still a shed load of work to do to get this thing in paint and assembled .. probably looking at well into February to be realistic .. Ive got to fit the rear axle in my buddies Hot Rod next week so thats going to get in the way of progress .. :(
 
Ive got all the trim and cappings that go with them, just had them apart for storage .. there is a wee bolster on the side but its kinda worn down a bit . With a wee refresh they will probably do the job.. Might just re fit the old landrover ones but I kind like the idea of a head restraint.

Plan to get the sides in primer and if that goes well, might even get some paint on it today , will see how it goes .

Just had the bulkhead bar delivered .. :)
 
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