79 109 hartop camper build .

Keeping up with the plans, but as usual there taking longer and putting up a fight

needed to paint the bulkhead supports so didnt get the bulkhead lined up as planned on Thursday , spent the day installing stuff like the wiper motor and wheel boxes , routing the wire loom, using the last of the insulation on the tub floor, got the left upper side fixed in place and painted the top on the front outriggers and tidied a few scratches on the chassis and underside of the fuel tank.. Also fitted the air vent screens, and levers . Its not the fitting that takes time it finding the correct size matching washers and screws and you always seem to find 3 when you need 4 and spend the next 20 mins looking for its buddy .. Any hoo, got there in the end in the freezing cold ..
So Friday I did get back onto the bulkhead fitting and gapping .. t seems the driver side just fell into place with a uniform 10mm gap at the A post and a 5 mm gap at the B post . loks good and swings free,

Passenger side is another story .. Having packed and pulled the bulkhead every whic way and made limited adjustments at the hinges the door fit was crap. If I could fudge a decent gap the body line and the B post was to low etc .

Ended up unbolting the body at the rear X member to allow the tub to tip forward , dropping the body line and closing the gap readjusting the bulkhead and the hinge and getting a good 10mm / 5mm parallel door gap and body line . I anticipate a wrestling match to keep it that way while I beef up the nuts n bolts .. and a huge fight with the back end to get a good line along the rear X member .. However , after that's done I think I could be on the home straight .. I think I might need the roof cap to help with and finalise the body alignment . Currently its packed with bits of wood and pulled with a couple or ratchet straps .

Nipping out later to see how its hanging .

Well , after another struggle with my sanity, I've got good gaps .. and the bulkhead pretty much bolted in, almost . However I am anticipating some major frustration when I pull the back down to get a good line along the rear X member im pretty sure the door gap at the top of the B post will open up again .. maybe not, but im not that lucky.. Might have to settle for a compromise .. IfI had the space, and some help to lift things off and on a hundred times I would have done a lot of this earlier, especially before painting the chassis etc, but I dont have that luxury so it is what it is with a few wee fudges along the way . Ive learned a lot though and that part of the game for me .. If I do another landrover I will have a better game plan.. Im still pretty happy with it though.

Fun and games on that last leg came in the shape of nuts n bolts . Im making no excuses , this isnt a concourse build or true to Landrover spec, Ive used , wait for it, METRIC nuts n bolts where nuts n bolts were used as straight forward fasteners and only used 2 sizes , 13mm and 10mm against landrover 1/2 inch and 3/8 in places .. with a smattering of 7/16ths Imperial stuff is just to expensive .

Anyhoo, It looks like i had a couple of rouge imperial bolts in play and used them to secure the bulkhead support to the bulkhead .. well that didn't go well , since I rattled a 13mm nylock on each , I got the idea something wasn't quite right but the pitch must have been close . Despite that the second bolt decided to spit out its thread and now it was going nowhere on or off.. had to drill the head off it to release it .. so the upshot was 45 minutes to fail in installing 2 bolts .. I did get them out and replaced them with METRIC . Bolted up, the door gap was still a bit naff , then remembered I saw some shim plates, and if my mind wasn't playing tricks, what I imagined had the same bolt hole pitch .. so spent another 30 mins looking for those .. found one so fitted that after loosening the nuts and bolts I had just installed.. pulled the bulkhead back with the aid of a ratchet strap and slid the shim in place .. It was indeed the perfect fit .. released the ratchet strap and the door gap was sorted ..Its amazing what a 2mm shim can do for you .. It was past time for coming in but got the idea in my head that I should fit the wind screen so spent a bit of time looking out the seal cleaning the threads for the pivot bolts and cleaning the glass .. then dropped the screen in place before calling it a day .. Definitely need the roof cap to retain the upper side panels as they want to flop in but when pulled back the passenger side has a great gap from the sill to the top of the upper door panels.. The driver side which always had a good door lower gap has a crap upper door gap ..which might just be that I have pulled the corner clamp on the upper side panels a wee bit too tight .. must be something like that as the lower door gap is perfectly parallel.. This gapping malarkey is a bit like chasing your own tail ..

Collected a fresh bottle of Propane so potential for some heat next week and that means getting the bonnet, back door and door tops painted.. all going well..

Took delivery of a few essential hoses and ducting's, plug leads, park switch for the wiper motor, and pedal rubbers ..Thankfully most of the big spends are behind me, Just had to take a deep breath, think I might be able to breathe again now .. for a bit at least.. I've got the exhaust that came off it which had some stickers on it so Im putting that back into service, mainly just lubes on the mechanical side and give it a run to see what's what in the world of weird noises .. That's a good few weeks away though

So , After shuffling snow all morning and running to B&Q for sink waste pipe seals and returning with the wrong ones, todays plan was blown to pieces .. So not being able to cope with another day like the day before I had a break, tidied the shed and did some really really boring stuff .

Unwrpped the tape from the wire loom to check it over . It didnt look healthy with the loose and manky tape and cracked wire ends , bu under the tape 90 % of it was actually pretty decent . So I sadly and very OCD ishly cleaned all the wires and retaped the entire loom with non sticky loom tape, twice, for added durability and abrasion resistance . It also looked pretty LOL.

After doing that I tested all the wire ends for cracking on the exposed wires and cut back any of the suspect stuff and chopped off all the connectors to replace with new.

Used the original front to rear loom wire as it was all pretty good to about 2 feet of the rear of the car . where I just chopped the lot of . Will redo the rear from there and add the crossover loom and integrate a tow bar hitch loom for the future ..
I just run the front to rear chassis loom along the top of the left side chassis and secured it with the double loop clips holding the fuel pipe .

All it thats cleaned thngs up a fair bit and highlighted a couple of extra wires and funky colour codes not shown in any diagrams, so Im guessing they had more to do with some earlier additions that are no longer in place .

Engine loom is a bit hard and cracked so will just make up a replacement .
I need to source a few plugs , Lucas alternator 3 pin, lucas wiper motor ( with park) and a pair of headlight plugs ..

Hopefully be able to source those off ebay . Also need a few rolls of colour coded wire to keep everything in check and traceable..

Will resume the bulkhead fitting on Sunday ..

Hope this isnt getting to dull, Its a day by day account pretty much in real time .. might be a bit boring to read my thoughts and plans everyday lol..

Got the plugs for the alternator and wiper, easier than I thought via ebay. Will order up some proper colour coded wire later today , blue white , blue red, green white, green red, that sort of thing .. Will get most of that stuff online from Autosparks . It soon mounts up in costs for stuff for the wireing.. with terminals, terminal covers, shrink tube, P clips, solder, ring terminals and wire Im already up to £120 and counting ..
Its the consumable stuff that adds up and you dont really appreciate the costs , its the same with paint and prep materials . Before you know where you are your in for a couple of hundred..

Getting back to the electrics for a bit . I dont use the crimp on terminals as they always look a bit untidy I prefer to solder the ends on and cover with shrink tube .. One thing I found with the old Leyland / lucas wiring was the poor earth locations and connections. Its probably the bad earthing that gave the BL/ Rover group stuff a reputation for poor reliability ( dodgy electrics) . You cant go wrong with good earths Its probably better to have a main bus bar earthed to the chassis with a substantial earth wire and secured to a convenient place on the body to run all your earth back to rather that random individual earths secured with a rusty screw. Looking at the rear light earths on the land rover ,its a steel ring of 4 female bullet receivers secured with a sheel nut and bolt into an aluminium panel .. over time the oxidisation between the block terminal and the body buggers the earth connection hence the electric problems .. At least thats my thoughts.

Better get back on and back in the shed .. stll a good few jobs to knock off the list

Just checked the Autosparks website and discovered that its actually cheaper to buy an engine loom and front to rear loom than buy the bits to make/ repair them.. The difference would be around £5 .. and save a few hours time ..

Jumped around from back to front beefing up all the nuts n bolts on the underside , Snugged all the brake likes and fitted the heater controls . also looked out a few bits I will be needing pretty soon.

fitted the props , seems to be a lot of conflicting info on how they go in , so looked up some old schematics and it looks like the slider on the front axle goes to the diff and the slider on the rear goes to the gearbox.. Some say both go to the gearbox , Land rover seem to have been mute on the detail

There also seems to be some debate on phasing the props .. when I served my time the yolks were phased so that the fixed centres were in line .. there seems to be a school of thought that the front shaft on the landy should be clocked but the manuals say alight with marks on the shaft and slider .. Looking at mine it was phased as I would have done it .. viz in line . but thinking there was some magical LR wisdom I removed the gaiter and had a look on the shaft and slider for the alignment arrows .. and by George they were already in line with the yolks centered .. so creating another conflict .. I left them bolted up finger tight for now ..

also got the front end chassis and suspension given a brushed coat of waxoil .. so not the shiny paint looks shi err not shiny any more ,, but water just runs off it and **** will stick to it .. hey ho.. better that than rusting to quick.. Will spray the rest on once the body is painted .. just wanted to get into the tight areas while I have the front wings off again..

Mulling over a daft idea to build a wee **** box from a rover P4 chassis and bits of old landrover body .. Its been done before a number of times , I dont think I would go full slammed just driver low .. and probably keep the P4 engine and box ..

I have a buddy has a couple of P4s one thats breaking , My old doors are still at the scrappy, the old fella I gave my tub to has got the floor out it and thats all he wanted so might buy the remains back would just need a pair or wings a bonnet a front panel and a windscreen and a rusty bulkhead Oh and time to stand still for the next year .. I was offered an Eagle RV Jeep with Q reg for a couple of hundred but the chassis is all over the place and it would still need Taxed .. I kinda like the idea of free road rent and the choice of MOT or not .. I usually do regardless of exemption but its good to have the choice

Went along to the local bearing place today, they stock loads of other usefull stuff , jubilee clips etc.. They were out of stock of the size I needed, so enquired about P clips.. yup, got those what size , 6mm and 10 mm ,, Nope out of stock on the 6mm and only have 3 10mm ... Satin black paint,, err, no but we have matt,, Yellow ? space 89 ... nope your out.. We have red ... err OK red will do.. So I put that down as a partial success.. Then went to the bank .. closed at 2pm ... 10 mins late So the other day when I went to the scrappy they just got a late 80s sherpa in. The one with the Ford diesel and good gearbox, It just got dropped off Friday afternoon so thought I might nip along and have a go at getting it to run. The fella that dropped it off mentioned it was a cracking runner it just fell to bits with rust.. Reached the scrappy just in time to see the grab drop it into the back of a bulker and ram it down ,,So that put an end to an idea I had for that engine and box. Not the best day at least the snow is nearly gone ..
Got home and looked for some tube for crush tubes in the outrigger at the front body mount , know i have some couldnt find it ,,Did have some solid though, so turned that down in the lathe. speed control playing up, fixed that , lost the chuck key , found that, got around to boring the solid for the body mount bolt size and got the call for tea ..

Just another one of them days

Going back out to finish the crush tubes not a great days progress..

Some days go like that . Chin up it’s a new day tomorrow

J

Turned the crush tubes after tea, no drama. made a clamp for the indicator switch to the steering column and scared up some proper screws, got that in place, made a bracket for the lower column shroud to secure to the column and scared up a suitable Jubilee clip..
Looked out the ignition switch and steering lock gizmo.. Switch wasn't returning so guessing that's toast and will need a new one .. would you believe the tiny screws actually came out .. Things are looking up, Lubed up the ignition barrel and got that working freely, and what made my day, the remains of the sheer bolts actually came out without a fight .. The steering lock is buggered though looks like its working but the plunger is worn to flush , Probably the result of either being forced at some point or a knackered top bearing allowing it to wear it down.. It was a military one at one point so im going for previously forced .. Even found a couple of button heads to replace the shear bolts just need to turn them a wee bit to let the heads drop into the old bolt recess..

Its that stage where you can see the end in sight but there are still 101 jobs to be done .. Hope to have a better day on Tuesday .. Maybee I just need to go to bed earlier ..

What a day , what a day ..

Posted a parcel thats been waiting to go for ages , kept forgetting, got back fitted new rear pads to the daily, rear brakes been scraping for weeks doesnt get used much though , but really embarrassing when you pull away from lights and its scraping and crunching till the brake clears .. Not even a seized bolt .. spooky.. Got in the shed with the landy and beat off a list of jobs in quick succession, and tied up some loose ends Everything just went well . never even had the tool hiding gremlins visit today.. Dropped and nut and it stopped dead, never rolled 3/4 across the floor to be lost the bench with years of muck and spiders .. and a hundred other lost nuts and washers ..

Dived under my neighbours landrover to check his prop orientation , both sliders to the gearbox end check the front shaft phase yup mine was square his was offset 45degrees .. Sorted mine out and got them all snugged up .. even got the diesel heater plumbed and wired .. holes bored for the lower body mount spuds and everything set up ready to weld in come Wednesday ..

Must have ticked off at least a dozen jobs on the list ..

Waiting for a reply from the fella with my roof so I can nip over and collect it .. really need that so I can make sure the bulkhead is all set and things will bolt up good and leave me with the door gaps I spent hours trying to nail down..

If this weather holds out till next week I might even get the spray gun out for the finish coats

The rate you’re working on this project is a little embarrassing for someone who’s spent over two years welding up my Range Rover but it’s great inspiration none the less. Fantastic work.
Rich

Cheers . I have a bit of time to devote to this stuff so can crack on .. I find that making short lists of jobs to do that are relevant to the progress helps loads . I never get them all ticked off as other things crop up, I just make another list , delete the stuff Ive done and carry forward the stuff that's left to the next list . scoring the jobs off the list keeps me motivated .. Sometimes Its easy to skip the list and set off on a tangent, but I get back on the ball asap and try to focus and complete tasks. There is always stuff crops up that I dont have the parts for but I add the parts needed to a parts list and from that list buy the stuff that I can afford or the stuff thats going to allow me to make the best progress .. and kinda prioritise purchases to priorities . Seems to work for me Im just off to the shed now to do the evening shift Got another load of small jobs and finishers knocked off the list again today .. Havent heard back from the fella with my roof yet so working out all the small stuff before I go and collect that ..

Found an unused choke cable in the shed today .. when looking for an old heater cable to rob of the inner wire for the mixer controls .. got lucky and uncovered both .. Will turn up a wee adapter and fit the replacement choke cable in the original position in the steering lock unit .

Pricing up headlights flipping heck , I remember when they were a fiver each.. had to commit to buying a new ignition switch ,, £33 . I was in a cold sweat ... but needed that before the headlights

Nipping out to refit the front wings and bolt them up Im thinking I might be resuming the paint process sooner than anticipated .. No rush mind .. Aiming for the end of the month to be seeing the bulk of the work done with just some odd jobs left before firing it up At least thats the plan .. and its flexible

Of all the jobs you might want to do on a land rover at the side of the road ( or rocky outcrop) is fixing your exhaust.. You would think they might have designed it so farmer Bob could do it in a field.. But No, looks like it needs to be 6 feet in the air to let you thread the bugger past all its obstacles and target that hole in the crossmember .. its so close on the rear but the front there is no chance you can do it on the deck .. Another join in the front pipe would be dandy .. but just another potential leak spot I suppose .?

Gave up but the good thing was after all the though that went into trying different ways to thread it through I came in and mastered the Rubiks Cube .. that was easy by comparison.

Got the wings on , the replacement spire nuts are crap and dont like being beefed up to tight .. Had the driver wing off 3 times to replace bust clips .. the originals were a bit more heavy duty comared to these lightweight things .. Got there in the end though .

Got the diesel tank for the heater mounted on the left side inner wing .. keeping it out of the interior and making it easy to fill and spill all plumbed in and tidy .

Worked out a way to flip the recarro to gain access to the passenger tool box, thats no a priority though, just thinking ahead .

With pretty much most of the resto stuff done with the exception of final paint and fitting the roof cap, I had a wee think about the camper interior again. I got to thinking retro , jetsons, outside in airstream.. crossed with an American diner .. So scribbled out some ideas on the back of an old jiffy bag ..Planning for the alloy and rivitty theme but with a swoopy coach built vibe and some fashionable, for the period, a nice piece of Formica for the work top, inlayed of course .. and probably red .. but maybe blue .. priced up some 22mm x 2 mm box and some 22mm x 2mm angle in aluminium and a couple of 8x4x 16g ally sheets .. wasnt to bad but just lets say wont be ordering it all in one go

Got word back today from the fella that has my roof .. might have that back next week so I can finally button up the bulkhead Well temporarily , because with the roof on it wont get out through the shed door .. !!
Fittng th roof will set the angles of the upper side panels though and allow me to map out the heights and layout of the main interior units .. Kinda looking forward to this bit ..

There hasnt been any pics lately because there hasnt been anything to photograph. Its just the same stuff with the nuts n bolts beefed up, when something interesting happens I will snap some more ,,

Cheers for now .

Got an old set of rims? with no tyres would it roll out with the roof on on your dollies?

J

Now theres an idea .. and the latest news at the same time ..

Went along to the metal stockist to order up some aluminium for the camper units . and bumped into a hot rd buddy there ..

had a natter about this and that and ended up heading around to his to check out the woodwork he was doing to a 36 SS Jag .. Alan is 70 and the most industrious fella I know . To be honest I get a lot of inspiration from him. He just rolls up his sleeves and gets stuck in.

Any way long story short Alan has a couple of short wheel base land rovers One good one thats up and running on an original frame and another that he rebuilt 20 years ago on a galv chassis thats sat behind his house since the peugeot turbo diesel thats in it gave in. I chased the abandoned one before I scored the LWB I have now as Alan didnt want to sell, he wanted to combine the two and make one real good one ..

OK remember that last wee bit .

In Alan collection he has a couple of P4 rovers, one a good driver that slightly lowered and the other a parts car with a great rolling chassis . Its just taking up space in his big shed .

Remember that wee bit as well

Last week I hatched a wee plan to build a slammed landrover . The one Goblin Garage built had a sensible stance but the way they got it there leaves a lot to be desired .. 20 years ago there was a slammed landy built on a P4 chassis .. Its overly low but that becaus they made it so..

I had a daft idea to find a P4 chassis and build a LWB pickup that drives like a car and looks like a custom landrover ..

Alan has far to much on his plate , as we all do at times so I asked if he would sell the P4 parts car .. He had decided that was probably a sensible thing to do and agreed to sell it to me ..

We then got to speaking about the land rovers and his plans for those . I offered to do the work to swap the parts from one to the other including the mechanical bits and get it back up and running ready for him to add the final touches and in return take the P4 parts car and the panels he didnt want from the remains of the other landy .. The engine from the P4 is in the landy with the rusty frame Its only done 40,000..

Alan was going to fit a rover V8 but decided not to go that route and ended up fitting the adapter to the Overdrive box in the P4 .. I might be able to purchase the V8 but thats not been spoken about and wasnt really on the list but if Alan wants to sell it, it might be an option but no pressure on him to do so

That seemed like a good deal for both of us .. and Alan agreed ..

That will net me a fully rolling P4 Chassis in good solid condition, a complete series 3 landy front end sheet metal, a couple of doors, a screen and a few other bits nad pieces to add to the bits I have here like the LWB rear tub minus the floor which I wont need .

From that lot the plan is to nail together a wee beater to hack around in .. kinda slammed kinda raked and kinda fun.. Well see what comes of it but there sholld be a few pictures of that build if it comes off

Mean while just flatted the front wings and bonnet in prep for final pant .. weather permitting I might get this done over the weekend but im not gonna rush it

Tell me Im mad and its a bad idea .. Its not going to be a detailed build just a good solid body swap and basic engineering from a pile of old cast off and otherwise discarded parts .. Might be interesting ..

Nothing is a bad idea. Have a few drinks & it gets better
You may need a bigger shed

Sounds very interesting and the way you crack on you could get it done in no time.

Ive got a wee bit of space in the shed I keep the VW and the hot rod could store another piece of junk in there until in ready .. Then the current landrover build is supposed to become my daily driver, as well as a camper, so that wont be taking up any garage space .. So should have the space for another build around about spring all going well with the LWB finishers .. I can drop it in the drive for a few weeks although I dont like scrap looking stuff hanging about attracting attention for to long . I have to wait a few weeks anyways as Alans place is still deep with snow, so when that disappears we can make a start to shifting things about .. . Will keep you updated on progress with that side of things

Took some pics tonight but must have a camera malfunction .. all dark and only allowing me to upload 5 pics from the card to the computer .. Will see if I can sort that out and snap a couple of updates ..

Collecting the roof cap on Wednesday ..

So after a little detour , I have to put plans for the next build to the back of my mind while I get on with the job in hand .
Today I was late in the shed , but the job for today was to finish off the repairs to the lower dash and get it covered ( more as a novelty than a necessity ) so with the repairs done i laid on a bit of foam and added a bit of leather before coming in for my tea .. Just nipping back out to see if that's remained stuck and to finish it off. Looks like it was actually fitting not to bad after its patch up .. Lots of this stuff seems to be inter connected , you cant finish one bit without the bit next to it being fitted . I'm at that stage with a few things but its coming together ..

Ignition switch arrived , just waiting on the speedo cable , carry out the modification to the choke cable ( I'm not paying £40 for an original so using an aftermarket with a small adapter to fit in the original Colum location. I wont have the choke warning light, so will just have to get used to using a choke again and remember to put it in when the motors warmed up,,

Spent a bit of time on the phone getting insurance . Hot rod insurance expired last night, the VW expired last March and I will need insurance for the landrover pretty soon, all going well .. Checked with Hagerty Insurance and got all three on one policy 3000 miles each vehicle, full comp, breakdown cover, with named drivers.. £350 and odd pence .. saved around £350 if I was to do them individually so a good saving .
With the temperature up a wee bit and the heavy rain the humidity was a bit to much to consider any painting so will give that a miss for a good dry day, likely next weekend now ..

Not much of a progress report the last remnants always take forever

Got the lower dash wrapped up, fitted the new ignition switch but feel a wee bit notchy, previously the start return spring was knackered hence the replacement .. Will live with it.. Had a few rouge wires hanging from the dash so pulled the binnacle and traced stuff back.. turned out to be the heater feeds , so routed those where they should be . seem to have one wire from the new multi switch on the column the multi plug is connected but had 4 loose wires from the switch.. Blue went to the light switch connection 8, that took care of that, a brown wire that went to the ignition switch another wire I cant remember the colour but think that went to the fuse board and the mystery red and white wire that doesn't appear to have a home ? Will work it out when I power things up, which might be Saturday. If I get the electrics checked over I can fit the ignition Colum switch, secure the wiper and heater feed wires, button the dash up and fit the lower dash and draw a line under that stuff ..
Im holding off on buying a front to rear loom just now, just being a wee bit tight as I need other stuff before I blow the budget ..

Have to admit I made a rod for my back when I decided to make it a comfy place to be and do the sound deadening and such. I had a lot of the stuff left over from previous projects but the time its taken to sort that and make it visually smart ( to me at least) Im nt sure its been a great idea .. I will be scared to run through a puddle .. LOL..