79 109 hartop camper build .

Ah well,, cant have it all my own way.. minor mishap today, lack of experience with the products ..
First off, as you do, I got sidetracked with the bulkhead bar.. well you got to play with yer new purchases .

I was interested to see what kinda of quality it was and how easy it was to fit . First off its not as bulky as it looked in the adds or in some of the videos Ive watched . There was nothong that stands out on it as bad or substandard . Its a bit expensive for what it is, but it takes out the thought and hassle of making something yourself.

Fitting it was a breeze. I just fitted it loosely to check it was all there and that it did actually fit, just incase it needed to be returned .. Its all good ..

So after that I took it out, put it back in the box and got on with the job in hand .

Finished masking up had a quick tidy and fired the heater on to get the temperature up a bit . Things took a bit of a nosedive from here .

I haven't previously used this particular single stage Epoxy etch primer, its a pre mix, used straight out of the tin, thats the easy bit .
I had the temp up and the body warmed so got on with the task of priming the sides.
Im familiar enough with etch primer to know its predominately for bare metal application, but the stuff I used previously would coat over old paint.. Not this stuff. As soon as it hit the paint remnants it started to slide and sag .. The top edge of the sides where there was also a little paint left behind looked fine but the primer never keyed to the paint . It was fine on the bare metal . There isn't any body in etch as its just a key coat but it coated on the bare surfaces well and was touch dry in 10 minutes and sandable within the hour . The stuff on the painted surface just flaked off. it was a bit of a mess . So spent the next hour removing the flaky primer. That equates to more prep and more cleanups and a wee set back for the intended progress. but best not to force it . Better to fix it properly and move forward from there.. Lets call it next weekend for paint now ..

Sorry to hear about the paint. It was something I was pondering when I asked what you wuz going to paint thoutside with. Ive urd lots of nightmares with etch primer and semi stripped ally.

It sounds like you got away lightly thank goodness. I just hope it stays on the heap.

knuckled down tonight and went out to have a look at things and where to go with the etch problem .

The bare sides are good the the easy and pretty clean way to remove the dry etch from the top edge, just below the waistline trim, was to scrape it with a fresh Stanley blade. That sounds a bit brutal but it worked a treat, just taking the etch off and leaving the surface below undamaged . Glad I cleaned the paint out all of those spot weld marks now . The etch on bare metal has adhered fine, No runs or muck in the surface which is even more annoying . So its basically cleaned up but kinda reluctant to use any more of it .. but really need to .. Its ok is the use it on top of another primer ..

Another issue U had with it was it reacted with body filler .. I decided to just take the edge off a couple of sharp scores on the metal, to severe to beat out as the metal would be overstretched . So dropped a tiny bit of filler over the damaged area and the primer just wrinkled and softened .. Thats probably due to insufficient cure time but it doesn't instill me with confidence ..

To test a small area before I load the gun and make a mess, I sprayed a small area using the 2k aerosol mix. and it was fine , which was a bit of a reliefe.. Its a learning curve ..

Attached a couple of pics of the way it flakes off non metal contact areas ..

Had a bit of a lazy weekend . Didnt even attempt to paint the car, putting that off to do more prep. I really kick myself for going down that wormhole when a roller and some coach paint would have done the trick ..but were there now so just as well to see it through.

In the meantime I was putting off removing the hinges from the doorposts to replace the captives . While adjusting to obtail better gaps the captive cages fell apart. I put ths job off thinking it was going to be a royal pain in the butt , Having had a look at it, the easy fix was to drill through the head of the srews whereby the head sheared and the nut dropped into the bottom of the doorpost for a built in rattle . Hinges were easier than anticipated , 20 mins and they were sorted . Another couple of hours to retireve the old nuts from the bottom of the door post and the jobs done ..

Wont b many updates for next week as Ive promised my buddy I would do the rear axle in his hot rod and I can do with the cash to offset the cost of some of these landy parts .. and square my visa

You could maybe start a hot rod axle thread in the 'anything goes' section?

Well, the axle fit turned into a re wire, yep I know, but my buddy only has one arm , seriously, and despite how well he manages which defies anyone's level of patience he does get stuck with some bits .. Any way, that's about done so its rear axle next .. In the evenings ive been in the shed tidying up the wee bits of the etch primer mishap and re priming with Lechler green TI 2k.. Ace stuff ..Also been flatting and re masking . Its getting there , its not going to be easy though. fighting dust and overspray and the temperature but should be fine ..

Took a day out to do a bit more to the Landrover , temp was up albeit a bit rainy but im working indoors so thats not a problem ..
Got the dust under control , got myself organised and blew on some blue on the driver side . Not the ideal way to paint a car but needs must .. Layed on a fairly dry coat as a key then 2 wet coats and called it done . Surprisingly there wasnt to much dust in the top coats , there wasnt none though. but there wasnt a lot and I was pretty chuffed. It was touch dry in 30 mins and I was flatting it before going in for my tea.. 500 dry with rhino soft ( foam backed paper so you dont get pressure marks in the paint from rubbing) Turned out pretty decent and no runs Will leave it flatted and mask off the entire side before doing the other panels .. Ended up doing the top panel blue and the belt line Limestone . Roof will be limestone .. I didnt thing the limestone upper body would have worked with so much side glass.. Im probably wrong but its done now ..

Also got some insulation / sound deadener off ebay .. sticky backed dense foam with a fibreglass foil on one side .. It stops the panels vibrating but im not sure its dense enough to be much good as a sound deadener .. It will work to some degree and be better than nothing but the stuff I have in the hot rod is a thin bitumen with a proper aluminium foil face, really dense and realy heavy. a wee square in the middle of the door worked wonders , This stuff I got for the Landy isnt a patch on it but there was more than twice the amount for the same money.. It will do the trick .. Started putting that in, and because I needed the box, i also installed the bulkhead bar .. The more thats on the car the less I have to keep shifting about ..

Tapes holding the new body seal in place , going to have to work out how the sides were secured again .. and look for the bits ,,

Looks better with the blue side & white roof.
The windows break up the large amount of blue on the sides.
Plus it’s easier to mask up

Got the other side in 2k high build primer today , should be dry enough to flat back so heading out there to get on with stuff.. might get colour on it on Sunday maybee not lol.. playing it by ear ..

Got the passenger side painted today, turned out really decent, albeit not the final finish, got a few pics, just heading back out to start flatting this coat back and start fitting panels and gapping before final coat . Should be a whole lot more space and a hell of a lot less dust generated over the next push.. In all honesty keeping the dust down has been like bailing out the titanic .. Masking will be a lot easier next time as well.. Its getting there ..pics to follow..

Got the sides and the door flatted and rubbed out the primer on the bonnet. will get the front valance, rad panel upper door panels and bonnet and rear door painted and that should reduce any mess even further . Its taking a fair bit of planning to be sure . Ive got the bed raised at the back so I can paint around the area that sits under the rear tub mount bolts . Also need to make up some nut plates for the rear tub mounts and rivit them in situ .. Radiator is cleaned and painted and ready to go back in . If I was organised a good weekd work could see it done but Im not organised at all so the end of February would be good .. at least seeing it pretty much complete, wired and running .

Couple of things threw themself up, Using speed clips on the front wings to secure the side to the top doesnt work well. It looks ok untill its painted then you can see that the clip spaces the wing out a wee bit making the join look a bit wide. OK for now as the paint can get down the gap , Will redo them with nuts n bolts as Land rover did ..

Just looking back for reference , roughly 70 days since this landed at my door , averaged around 5 to 6 hours per day so roughly 420 hours , Another 80 hours taking me to 500 would be cool .. Imagine if you had to pay say £40 an hour if you could find a place that worked for that . Labour cost would be £20,000 !! Thats crazy. If folk actually paid that, you could make a comfortable living doing just 3 a year .. £20k for workshop and expenses , 10K for the tax man and £30k wages.

Imagine if life was that simple

Folowing on getting rid of bulk from the work space I had the day off doing the body and spent the whole day ( and later tonight ) putting in the sound deadening and insulation. I bought the sound deadener off ebay , its not the best but its easy to use and its doing the trick. I had some dense insulation old style hessian type stuff but this is a kind of recycled rubberised stuff . I bought it to pad under the vynal top on the hot rod but it was to lumpy bumpy for the purpose so chucked it up the loft .. I aso had a load of black van liner carpet , the quality fluffy stuff not the corded stuff.. So I dragged those up to the Landrover and started cutting. Installed the sticky stuff , then glued the ruberised stuff to that . That filled the area around the side glass , Then glued the van liner carpet to that for a flush and very neat finish .. Just did a small area with the carpet to gauge the look .. It looks pretty decent ..

Cut more of the sticky stuff for the doors , than cut the rubberised stuff and installed that in the driver and passenger doors .. looks the biz, and really dumbs down the resonance .. Then made a start to covering the bulkhead and seat box. Hope to get that lot buttoned up tonight ..

Its a bit out of sequence but with all the sound deadener and stuff installed ( minus the van liner ) all the nooks and crannys dust likes to sit will be filled up and managing the residue will be a lot easier .. hopefully. Its another job that willhave to be done at some point, might as well do it now

LR will rebuild your series 1 for £60k this is a full strip & rebuild. There is money to be made.

how long does it take to do your hot rods?

Hicap phill said:

LR will rebuild your series 1 for £60k this is a full strip & rebuild. There is money to be made.

how long does it take to do your hot rods?

Click to expand...

Are people really paying that to get a landy rebuilt? I guess thats with NOS original parts and to concourse standard ? Im out of touch with prices to be honest .
Regards the hot rods it depends on the finish . I like mine to look a bit used, My wee coupe took 14 weeks and the yellow coupe behind mine in the avatar was about the same , so thats kind of on a par with this landrover . When I was working and doing the hot rods on average it took about 18 months .. Being retired helps .

I looked at workshops when I retired but Im really to tight to pay £10k a year for a small unit, and I worry that no one will come through the door.

Going to town with the sound deadening .. Just realised the lower dash probably wont fit now .. hey ho, will work it out .. and force it in

Ignore the black strip below the door trim, Thats a scrap piece of van liner, I was wanting to see if the trim would fit over the top to give it a clean edge ..

Got the rest of the cab area kitted out in sound deadener .. Kinda glad I choose to do it a wee bit out of sync as its one of those jobs you would probably rush at the end and make a hash of it. To be honest I never really planned to burry the inside in sound deadener or have much of an interior but its just turned out that way and its growing arms and legs.. Used a wee bit of leather on the doors, nothing fancy or stitched, its doesn't warrant that level of trim, but just something a wee bit more comfy and perhaps a wee bit quieter. Will fetch some pics after tea and post up if you promise not to laugh at the poor old Landy being tricked up like a tarts boudoir .. Once the rest of the interior is in I will make up some aluminium capping's to cover material edges and make things more robust.

I managed to squeeze in a bit of the crock embossed leather to run with the DAKTARI programme from my boyhood days ..

The good thing about doing this just now is when the glue overshoots the job area and lands on the paint it doesn't really matter to much..

How many old timers remember this ?

Pics are pretty crap to be honest but will give you a wee idea of whats it looks like .. Needless to say the firs wet day on the road and all this will be a soggy mess ..

Took 2 minutes to throw a couple of old cardboard boxes in the back to test some layout ideas .. it was past midnight by this time so called it a day.. run out of glue and energy ..

Got the rest of the carpet in and the other door dressed up. Retrimmed the dash top with a nice bit of black leather , kicked myself when I realised I was a bit miserable with the material and it just made it around the edge and no more .. Tried to rip it off but the glue was stuck fast . Fingers crossed it stays stuck. There was enough to curl under the edge but it was tight . You cant see any edges when its in so time will tell .. Plan to install the rest of the dash structure today and get the lower dash / heat exchanger finished off, trimmed and ready to fit . So, with a shed load of parts where they should be, the junk laying about the garage space will be cut drastically freeing up more space Its amazing the space a blown apart car will take up in your shed ..

I know this part of the Interior reconstruction is out of sync with the rest of the build but sometimes you just have to forge ahead and get a visual of the finished item to gee you up. I'm gonna say I'm pretty happy with the way its turning out . Yes I have had second thoughts on the carpet and door panels as its getting away from the concept of a land rover and making the project less practical as an adventure wagon, but truth is the chances of me ever getting that adventurous with a 40 year old land rover is pretty slim, so it should make it a wee bit of a more comfortable driver , more a retro toy with benefits .. Its funny how things morph into other ideas when you don't stick rigidly to a plan... Its to late to rip it all out as the sound deadener leaves a neoprene residue that will take forever to clean off.. Will see how it goes but im not 100% sure I will hang onto it for a long time , Its escaped my original remit for a quick n dirty daily .. however, the wife loves it ! Will see how it goes .. Meanwhile , its Garage time .

Got to looking at loads of ideas for the interior , liked the look of the cargo box idea, doing an interior in the style of the cargo boxes with drawers and stuff , Found a place that makes them up for you .. but far to expensive . Then looked at a few tool box systems , some of te stuff available could be fitted to assemble a very tidy and functional camper / service wagon , then looked at shot gun cabinets , laying them on there side with a work top secured to the side and the door dropping down provided a solid secure base with plenty storage and and easy access, and they are cheap , Trouble is other that the cargo box idea, the others would take a bit of working out to make them look less like old junk just bolted in .. Its interesting to research this stuff tough .. gives you more ideas.
I did come across a web site, Camperhause, where they retro fit camper interiors to land rovers, wait for it, " For Just £11,000" . I'm just so out of touch