Land Rover 88 trailer work continues

In between mountain bike rides( latest video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDmL0b-DndI) and other life stuff I have been working on the trailer.

    As you might remember I cut down an 88 roof to fit the top of the tub.

    What I needed now was to make the interface solid and provide some access from the sides. It took some doing with the plywood adapter I made from some 3/4" marine grade ply. It was large enough to cover the tub so I set about drilling holes through the plywood and the tub galvanizing and screwing it down with flat head allen machine screws . I had to then mark and cut out the inside to the roof internal measurements. Here's a pic of the laying out of the internal cuts. At the corners I predrilled 1" holes and then cut with my skill saw.

A look on the inside with the ply between the tub and roof;

And 1 from the outside;

Now I admit it took me awhile to figure out the roof to tub attachment. At first I thought of some sort of latching clamp. Nothing seemed right due to the complex nature of the tub/capping curve plus the reach over to the roof. So I thunk up something of my own.

    Now my initial thought had been to make some kind of super hinge out of 1/2" tube and 1/2" rod maybe some 9"s long 2 on each side. That might still be a good strong way to go. I realized that I didn't(I hope!) need the longer hinge if I just had something to hold the center tube in place.

   What I did was use some 2" x 1/8" flat stock and that 3/8" tubing and some 3/8 rod I had. With this I cut some 2 1/4" lengths of tubing and welded it onto the end of a 6" piece of the flat stock. These were to be my top part of the hinge.

Then I made some bottom hinge pieces by carefully drilling, cutting and bending some tabs.

During the fitting process I kept the hinges aligned with each other by always keeping the rod inserted in both hinges on the side. I used my dremel to make sure all the hinges functioned the same removing some weld which was interfering..

   Once the 4 hinges were made I needed to put them on the trailer. I figured that I should put the bottoms on and then I could align the top parts to them. So I measured and marked and drilled the top of the tub and put the hinges in with flat head screws so I could set the adapter(plywood) on top.

Then I used my router to relive the bottom of the adapter for the hinge.

Trust me there was lots of taking off and putting back on of the roof and adapter. All done by me!

Once the bottom hinge was sorted out they were installed on the tub and the adapter installed and I set about marking the roof for the hinge position. There was some fumbling around as I searched for the right technique and sequence. I did one side and learned and then I did the other.

    Lining up the hinges and marking the top hinge position on the roof and then installing 1 pop rivet I could get the right angle and depth on the hinge plate. Then with the roof propped up I could drill 2 more holes for pop rivets in a triangle formation to keep alignment.

   So do this for 4 hinges. Keep the hinges aligned and Robert is a relative! I didn't think the pop rivets would be enough so I added a single flat head 5/6" machine screw to each top hinge.

All the pop rivets were removed and the adapter and roof. The hinges were prepped and coated as was the adapter with underbody coating.

During the process due to subtle differences I kept the hinge pieces marked with notches for their locations. Here is #3;

I made hinge pins which I can pull out;

When all was dry I re-installed the lower hinge and adapter.Pop riveted and bolted on the top hinges. Finally got my neighbor to help me put the roof on. Pushed in the pins. They were then drilled for 1/8" hitch pins to keep them from falling out while driving.

Not the greatest of welds I know......

Then I cleaned sand painted the roof using almond color paint.

I have been working on some lift supports but not sure they are the way I'm going to go. They will work for now.

remounting the electric fan on the 109 Land Rover

After the desert trip with Glenda and the fan wearing into the radiator, I finally got around to making a permanent(I hope) fix. Purchasing some 1/2" x 1/8" x 4' flat stock I drilled and bent and drilled and bent and welded and trimmed and spaced out the fan from the radiator.
There was 1 unexpected issue; the fan blade rubbed on the new bracket so I had to space it from the bracket. I bought some large nuts that slipped over the 1/4-20 bolts I had welded to the bracket.

Here's the pics;

Let's hope................

Land Rover 109 bottle jack storage

Drat! You know the feeling.

I went to use my bottle jack which was stowed in the tool locker in the tub. Laying on it's side. Wouldn't work of course the oil had shifted inside and wasn't ready for use. I was at home so it was not a big problem out came the 20 ton bottle jack and the floor jack and I got the job done.

   Now I needed to store the bottle jack. I used to be able to stand one up in the underseat tool box. Since putting in the extra fuel tank that option had disappeared.

What to do?.............

I started looking around inside the tub and thinking that it needed to be easy access, not under a pile of stuff when traveling and I needed it. I put the levers in the right side locker. That is when I saw a hole in the top of the wheelwell above the locker.  A quick fit with the jack showed it would fit in the space between the door frame and the hole. So I filled the hole with a 1/4-20 rivenut.

A second test fit showed that the jack would fit and gave me some dimensions to work with for a clamp. Test fitting a piece of angle iron showed the clamp would be at too much angle to lock on with good bolt pressure. It would need a spacer.

Around 6mm worked out bes,t this I cut from a nylon bushing I had with a 1/4" ID.

With the bushing located on the rivenut.

The clamp itself took many trips between the 109 and the grinder to obtain the correct fit;

Looking down on the clamp;

Here is some pics of how it sits in the tub;

...................I guess the biggest issue now is I will need a tool to get it out! I'm thinking I will replace the bolt with some sort of winghead bolt.

Adding 1 ton springs to Land Rover 109

OK, I sit here at my computer and a couple of things come to mind. 1) I'm too old to keep doing this!  2) I got it done!

    I ordered 1 ton springs from Craddock's in the UK on a Fri and they shipped on Wed and arrived the next Monday.

    First thing I did was unwrap them and set em up next to the Rocky Mountain parabolics I had removed.

I don't know how much you can take from this comparison as they have different numbers and thickness of leaves. Next up was taking off the stickers and looking for manufacturers marks. I wanted to know who makes them. they were marketed as Genuine when I bought them but by the time I got them the Genuine ones listing had disappeared and Original Equipment ones were offered.

That's when I found the Bearmachs stickers under the Craddocks stickers.

Look, at least it wasn't Britpart, although I suspect all of them use the same manufacturer. These came with a 2 year warranty and were around $40.00 less per spring than other sites selling the Bearmach springs.
Both were unwrapped and set up on the table with the paras.

Although there are some slight manufacturing difference between the new springs they both seem to be equal and no front or back noticed. and no makers mark unless it is under the thick paint.

Once again I jacked up the back of the 109 and put it on jack stands, pulled the rear spring off and set about putting the 1 tons on.

Here is a pic of the bad old heavy duty spring next to the 1 ton and paras. At this point I really noticed how stiff the 1 tons were compared to the HD's. I could physically deflect the HD's by about an inch to inch and  a half and the 1 tons not at all, just by pushing down on the spring eyes.

Above you can see that the 1 tons spring eye is already starting out higher than the old springs.

It took a long time to get the first side done, mainly because the locating pin in the spring needed to be pulled outboard to allow the axle to drop on. I couldn't just pull it out because it was being held up with a jack. After 3 hours of fussing around I got it to fit. The other side dropped in quite readily. I think it is due to my not having a flat even surface to work on.

On but not tightened up;

I pulled it out onto the street where it was flat and drove back and forth a couple of times and then crawled under with the torque wrench and tightened everything up to spec.

Looks better now!

I was tired from all the heavy carrying(springs, floor jack, bottle jack, wheels) around and the constant getting up and down and torquing( Ubolts 58ftlb, spring pins 70ftlbs, wheel nuts 80ftlbs). I had some lunch and took a nap! Later I went for a quick drive to check things out.

Driving impression;

  On the quick 5 mile trip it was nice to not hear the klunking from the bad bushings. It sits level on the road and is stable. Nothing broke or fell off! I even hit a dirt pull out at speed, 30+, full of LARGE potholes and it barely felt them.

   The next day I did a longer drive to take my motorcycle front tyre in for replacement. I did notice the ride was better than the paras. At one point I thought to myself "This is the vehicle I was meant to drive!"
I'm thinking the suspension is stiffer, at least the connections are better, and the whole body seems to lean more in the turns, probably due to the Tepui Tent on the top, but not alarmingly so.

So that's my first impressions, hopefully this will be the final suspension incarnation.