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Hall of Frame Section
Please be aware that ECR is now a Defender repair and modification shop only.
We no longer work on Range Rovers, Discos or Series Rovers.
These pages are from work we did in the past and left up for your enjoyment.
1965 Series IIA MOD 109 Pick-Up
Frame swap and bulkhead restoration
This 109 M.O.D. (Ministry Of Defense... aka British Military) has come to
us from Cape Cod for a new galvanized frame and restoration of the bulkhead.
This 109 has seen a very hard life over its 38 years, but once we get the
new galvanized chassis installed, and get the bulkhead rust taken care of,
the owner can pick away at the other work that needs doing, knowing that
he is putting effort into a 109 with a solid backbone that will end up a
great final product down the road.
The first step is to evaluate the 109 and then have a chat with the owner
to see just what he does, and does not want us to do. Once the work orders
are decided we begin by stripping the body off the frame. Normally we'd
use our frame swap system to get the chassis into this 109, but 2 things
mean that we can't in this project. #1, we need to remove the bulkhead and
strip it of all its parts for rust repair and #2, the 109 has been taken
apart before and not all the needed bolts and hardware are in place, so
the body will not support it's own weight. The solution is to leave as much
together as possible (remember the owner plans to complete the restoration
himself) so that it fits the budget. In the image above you can see we have
removed the front clip (front clip means hood, radiator support and fenders)
and stripped out the bulkhead. Next we'll lift the remaining body parts
as a unit and then work on tearing down the rolling chassis.
Here you can see the rolling chassis with the drivetrain removed. As the
body is off we can lift the drivetrain out in one piece with even the radiator
and the driveshafts still attached. In these cases we do suggest that major
work is done at this time, items such as a new clutch or exhaust sure would
be easy at this stage, but we do whatever the customer desires and in this
109's case it is just rust repair. The chassis on this 109 is in sad shape,
it has numerous poor repairs and someone even filled the rear section of
the frame with fiberglass body filler. The good news is the old chassis
is headed for the scrap pile and the new galvanized chassis will be put
in its place for strength and long life.
Speaking of new galvanized chassis, here it is shown in the image above.
This chassis is correct for the 109 as it has the military rear crossmember
as well as different spring mounts as the military (or M.O.D.) 109s had.
Next we'll get the axles under the new chassis and install the drivetrain,
and then we'll get the rusted bulkhead into the bulkhead jig and tackle
that repair. Once these 2 structural items are done on this 109 it will
have come a long way from a rusty Rover, to being a great restoration candidate
with a ton of potential.
This image shows the axles and suspension being set up under the new galvanized
frame. As this is not a restoration, the axles are bolted back in the way
they were. They have some leaks and some work needed, but the owner plans
to do that work himself. That is the beauty of ECR, we'll gladly do as much
or as little as you want. We are happy to tackle the heavy repairs and then
get this 109 back to its owner to finish up the rest of the work needed.
Here you can see that the 109 is starting to take shape again. The drivetrain
has been re-installed into the new chassis and the rear body section has
been put back on. We've got a lot of small work orders to get the 109 up
and running correctly, such as sorting out the twin tank fuel system that
had been bodged together over the years, correct some wiring problems and
replace some other rusted items. We also did a few upgrades to ensure long
life for the 109, such as installing all stainless steel brake lines. This
109 will likely see beach use on Cape Cod, so stainless brake lines are
a great addition to make the 109 safe and rust resistant. Next step is to
get the bulkhead (or firewall) back into shape.
The image above shows the 109's stripped down bulkhead in our bulkhead jig.
The jig assures that all the bolt points, floors, door posts, etc are all
in the correct locations as the factory intended. This bulkhead is a rough
one. We've cut away the floor boards, well, actually the LH floor board
fell out when we picked up the bulkhead, it wasn't attached to the rest
of the bulkhead and gotten rid of as many of the rust panels as possible.
The next step is to sandblast the upper hinge areas of this bulkhead. Unfortunately
these areas are loaded with polyester body filler and a lot of the steel
appears to be rusted away. This one will definitely need a lot of custom
fabrication, but we'll be able to get it back into shape. For more information
about Series IIA bulkhead repairs go here.
Once the really rusty parts are cut away, we then media blast the firewall.
This usually uncovers more rust and all the hidden repairs that lurk under
nearly 4 decades of paint and body filler. The image above shows this 109's
bulkhead just after a quick blasting.
In this bulkhead we uncovered some hidden rust and previous poor repairs,
as is usually the case in a 38 year old vehicle. The 2 upper red arrows
in the image above point to holes in the bulkhead's sheetmetal. This area
will need to be cut away and new steel put in it place, because these pin
holes, although small right now, point to more rust hiding underneath. This
is the main reason that we "dunk" our bulkheads, so that this
rust, that comes in from behind, can't form again. The lower red arrow points
to a large area of through rust near the upper door hinge. The bulkhead
has the same problem on both sides. This rust was untreated and just covered
up with body filler (commonly called bondo) and then painted to hide the
damage. This is a real common way for people who sell Rovers to hide this
damage, so if you are looking at a Rover, bring a magnet and check to see
that you don't have any "bondo" in the bulkhead in these areas.
If bondo is present the magnet won't stick very well, and if you have a
lot of bondo, the magnet won't stick at all! So the bad news is that this
bulkhead needs a lot of work. the good news is that we can fix it, and make
it better than the day it rolled off the assembly line.
Here you can see the bulkhead after all the rusted areas have been cut away.
The areas to be repaired have now been fully media blasted back to white
metal. There isn't much of a bulkhead left, but it is enough to save. You
may ask yourself, "Why not just replace the bulkhead?" The answer
is that almost any bulkhead you find has rust, and if it didn't it would
still be in the Rover and doing it's job, so restoring a bulkhead is the
only true way to get a rust free bulkhead. If you buy another used bulkhead,
if you could locate a good one, you'd just be getting into a different set
of problems. We wish we could locate NOS (New Old Stock) Series II and IIA
bulkheads, but they just don't exist, plus, our restored bulkheads are better
and longer lasting than even a NOS SIIA bulkhead. Our uses of galvanized
pieces and thinker steel, mean they'll outlast an originals by a wide margin.
These images show close ups of the Left and Right upper door hinge areas.
As you can see the rusted steel and bondo have been removed and now we will
begin to reconstruct these areas by hand and make them better than new.
The image above shows the LH upper door post area with the rough steel work
done, and as you can see, it is all steel, no bondo or body filler will
be used. The area will now be finished off with the correct hinge holes
and smoothed to look original. It may look simple, but there are 5 small
hand crafted patch panels that were needed to get this area back in shape
and keep all its factory structure in tact. You can also see that the LH
door post has been installed as well as the new galvanized upper floor section,
both of those items now await welding into place.
Here you can see the RH kick panel, foot and door post have been installed.
The bulkhead is starting to look like a Land Rover piece again. Once all
the fabrication is done it will be blasted again to remove all traces of
the old military paint, and then "dunked" in our dunk tank system
and primed and painted in the customer's color choice of gray.
This image shows the 109's bulkhead in the third stage of the "dunk
tanks". As you can see both the Left and Right door post areas have
been submerged in rust resistant primer, and now the entire top section
is getting fully immersed in the same tick primer so that the bulkhead will
have a good shot at keeping rust away from inside and outside.
The image above shows the completed bulkhead after being "dunked".
It will now be prep'd and painted in the customer's color choice and then
installed back into the MOD 109.
Here you can see the bulkhead has been seam sealed and primed with multiple
coats of PPG epoxy primer. This gives the outside of the bulkhead excellent
corrosion resistance and when combined with a new galvanized chassis, it
will make this 109 last a long long time.
This image shows the completed bulkhead ready for installation into the
109. Freshly painted with 3 coats of the customer's choice of Bronze Green,
the bulkhead will now be set up on the new galv. chassis and all the systems
will be hooked up to make the 109 road ready, and ready for delivery back
to the customer so that he can finish up the refurbishment of the Rover.
Take a look a few images above and witness the condition of this bulkhead
when it arrived at ECR, and now it looks this good. You can search high
and low for a rust free bulkhead, or we can take your existing bulkhead
and make it better than new. The choice is simple... ECR.
Here you can see we have installed the bulkhead back into the 109 and have
started to put things back together. The floors have been installed, steering
parts and a new wiring harness has been laid in. The old harness had some
past repairs and a few melted wires, so it definitely wasn't something you
want to go back in with such extensive work going on. Next we'll get the
systems hooked up and bleed the hydraulics.
Speaking of hydraulics, the image above shows the front brake lines for
the MOD 109. For longevity we are replacing the brake lines with stainless
steel, and above you can see the lengths we go to to make the lines correct
for your Rover project. The old line at the top is virtually the same as
our new stainless steel line, but ours will never need to be replaced. With
all new lines like these the brake system will be bled and double checked
for any air in the system (a common problem in 109 front brakes).
Above you can see the MOD 109 is starting to take shape. We've had to do
quite a bit to get this 109 back together, and there is still more to do
once the owner gets it back, but things will be in much better order now
so that he can enjoy the 109 and drive it while he goes after the remaining
work. We've correctly lined up the bulkhead and body so that the doors will
close properly, replaced a lot of broken and non-standard parts and made
some nice additions like new trouble free wiring, stainless brake lines
and a rust free bulkhead. Next we'll get the rest of the body in place and
get the 109 fired up and back to its owner.
This 109 also had a fuel gauge that wasn't working. These MOD 109s had twin
fuel tanks located under the driver and passenger seats and had a manual
fuel cross-over lever on the bulkhead. Someone had installed a new style
sending unit on the RH tank and left an old style on the LH tank. Problem
is these these two sending units don't work together, and an even bigger
problem is that they installed the wrong version of sender, so it was all
messed up. The old style gauge will not function with the new style sending
units, and unfortunately you can't get replacement SII/IIA sending units
anymore, so you have to swap everything over to the Late SIIA/III style
units. In the image above you can see that rather than swapping out everything
for SIII style parts, we have modified a SIII fuel gauge to use the SII/IIA
face, so that the Rover still looks as stock as possible, but can now have
a working fuel gauge to read both LH and RH tanks. Some of the other details
we attended to on the dash area are: The red and black 12v outputs (called
inspection sockets in Land Rover terms) were missing, so along with the
new wiring harness we installed them. The dash warning lights bezels commonly
lose their "staying power" for being clipped into the dashboard
and keep falling out. Someone had tried to fix this by putting wire ties
behind them, but this doesn't work, so we repaired the warning light bezels
correctly so that they stay in the dashboard correctly and can be removed
if need be. Someone had also bored out the threaded inserts that hold the
dashboard and vent flap controls in place, so we repaired all those so that
the 109 can have a very nice, clean and stock looking dash, without lots
of odd screws and such.
Here you can see the bulkhead systems have been installed and tested and
now the front bodywork is being installed. Soon the 109 will be ready to
head back to MA so that the owner can continue the restoration.
This image shows the completed interior. It is a MOD 109 so it is pretty
bare bones, and it needs some more things to finish it up, but the systems
are all now in good working order, and the bulkhead is rust free, that is
a major step in the right direction from when we started. The white stuff
you see on the bulkhead floors is a protective film we use to keep the paint
looking good. This 109 doesn't have floor mats, so we use this to protect
the paint prior to delivery and during road tests. The customer will simply
peel it off when he takes delivery.
There you have it, a 38 year old MOD 109 that has been saved from the clutches
of rust and poor quality previous repairs, and given a new lease on life.
The 109, shown here just after some road testing, is now ready to head back
to Cape Cod for further work by the owner to turn this Rover into a great
piece.
The good news is now that with a rust free bulkhead, rust resistant stainless
brake and clutch pipes, new wiring, HD alternator AND a new galvanized frame,
this 109 will be ready for the long haul and will be well worth the further
effort the owner will put into it.
If your MOD or civilian Land-Rover needs anything from a full restoration,
to just some serious "sorting out" like this 109 did, call ECR...
we'll be glad to help make your Rover as good as this one.
ECR