The image above shows one of our most talked about creations, the Beach Runner Defender 110, or BR110 as it is known here at ECR. It is a 5 door, full soft top, 9 passenger Defender 110 that is at home on the sand or on the highway. It gained magazine exposure and has been one of the most common topics of conversation with those who call ECR. Think of it as a NAS Defender 90 with more seating room for you growing family or all your friends and gear at the beach. This custom ECR 110 has inspired a number of copy cats by other places, but the real "Beach Runners" are only built in one place, right here at ECR. The ECR Beach Runner comes with all the usual tricks, full time four wheel drive so that it can get you to and from your adventures with ease, a galvanized frame so that you'll still be able to enjoy the vehicle even decades down the line and much more. Beach Runner #6 is going to be really cool as it will be extended into a Beach Runner 130 with added cargo room behind the middle row of seats. This will be our second Beach Runner 130, but it will be a different configuration than the first BR130 we created.
The starting point for BR110 is this top notch condition, low miles Defender 90. The 90 has low miles and is in great shape. It has no rust or corrosion to worry about during the build up and all the parts that we need to create the new Beach Runner are in near perfect condition.
The first step is to strip the entire donor vehicle down and get everything evaluated and ready for the next step in the process. This image shows the 90 being readied and stripped down to made ready for the new galvanized 130 chassis.
Here you can see the tear down a little further along. This Beach Runner will be a custom color, so it has to come apart right down to the smallest piece. There will be no red hiding anywhere when we do a color change paint job. Every piece will be removed of its red paint and epoxy primed and painted in the customers color choice of Cape Sand.
Now that all the body panels have been stripped down it is time to set up the rolling chassis. A new production Defender 130 frame has been modified (it has to be modified as all 130s made were pick ups of some sort, not 5 door wagons like we plan to build) and then sent out to be hot dip galvanized for long term rust prevention.
Here you can see the bulkhead has been stripped, epoxy primed, seam sealed and painted in the Cape Sand color and baked in our bake booth. It is now ready to head back to our assembly area and get everything put back onto it.
This image shows the bulkhead a little further along in the process. The mechanical systems are being installed and soon the bulkhead will be ready to be installed on the new galvanized 130 chassis.
The galvanized chassis will help combat rust issues for this Defender and to take make as many systems as rust free as possible we install as many stainless steel items as we can. Above you can see the new fuel tank has been installed and plumbed in with all stainless steel fuel lines. The lines are stainless steel as are the fittings, so that things will last for the long haul.
On the bulkhead the stainless steel parts continue. Here you can see we have installed stainless brake pipes and stainless clutch pipes as well. These will help combat the effects of the harsh beach environment that most of our Beach Runners live on.
As the 130 is longer than a standard 110 that makes it heavier. In order to make the 130 drive correct and not feel really sluggish the transfer case gearing needs to be corrected. Here you can see that we have installed a new 1.4 ratio transfer case to replace the stock higher geared unit. This will make the BR130 drive correctly and not feel sluggish off the line. Its these small details that make the difference in building a Defender that works and drives like it should.
Here you can see the Beach Runner project starting to come together. At this stage the truck will nearly run and drive and the majority of the paint work on the existing body panels is complete. Next up we will install the extended rear tub and then fabricate all the required changes and mounts in order to make a Defender 130 4 door soft top, a vehicle the Land Rover factory never even dreamed of creating.
If you'd like your own BR110, or if you need repairs done to your existing Defender, contact ECR, we'll be glad to help. We are the USA's premiere Defender source. The BR110s we build prove that hands down.
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