Series 2b Forward Control Double Cab

Double cab mockup

Well, I was bored last night, and rather than doing any *actual* work on the vehicle, I decided it would be fun to mock up a little picture....

Now, all I have to do is make the actual vehicle look like that !   Simple really.....

Making a start on the body

Well, the complicated stuff begins now as I started building the rear bodywork. Looking at the bits I had, I decided to use the existing Forward Control rear bulkhead and seat box in the original position and modify it to take the second row doors. This meant that I was going to have to sort out a new panel for the very rear of the cab area. Off to raid the parts pile and find something suitable.

As luck would have it, I have an old 109" rear tub from a Series 3 which is an ideal donor. The plan was to cut the front off the rear tub and use it to make a new rear panel. A bit of work with cutting discs soon saw the bulk of the tub removed and a bit of trimming and drilling had the excess cut away. The body cappings will need to be sorted out to make everything look right, but the plan is to use a combination of the original side cappings from the 109 and a set of corner cappings from the rear to make it all look as it should. A few pictures of today's efforts...

Now we are getting somewhere....

With the subframe on the vehicle, it is a fairly simple job to get the bulkhead on the chassis and start planning the bodywork. With the bulkhead in place, I could lift the rear body section into position to locate the new body mounts properly. The clearances are all pretty close, but they are going to be workable. The plan for the vehicle is a proper double cab set up with dropsides on the rear, so the next phase will be sorting out all the framework and body panels for the cab area. It is going to be a lot of work, but hopefully the end result will be worthwhile. In the meantime, a few pictures for you !

The gearbox is in place, so is the subframe

Yipee ! At last I got back in the workshop and got some work done on the FC. The key jobs to complete were the gearbox mounts and to get the upper subframe fixed properly. I have been pondering the best way to sort the gearbox and eventually discovered, in a pile of bits, a gearbox crossmember from a Tdi Auto Discovery. Ideal ! With a couple of new rubber mounts and a few new holes in the chassis, it was a simple job to bolt everything in place.

With the engine and box in place, it was time to sort out the front subframe. In order to get the Tdi sitting where it needed to be, it was going to be considerably easier to route the turbo pipework and a few other anciliaries if I shortened the subframe and fabricated some new rear body mounts. This in itself isn't a problem, but does necessitate making up a couple of new mounts for the subframe. Using 3mm plate and a bit of welding, new mounts were made up and welded to the main chassis, then bolted to the upper subframe.

Everything is starting to look like it should now, gearbox and engine are properly in place and the subframe is ready to accept the bulkhead for the next phase of the build. Nothing much will happen until after the Land Rover World show at Eastnor, but hopefully it won't be quite as long until I get some more work done on the project !

A few photos of the build !

I've been posting all sorts of nonsense on here just lately and leaving it all to people's imagination.... so I thought I'd put a little photo update of the progress so far.......

The rear-rear spring hangers :

The rear-front spring hangers :

The Tdi engine in the chassis :

I have just been sorting out the gearbox mounts which should get everything back on track and then I will set about getting the bulkhead on the chassis and sorting out the body mounts ! Plenty to come....

Finally the engine is in place !

Progress has felt quite slow on the project just recently, mostly because I have been doing all sorts of endless little jobs which need doing, but never seem to look like much. Well, this weekend, that all changed. With a pair of axles under the chassis, I could get one of the major tasks out of the way.. getting the engine in position.

The vehicle is destined to be a 300 tdi auto, and I've had the engine and gearbox sitting in the shed for months so I was keen to get it where it belonged. Thankfully, the previous owner had removed it from the vehicle with the engine mounts still attached, so the job of installing it in the new chassis was slightly easier. I would still need to fabricate some chassis fixings, but that wasn't too horrific. Some work with the bandsaw and grinders gave me all the bits I needed, and 5 minutes of welding later I had the brackets ready to go on the chassis.

Now, this is the first time I've installed aTdi engine in a leaf spring chassis, (let alone a forward control chassis). so I hadn't forseen that the front spring shackles were going to be exactly where I wanted to weld on the mounts. Typical. So, a bit of jiggling and juggling and the engine was lowered into the chassis with the engine mounts as close as practical to the spring shackles. On the plus side, it does allow the engine to sit nice and low in the chassis and there is plenty of front axle clearance around the big ENV lump. So, I welded it all in and now I have an engine ! Next job will be the gearbox mounts, and to get the FC subframe back on the top.

My poor knuckles !

It's been a while since I worked on a drum braked axle... all the vehicles I've built and repaired lately have been on discs.... I remembered why I hate them so much ! I got the last bits done on the rear ENV axle today... assembling the brakes.

Having given everything a good clean up and painted the bits which needed painting, I fitted new snail cams, wheel cylinders and finally brake shoes. And this is where the fun began. With my new shoes were new brake shoe springs. They looked all nice and shiny with their nice painted finish... which also made them very slippery !

After fighting for about half an hour I eventually got the brake shoes where they belonged and fitted the new brake drums. This made the rear axle pretty much complete and ready to fit to the vehicle :D

I made astart on the front axle, knowing that there were going to be more questions than answers. I had taken the decision (a decision that I might come to regret !) that I was going to convert my front axle to use CV joints, so I could enjoy full-time 4wd on the vehicle. I rummaged through the shelves and found a selection of bits from various vehicles, including old Range Rovers, Series 3 109 and even a Stage 1 V8....

Once I work out what is possible and what is not... I'll let you know !

Rebuilding the rear ENV axle

I got started on rebuilding the rear ENV axle for the FC today.

I had previously stripped it all down to the casing and painted that, so it was now a case of getting the bits cleaned up and re-assembled. The rear axle is fairly straightforward compared to the front, so it ought to have been an easy job.......

First of all, I cleaned up the bits I was going to re-use and painted them... bits like the brake backplates, drive members and diff assemblies all needed tidying up. Whilst these were drying, I turned to the hubs. Both had a stud stuck in them, which had snapped off when the wheels came off, so a bit of work with the blow torch and stud extractor (amongst other things) was needed to get them out.

With the stud sucessfully removed a bit of work with the wire brush and the hubs were ready to be refitted. With the paint pretty much dry, the first thing to be fitted was the diff assembly. Unlike most Land Rover axles, you can't put the halfshafts into an ENV axle after the stub axles are fitted, so they need to go in right at the start, and in order to do this, the diff must be in place. In the absence of a gasket, RTV sealant was used to seal it to the casing. Next, the halfshafts could go back in and the brake back plates and stub axles could be bolted in place.

With these bits fitted, the hubs were next to go on. New wheel bearings and seals went in and the hubs could be fitted to the axle. The drive members are a straightforward bolt-on job and the end caps for the axle just push into place with new o-rings. That's about as far as I got today. I have new brake shoes, springs and drums ready to be fitted along with new wheel cylinders, but that's going to have to be done next weekend !

Cleaned up the chassis and began the work

Having stripped the chassis of the grey FC (I really should come up with some more imaginative names !), I set about the metalwork with the grinder and cutter to see what was good and what was not. I already knew that the rear suspension mounts were going to need rebuilding as the vehicle had been partially converted to coils. The few outriggers that were on the chassis were pretty much gone as well.

With the various additions and rusty parts chopped off, the main chassis rails appeared to be in fairly sound order. The project has always been destined to be a 300tdi automatic, so the engine and gearbox mounts needed to be removed as did one of the middle crossmembers to allow fitment of the bigger units. With everything nicely cleaned up, things are actually looking quite reasonable.

The first thing that need to be sorted out are the rear spring mounts. Now, I'm the fortunate position of owning two Forward controls, which means that I have a second vehicle to use as a template. With measurements taken, I drew up the various parts for the rear mounts... and realised just how complicated Land Rover made them !

Still, the drawings went off to the local laser cutter and a couple of days later I had a pile of shiny steel bits, ready to be welded together. And that's about where things are as of today. The chassis is sitting on the drive looking distinctly naked, the rear spring mounts are tacked together ready to be fitted and the engine / box are sitting in the shed ready to be offered up to make the new mounts. More soon !

Got started on the grey one !

Well I finally made a start on the grey FC. It started out as a dropside, which I already stripped off when I first got the vehicle, and the truck has just been sitting as a chassis-cab on the drive for what seems like an age. 

So, with a couple of weeks off work, I decided to put some effort in and get the thing stripped down in readiness for its rebuild. First to go was the roof and front wings which thankfully came quietly without a fight... This left the rear bulkhead and steering column....  Now, unlike the other FC project which I began a while ago, the nuts and bolts on this vehicle were not going to come off easily ! Much as I don't like doing it, I had to resort to the angle grinder for a lot of the dismantling. Being as careful as possible so as not to start carving up the bodywork with the cutting discs, I got the remaining bodywork off the truck, leaving just the chassis and FC subframe.... 

I always reckon the FC chassis looks huge when you strip it down, hard to believe that it is only a 110" wheelbase. This particular chassis is the root of the problem with the project. T.he FC subframe is all pretty sound, but the main chassis has a lot of rot. A previous owner had also started to convert it to coil springs and only half finished. The task today was to get down to the rusty base and see what could be done to resurrect the vehicle. Next to come off was the subframe, and again a bit of grinding was required to remove the bolts holding the thing together. 

With the subframe removed, the chassis starts to look almost "normal". We'll see what happens when the cleanup starts !

Stripping the other Forward Control

Well, I made a start on the grey FC... It's been sitting on my driveway for ages and I thought it was about time to do something. The first thing to do was to get the doors and roof off. Surprisingly, the front panel, wings and roof all came off fairly easily. The main mission was going to be getting the engine and gearbox out... This Land Rover had been fitted in the past with a Perkins 6354 engine and LT95 gearbox... it was a bit too big, heavy and low-revving for the vehicle I want to build so it had to go. A bit of work with the spanners saw the engine and gearbox mounts undone and then it was a fairly simple case of lifting the whole lot out. With the bodywork knocked down to the basic tub and bulkhead, and the engine / box on the floor I feel like I have finally made a proper start on the vehicle. It may not seem like much... but it's more progress than I've made in the past 2 years on it ! Plenty to come... just need to find some more time :roll:

The other beast

This is the second project forward control. I collected it from a friend of a friend about 20 miles from here. My mate Jason tagged along to help me load it on to the truck, which turned out to be a good thing since the gearbox is seized ! It is currently fitted with what I believe is a Perkins 6354 engine mated to an LT95 gearbox from a Range Rover.... this combination would probably pull a house down but it is very heavy and a bit slow. Like the other 2b I have, this one will probably get a Land Rover 300 tdi engine. I have been toying with what to do with this vehicle. The other one is going to be made into an overland camper van, and the current thinking is that this one will become a bit of a workhorse, maybe even a tipper body. We'll have to see what happens !