The Initial Build
or how to take a perfectly good 110, take it apart and put it back together again

27th September 2003
The rear body was removed from the vehicle as the first stage in the project.

11th October 2003
The rear cross member was cut from the chassis together with a length of the chassis rails that were to be excess to requirements.

9th November 2003
A new rear cross member was fabricated from box section steel to further improve the departure angle and allow for the rear winch, recovery points and the exhaust. This was then socketed onto the end of the chassis and welded into position.

16th November 2003
10 inches were cut out of the chassis between the radius arm mounts. I'd have preferred to cut further forward but the curve of the chassis and the existing cross member location made this the only suitable place to make the cut. The chassis was then butt welded back together with reinforcing plates inside the chassis.

23rd November 2003
The engine and gearbox were removed from the chassis, both of which were sold on to help finance the project.

30th November 2003
The remaining bodywork was removed - bulkhead, bonnet, wings.

6th December 2003
Inspection of the chassis following the removal of the bulkhead showed some signs of corrosion in the nearside bulkhead outrigger. As this outrigger would not only support the bulkhead but would also support the front roll cage I decided to replace the outrigger. Strenghening plates were welded around the chassis join and 6mm reinforcing plates were welded to the top of the bulkhead outriggers to provide the basis for the front cage mounts.

13th December 2003
The period running up to and through the Christmas holidays became a bit of a blur as, with time getting tighter, working on the project at weekends only turned into weekends, evenings and then, during the holidays, every day. I did take Christmas day and Boxing day off though. During this time the existing back body and rear bulkhead were dismantled and fabrication of the replacement rear bulkhead started. The backbody was shortened very roughly to make handling it a bit easier. The mounts for the rear cage stays were added to the chassis and linked into the rear cross member. Getting the heights of these just right took many hours of fitting and removing the rear body.
The rear body/seatbox mounting bar was added and welded into position. This bar was integrated into the main rollcage mounts and the rear winch mount. Each adding strength to the other and stiffening the chassis. Again getting the main roll cage mounts at the correct under floor level took hours of measuring and trial fits.

17th January 2004
By the middle of January the time had finally come to start dismantling my Range Rover to provide the parts for the new project. It was certainly a sad day but it was inevitable really. As if to justify the decision, while removing the front suspension, part of the front offside top spring mount gave way. After the engine and gearbox were removed, the axles were removed for the 100inch chassis so they could go under the Range Rover as each Range Rover axle was removed. The two axles were then swapped one by one. The rear Range Rover axle had to be modified to take two forward facing shock absorbers so the 110 rear axle donate the mount and this was welded to the Range Rover axle.
The rest of the available time in January was spent cleaning the chassis and axles and treating them with POR 15.

30th January 2004
The painted axles and chassis were finally joined together , followed by the suspension, steering and the bulkhead for the final time. I made up a new set of brake pipes and, using a late classic Range Rover configuration, all the pipes were run, clipped to the chassis and connected.A Range Rover master cylinder was fitted to a late Defender Servo and reservoir to ensure the correct brake balance.

4th February 2004
At last the engine and gearbox could go in. I hadn't been able to locate a good 1.4 transfer box so had to go with the Range Rover unit for the moment. Given that the Muddy Truckers Trophy was to take place from the 5th of March, a sense of panic started to set in as I realised the enourmous amount of work left to do ! A list was drawn up of jobs to do and these were then categorised into "must have", "would be nice" and "if we've got time". Unfortunately most of the work seemed to fall into the first category...

10th February 2004
With a new exhaust fitted/fabricated, the engine fired up for the first time. Saturday morning was spent at Maddison 4x4 where we borrowed their pipe bender and bent up the roll cage. Maddison 4x4 had supplied the ARB diffs and had agreed to fit them into my carriers at a very good price so I also picked up the assembled diffs while I was there.

The rest of February 2004...
It's all a bit of a blur now, with hindsight I should have made more time to document and photograph but working outside until 11pm every evening and working flat out all weekend didn't really leave much time for that sort of thing.

In summary, the internal/external roll cage turned into a nightmare - trying to position the stand offs inside a truck cab that I was fabricating at the same time took far more time and effort than I had imagined but I got there in the end. The hard top sides were easy to shorten and took an evening each but getting the roof anything like took 3 evenings. The backbody went on and the fuel tank and all it's fittings were plumbed in. The front winch mount was built into the chassis after removing part of the front cross member to get the winch as far back as possible.

Matthew agreed to come over and spend a day working on the motor while I was at work and that, at least, got the front bumper sorted.
The bodywork was finally all in place by The evening of the 28th February and I still had some optimism that I might get to the club trial on the 29th for a shakedown. It was not to be and, instead, the 29th was spent "fettling" as I went round and round the motor sorting out as many problems as I could find.

A test drive on that Sunday evening revealed that the rear winch cover would have to be moved up in priority from "nice to have" as at any speed above 50mph a howling gale was coming up though the floor blowing road dust and exhaust fumes into the cab.

The week before the Muddy Truckers was spent with all available hours modifying, adjusting adding etc... until by midnight on Thursday, not only was the vehicle road worthy and competition ready (ish) but I'd even managed to sort out some mounts for the waffle boards. Unfortunately I didn't actually have much time to road test it but that's life....

The only job left on Friday morning was to fit some means of securing the Hi-Lift jack and pack as many spares and tools into the vehicle as I could. On top of that we had to fit in two tents and enough luggage for two people expecting to get cold, wet and muddy for a weekend. The deadline had been reached and the vehicle was ready to go, if not what you'd call finished !