Series1Rangie
Adventurer
Jon,
Looking good. What is you plan for shortening the front seat bases?
Mike and Myles
Looking good. What is you plan for shortening the front seat bases?
Mike and Myles
The Rolling Restoration & Customization Of My 88' Range Rover Classic
- Thread starter rrclassicbt550
- Start date
rrclassicbt550
Farmer Jon
Let the drilling, cutting, and fabrication begin!
So now that all of the wiring is out of the way, I can get to the metal work. Up first is lowering the front seats. I started by taking many many measurements and pictures. Then I drilled out all of the spot welds and cut out part of the transmission tunnel. There are no clearance issues on the drivers side. The passengers side will be quite interesting because there is much less clearance. For now I will post some pictures because I gotta get back out to the garage and work.
So now that all of the wiring is out of the way, I can get to the metal work. Up first is lowering the front seats. I started by taking many many measurements and pictures. Then I drilled out all of the spot welds and cut out part of the transmission tunnel. There are no clearance issues on the drivers side. The passengers side will be quite interesting because there is much less clearance. For now I will post some pictures because I gotta get back out to the garage and work.
rrclassicbt550
Farmer Jon
And now for the transmission tunnel. I only flipped the panel I cut out to see if would make a good template. I am glad to say that it will work fairly well as a template.
outinthewoods
Adventurer
I have on e of those tools I swear I have used it for more random jobs then I ever imagined. Best 10 buck I ever spent
Nice build up too!
rrclassicbt550
Farmer Jon
I have on e of those tools I swear I have used it for more random jobs then I ever imagined. Best 10 buck I ever spent
Nice build up too!
lol Yeah that thing has come in handy so many times. It is kind of funny though, I have used for many things but I have yet to use it for popping the door panels off which is what it is intended for.
Thanks for the compliments
rrclassicbt550
Farmer Jon
Alright, last update for the night. To lower the seat two to three inches I also needed cut down the support that runs across the floor. I measured up one and a half inches from the floor and cut the rest off. I still have to cut a little more off tomorrow. Anyway, here are a few more pictures.
rrclassicbt550
Farmer Jon
Now for the first part of the metal fabrication...
I started off by making a hammer-form to shape the metal for the floor support then I spent probably four hours hammering, shrinking, cutting, and shaping it to fit the way I wanted it to. I then moved onto taking three inches out of the seat mounts and realized that I should make the floor support a double walled panel. So then I finished up the day/night by making a inner strengthening support for the other piece that I made earlier. I figured that since the piece I cut out was 16 gauge and each of the pieces I am putting in are made of 18 gauge, I should double them up to be safe. I have about ten or eleven hours of fabrication into those two panels and cutting the three inches out of the seat mounts. I will be welding everything in and finishing up the drivers side tomorrow.
I started off by making a hammer-form to shape the metal for the floor support then I spent probably four hours hammering, shrinking, cutting, and shaping it to fit the way I wanted it to. I then moved onto taking three inches out of the seat mounts and realized that I should make the floor support a double walled panel. So then I finished up the day/night by making a inner strengthening support for the other piece that I made earlier. I figured that since the piece I cut out was 16 gauge and each of the pieces I am putting in are made of 18 gauge, I should double them up to be safe. I have about ten or eleven hours of fabrication into those two panels and cutting the three inches out of the seat mounts. I will be welding everything in and finishing up the drivers side tomorrow.
Last edited:
rrclassicbt550
Farmer Jon
Last edited:
rrclassicbt550
Farmer Jon
rrclassicbt550
Farmer Jon
Update on the status of lowering the seats
Sorry it has been so long since I have posted an update on lowering the seats. It has turned out to be quite the project. So far I have about thirty to forty hours into the project right now, granted about five hours of it has been sitting down with a good beverage to figure out how the heck to do it all and ten to fifteen of it has been split between making test panels and a few failed attempts at fabricating the transmission tunnel panel.
I am quite a few days behind schedule at this point and I only have twenty-two to twenty-three days left before I leave for the road trip.
I have made all of the panels and fitted them on the drivers side and I am waiting for good weather so that I can weld them all in. I have begun the rear seat mountings and I am also waiting on the weather to be able to do some welding. I haven't started the passenger side just yet but I will have it all done soon enough, now that I have actually figured out how to do it.
Sorry it is taking so long everyone...
P.S.
These photos are a few days behind on my progress I will try to get some up to date ones either today or tomorrow. And if you are going to use the measurements written on the panel in the pictures, please remember that they may have been modified during final fitment. Also the 4" measurement in the center of the panel was changed to 3 1/8", as you will see by the pictures.
Sorry it has been so long since I have posted an update on lowering the seats. It has turned out to be quite the project. So far I have about thirty to forty hours into the project right now, granted about five hours of it has been sitting down with a good beverage to figure out how the heck to do it all and ten to fifteen of it has been split between making test panels and a few failed attempts at fabricating the transmission tunnel panel.
I am quite a few days behind schedule at this point and I only have twenty-two to twenty-three days left before I leave for the road trip.
I have made all of the panels and fitted them on the drivers side and I am waiting for good weather so that I can weld them all in. I have begun the rear seat mountings and I am also waiting on the weather to be able to do some welding. I haven't started the passenger side just yet but I will have it all done soon enough, now that I have actually figured out how to do it.
Sorry it is taking so long everyone...
P.S.
These photos are a few days behind on my progress I will try to get some up to date ones either today or tomorrow. And if you are going to use the measurements written on the panel in the pictures, please remember that they may have been modified during final fitment. Also the 4" measurement in the center of the panel was changed to 3 1/8", as you will see by the pictures.
rrclassicbt550
Farmer Jon
More photos...
rrclassicbt550
Farmer Jon
Last couple of photos...
Snagger
Explorer
This seat base issue is something that makes me surprised the RRC is/was so successful over there. I'm about 6' tall and have to have my seat all the way back, losing most of the leg room for the rear passengers. Even so, my legs are still a little uncomfortable and my hair often brushes against the head lining, and that's with no sunroof at all (flat head lining, no dropped section). 6' might be just a little taller than average in Europe, but is probably slightly shorter than most in the US. I can imagine a lot of LSE/LWB RRC owners had the seat base redrilled to mount the seat a couple of inches further back.
I hope this mod works well - it does carry the slight risk of leaving your legs too straight to be comfortable, having the seat closer to the floor, and of course the seat needs to go back as well as down if the overall distance between pedals and seat is to be maintained. You will probably need to move the seat aft by double the distance you lower it - you need not only to maintain that diagonal distance but to increase it for your straighter legs.
As far as the cooling fan issue goes, there are pros and cons to each side, many of which you have already read. The electric fan manufacturers always bang on about the engine power issue though, and I reckon it's a complete lie - apart from modern fans having viscous hubs so they free-wheel when not required, the airflow through the fan from the vehicle's forward motion reduced the fan blades' angle of attack to virtually nothing, so the fan has no drag. In fact, if you're going at a fair speed with relatively low rpm (ie driving efficiently), the fan may even get a negative angle of attack and work more like a turbine, being driven by the airflow and reducing the water pump drag on the engine...
Electric fans simply aren't as efficient, let alone powerful, as engine driven because of the energy state transformations that need to take place - engine kinetic energy into the alternator KE, with losses through the drive belts, into electrical, losses through the wiring looms, back into mechanical energy at the fan motor. An engine driven fan doesn't have these state changes with their inherent "leaks" and losses.
The real clincher for me though is reliability - like you said, viscous fans "fail safe", as has currently happened to my 300Tdi RRC. At least i know the engine will not have a problem. My 109 has a 200Tdi and I had to fit an electric fan (new) as the viscous unit didn't align with the rad and had the possibility of hitting the front cross member and brake line attached to it. I always worry about the fan failing, even though it has been fine so far, and despite its 14" diameter (same as rad dimensions), it seems to take a while to bring the temperature down. Ultimately, I reason that car manufacturers only fir electric fans where engine driven fans aren't viable (transverse engines or positioning situations like mine) - manufacturers of prestige cars always use in-line engines and generally use viscous fans where possible, and they do everything they can to get the most performance and minimum fuel consumption.
I hope this mod works well - it does carry the slight risk of leaving your legs too straight to be comfortable, having the seat closer to the floor, and of course the seat needs to go back as well as down if the overall distance between pedals and seat is to be maintained. You will probably need to move the seat aft by double the distance you lower it - you need not only to maintain that diagonal distance but to increase it for your straighter legs.
As far as the cooling fan issue goes, there are pros and cons to each side, many of which you have already read. The electric fan manufacturers always bang on about the engine power issue though, and I reckon it's a complete lie - apart from modern fans having viscous hubs so they free-wheel when not required, the airflow through the fan from the vehicle's forward motion reduced the fan blades' angle of attack to virtually nothing, so the fan has no drag. In fact, if you're going at a fair speed with relatively low rpm (ie driving efficiently), the fan may even get a negative angle of attack and work more like a turbine, being driven by the airflow and reducing the water pump drag on the engine...
Electric fans simply aren't as efficient, let alone powerful, as engine driven because of the energy state transformations that need to take place - engine kinetic energy into the alternator KE, with losses through the drive belts, into electrical, losses through the wiring looms, back into mechanical energy at the fan motor. An engine driven fan doesn't have these state changes with their inherent "leaks" and losses.
The real clincher for me though is reliability - like you said, viscous fans "fail safe", as has currently happened to my 300Tdi RRC. At least i know the engine will not have a problem. My 109 has a 200Tdi and I had to fit an electric fan (new) as the viscous unit didn't align with the rad and had the possibility of hitting the front cross member and brake line attached to it. I always worry about the fan failing, even though it has been fine so far, and despite its 14" diameter (same as rad dimensions), it seems to take a while to bring the temperature down. Ultimately, I reason that car manufacturers only fir electric fans where engine driven fans aren't viable (transverse engines or positioning situations like mine) - manufacturers of prestige cars always use in-line engines and generally use viscous fans where possible, and they do everything they can to get the most performance and minimum fuel consumption.
Last edited:
94Discovery
Adventurer
this is my electric fan conversion it is a Taurus fan dual speed 2500CFM low speed 4500 CFM high speed the key is to make a good shroud around the radiator to vacuum all the air .
headdamage
Observer
Viscous fans do not always "fail safe". I've seen at least three Rover diesel viscous fans that have failed so that the are free spinning and don't pull hardly any air. When this happens you have to drill a screw or something through the hub to jam them and force them to work full time. It can be difficult to tell if this type of failure has happened because the fan appears to be working when you look at it with the engine running but it really is not. A good test if the engine is getting too hot is to pull over and try to stop the fan with a news paper or cardboard while the engine is still running (done very carefully!). If you can stop the fan from spinning the viscous has failed in an unlocked condition, if you can't stop the fan it is working.