Land Rover ideas for Jeeps

[jscherb]

pretty darn cool! lets see some jeeps!!!

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Since this is a Land Rover ideas thread, here's one:

If you're calling for people to start posting their Lego Jeep models, why don't you start a thread just for that purpose? Might be better to have a bunch of Lego Jeeps in their own thread than in a Land Rover Ideas for Jeeps thread .

 

[Jurfie]

A friend of mine in Singapore had a small Ford Transit compact van because the road tax was $75,000 less per year than a passenger car - they really discourage private car ownership in that small island nation but if you're willing to drive a commercial van the tax isn't too bad.

I’ll never complain about vehicle related taxes in Canada again!

 

[jscherb]

More on the Jeep World Cab... the World Cab was inspired in part by Land Rover hardtops - Jeep was trying to be more competitive in international markets, so I suppose that makes the World Cab a "Land Rover Idea for Jeeps."

Jeep built three different versions of the World Cab and I've had examples of all 3. The first version I acquired was a CJ-8 van version. It was part of an order of 230 World Cab vans sold to the US Postal Service in Alaska, known as "Alaskan Postals".

I restored it and added side windows; I used it on my daily driver Scrambler.

The second World Cab I acquired in Wales. I was living in London at the time and found it on ebay UK. It was a CJ-7 version and I stored it in a basement at our London flat, when we moved back I got the company to include it in our household goods that they moved back to the U.S. for us. When I got it home I did a quick test fit on the TJ I had at the time; being for a CJ-7 it wasn't an exact fit at the windshield but I could have adapted it to fit if my plan was to use it on the TJ.

The third one I acquired was a CJ-10a half cab. These were a different design than the other two, but it was still called a World Cab and primarily built for export on CJ-10 pickups. The Air Force had quite a few CJ-10a's, which were shortened versions used on airfields as airplane tugs. All three of the World Cabs are in this photo:

When I designed and built my Wrangler pickup, I used parts from the CJ-7 and CJ-10 World Cabs to build the half cab top for the pickup. I shortened the roof from the CJ-7 cab and lengthened the sides of the CJ-10 cab to fit the pickup and it's been in daily use for over 10 years on the pickup. Both the CJ-8 version and my pickup cab version are in this next photo:

Later when I designed and built my LJ Safari Cab, the World Cabs were a main inspiration for the design, although I added features that the World Cab never had like optional roll-up soft sides. I also built a half cab version which was basically the same as the one I made out of World Cab parts for my pickup, although since I already had the modified World Cab one on my pickup I never used the fiberglass one:

The half cab version is still here, maybe someday I'll find a home for it.

 

[Jurfie]

I restored it and added side windows; I used it on my daily driver Scrambler.

That Scrambler is awesome! Have you still got it? Seems like it was the inspiration for your LJ build.

 

[jscherb]

That Scrambler is awesome! Have you still got it? Seems like it was the inspiration for your LJ build.

Thanks. I sold the Scrambler when I bought the LJ, I just didn't have room for the Scrambler anymore. The idea in buying the LJ was to create a modern version of my Scrambler, with modern technology and comfort (well, as modern and comfortable as an LJ can be anyway), so I could use the LJ for longer expeditions like my Alaska trip. The CJ-8 World Cab was inspiration for my Safari Cab project and of course I had to do the CJ Grille Kit for the TJ/LJ. I can't tell you how many times people come up to me in parking lots and gas stations and ask me what year my CJ is (2006!) .

The Safari Cab has a rear barn door just like the World Cab does, and also the "opera windows" on both sides of the barn door.

But the Safari Cab has things the World Cab never had, like roll-up side panels that can be swapped for the hard sides...

Overall my goal was to create a modern version of the CJ-8 World Cab with modern reliability and comfort but retro styling and more features and capabilities than the original CJ8/World Cab had. I think I succeeded.

And it's all about the details too... I made this custom emblem for the back of the LJ because my Scrambler had one that said "CJ-8" .

 

[jscherb]

One more on Land Rovers inspiring Jeep variants with World Cabs...

In the early 80's Land Rover introduced the 110 Hi-Cap pickup. It had a larger than usual rear bed area and additional load capacity.

Jeep followed suit, introducing the CJ-10 pickup a few years later. Never offered in the U.S., the CJ-10 pickup was primarily sold in Australia and South America. Not actually a "CJ", it was built on a frame derived from a J-truck and outfitted with an unusually-styled front clip. It had a World Cab pickup cab hardtop - the same as the one I showed in my last post on World Cabs.

Brochure pages from South America:

It's hard to tell from the photo, but the pickup on this next page has a half cab soft top, that was a factory option...

I've got a half cab soft top for my Wrangler pickup, and it's sort of factory - it's modified from a factory soft top to half cab length and retains the Sunrider feature. Haven't used it in years though, I just keep the half cab hardtop on.

And as long as I'm on the subject of pickups, if you'll permit me to deviate from Land Rovers for a moment... yet another Jeep pickup you could never get here, also in the 80's Mahindra in India began selling their "Pik Up" model. It was a much more true-to-form CJ pickup and variants of it continue in production to this day. It was produced in lots of different variants (their advertising tagline for it was "Jo chaho ban jaye", translated from Hindi it means "You can get what you want". I've got photos of many of the variants from my travels in India, I'll post just a few here. If there's interest maybe some day I'll start a Mahindra thread and show some of the hundreds of photos I have of wonderful Jeep variants Mahindra produced over the years.

A story about this next photo... we were on a road trip just leaving the holy city of Pushkar in Rajasthan and we passed this Pik Up along the way. The bags are filled with recycling. We stopped along the road after passing them (I can't remember why we stopped) and the truck stopped behind us. They were eating their lunch while driving and I guess they thought we stopped to eat our lunch because they stopped to offer us some of their lunch. Such is the hospitality of rural India.

The bed of the truck above isn't factory - it was probably made right in Pushkar. On one of the roads out of town there are several dozen small fabrication shops, all of which make custom beds for Mahindra Pik Ups. Truly "Jo chaho ban jaye", you can buy a Pik Up from the factory without a bed and install whatever locally made bed suits your needs. Here's a new one on its way to a customer:

 

[jscherb]

I finished the roof rack cargo box project (which was inspired by the many photos of roof rack boxes in the Land Rover magazines).

Here's how I secured the cargo box to a roof rack without drilling anything or using tie-down straps...

I took this photo before I painted the clamp brackets so they would show up well against the black box and rack:

Completed:

These were pretty simple to make. The clamp brackets were made from a total of about 5" of 1 1/4" 14-gauge wall square tubing. I picked that size because it's a nice fit over the square tubing the rack is made from. The saddles (the parts that go under the rack tube) were made from 1 1/2" lengths of the tubing with one side cut off to form a "U". The bolt brackets were made from 45-degree cuts from the same tube, welded to the side of the saddle and a hole was drilled for the bolt to pass through. The clamp brackets are painted black and the j-bolt is covered in heat-shrink tubing for a nice black look. These are temporary j-hooks though, they're zinc-plated steel and will eventually rust so I ordered stainless ones.

The clamp brackets just slip over the bottom rail of the rack which means I can mount the box anywhere on the rack that I need to.

Two final details - the box lid didn't come with weatherstrip, so I added that. Now it closes firmly against the weatherstrip so I'm confident it wll be weathertight. I also put a small Harbor Freight mover's blanket inside to keep things from rattling around.

Depending on how I end up using the box, I may add some footman loops inside on the floor of the box so I can tie things down inside the box. I also may put a rubber mat on the bottom if things slide around too much on the mover's blanket. I've got some cool diamond plate rubber mat I can use for this. I used the diamond plate mat the other day for a propane tank shelf I made for my MORryde tailgate rack (only one leg of the rack is in the photos below - I don't have the rack on the Jeep right now and all I needed to design and build the shelf was this one leg).

When I have the roof top tent and the box installed on the rack, I'll install the box to open so things stored in it can be accessed from the tent like the photo below, although the box in this next photo from the magazine can't be accessed from the tent because of the rain cover on the tent .

Notice there's a ladder being used to access the box, I guess that's because of the rain cover. Too bad a Disco can't support door hinge steps like the ones I use, I expect to use these steps to access the contents of the box:

 

[NEwhere]

"maybe some day I'll start a Mahindra thread and show some of the hundreds of photos I have of wonderful Jeep variants Mahindra produced over the years." I'd love to see your collection of pictures.

 

[jscherb]

"maybe some day I'll start a Mahindra thread and show some of the hundreds of photos I have of wonderful Jeep variants Mahindra produced over the years." I'd love to see your collection of pictures.

OK. I've got several hundred photos, as soon as I find time I'll organize them and start a thread.

 

[jscherb]

Too bad Jeeps don't have barn doors like a Defender or a Discovery, in addition to making it easy to access the cargo area they're very handy for hanging things on... here's a minimal kitchen setup:

Doing the same thing on my barn door:

In this next photo the Kitchen Keeper bag is hanging on the hardtop drip rail. Jeeps with factory hardtops don't have rear drip rails either (they really should), but it wouldn't be too hard to rig something to hang a bag like this from the liftgate hinges on the factory hardtop.

Or suction cups on the hardtop side window (I posted this photo earlier in the thread):

A fridge (or cooler to start), a Kitchen Keeper bag and a tailgate table makes a great minimal/starter kitchen setup.

 

[jscherb]

An interesting table/Maxtrax mount/Gear panel that bolts to the side of the hardtop:

Shown open in this next photo (ignore the cargo hatch that replaced the window glass):

It's pretty simple, here's the hardware. The one on the right has mounting studs for holding Maxtrax; a table/gear panel could also be installed as seen in the photos above.

These are available for Land Rovers from a Swiss company: https://www.rough-parts.com/online-shop/sandblechaufnahme-168.html and they start at about $300 USD and go up to about $650 (!) with table and Maxtrax mounts. Wouldn't be hard to manufacture something for a lot less here in the US.

To fit a Wrangler hardtop these would have to be slightly different because the side of the Wrangler hardtop is curved a bit and the side of the Land Rover isn't, but the same basic idea would work just fine.

 

[Zeep]

What year was your Scrambler? The taillights appear to be European. ( Orange lens)

 

[jscherb]

What year was your Scrambler? The taillights appear to be European. ( Orange lens)

The Scrambler is an '83. The tail lights are custom - I used European spec lenses and modified the U.S. housings for the combined Euro/US combination of lights. The European spec housings, for example, don't have side marker lights or license plate lights and the U.S. spec lights don't have separate brake (red lens) and turn (amber lens) lights, so the housings are modified to accomodate all of those functions.

I did the same for my Wrangler pickup, except for the license plate light because the license plate is in the factory bumper modified to be a step bumper.

 

[krick3tt]

Great attachment of the box to the rack. If you are going to add footmen loops to the bottom of the box you will be making holes to attach them. Perhaps a few more holes to attach the box to the rack might also be an idea, to secure it from the inside, as the hooks you have attached the box with are easy for another less than honorable person to remove it for you. I am not a thief but to keep things I try to think like one, as in how can I lose this?

 

[jscherb]

Great attachment of the box to the rack. If you are going to add footmen loops to the bottom of the box you will be making holes to attach them. Perhaps a few more holes to attach the box to the rack might also be an idea, to secure it from the inside, as the hooks you have attached the box with are easy for another less than honorable person to remove it for you. I am not a thief but to keep things I try to think like one, as in how can I lose this?

Thanks. The way the nuts for the j-bolts are situated and because they're nylock nuts, they're very inconvenient to remove without a deep socket. With a deep socket, they're very quick and easy, but I figure the average thief won't have a deep socket handy and won't want to spend the time necessary to fight with the awkwardly-placed nuts on both sides for long enough to steal the box. .