Prepping a defender 130 for around the world..

[Rovertrader]

Saw the old girl yesterday, and really tidied up a lot since URE ( the 130- Shayne, not so much...)!!
Probably one of, if not THE nicest real world builds I have ever seen!!
Well done mate, and good seeng you again!

 

[Kgh]

Hey buddy, you still in town or off in top secret places we aren't supposed to know about..lol..

We are in the land of Call to Prayer and wrapped women...Germany!

So sorry we did not get together down in S. FL. I am sure we shall cross paths again.

Since I have an excellent tutorial in not 1 but 2 great builds, you will be with us in spirit...

The LR4 is in storage, so we needed a new Rover. It came with a sticker already on it, lol

 

[The Rover Shop]

You can bet your bottom dollar Deutschmark on that.... And yep, I love that sticker...on the back of our expedition camel..

 

[The Rover Shop]

So after being momentarily side tracked and tempted, I opted out of buying this at the last minute...

 

[The Rover Shop]

So... Back to the build...
One of my criteria for the exocage was to be able to provide extra security against thieving mongrels..the proximity of the downward tubes being so close to the rears of the doors stops someone from getting a prybar into the gap and now I can install my security bars, it is a 2 piece system so that you can leave the rear bars in and just remove and fit the fronts as required, the placement of them prevents the doors from being opened anything more than about 1/2 an inch...and being ********** bang in the middle of the Windows stops (or at least deters ) a smash and grab or climbing into the truck to steal stuff..short tubes are welded to the inside edge of the rollcage and the 1/2" solid steel rods slide through it, the rear door ones are padlocked at the rear of them, and the front is padlocked to the front of the cage with the high security master lock, even if you cut the rear padlock off you still can't get the front bar off.. And vice versa. I have also been asked why I didn't do it as one bar, problem is that one bar is too long to stow anywhere, the current way they easily store inside the truck neatly without taking up any real room..






So when the bars aren't installed you only see a very small modification..


The fronts will have a flat tab that goes against a flat tab on the rollcage and this padlock locks the 2 together..



This mod is about the last thing I needed to do to the rollcage on the truck before I get to pull it all off and prep the front of the truck for painting...

 

[The Rover Shop]

In extremely dusty roads we found it best to wind the windows up and have the front bulkhead vents open, this pressurized the truck enough to minimize the ingress of dirt into the cabin, so to further this I installed a 3" vent passage through to the rear cab of the truck, I used 3" silicone hose In between the 2 to allow flexing of the body to cab. In extremely cold weather this also allows me to duct the webasto cabin heater pipe through that hole thereby completely heating the rear box and heat radiating up into the roof top tent when sleeping there.....




The framework you see there is to utilize my wife's idea..we took heavy duty plastic pegboard and covered it in the Velcro carpet material, though the pegboard holes will be woven paracord and some elastic cord, this will provide a multitude of fastening option for smaller things against the rear wall..

 

[The Rover Shop]

As with a lot of things on this build I have changed my mind mid or sometimes even after completion, today was another one of those... I had installed a ham radio in the overhead center console, well now I have decided to remove that and install a tri-mode high power unit, this unit is rather heavy and has a detachable remote control panel face on it, this allows me to install the radio where it is most supported and just locate the face wherever I need to, so I had to fill the old hole and will attach the face there with Velcro, this means I can now pull the face down and easily operate it if need be, or hand it off to the wife while I am driving, this will mean we have CB, regular and SSB..HF, UHF and VHF radio communications..better to be safe than sorry...





Since there are a lot of electrics up in the overhead console and I may need to reconfigure or add after the fact, before I install the headliner I decided to install a pass through for adding these, I took some plastic conduit and heat bent it to match the roofline, chamfered the ends and cut the insulation out, glued it up in there, this way if I need to I can just poke wires through there with minimal fuss and run them along the roof channel section..and before the critics start on me, once all the electrics have been done and the overhead console carpeted, all the wiring will be completely revamped and tidied up, still have to install the wiring for the wireless rear view camera yet..�� While it may not look it in the pics, the pipe is the same thickness as the insulation and will be barely recognizable when the headliner material is glued in place..

 

[Kgh]

What rear view cam are you going with? I need to source one, as the Puntos and Polos here seem like speedbumps.

 

[The Rover Shop]

I initially had bought the 7" garmin GPS for Europe and then bought the wireless rear view camera that was supposed to interface with it, only to find that the euro version doesn't interface with it like the NA version does, so I bought a 5" screen stand alone wireless system, off eBay, automatically comes on with reverse but I will wire it on a switch so that I can have it on all the time if I need..

 

[Kgh]

I initially had bought the 7" garmin GPS for Europe and then bought the wireless rear view camera that was supposed to interface with it, only to find that the euro version doesn't interface with it like the NA version does, so I bought a 5" screen stand alone wireless system, off eBay, automatically comes on with reverse but I will wire it on a switch so that I can have it on all the time if I need..

Have similar issue. Have Garmin with Euro maps, speed cams and traffic. Decent unit. Map updates and such a little pricey. Have been thinking of going to a double DIN unit to integrate Nav, Radio/iPhone, and reverse cam. Dash will get cluttered with iphone and Garmin and rev cam on suction cups.

On another note, are you running seat spacers? The ones that move you up a little and allow more rearward seating? Puma dash is tight even with seat at rearmost.

I fully expect houseguests sometime in the future, once you get rolling. You three can chill, wash your clothes, etc.

PM me a good mailing address.

 

[DiscoDavis]

Shayne the posts 246 and 247, the attachments are wonky/broken. Love the truck! :ylsmoke:

 

[The Rover Shop]

Have similar issue. Have Garmin with Euro maps, speed cams and traffic. Decent unit. Map updates and such a little pricey. Have been thinking of going to a double DIN unit to integrate Nav, Radio/iPhone, and reverse cam. Dash will get cluttered with iphone and Garmin and rev cam on suction cups.

On another note, are you running seat spacers? The ones that move you up a little and allow more rearward seating? Puma dash is tight even with seat at rearmost.

I fully expect houseguests sometime in the future, once you get rolling. You three can chill, wash your clothes, etc.

PM me a good mailing address.

Tisk tisk tisk... This tells me you have not read my small novel from front to back...if you had you would be well versed in my seating modifications, as well as bloody well bored and have too much time on your hands..and in severe need of a real hobby....
Post 26 for the lazy people... mud UK make a nice set of seat risers, gets you a couple of extra inches back, I have them in the camel 110 truck, I think that's somewhere in that build write up also..

 

[The Rover Shop]

Shayne the posts 246 and 247, the attachments are wonky/broken. Love the truck! :ylsmoke:

Fixed...thanks for the alert..

 

[Kgh]

Tisk tisk tisk... This tells me you have not read my small novel from front to back...if you had you would be well versed in my seating modifications, as well as bloody well bored and have too much time on your hands..and in severe need of a real hobby....
Post 26 for the lazy people... mud UK make a nice set of seat risers, gets you a couple of extra inches back, I have them in the camel 110 truck, I think that's somewhere in that build write up also..

Forgive me for not memorizing your lengthy Roverscribes! Lol. The problem is information overload, plus you stated four posts ago about how you mod, re-mod, de-mod the same things!

Aren't you banned again yet?

 

[The Rover Shop]

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