Prepping a defender 130 for around the world..

[El Solis]

you know i'm subscribed...bastard!:elkgrin:

 

[The Rover Shop]

Been waiting for approvals to come through for the importation...finally got them today, so the truck should be here in a couple of weeks and then let the games begin..)

 

[DividingCreek]

Shayne- get someone to take height width length measurements and shoot them over. Ocean freight is billed by cubic meters displaced, I know stock 130 #'s but no idea what the damn quadtech box does to things.

 

[The Rover Shop]

Looks to be the same length and width etc as the rear pickup bed and the just the same height as the front cab..

 

[The Rover Shop]

So it's another couple of weeks until the truck gets here...it's driving me crazy.. Sat up last night drafting designs to solve issues that my wife deems to be important...things like easy access to often used cooking spices and stuff..(she is an excellent camping cook so It's an easy honey-do task that I am extremely happy to comply with..lol..) so I came up with a really neat idea for a fold down cooking bench that opens exposing narrow shelving compartments. I saw a truck similar to mine in pics a whole ago and I loved some of their ideas, with a few tweaks (not tweaks...that would be weird) I enhanced the design a bit...now I have pieces of paper all over the place with scribble designs and notes, just hope I can make sense of my thoughts when it comes time to do it...lol...
Also designed the exoskeleton which I think is going to have to be custom made to integrate exterior body protection as well...I also redesigned my under seat safe system from my last build...this truck will be getting recaro seats installed so it's not as easy to get Into the seat boxes anymore unfortunately..

 

[Ray Hyland]

So has the truck arrived yet?

 

[jjstahl3]

yes it has

http://www.defendersource.com/forum/showthread.php?t=58826&referrerid=5811

 

[David.gamble]

Looking forward to this. Your last camel thread was one of the inspirations for my trip round India in a 90 last year.

 

[The Rover Shop]

Thanks for all the kind words and subscribers... Sooooo, the truck arrived and was told it was cleared, so I flew up to Georgia to pick it up, pulled a favor from a friend who drove me to the port.. After waiting for an escort to take me in I finally get to see it in the flesh, but I can't go near it.. Am told it's still on an agricultural hold and won't be released for a while..after many frantic calls finally get it sorted and paperwork signed and off I go... The trip down is dotted with many stops to take measurements and run ideas over as to what to do..
First things first once I arrive back at the shop is to decide if I want to keep it white or the utility orange underneath the wrap..after 2 days the wrap is removed..
And the decision is made to stay with the orange.. Definitely out of the ordinary..
So work begins stripping out the rear utility bed, removing shelving etc


This way I can get an idea of the layout of where items can go, fuel and water tanks in the forward lower section of the box to keep them low and central..

 

[The Rover Shop]

With that stripped out I move onto the interior cabin space, since I have a lot of plans on what I'm going to do with the interior I just go ahead and strip everything out so I can lay out the new items and get to the fabricating and insulate the whole inside of the cab for cold and sound

Under the passengers seat is where they had wired all of the interior lighting etc fuse panels.. Eliminated the wireless winch controls from under there and removed the immediately unnecessary items..

 

[The Rover Shop]

One of the big things that I wanted to change to make the trip more comfortable was the seats.. At 6'2" I don't really have enough leg room, and on the odd occasion I or the wife wanted to recline the seats and relax the defender seats don't go very far back.. So I sourced a pair of recaro cloth seats, these don't have the really tall sides because it makes getting in an out of them a pain. The challenge is that the seats on a defender are designed so the base lifts up to access the compartments under the seats, battery on one side and fuse box and ECU on the other..after many thoughts on how to design a pivoting quick release seat base that doesn't rattle I decided to just make it so that the 4bolting points are easy to get to and be done with it.. Besides, I will be relocating one of the vehicle batteries to the rear seat compartment.. (More on that later).. And I will make everything easily accessible there..


So the trial fit to make sure that everything fits and clears went well seating angle is nice and plenty of leg room

 

[The Rover Shop]

Before the tuffy box goes in I will be making a safe that goes into the access panel section here..

The tuffy box installs over the top of it and I will make a false floor in the bottom of the tuffy box to access the safe..unfortunately I won't be able to go too deep with the safe because I will be installing a GKN overdrive unit in my truck which interferes with this space a little but it will be plenty big enough for passports, paperwork and extra cash etc etc..I also put everything in fireproof bags just in case,, benefit of this spot is that it's away from most things that burn, so in the unlikely event of a vehicle fire this area doesn't get tooooo much heat..

 

[The Rover Shop]

Both seats trial fitted and works out great.. Much more comfortable and better range of slide than the stock defender seats..

 

[The Rover Shop]

Hoping to have enough room in front of the pop top to allow for a roof top tent also..I prefer the roof top tents over the maggiolina styles and still think that's much more safari..so I had a full length hannibal rack laying around so I decided to modify it to suit my purposes.., so after a bit of measuring and cutting I finished up with this..


To this..


And then this.


Which then allows me to do this..

 

[The Rover Shop]

Work has begun on modifying the rear box, both side doors will be converted into full width swing up doors, this gets them totally out of the way and also provides a bit of shelter.. First step is to cut the openings to desired size and make an internal framework for the door aperture..

This side will be the kitchen and fridge side