DonFromCanada
New member
For those on the Dormobile email list, I've had a lot of posts so this is more of a status update with a beginning to end view of where I am now.
Lizzie started life out as a 1968 LHD 109 Series 2A Dormobile with the NADA 6 engine and in desert tan colour. She was sold out of Canada, and is an original Canadian Domobile - quite a rarity.
She spent all her early years in Ontario, and was passed from father to son, where he went to my high school and drove it in often.. I remember seeing her a few times and wondering what the heck that THING was?
Fast forward a few years. The son was out offroading with it, and one thing led to another, and the frame snapped. That benched the truck for a few years as a new project started up to rebuild her. The original engine had died, and a new 2.25l was found to replace it. The original chassis was unrepairable, so a new one was bought from Marsland as a galvanized 1-ton replacement.
At this point, she sat for a few years in a shed... where she sat neglected due to lack of time, and that the son was tired of Rovers and wanted to purge all his old trucks.
I found his ad online, and reconnected with my school-mate and bought Lizzie as a pile of parts and a rolling chassis on a bare galvanized frame.
I had found that he was putting rusted parts back onto a clean frame, and the engine had a back knock in it... plus the original axles were in bad shape - the rear pot was kept from leaking with silicone!
So after returning the truck to my work area at a mate's shop, I took it apart again, discarded the axles and engine, tranny and transfer case.
I etch-primed the whole chassis and then POR-15'd it by hand painting with a brush (I prefer the look of a black frame to make it look original) which turned out very nicely.
I then found an ex-MOD Series 3 109 truck in bad shape, but mechanically sound, and harvested the Salisbury axles from it for the new build up. The axle cases were shot blasted and POR-15'd as well. They look good as new. The interiors were in good shape with no shipped or cracked teeth on any of the gears, so some new gaskets and bolts were all that were required to refit them.
The 2.25l engine which was originally to be in the truck is much too under-powered to pull the weight of this guy, so I went in search of an original vintage NADA6 motor. As anyone familiar with those engines will tell you, you can find an engine, but finding parts is much harder. After some deliberation, I hanged my way of thinking and decided that instead of restoring the vehicle to original, I would rebuild it better than new using as many modern pieces as I could without overtly changing the truck. As part of that decision, I decided to stick with all-Rover parts, as I am familiar with them, and already have an established relationship with the various parts suppliers.
The engine was replaced with a rebuilt 200tdi motor out of a wrecked Defender in the UK. Since we were not doing a restore, I didn't think I needed to stay all original, so I thought I'd do something a bit unique... the truck was going to be for long distance trips, and no real offroading beyond provincial parks or light duty green-laning... so I decided to put in an automatic transmission... After looking for about 5 months for a Defender automatic that somebody was breaking down, I came to the realization that there were none available - anywhere.
So I broadened my search a bit and found on eBay a tranny, bellhousing and adaptor plate from a Discovery Series 1...
On the body side, the truck had suffered from 40 years of neglect. The front wings were held together with bits of weld and the inner fender on the passenger side was made from a store sign! So I sourced a new set of fenders from another truck of mine that was in good shape. The hood was equally rotted so another was sourced from a parts supplier.
The truck side frames had completely rotted out, so a new set of NOS side frames were found, and hat covered that base.
The doors were in bad shape as well, so the skins were peeled from their ribs, and new ribs were fabricated to replace them.
The bulkhead (aka firewall) was a mess. The side supports were non-existant below the upper door hinge. The centre tunnel looked like shredded cheese, and both footwells were completely missing from being rotted away. Another decision: rebuild or find another one? Well finding a NADA6 firewall is like the goose that layed the golden egg, and I wanted the extra space of a NADA firewall as my new tranny was a bit bigger than the original - not to mention that I may have to move some frame mounts around to make room for that engine under the hood... so it got rebuilt. Some bought side frame repair sections were got, and new footwells were made from scratch... Again, the before and after pictures are incredible.
The worst of the body was the rear tub. The doglegs were completely rotted away, the floor was uneven from popped support ribs, the mounting points to the frame had disintegrated from galvanic corrosion. The decision had to be made. Keep the old tub and rework it, or find a donor tub? Well, tubs are large and finding a good shape one was going to be hard was well as shipping it to me or going and retrieving it. So, the existing tub got painstaking disassembled rivet-by-rivet. New aluminum material was made for the floor, new steels ribs were made for the bracing. New doglegs were made for the rear doors. New mount points were edge-welded on to support the rear crossmember. The results look spectacular, and this new tub is even more sturdy that the original.
So at this point reassembly comes to mind. All of the body panels have been painted except the doors and the roof panel (Which also needs work). The rear tub is mounted up, the sides on and the front wings, firewall and front grille.
My transmission is due to arrive here at the end of February (did I mention I had to have it shipped from the UK?) when I can have it installed and finish up assembling the truck...
For photos, see here:
http://www.landroversalvage.ca/inde...&PAGER_limit=16&PAGER_start=0&PAGER_section=1
Cheers!
Don From Canada.
Lizzie started life out as a 1968 LHD 109 Series 2A Dormobile with the NADA 6 engine and in desert tan colour. She was sold out of Canada, and is an original Canadian Domobile - quite a rarity.
She spent all her early years in Ontario, and was passed from father to son, where he went to my high school and drove it in often.. I remember seeing her a few times and wondering what the heck that THING was?
Fast forward a few years. The son was out offroading with it, and one thing led to another, and the frame snapped. That benched the truck for a few years as a new project started up to rebuild her. The original engine had died, and a new 2.25l was found to replace it. The original chassis was unrepairable, so a new one was bought from Marsland as a galvanized 1-ton replacement.
At this point, she sat for a few years in a shed... where she sat neglected due to lack of time, and that the son was tired of Rovers and wanted to purge all his old trucks.
I found his ad online, and reconnected with my school-mate and bought Lizzie as a pile of parts and a rolling chassis on a bare galvanized frame.
I had found that he was putting rusted parts back onto a clean frame, and the engine had a back knock in it... plus the original axles were in bad shape - the rear pot was kept from leaking with silicone!
So after returning the truck to my work area at a mate's shop, I took it apart again, discarded the axles and engine, tranny and transfer case.
I etch-primed the whole chassis and then POR-15'd it by hand painting with a brush (I prefer the look of a black frame to make it look original) which turned out very nicely.
I then found an ex-MOD Series 3 109 truck in bad shape, but mechanically sound, and harvested the Salisbury axles from it for the new build up. The axle cases were shot blasted and POR-15'd as well. They look good as new. The interiors were in good shape with no shipped or cracked teeth on any of the gears, so some new gaskets and bolts were all that were required to refit them.
The 2.25l engine which was originally to be in the truck is much too under-powered to pull the weight of this guy, so I went in search of an original vintage NADA6 motor. As anyone familiar with those engines will tell you, you can find an engine, but finding parts is much harder. After some deliberation, I hanged my way of thinking and decided that instead of restoring the vehicle to original, I would rebuild it better than new using as many modern pieces as I could without overtly changing the truck. As part of that decision, I decided to stick with all-Rover parts, as I am familiar with them, and already have an established relationship with the various parts suppliers.
The engine was replaced with a rebuilt 200tdi motor out of a wrecked Defender in the UK. Since we were not doing a restore, I didn't think I needed to stay all original, so I thought I'd do something a bit unique... the truck was going to be for long distance trips, and no real offroading beyond provincial parks or light duty green-laning... so I decided to put in an automatic transmission... After looking for about 5 months for a Defender automatic that somebody was breaking down, I came to the realization that there were none available - anywhere.
So I broadened my search a bit and found on eBay a tranny, bellhousing and adaptor plate from a Discovery Series 1...
On the body side, the truck had suffered from 40 years of neglect. The front wings were held together with bits of weld and the inner fender on the passenger side was made from a store sign! So I sourced a new set of fenders from another truck of mine that was in good shape. The hood was equally rotted so another was sourced from a parts supplier.
The truck side frames had completely rotted out, so a new set of NOS side frames were found, and hat covered that base.
The doors were in bad shape as well, so the skins were peeled from their ribs, and new ribs were fabricated to replace them.
The bulkhead (aka firewall) was a mess. The side supports were non-existant below the upper door hinge. The centre tunnel looked like shredded cheese, and both footwells were completely missing from being rotted away. Another decision: rebuild or find another one? Well finding a NADA6 firewall is like the goose that layed the golden egg, and I wanted the extra space of a NADA firewall as my new tranny was a bit bigger than the original - not to mention that I may have to move some frame mounts around to make room for that engine under the hood... so it got rebuilt. Some bought side frame repair sections were got, and new footwells were made from scratch... Again, the before and after pictures are incredible.
The worst of the body was the rear tub. The doglegs were completely rotted away, the floor was uneven from popped support ribs, the mounting points to the frame had disintegrated from galvanic corrosion. The decision had to be made. Keep the old tub and rework it, or find a donor tub? Well, tubs are large and finding a good shape one was going to be hard was well as shipping it to me or going and retrieving it. So, the existing tub got painstaking disassembled rivet-by-rivet. New aluminum material was made for the floor, new steels ribs were made for the bracing. New doglegs were made for the rear doors. New mount points were edge-welded on to support the rear crossmember. The results look spectacular, and this new tub is even more sturdy that the original.
So at this point reassembly comes to mind. All of the body panels have been painted except the doors and the roof panel (Which also needs work). The rear tub is mounted up, the sides on and the front wings, firewall and front grille.
My transmission is due to arrive here at the end of February (did I mention I had to have it shipped from the UK?) when I can have it installed and finish up assembling the truck...
For photos, see here:
http://www.landroversalvage.ca/inde...&PAGER_limit=16&PAGER_start=0&PAGER_section=1
Cheers!
Don From Canada.
