My Land Rover Forward Control Blog

Well, the complicated stuff begins now as I started building the rear bodywork. Looking at the bits I had, I decided to use the existing Forward Control rear bulkhead and seat box in the original position and modify it to take the second row doors. This meant that I was going to have to sort out a new panel for the very rear of the cab area.

Off to raid the parts pile and find something suitable. As luck would have it, I have an old 109" rear tub from a Series 3 which is an ideal donor. The plan was to cut the front off the rear tub and use it to make a new rear panel.

A bit of work with cutting discs soon saw the bulk of the tub removed and a bit of trimming and drilling had the excess cut away. The body cappings will need to be sorted out to make everything look right, but the plan is to use a combination of the original side cappings from the 109 and a set of corner cappings from the rear to make it all look as it should.

A few pictures of today's efforts...

With the subframe on the vehicle, it is a fairly simple job to get the bulkhead on the chassis and start planning the bodywork. With the bulkhead in place, I could lift the rear body section into position to locate the new body mounts properly.

The clearances are all pretty close, but they are going to be workable. The plan for the vehicle is a proper double cab set up with dropsides on the rear, so the next phase will be sorting out all the framework and body panels for the cab area. It is going to be a lot of work, but hopefully the end result will be worthwhile.

In the meantime, a few pictures for you !

Yipee ! At last I got back in the workshop and got some work done on the FC. The key jobs to complete were the gearbox mounts and to get the upper subframe fixed properly.

I have been pondering the best way to sort the gearbox and eventually discovered, in a pile of bits, a gearbox crossmember from a Tdi Auto Discovery. Ideal ! With a couple of new rubber mounts and a few new holes in the chassis, it was a simple job to bolt everything in place.

With the engine and box in place, it was time to sort out the front subframe. In order to get the Tdi sitting where it needed to be, it was going to be considerably easier to route the turbo pipework and a few other anciliaries if I shortened the subframe and fabricated some new rear body mounts. This in itself isn't a problem, but does necessitate making up a couple of new mounts for the subframe.

Using 3mm plate and a bit of welding, new mounts were made up and welded to the main chassis, then bolted to the upper subframe.

Everything is starting to look like it should now, gearbox and engine are properly in place and the subframe is ready to accept the bulkhead for the next phase of the build. Nothing much will happen until after the Land Rover World show at Eastnor, but hopefully it won't be quite as long until I get some more work done on the project !

I've been posting all sorts of nonsense on here just lately and leaving it all to people's imagination.... so I thought I'd put a little photo update of the progress so far.......

The rear-rear spring hangers :

The rear-front spring hangers :

The Tdi engine in the chassis :

I have just been sorting out the gearbox mounts which should get everything back on track and then I will set about getting the bulkhead on the chassis and sorting out the body mounts !

Plenty to come....

Link: http://www.forward-control.com/gallery

Apologies to anyone who has had issues viewing the gallery recently.. I broke it

Fixed now, and available here : http://www.forward-control.com/gallery

Not much more to report on the builds as yet.. a full stocktake at work, and the impending 4x4 show at Donnington have occupied most of my time... I'll be back on it soon !

Cheers !