The Bar…………1963 Land Rover Series 2A 109 Pickup

This has been a huge, no, really huge project. Started out as a basket case right hand drive 109 pickup disintegrating in one of Lanny Clarks’ barns. The plan……..Switch to left hand drive, front and rear Sailsbury axles, military 1-ton frame, Defender 200TDi engine, Ashcroft transmission with hi-ratio transfer case, OME parabolics and shocks, Pangolin 4×4 8274 bumper, Toyota FJ60 power steering, plus a few other surprises. Oh, the name………The Bar…………this truck served as the bar at Lanny Clarks daughters wedding………how’s that for provenance.

This will be a long post…………many projects to cover, stay tuned.

Picking the truck up at Lannys…………what a fall from grace, critical wedding support truck to derelict parts truck

Back in the shop and disassembled………..very ugly

New “1 Tonne” 109 frame courtesy of Rovers North

Bed full of parts

The leftovers……..back to Lannys

A rare front Salibury found by Mark Letourney / Rovers North. It was butt ugly on the outside, but the guts and swivels were like new!

Axles cleaned up and painted, new brakes, bearings, seals installed, OME parabolics hung……..it’s a roller.

Real bad………should have thrown this bulkhead in the scrap bin, but it was a challenge………..rust sucks. Off to Adam at Finish Solutions in Milton, VT for sand blasting, where what was left of the bulkhead just about disappeared.

This thing had the rust-bug problem high and low. Lots of cutting and fabricating….tedious work.

Some brazing, some welding………at this point you actually look forward to installing the pre-made toe boxes, posts, and center tunnel.

Bulkhead operating room

Looks like a bulkhead again!

Cleaned up, seam sealed, and primed………..off the jig and onto the frame

Next up, doors. These too should have been tossed in favor of repops, but, what the hell……………..frame pieces are cheap and easy to make, and the alloy skins were original and in great shape.

Again, Finish Solutions blasted the frames into oblivion so I knew what I needed to replace. Vertical posts cut to size with hinge bolt sleeves brazed in.

New door frame.

Fabricated crossbar and door catch mount.

Door frame finished and primed.

Re-skinned!

Aside from welders, most of the tools used to repair the doors.

Next up, wings. Right front outer is trash, both inners have a good amount of corrosion. The good……..front panels are just ok, left front outer very nice. Another consideration is I’m going with dual circuit power brakes so the left inner needs the cutout for the brake servo. I went on the hunt for another set of wings, maybe Series 3’s with servo cutouts, in the hopes of piecing together one nice set. Good old Craigs……..I found a pair of decent Series 3 wings on Alabama Craigs List………gold!

The new wings arrived in great shape……..time to disect. First the front panels need to come out and be replaced by the decent originals. I marked all of the spot welds that need to go……. out came the spot-weld cutter. These cutters are handy, but go through aluminum very quickly, so if you try one, be careful or you’ll end up with some pretty large holes to repair.

Marked and ready to drill.

Headlight bucket out, I now have clear access to inner panel. These need to be drilled from the inside to preserve the wing exterior.

And they’re out.

Original front panels ready to go in.

Panel bond and lots of clamps.

The nice right side Series 3 outer has the marker light holes. I cut a patch panel out of a birmabright seat box scrap and got out the tig welder.

Patch tig welded in.

Screw holes filled.

Good weld penetration.

File the weld down and presto………early 2A outer wing panel.

All assembled and ready to fit.

Freshly refurbished wings and bulkhead mounted. Next up, the hood (bonnet?).

Frame is a little rusty and missing the cross supports for the spare tire plate.

Fabricated supports.

Supports in place.

All cleaned up and POR’d.

On to the bed.Right side is caved in at rear corner and needs to be replaced. Both rear panel lower sections are gone due to dissimilar corrosion, same for the rear body angle. All of the cross members are toast also.

Right side is off.

Lots of spot welds drilled.

NOS side in place and clamped up.

Two NOS rear panels courtesy of Pangolin 4×4, along with the new rear angle from the guys at Bits for Landy’s in place. I left the floor in place to keep the bed square and give support. Once I’m happy with the new panels the floor will come out too.

Floor is out. New cross members made by Vermont Custom Sheet Metal. The cross members will eventually come out and go to the galvanizer.

Time to set the body work aside and get the 200TDi into place. The Ashcroft transmission is in and mated up to the 200. The only motor mount that needs to change is the right front.  Off it comes, fabricate a new mount (as above), weld to the frame and et the engine hoist out.

Welded up a few spares.

Welded to the frame and coated with Clearco Zinc Rich Primer…………expensive and nasty stuff, but incredibly durable and far cheaper than lugging the frame to Boston to be dipped again.

Ready for the engine.

And in………..this was the easy part of the conversion. Now to figure out plumbing, radiator placement, intercooler, power steering, exhaust, intake, fuel lines, and wiring.