It's going slowly but surely. We're at one of those uninspiring points where work seems to be in reverse. The photos aren't that exciting, but they do give an idea of what goes into project of this kind.

The first of the new changes was chopping away the rear chassis where the inner tyre walls were fouling when the suspension flexed. No messing about here and we now are left with space eight inches wide by 24 inches long by six inches deep. This is where the petrol tank will go and--if I'm lucky--another petrol tank with a similar capacity acting as a surge tank will go in the triangular space in front of it. This will allow petrol to be fed at all angles; it's just that there wont be that much of it so I won't be able to go very far even on a full tank. I'd like to think it'll do 150 miles between top-ups. In England, green lanes are seldom longer than 20 miles and even if the next petrol station is as much as 70 miles down the motorway, there are always turn offs with stations a few miles away. Anyway what are jerry cans for?

I was hoping to have housed a rear winch somewhere in that space now reserved for the petrol tank! Conventional rear bumper mount it is then!

As it stands, it is near enough where the chassis will be when the wheels are back on with the body on top compressing the springs. This will mean the chassis point nearest to the ground will still be over two feet away.

Notice the brake discs now on the rear axles. Hopefully I got the design of the caliper bracket right this weekend. Four people have already tried and failed.

In a few of the pics the engine and gearbox is cradled with ropes which can be easily adjusted to locate the engine. It was deemed preferable to the engine hoist.

But we forgot one thing - the body. A quick measure up with the engine in its position revealed that it would stick up over 6 inches above the bonnet line--that's one hell of a power bulge and damned little visibility. The engine was therefore dropped three inches (hello, centre of gravity) and I'll be using an SJ413/Samurai bonnet as it has over two inches more clearance at the carbs than the conventional SJ410. Were also looking into a Offenhaus&Weber combo or Holly Projection in the hope of saving space. Apparently Edelbrock do a low profile induction system. The Projection sounds the best to me though.

With the chassis level, the engine is angled back 5 degrees as it should be. Once located with the ropes the engine mounts were fabricated. These are way bigger than the factory units and bracing the engine way better. Bushes are again Land Rover items for cheap and easy sourcing.

The exhaust manifolds from an old Rover P6 (they hugged the block better as the car was narrower) were loosely mounted and found to foul the chassis so we'll be using LA Supa Trux own design exhaust manifolds which also increase performance.

Recently, we've been doing more thinking about the wheel-base and yet again we've decided to lengthen it. This time to about 86 inches in length. We might even go up to 89 inches. We'll leave 88 & 90 to the Land Rover boys. If so, some trick body work may have to be done on the front to lengthen the whole engine bay. It will certainly give us some more room under there for a couple of 'extras' you know like the radiator, fans, batteries, etc. The stuff you kinda take for granted.

At the moment, I'm still waiting for delivery of a Ramsey REP 9000X-- the existence of which I am now starting to question--as it's allegedly been in the mail for nearly three weeks now, going everywhere but my home. Should such a winch turn up in your mail please hold onto it and let me know. I'll come and pick it up and buy you a drink for your troubles.

The sump is only a minor case for concern should the front axle come up and hit it. As I see it there are two ways to over come this. Move the axle forward (done) or dry sump it. Hopefully funds will allow for both. Dry sumping would be better on extreme angles.

Oops (at left) was just one of those ideas. Nigel is building another truck (a Toyota) with quarter elliptical springs all round. I thought about it for a little while, hence placing the Toy's front gearbox cross-member with the trailing arm brackets on my rig. Only thing is, it's in the way of the front prop as my transfer and gearbox are some 5 inches lower than on the Toy. Back to to regular springs with shackle reversal and LA Supa Droopers.

Oops is, however, good for showing the gearbox cross-member and the massive bushing bracket. To this we will probably fit some kind of skid plate if we feel it worth it. Unlikely with two feet of clearance.

I'm back up there in the next few weeks to see how things are coming on. Did my caliper brackets fit? Looks like it, going by the steel template mockups. Hopefully this will be the last time before it is all dismantled and the chassis gets powder-coated in bright yellow. While this is being done, the body's underside, engine bay & floor will be Durabak-ed in bright red if Nigel/LA Supa Trux (the UK's Durabak distributor) has taken delivery of the first coloured batch of it into the UK.

All that remains to be decided before powder-coating is where and how the roll-cage will fit. The mounting points for which along with the petrol tank's brackets will be the last things to be welded onto the chassis. I might even get to see it with the body on as well as tyres-- now those will be some photos...

Write if you have questions. Just understand that you may have to wait for a reply depending on my work!