Have to change the name of this blog now...

Yesterday, I bought a 1959 Series II 88". Previous owner bought it in 1966 in Montana and kept it on his property there--camping, hunting, etc. Claims he only put a few thousand miles on it in all those years. Chassis, bulkhead and core support have only surface rust--no perforations. More details to follow.

Our 109 Featured in January 2011 Issue of Rovers Magazine!

You can view the magazine here:

http://www.roversnorth.com/store/t-downloadsrnnews.aspx

Our story begins on page 6 with this picture--my son is reading a book in the front passenger seat and our dog, Cocoa, is looking at me with glowing eyes from the back.

About a year ago, the editor of the Rovers Magazine solicited articles about Land Rover rebuilding projects. I submitted a draft article in February 2010 when we were about halfway done. After we had the 109 back, I contacted the editor again and we finalized the article in November 2010. I did not think it would get published until Summer or Fall so it was a great surprise to receive the magazine in the mail on Friday, January 21st and find our story!

Interior LED lights

Since we have never had functioning interior lights in the 109, I installed LED lights in the dome light, the middle seat row and the back. I ordered peel & stick LEDs from superbrightleds.com. These come 12 to a strip and can be cut down into 3 LED lengths. You just have to solder the wire leads to them. I really didn't know what to expect as far as how much the interior would be illuminated so I used 12 of them. I made a new backing plate for the dome light out of sheet aluminum. The original backing was pressboard covered with headliner material and was warped. In the pictures below, you'll see that the bulb is still in place. I left it there even though there is no power running to it.




For the middle seat row and the back/rear tub, I used a set of LED lights from Ikea (Dioder model). These are 12volt LEDs that are run through a transformer so they can be plugged into a standard 120v house outlet. I cut off the transformer, grounded the negative lead to the drip rail and ran power to the positive lead from the switch box/inverter (described in another post). Two strips are mounted on each side of the rear tub and on each side of the middle row where the roof windows are located.

Here are a couple of pictures of the lights on at night. Bright enough to find things and to read by, but not bright enough to blind you.

2010 Christmas Shots

While we did not get a white Christmas, we did get a white new years.



And here are a couple of shots of this year's Christmas lights on the 109.

Seattle Snow Run pictures

This past Saturday, December 11, 2010, was the Pacific Coast Rover Club "Snow Run." If I counted right, we had 1 Defender 90, 4 Discovery's, 4 Range Rovers, 3 Series II 88s, 1 Series 1 107 and our Series III 109. We went up Beckler Road off Highway 2, just west of Steven's Pass.



As the newbie in the group, I did my duty and got stuck in the ditch giving several dedicated people the chance to try out various recovery techniques and all their fancy recovery gear. We tried snatching the 109 backwards, pulling it sideways and pulling it forwards with both a Discovery and a Range Rover linked together. All we succeeded in doing was digging the ditch a little deeper. Finally, after about an hour, the Discovery just winched us out.


Once we were freed from the ditch we drove another ten minutes and caught up with the rest of the club, sitting around at a roaring campfire in the falling snow.


Around 3pm we headed back down the mountain and back home where we hosted the party/dinner.

Rocky Mountain Doortop unboxing!

Wooo hooo! We received our new doortops from Rocky Mountain today!! The window seal kits for the middle doors and rear windows arrived yesterday. A very big thank you goes out to Jeremy at Rocky Mountain. Extremely nice guy and very helpful. Had his weekend not become booked by unexpected events, he was even going to drive the parts down to Bellingham, WA to meet me! He has won a new loyal customer!

Here is the hardware:



The packaging is very impressive and effective. I will try to reuse when I find a buyer for our old door tops.



Of course, I want to install them RIGHT NOW, but our current door tops are snugly rusted in place, it is pitch black outside and it is raining. The last two things don't bother me, but the first one I would rather tackle in daylight. We'll see if I can get them in before the Seattle Snow Run with the Pacific Coast Rover Club this Saturday!

Inverter for front seats

I disassembled an old 80 watt inverter that plugged into a cigarette lighter and extended all the leads so they could plug into a new fascia I made out of sheet aluminum.



Our welder friend, Paul, had built a simple switch box for us a couple of years ago. Originally, it also contained a three-place cigarette lighter unit but it was not secured very well and could be pushed into or pulled out of the box. In its place, I made the aluminum fascia on the right side of the following picture. Using step drill bits, a dremel and several files, I created holes for the 12V plug (far right), two holes for the seat heater switches with a 5V USB plug under them, and a hole for a 120V plug. I epoxied the 120V plug and the USB plug into the fascia. All the other plugs are held in place with built in clips.

The metal plate in the upper left is the bottom of the switch box. Riveted underneath it is a plastic project box that will hold the inverter itself.




Here it is nearly done. The toggles on the top are, from left to right, roof rack lights, inverter on/off, and interior LED lights. There are two extra holes for later expansion. This will be mounted to the upper dash just above the three gauge cluster.