2020 Review - What a year!

 What a year! 

It started with such optimism about getting out and visiting places and we had the Welsh Festival of Land Rovers to look forward to

I even got around in January to finishing off some of the Solar installation (however I'm still not happy with it this will be revisited in 2021 hopefully) 

Then of course in February we started hearing that there could be something nasty going around and we learned all about Covid-10. March came and the weather got better and we were still waiting for some clarity on what was going to happen and then as march was about to leave us we were all asked to stay at home and not meet up with anyone.

What an optimist I was.. 

April was when we started clapping and I thought it was fun to include Katy in some of the pictures, but I was so embarrassed about the way she looked 

that as May came along I know I thought give it a quick rub down with a sander, a coat of paint and it will be good to go when things free up in the summer. 

Soon everyone was debating whether to wear masks or not and it meant not a lot to me because during June I was wearing one for about 6 hours a day whilst sanding the multiple layers of paint off the roof and sides of Katy. 

I added the first coat of the new colour to the roof and I congratulated myself (I was so over optimistic!) and by July I was congratulating myself on getting the sides painted as well 

Things certainly moved on at pace that month because I got the rear step welded up and I moved her from our drive up to Steve's workshop where the really hard work could take place. By the end of that month she was devoid of wings, windscreen and we could see the real state of the sections that needed attention. 

In August the cutting started and I repaired the wings ready to go back again and then in September we managed to move her into the workshop proper (with the help of a Massey Ferguson industrial tractor and the cutting and welding could really get started. 

Welding started we had some good progress at first 

However, later in September we had "local lockdown" in  Wales with constraints against crossing county boundaries which was a disaster for the project because despite being only 2.5 miles away, Katy was in a different county. A lazy way to restrict things IMO by politicians, and a real nonsense because I was working mainly alone, could easily stay away from Steve because the workshop is a set of barns, but rules are rules and things went on hold :(

Towards the end of the year there was a brief opening of rules before we were locked down again. during that time I managed to rub down and ready for second coat some sections where Steve the welder wasn't working (social distancing managed at all times)  

So in summary 

Things are looking better on one corner where the welding has finished

but its still work in progress 

 

Heavy Metal - Part 1

 Ok, it's just the start of one corner, but the rebuild has started properly now with some real metal going back in place of the fresh air and rust that was in this position just a couple of days ago. 

Just a quick spray of primer to keep any moisture away over the weekend and it will be back to it on Monday. There is a long way to go and a lot more to do before she will be back in one piece, but it's a positive step forwards

Cutting Corners

I knew that the corners were bad, but the full extent of the rust can only be seen when the inner panels have been cut off... 

It's actually a bit better than it looks because some of that is just surface rust and can be treated, but we will be replacing those bits with metal instead of "just air" which leaks when it rains

More panels are on route from P A Blanchard as I post this and we plan to get back to this next week 

Horror on the screen

OK, it's the bulkhead corners that are the horror (more later), but getting the screen out was no small adventure as it took much of the day to extract recalcitrant rusted screws and bolts out and to work trough finding all the small hidden ones that were still stopping things and then cutting through the seal on the 30 year old windscreen to bulkhead seal so that every thing would come out. 

This was the final result 

And then to truly explore the horror that needs to be sorted out here are some close ups of the bulkhead corners 

So tomorrow I will be returning to the scene of the horror and getting as much of the dash out as I can so that Steve the welder can do his magic

Wings waiting

After a strip down, some reshaping, prime and repainting the wings are waiting for the welding and then to go back on again

Katy naked

If that title doesn't get lots of hits on the interweb nothing will!

For those of you who came here not looking for Land Rover stuff.. sorry :)

I've watched loads of videos and read lots of things which said that it would take 1-2 hours to remove a wing. Well the driver side took me almost all of the working day due to my ineptitude and some information that did not get mentioned on any of the videos I watched. 

1. To get the top bolt out under the wing is a pain as most people say, but actually ignoring the advice of long bars on a socket ratchet and using a flexible ratchet spanner made it a lot easier

2. Having a long handled 13mm / 1/2 inch ring spanner was very useful for a couple of nuts

3. And this is the big one. The inner and outer wings have a gasket that glued them together so even when all the bolts were out they wouldn't separate until I prised them apart with a nailbar

Anyway success...

With the wings off I can see that the rot is not as bad as feared, but it needs doing

Another interesting features is the two tone airborne.. fabulous noise as you can hear on the video celebrating the NHS but here they are to see as well

Brushed Aluminium

As I am sure UK readers are aware it's Alumin-i-um... and people like it brushed on vehicles..

Katy's wings were covered with some old aluminium checker plate which was corroded and going to look really tatty compared to loads of nice new paint.

so I brushed it ..

Here's a before and after to see what about 30 minutes with a wire brush and steel wool will give you

And just to prove I wasn't going half hearted at this here is the finished job

 

Rivet Counter

Anyone who is in to Land Rovers will know the phrase"Rivet Counter". These are knowledgeable and generally helpful people who know everything that needs to be known and is happy to help check that the right thing has been used and of course the right number of rivets have been used (especially on a Series one).

I'm not one, I'm not enough of an expert especially on series Land Rovers. 

However today I have been counting them carefully and have got to the number 45 ... and what is even better is the rear step does not wobble and closes easier

My favourite corner shop is open again

It's been an interesting time this lockdown

I've been keeping busy which you can see on the posts that have already happened and I'm certain I will be doing more

Today I removed the bonnet to work on that. Four of the six bolts snapped off and those were the easy ones! 

The other two resisted the damaged screwhead tools that I have and had to be drilled out so new nuts and bolts would be needed. I decided to make use of the click and collect service at Bearmach and they were excellent as usual.

Glad to be supporting a local business

Stoned at the back

first coat of the new light stone colour on the body work

The cupboard is going to be done as well, but needed some repairs first

Primer backend

After an immense amount of sanding the body of the ambulance/camper area has made it into a corat of primer. 

I made a decision to not remove the gas cabinet and trim because I did not want to break the seal on areas that are not leaking 

The rear step has been taken away for some welding.. and the ladder has been removed I will see if I can find a smaller one whilst we have this opportunity

It's a bit of a pity that there are so many vent holes from old fridges, but they are there and they will stay because I don't want to risk any leaks taking them off

Repainting Part 2 ... New colour on the roof

First view of the new colour on the roof. This is just the first coat and there is a lot more to go.

The preparation has been to sand with 40 and then 80 grit, then a thorough wash, wipe with panel wipe degreaser and a wipe with a tack cloth.

Then first coat of primer which shows up the imperfections so another round of sanding and cleaning.

Repeated the primer and another clean, and then this went on...

It's finally raining here so it's going to be paused for now

Repainting Part 1.. the stripping

Its time to deal with the old paintwork on Katy. it's had at least 4 different colour schemes when in service because I have photo's of it in NATO green and in UN white and there is definitely camouflage on it as well and then the cream current top coat. I've made a start on the work by removing the roof rack (with help from the boss) and am starting on the roof because less people will see that if I am not so good during practice

That can go on the patio.. who's going to need that for a party for a while …

Now you can see remnants of the original red cross, sadly not in good enough shape to be worth saving

Much of the paint is so badly attached it comes in sheets with a scraper. this is not usual for automotive paint so I suspect that the final cream coat is more of a house paint than what is normally on a vehicle which is typically harder

In places it just peels off to the original undercoat

Then it's my three new best friends

and I am getting something like this ... I'm considering stopping here where its well attached because it's been 2 full days work to get to this point and I think trying to get to bare metal all over will be beyond me given I will have to work ourside and in bouts of good weather..

Land Rover Katy Celebrating the Clap for the NHS & Carers April 2020

If you were anywhere near our house tonight you got quite a bit of noise.. We had smiles all round from the neighbours (from an appropriate distance of course!)

Staying at home

We've all be asked to stay at home and we are doing as requested.. I've added some rather amateur artwork to Rhian's excellent crochet work of the NHS Bear inspired by her mom (hence it's in sisters colours) and it's all on display in the front of our ambulance now...

The bear does know how to wear his PPE properly :) 

Katy needs a clean (no real excuses are there) and I will get to that, but we have already had our first appreciative audience in the 2 little girls on their bikes coming past as we were finishing installing the bear. #stayathome #welovetheNHS

Welsh Festival of Land Rovers 2020

EVENT CANCELLED BECAUSE OF COVID-19

As part of the South Wales Land Rover Club we are pleased to be supporting the 2020 Welsh Festival of Land Rovers

From what we already know there will be some superb vehicles on show, at least 3 ambulances, a Land Rover Hearse (presumably in case the ambulances are not successful) and a really wonderful set of Series and Later Vehicles.

There are only 70 places available for display vehicles so click the pictures or this link to go direct to http://welshfestivaloflandrovers.com/ if you want to register to be on the display

Series 1 Ambulance Reborn

Some readers will have heard of Land Rover Reborn which is a service offered by Jaguar Land Rover and something that the SWLRC team visited back in 2016 and was written up HERE at the time

Well it's not just JLR who can do a wonderful job in bringing a piece of history back to life in a totally wonderful manner

Back in 2015 I came across a set of photographs that had been taken by a team who had found what remained of a Series 1 Ambulance rotting in a junk pile.

At the time a brief comment was made in the Series 1 club forum part of which is paraphrased here

This is a Bonalack and Sons ambulance bodied 1956 series one Land Rover 107". It is believed these ambulances were built to fill three RAF contracts totaling 35 vehicles and this is the second one ever built being serial No. 870600013 (the run started at 00012)  and is believed to be the only surviving example certainly in the UK, but possibly the world, so is a very rare vehicle.

It has been standing since 1969.. Due to this long period of standing, all the steel work is in very poor condition/non existent. 

The chassis (a 107" station wagon chassis) is completely gone from the seat box forward and what is left under the body is fairly thin. The bulkhead I think was removed as the only parts I have from it are the vent flaps and the VIN plate (luckily). 

The main ambulance body, which is really the rare bit, is of aluminium construction so has largely survived, it's not without it's knocks and scrapes, but is certainly savable, which is why I think this could be a worthwhile project. Also included are the original front doors, front wings, single piece floor/gearbox tunnel, windscreen and bonnet. The engine and gearbox had, unfortunately, been removed long ago, and despite my best efforts, could not be located anywhere on the property. The back axle is still fitted, and amazingly still turns freely, so moving it around and loading it on and off of trailers is relatively easy, the front axle, however, is not present.   

Paperwork wise, there is the original Buff log book, stating date of first registration as 10 July 1963, There is also an original MOT certificate dated 1969,

I heard little more until June 2019 when I was contacted by Mike, one of the project team who had come across the Land Rover Katy Ambulance Pages  and had contacted me to see if I had more pictures that could help the project.

I shared what I had, but I think that they had already found most of them through the links provided or elsewhere and wished them well. We discussed a visit, but I was not able to join them at the time due to my work commitments so I wished them well ...

The team were clearly very busy and it was not until October when Mike got in contact again saying that they had completed the bulk of the work and they would now be happy to share some pictures of their finished and really wonderfully looking vehicle

(Pictures reproduced with permission)

I am sure that there will still be the odd job that they find needs doing for some time to come, just like any Land Rover maintenance jobs "just occur".

There is an in depth article in the December 2019 issue of Land Rover Monthly which is a wonderful story of discovery and dedication. I won't repeat it here, but would recommend it as a good read. and to say that it beat the new Defender in space on the cover is something to shout about!

I've not managed to see it in person yet, but for me the nicest part of the discussions with the team was the wonderful comment from Mike which I really appreciated: -

Thank you for your help along the way, your blog was the first point of reference we came across and helped a lot! And gave us some leads! we are grateful for people like yourself who spend time researching and writing about history.

Kind regards 

Michael Tokley

I'm grateful that there are excellent mechanics who can do such good work out there keeping history alive!

Solar Sucess

Its been a while since I posted on here, but there has been some progress recently

I have finished fitting the dual charge system into Katy and have left her over Christmas and the new year without the intelligent battery charger running during which time I would have expected the alarm etc. to have drawn down the battery enough to make the starting at least a little sluggish

However the new split charge system seems to have done its's work well and she started on first turnover

This is the next phase of the system I described installing in the post do-land-rovers-dream-of-electric-sheep and consists of an intelligent device between the main and leisure battery

 Admittedly the wiring looks a little untidy at the moment, its out of sight, but will be sorted finally once I am 100% sure that the new system is working fully as I want. in the mean time all I need to do is pull the passenger seat forwards to get at all of this...

 Another addition has been the installation of a bluetooth controller monitoring system so I can see the state of the system on my phone. It was a very easy install.. plug it in, connect via bluetooth, Change Default Password! and use it.

I put that bit in bold because it's a key step that anyone installing any form of computer equipment should do. its got a bit too much cable and I need to find a tidier way to deal with that, but it is all working 

This is what I see on my phone, the state of the voltages at any point in time and what mode the charger is using (in this case float because the batteries are full

And I can look at the last 30 days to see what it did.. not much because there has not been much drawn from the batteries, but useful when we get going and use the system for real

There is an option in the system where you can connect both batteries to help start in an emergency. I have not as yet put this in because if both are fully charged why would I need it? Time will tell if that is the correct decision