A Blog About Land Rovers in Oklahoma
In this episode, I manage to get some good welds. Together with some bolts, I think the floor bed is installed!!!!!
Now I need to clean up the welds and cover the steel in some primer and paint. You know, to prevent rust, wink, wink.
I know this will rust again, I’m just hoping by the time it does, I’m on to another vehicle.
Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.
Yeah, these welds go to SEVEN. As Nigel Tufnel of the legendary band, Spinal Tap, says, “…but these go to eleven.” I turned up the voltage on my welder to get better welds.
I started with setting 4 wire speed and C voltage on my Lincoln Pro Mig 180 welder. Those welds did not hold. Drilling them out ate two drill bits and caused me to sharpen one of them twice during this ordeal.
So I turned it up to 7 D. Why the wire speed needed to be so much faster at this level of voltage is till a mystery to me, but hey, whatever works.
Hopefully these work. I am going to reinforce the welding with some bolts just to make sure any “flexing” of the body doesn’t sound like I just cracked the Big White Bus in half, when those weld break free. It will give me some piece of mind too that the floor bed will not go anywhere with all my gear strapped to it.
I also sorted out that I had my braces on wrong. This was why the bed was bulging in the middle. I don’t know how many times I went through how those needed to be installed and I still got them wrong. They are on correctly now and the bed panel fits SO much better.
That’s about all. I really appreciate two of my viewers who pointed out that the welds were not penetrating.
Wallace, who just recently acquired a Range Rover Classic and will be starting on his restoration at some point in 2025. And…
Trevor from Tumbleweed Garage [YouTube channel] who is restoring a Willys Pickup. He is doing a great job and I love watching how his mind works. He does a lot without any fancy tools, proving once again you don’t need to spend a king’s ransom to play with cars in your garage.
Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.
In this post I pose a question, “Why not bolt those supports on?!?”
I have the holes for bolts. I either have to weld those holes up or use them to mount the supports. It’s only a few bolts to get the beams attached. Bolted or welded I have the same result.
So I decided to bolt them on. I went through my stash of stainless bolts. You KNOW those bolts would have to stainless as do the nyloc nuts and the fender washers. So I needed a run to the hardware store. I had a coupon for 20% off on $50(US) so…let’s go nuts…I mean nuts and bolts.
I am now ready to mount those beams. I managed to get the shop up to 57 degrees Fahrenheit so I sprayed some primer on the bare metal. I then decided I needed to move the beams and the floor pan into the sunroom in the house. It is climate controlled and the paint will cure more effectively if the temp is above 60F.
I also sprayed bedliner on the floor pan too. This rubberized material will help form a water tight water resistant mount once I get this all bolted up. I’m feeling pretty pump about it actually.
The next episode will have the beams installed and mounted in the Range Rover to assure the fit is right and then to weld the pan in place.
Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering. Like and subscribe. I really appreciate it.
In this update I begin attaching the supports to the floor pan. Also in this update I tried to get carbon monoxide poison and avoided getting bit by a fiddleback spider.
I started on the supports and the first one was the strap across the back portion of the floor bed. When I removed the strap during my tear down I drilled out the welds. I did a decent job and only punched through on one weld. This allowed me to plug weld the strap back into place.
This was fortuitous. The other support beams are drilled through. That’s gonna make reattaching …difficult.
Since it was a bit chilly in the shoppe, I fired up the kerosene heater. I done this several times in the past. Before I closed the overhead door a little exhaust from the Big White Bus managed to get in. The heater must have added to a substantial amount of carbon monoxide. This set off the sensor. So I opened up the door to let the monoxides out.
I also moved the alarm, under the alarm was a damn fiddleback spider. The cold didn’t allow for the damn thing to scurry away. I ended it right there with a tap. When it twitched, I gave it a SMASH. One less brown recluse spider is a good thing.
I now have one of the three supports into place. The other two will not be as fun.
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Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.
In this video, Part 4 of 12? (I’ve stopped counting), I dry fit the repaired floor pan and contemplate how I’m going to get the braces welded up.
Well…it fits. It’s not great, but I think it will work. There are going to be gaps and those will need some seam sealer to make them water-tight.
The holes in the panel will present a welding challenge. The holes will likely need to be filled prior to welding on either the brace or the panel. I’m not sure which will be the best.
So there are some decisions need and I’ll have to fix it to get this project completed.
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Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.
In this week’s post I continue my work on the floor pan. This time it’s patching the panel wear rust munched it’s way through. I patched a roughly 4″ x 5″ piece and three holes. One was about the size of a quarter the other about the size of a nickel.
I made up a template cut it out for the 4×5 hole. For the smaller holes I drilled them out to make them uniformly round. This helped greatly with making the patches. The third hole I just welded shut by building up the weld to bridge the hole.
I had a bit of trouble getting the welder dialed in. I haven’t changed the setting but for some reason it the welder was being difficult. Once dialed in (set back to the original settings) I managed to get good penetrating welds.
Once it was all patched up I got some paint on every thing. I was also able to get some rattle-can rhino-liner/stone chip sealer on the Z bar. I still believe this is crucial to keeping the rust at bay for a few more years. I will likely put a bunch of seal sealer in there as well. Belt and suspenders if you know what I mean.
My next episode will be getting the cross beams installed. This will be a challenge I can assure you.
Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.