'75 Land Rover S3 88" ongoing project... V8 and rollcage!

More please. John

The original springs were stripped down, de-rusted, greased and re-assembled









And a chance spot at a Land Rover show had me a pair of top hinges to re-instate the lift up catflap



For years I had a spare set of alpine windows, so with a few measurements holes were cut in the roof and the windows fitted





Now it's October this year and Newbury 4x4 jumble time again!





There's a pair of spare propshafts to play with, the longer being a wide angle, an A-bar as I liked the old A-bar I used to have fitted, a 2.5" stainless silencer, and an ARB air locker.

Also picked up a Salisbury diff pan guard that needs a bit of fettling to fit better, and made a start re-making the single 2.5" stainless exhaust system that exited high up on the rear wing









And after a lot of pondering I chose to entirely remake the downpipes on the V8, and have the passenger side crossover to the drivers side with collector there to keep the system as high up as possible

Next up is making the cage kit fit the shorter 88" body (it's an off the shelf 90 kit). With a lot of head scratching, nudging, tweaking and trimming I cut down the main hoops and lined them up on the body and welded the tubes to the base plates







The it was cutting down the rear body hoop bars to fit



With the main bars welded in I re-purposed one of the other bars into a diagonal and used a spare cage brace bar for the other side





With the rear half assembled, it was time to make the base mounts for the front hoop using a spare length of 3.5" 1/4" wall steel box















I cut the bottom 1.5" off the front hoop and welded the short stubs onto the slider bars, with the plan of inserting a sleeve inside to locate the main hoop





The front hoop windscreen crossbar was lined up and welded on, then the first roof bars were tacked in place



Then the bars over the doors could be fettled to fit and welded in place





I've now used up the 'kit', with a few leftovers as my plan is to put full diagonal crosses over the roof in both front and rear halves of the cage.







The entire cage needs to be lifted off to finish the welding and put the roof diagonals in. I have some tube that will fit inside the cage tube to make the sleeves to slot it all together, and need to decide how and where the front half will split from the rear half as it would be too much to remove and refit the cage as it is. I also need to get more tube and make the internal bars that will join with the base of the internal cage. I have cut and drilled all of the plates to make the internal bars bolt together through the rear body and wheelarches. The external cage also needs bracing to the internal cage with some short lengths of tube and bent baseplates to match the roof profile. I've found in trying to square up the hoops and brace bars that the roof panel itself is all wonky, like it's been knocked down hard on one side so that needs pressing back up before I can cut out the short stubs to join the inner to the outer cages and weld them in.

Another job needing doing was modifying the heater matrix box to fit around the V8. The old heater box had been swiped for my 109 so onto making another! It needed to be mover outwards to clear the cylinder head and the intake dropped so the throttle cable could pass over it



















Heater done. With the dashboard back together I tidied up the interior painting a few odd bits green and bought a standard Defender gearlever rubber gaiter







I need to make a retainer for the gearlever gaiter. Somewhere I have a Defender tunnel which could be cannibalised for the top section

Bought a brand new tailgate latch mechanism and handle for the catflap. Waiting on the guides and latch receptacles to finish that job now



I had a wide angle propshaft knocking about from something, not sure what. I was originally looking at using it on the front as it was only a little bit too long so cut the weld and removed one end and trial fitted it. I found the splines just weren't long enough to work on the front so chopped more out of the tube and made it to fit the rear





So still not having a front propshaft, I ordered one from Bailey Morris. They made it that day and sent it straight out. It fits perfectly with plenty of spline travel to suit my extended articulation on the front



There's also a pair of custom 23/24 spline halfshafts there based on 10 spline Stage1 V8 shafts which will be going into my 109. And when I have the funds I'll buy another set and fit them to the V8 here

I'm never likely to own a land rover or want to own a land rover but I do like a sowen update! I like what you do so keep the updates coming they are always very interesting!

The remote oil filter kit has been fitted, with the oil filter head bolted to a bracket on the sump



Also relocated the fuel lines, brake lines and wiring along the passenger footwell and made some heatshields to help protect them against heat from the exhaust manifold and also the starter motor underneath





The old halogen headlights were removed since they had completely rotted out from previously being drowned in muddy water and replaced with new crystal headlights. The sidelight lens were also given a quick polish to brighten them up too



I've built a radiator shroud to fit round the P38 viscous fan



Recently I bought a new set of wheelarch mudguards. Since the inner wings have been chopped about for clearance for the V8 they need a bit of adaptation to fit









Something that's been bugging me for ages is the fusebox. Normally it mounts to the steering cowl, but I now have one from a Defender to match the Defender column so it won't fit. Just by chance I also have a Defender lower dash fitted which has a hole right by the steering column. With a little jiggling of wires and filing of the hole the fusebox top poked through the dash! I made a little aluminium plate and screwed it over the top to hold the fusebox in place. I'm really pleased with how well that's gone



Just for a bit of fun I dragged the ramps into the garage and jacked up opposite corners to put the ramps under the wheels to see how well it was twisting up









Any higher jacking under the spring plates was just lifting the entire axle off the ground and getting a bit precarious, not to mention the garage roof was getting a lot closer. Not hitting the bump stops and not near the limit of travel on the dampers either.





This should be quite a capable little series Landy when I eventually get round to rebuilding the front ARB air locker and buying a new ARB air locker for the back too. I'm also looking at fitting a rear winch tied into the rollcage with a hole in the tailgate for the roller fairlead.

If I can maintain this progress there is a chance I'll have this Land Rover back on the road sometime this year, if there's still anywhere to go to to give it a workout?

Lots of parts have been ordered, so again waiting for deliveries before I can make another leap of progress....

I'm not going parabolic springs, I've seen them permanently deformed from abuse and I plan to give it some abuse! Multileaf springs support the axles properly with the propshafts getting close to their limits on the u/j's. Splitting the spring packs and fitting new loose clamps seems to be a good all round option from experience

love the cage work! how does it pass through the hips on the bodywork? just another convex plate on the inside, 4 bolt sandwhich through the body panels, then tube carries onwards to the chassis rails ?

Some more progress.

Got the last parts for the latching mechanism on the catflap fitted. Found them nos!





Swapped the dead alternator for a working spare. Now it's running and charging!



Also got round to removing all of the old rubber spring bushes from the front to fit polybushes. A problem I've noticed with polybushes on the front suspension is the shackle end where the inner shackle has the spacer, the poly tends to slip over it. Solution was to weld a spreader washer on the end of the spacer which holds the polybush fully in place



And since moving the radiator forwards I've lost the original bonnet latch mechanism position. Solution is a cable pull latch from a later Defender. I've made a bracket to hold the cable in the footwell and modified the bonnet frame to move the pin forwards infront of the radiator