Military 109 wagon?

[dreamin']

Evening, all

I have come across what seems to be a late 2a station wagon with military style brush bar, Bamford PTO winch, what looks like a Jerry can holder on left rear cross member, deluxe bonnet with hold-down hooks, flat smiths heater, three second row seats, drivers seat with high back and headrest, body finished in pale blue or grey with white roof and door tops.

Have only seen pictures at this stage - waiting for numbers.

Does this sound like a known spec for military vehicle, or a bitsa?

Also has 202 and series 3 grille, but am ignoring them for now.

Any help appreciated - will try to share pics but can't work out how to copy them from website.

Roger

[dreamin']

...also seems to have the earlier style 'deep' sills below doors.

[Lotz-A-Landies]

The military style brushguard was also called the PMC brushguard after the Enfield Land Rover factory in Sydney where they were made. They were an option and many government departments also specified them on their vehicles.

In the Sydney LROC, it was standard practice for our members to visit Allspares, Flemington Spares and Bernie Parts and get the tool brackets off Army landies for our civvy vehicles. The same for the jerry can bracket.

I recently purchased a Bamford off LVS to replace the missing one on my FFR.

So the presence of any of those fittings is not conclusive, what would be good would be an Army ID off the firewall. Or finding the chassis number in the REMLR database.

Diana

[dreamin']

VIN is 26300268a

CalVIN says IIA SW 109 Petrol 62-71 CKD RHD unmodified - seems right

I do not have a separate military number - how do I check on REMLR list?

Roger

[pop058]

Going by that chassis No., I would hazzard a guess it is not (green) military and I can not find it in REMLR. I believe the Navy just used civy variants so it still could be ex Navy. The "A" in the chassis number makes it fairly early in the 2A scheme of things. I think "B" chassis No. started early (March ?) in 63. Pics when you get a chance (or learn how :D)

[dreamin']

Thanks Paul

Possibly navy? From what I can tell, original paint is pale grey or blue body with white roof and door tops. Also, seats appear to be original upholstery but olive green/blue colour with reddish brown trim and drivers seat is higher back than the others, with headrest - unlike anything I have seen online or in books.

Are there any other ways of identifying a navy vehicle, or pics of them?

The only photos I have are on someone else's website, and I haven't worked out how to copy them yet.

Thanks again

Roge

[dreamin']

I found the REMLR RAN vehicles list and chassis number for RAN72 is only one digit different from the one I'm looking at - 200 vehicles between them. Possibly a typo?

Is it possible to trace original supply/sale details by vehicle number? I assume most vehicles for army or navy came from one supplier and records exist?

Roger

[pop058]

PM Diana (Lots a Landies) with your info, she should be able to help you or at least steer you in the right direction.

[dreamin']

Had a closer look today

From what I can work out, assuming the VIN is original, this is an early 2a with later model front guards, grille panel, steering wheel, handbrake, heater and wiper motor.

Would be keen to hear from anyone who could help confirm this - I am trying to get an idea of what it would take to get it back to original spec.

Original colour appears to be darkish grey, with lighter colour painted over roof and door tops. Does not look like navy colour scheme discussed earlier .Rear LR badge is painted light colour with blue and red lettering - is this likely to be original?.

It has battery mounts under passenger seat AND on chassis in engine bay - reading James Taylor's II/IIA specs book, does this suggest it was originally a diesel? The fuel filler cap is painted yellow (military?) - are there any other features to identify a diesel?

Bamford winch and brush bar look to have been added later, assuming mounting frames welded to dumb irons were not standard issue?

Rear axle is Salisbury type, front is Rover.

Fuel tank has substantial protection on all sides - standard?

Rear doors are one piece, fronts are two-piece.

Overall body and chassis are very straight and only bad rust is in bulkhead.

Pics attached - any help appreciated

Thanks

Roger

[dreamin']

more pics

[isuzurover]

Definitely not military or navy.

[Lotz-A-Landies]

Had a closer look today

From what I can work out, assuming the VIN is original, this is an early 2a with later model front guards, grille panel, steering wheel, handbrake, heater and wiper motor.

Would be keen to hear from anyone who could help confirm this - I am trying to get an idea of what it would take to get it back to original spec.

Original colour appears to be darkish grey, with lighter colour painted over roof and door tops. Does not look like navy colour scheme discussed earlier .Rear LR badge is painted light colour with blue and red lettering - is this likely to be original?.

It has battery mounts under passenger seat AND on chassis in engine bay - reading James Taylor's II/IIA specs book, does this suggest it was originally a diesel? The fuel filler cap is painted yellow (military?) - are there any other features to identify a diesel?

Bamford winch and brush bar look to have been added later, assuming mounting frames welded to dumb irons were not standard issue?

Rear axle is Salisbury type, front is Rover.

Fuel tank has substantial protection on all sides - standard?

Rear doors are one piece, fronts are two-piece.

Overall body and chassis are very straight and only bad rust is in bulkhead.

Pics attached - any help appreciated

Thanks

RogerA few things here.

There were no diesel 109 station wagons in SIIa.

Its chassis number makes a 1962 model 2 1/4 litre petrol, so the battery under the seat is either a diesel seatbox or a later 6 cyl seatbox or the original one modified.

The rear Salisbury came off a later vehicle. If it has 9/16" wheel studs. the rear axle came off a Suffix H or later SIIa if 16mm studs it's off a series III.

The front guards came off a SIIa suffix H or series III, the firewall has been replaced with a SIIa suffix C or later SIIa but not SIII, the handbrake has come off a later model the same as the firewall and the front bumper and extension are home made.

I can not see the bonnet completely, but can't see the recess for the spare wheel, which would be correct for a station wagon with bonnet mounted 7.50 16 spare wheel.

The drivers seat is off another brand of car.

The rest is civilian, with aftermarket accessories.

I'm sorry but that vehicle is a bitsa built up from at least two other vehicles and possibly more.

The term VIN only came about in the 1980s and relates to the 17 alphanumeric code that identifies country of manufacture, manufacturer, model, engine, year etc and then serial number. Before the 1980s it is a car number or chassis number and in Land Rover those two numbers should match.
Diana

[dreamin']

Thanks Diana

Certainly a bitsa - just trying to work out if there is enough original there to warrant reversing the mods. The main body and chassis seem straight and intact, which I had thought might be a good start for restoration of such an early model, if the later changes were mainly to bolt-on components.

The Taylor book says battery under the seat came in at suffix A - was this different for Aus/CKD models?

Bonnet is deluxe style - dished for spare and rounded front edge, with square hinge plates.

What defines a suffix A firewall, apart from demister vents, wiper motors etc that can be swapped on or off?

Above all, is it worth restoring as an early 2a?

Thanks

R

[isuzurover]

What defines a suffix A firewall, apart from demister vents, wiper motors etc that can be swapped on or off?



The firewall and windscreen on that one is a late IIA type (I think the wipers changed in '67).

It is not simply a matter of swapping wipers on and off., The early type wipers are fitted to the windscreen, the late type, which you have are fitted to the firewall. The hole for the wiper drive worm and wiper spindles, and many other minor things changed. It would be a lot of work to make a late-type firewall look like an early type.

If it really is a '62 chassis, I would think that it is a late IIA that has had the chassis replaced.

[Lotz-A-Landies]

Thanks Diana

Certainly a bitsa - just trying to work out if there is enough original there to warrant reversing the mods. The main body and chassis seem straight and intact, which I had thought might be a good start for restoration of such an early model, if the later changes were mainly to bolt-on components.

The Taylor book says battery under the seat came in at suffix A - was this different for Aus/CKD models?

Bonnet is deluxe style - dished for spare and rounded front edge, with square hinge plates.

What defines a suffix A firewall, apart from demister vents, wiper motors etc that can be swapped on or off?

Above all, is it worth restoring as an early 2a?

Thanks

RTaylor while knowledgible is not infalliable.

The battery was under the bonnet for all 2 1/4 litre petrol models. The diesel models had 2 X 6V 12" batteries, hence one battery under the bonnet and one under the seat. However you may be correct my IIa parts catalogue only lists one seatbase, so the recess for the battery may have been present on suff A. But not the fittings or battery.

The suffix A had 2 individual wiper motors one for each screen with the holes in the windscreen frame. On your vehicle the hole the for the top of the wiper motor, the holes for the 2 cable wheel boxes and the brackets for the cover plate were not present until the suffix C firewall.

A lot of the parts are bolt on bolt off, so if you have a good straight chassis it always a good place to start.

The decision to restore is yours, you could do a pedantic restoration to bring things back to 1962 specs, or a refurbishment sympathetic to the whole of the SIIa, but the SIII grill would have to go to be true.

Is the SIII heater hole present on the LHS mudguard?

[dreamin']

Thanks for the replies

Where should chassis number be found on the chassis itself? This might be the next thing to check.

Also, there are holes in windscreen frame for wiper motors (same as my series 1s), but filled with bog.

R

[isuzutoo-eh]

My suffix A 2¼P has the (unused) recess to fit a battery under the seat.

[JDNSW]

Thanks for the replies

Where should chassis number be found on the chassis itself? This might be the next thing to check.

Also, there are holes in windscreen frame for wiper motors (same as my series 1s), but filled with bog.

R

Should be on the LH rear spring hanger - if it is Australian assembled, and probably if it was imported officially (I have an idea all wagons were fully imported). However, if it was an individual import, the number may be elsewhere, probably on the outside of the RH front dumb iron.

You may have to remove several layers of paint/rust to see any numbers. If it is in the usual place on the LH rear spring hanger, it will be on the flat vertical bit just above the shackle.

John

[dreamin']

Thanks John - will get it checked out

Another odd thing. I also remember someone mentioning all station wagons were imported - Diana, maybe?

This one's chassis number comes up on CalVIN as wagon and CKD, and it has a Rover Australia station wagon badge on rear.

Odd

R

[fesm_ndt]

Should be on the LH rear spring hanger - if it is Australian assembled,

I never knew that. Wonder why they bothered to change the location of chassis numbers

CKD - Complete knock down, a complete kit needed to assemble a vehicle (also didn't know that term was used that many years ago). Seems to have had the same literal meaning as today i.e. car pieces built in another country, assembled in Australia, fix local badge then deemed made in Australia :D

[dreamin']

Hey fesm

Sorry to wander off topic, but if you are in KL, can you source those 6.00 x 16 old school Dunlop tyres shown on Malaysian Dunlop website, for the Series 1? Local agents don't want to know about them.

Roger

[fesm_ndt]

You mean bar treads?

If them Dunlop sold the moulds to, I can't remember but we get a lot of them from time to time in 16x9 and 16x7.5

The UK guys were horrified when I posted I was throwing them away as very hard to get bar treads in the UK now for classic vehicles

[dreamin']

Not bar treads - I will send link to website

R

[fesm_ndt]

hmmmmmm the plot thickens..................

Feet up, waiting (as can't be bothered working today)

[JDNSW]

I never knew that. Wonder why they bothered to change the location of chassis numbers

No idea, but may have something to do with moving it away from an area likely to suffer accident damage.

CKD - Complete knock down, a complete kit needed to assemble a vehicle (also didn't know that term was used that many years ago). Seems to have had the same literal meaning as today i.e. car pieces built in another country, assembled in Australia, fix local badge then deemed made in Australia :D

CKD, I believe, is the term used right from the start of the Landrover operation. By the mid fifties nearly all the Landrovers sold in Australia were assembled here, with the proportion of local content steadily increasing. From the start it was just things like tyres, but by the end of Series 2a production it included a lot more - most of the electrical system, wheels, glass, a lot of panels, plus, of course, the entire assembly process. I don't know what proportion of the total cost it ran to, but probably about 75% at a guess.

John

[fesm_ndt]

CKD is often used to rebadge something as being locally manufactured. A pet subject of mine as its a bit like a scan. You have to be near on a lawyer to get to the gist of the meanings sometimes

McDonalds burgers are made from 100% beef = there is a piece of 100% beef in there somewhere with the sawdust and soy beans

Packaged in Australia with the aussie logo on it = made in Chine and stamped packaged in australia

[JDNSW]

CKD is often used to rebadge something as being locally manufactured.....

I have never struck it being used that way. As far as i know it is used simply to distinguish the vehicle as having been shipped from Solihull as a collection of parts rather than a complete vehicle.

In the time frame we are talking about, import tariffs on complete vehicles would have ensured a high level of local content (which is always measured in $ terms). It is quite easy to reach 50%, especially with a hand built vehicle like a Series Landrover, as the labour component of assembly is such a large part of the final cost. Add in paint, tyres, lights and upholstery, and you can get to about 60% quite easily. After this you have to start manufacturing bits that need significant tooling. I know that by Series 2a these included wheels and some body panels. After that things start getting a lot harder. The level of content was negotiated with the government of the day to allow concessional import of the CKD kits. As the level of protection of the Australian industry decreased, local assembly ceased to be economic, ending, as far as Landrover was concerned with the change of the 110 to the Defender.

But it is not really fair to refer to it as a scam. Even the most "Australian Built" vehicles have never exceeded about 95% Australian content, although they have sometimes claimed higher by exporting as much as they imported.

John

[fesm_ndt]

I am not only referring to ckd associated with Land Rover

If you import a complete vehicle it is classed as an import

If you import a box of bits it is classed as ckd but needs some local input and as said above could possibly be the only thing local was putting the tyres on or a local badge

There is many reasons for doing ckd and how it works historically for australia would be an interesting research project. Some reasons are:

- ckd avoids importation taxes (it don't now in australia but histrically did)
- ckd allows an import to become nationalised wheras imports can be taxed at a higher rate. This can be done on a country basis or regional basis

It is not something that greatly affects anyone driving in Australia but the CKD scheme is widely used accross asia to control the market by a few people.

Again it would be very interesting to see why the early Land Rovers were CKD. Perhaps to save space on shipping, perhaps no local skilled labour as I said above I was unaware the term ckd was used in the early 60's. To me it is very interesting in a why sense

[dreamin']

hmmmmmm the plot thickens..................

Feet up, waiting (as can't be bothered working today)

Sadly, the website I was referring to (dunloptyres.com.my) no longer shows the tyres I saw there a year or so ago. It used to show a wide range of light truck cross plies in old dunlop patterns and sizes.

Sigh

[fesm_ndt]

If you got a piccy of what they look like??

Just remembered. Pretty sure Dunlop sold all their moulds to Simex as the bar treads are called Simex Kombat

Mind you searching through Malaysian tyre sites is a pita so better if you have a piccy of style and iKll get someone to look for me

[Lotz-A-Landies]

I am not only referring to ckd associated with Land Rover

If you import a complete vehicle it is classed as an import

If you import a box of bits it is classed as ckd but needs some local input and as said above could possibly be the only thing local was putting the tyres on or a local badge

...I think we are talking about a number of different things here.

CKD traditionally was a car built in a factory and then taken apart and packed into smaller assemblies and crated for dispatch. Most manufacturers however didn't build the whole car, only the major assemblies and packed them into crates for dispatch. Land Rover made kits of 6 vehicles. One crate would hold 6 chassis another 6 engines etc.

Local content rules added a level of complexity. the 1953 80 Land Rover for example had wheel rims, tyres, batteries made in Australia, Lucas headlamps made in Oz etc on top of the CKD kits being opened and the vehicles assembled in australia. In the 1980s UK built Range Rovers had their brake pads and batteries removed and replaced with the same parts manufactured in Oz.

You can build a car from a set of individually imported parts, but it would then be considered a new individually constructed car and be required to meet 2012 ADR, not CKD.

[fesm_ndt]

I think we are talking about a number of different things here.
.

I completely agree and no subject is clear cut 100% black or white

My experiece with ckd in recent years has been as above, more of a scam or an exploitation of a loophole

With CKD being mentioned in the production of an aussie series II had me intrigued why as I would have thought bad in those days there would have been few trade restrctions between aus and the uk. I am guessing from your info on packing 6 per crate that originally it was done by "and 3over as the cheapest way to ship 6 vehicles.

With the range rovers later I guess it was to meet local content rules or trade restrictions.

Just an interesting subject when you look at the changes in rules. The national car of Malaysia is the Proton which was a Mitsubishi with a Proton badge. Naza is Kia, Perodua is Daihatsu, Hicom is Isuzu. The indonesian national car attempt, the Tommy Timur caused a trade row with the US and end with the 98 asia economic crisis (well their are a lot of other factors but the US were not impressed with a surcharge being added to US imports)

[JDNSW]

......
Again it would be very interesting to see why the early Land Rovers were CKD. ...

There were two basic reasons for this.

1. It reduced the import duty paid on imported vehicles. The Australian car manufacturing industry was highly protected pretty much from the end of WW2. In fact import of complete cars was totally banned in 1914, and while this was relaxed in 1919, there had grown up a substantial local industry, and protection was provided for body building operations such as Holden and CKD assembly plants such as Ford Australia, where a locally made body was fitted to a largely imported chassis. These had expanded substantially with war production during WW2, and it was politically desirable to protect them, culminating in the protected and subsidised Holden car in 1948.

2. It may be a bit hard to realise, but Rover was unable to meet demand for Landrovers from 1948 into the 1970s. (The first Landcruisers were brought in as a result of Les Theiss not being prepared to wear a six month wait on delivery. ) CKD vehicles did not have to go down the assembly line at Solihull, so Rover liked the idea as well - it meant that extra vehicles could be produced (the assembly line seems to have been the bottleneck - and once you have done everything to improve what you have got, the only solution is to either redesign the whole thing, or start a second line, presumably in a new factory. Neither was really possible for a small company like Rover).

John

[fesm_ndt]

Yes it is all historically interesting. In school we get taught something occured on a certain date, typically attributed to some cause

In reality often every event has many complex reasons behind it. I am aware of holden building bodies for chevy as way back as the 1920's but I wasn't aware we had trade restictions way back then. All very interesting, would be great to discuss over several beers

We better get this all back on topic of said series II. Buy it buy it. What is the price tag on it?

The series II firetruck up here the guy wants 3000 aud but often posted prices are inflated plus Land Rover has a cult status (especially price wise)

[dreamin']

A lot of the parts are bolt on bolt off, so if you have a good straight chassis it always a good place to start.

The decision to restore is yours, you could do a pedantic restoration to bring things back to 1962 specs, or a refurbishment sympathetic to the whole of the SIIa, but the SIII grill would have to go to be true.

Is the SIII heater hole present on the LHS mudguard?

Thanks again, Diana

No heater holes, but chassis and most of body pretty sound - would be a shame to see it wrecked or end up as a paddock hack. More pics below.

Pedantry may be an option...

R