Thread: Walter the Dormobile

Cooma is only a few short months away!

Originally Posted by gromit

Big difference in colour between old faded original and new replica Elephant Hide.
The door panels are OK so I'll just be cleaning & carrying out minor repairs.

Passenger front seat removed, I'll need help to hang this up to paint.
Found one spring missing underneath so I need to find a spring that's about the same size & strength.

The Jesus bar on the back of the passenger seat is missing so I'll have to make a replacement, the one on the drivers seat will give me rough dimensions.
Quite a tight bend at each end so I'll have to get out the oxy at work and make some tooling. I'll pack the tube with sand & weld endcaps on.

While the seat's out I'll remove the centre tool tray and fit the Rocky Mountain overdrive, the tool tray then needs cutting down before re-fitting.

The list is getting longer rather than shorter......


Colin

Originally Posted by drfish

Cooma is only a few short months away!

Rapidly running out of time.....
Option 2, tow the Series I
Option 3, drive the Defender

The Dormy starts runs & drives, once the brakes are finished it'll stop as well...
Just a case of prioritising what 'needs' to be done & what would be 'nice' to be done.
Seats were torn therefore not really 'roadworthy' so had to be done.
Seatbelts need to be installed.
Roof lining is under development,Masonite bent just need to work out whether to cover with vinyl or maybe just paint.

Went to the spring shop today.
Turns out the seat base & seat back have the same overall size spring but different wire size.
Springs are pre-coiled in lengths. Measure, cut to length, bend the ends.....job done.
Total cost $4

Investigated mass loaded vinyl instead of Hardura, went to a company but they will only supply by the 10m roll.
I have a supplier of Hardura but it's not quite the same as the Hardura fitted to Land Rovers (more in my Hardura thread).
Made contact with someone else who may be able to help, should know next week.


Colin

Rocky Mountain overdrive installed.
Found that the gearlever bracket is NQR so need to make a new one, it put the gearlever hard against the seatbox so the new bracket will move it forward.
The gearstick was missing so I'll make one. Looked on Ebay for a gear knob and they are very expensive so it may end up with an '8 ball' knob in the short term.

Made a tooltray from cornflake packets, need to open it back out and transfer to some sheet steel. If I can bend it up, a colleague will spot weld it together.

Still working on the front passenger seat. A bit more complex than the drivers seat so lots of pictures before I take it apart to paint.


Colin

After a trial fitting of the overdrive selector linkage and a couple of emails to Global Roamer it seems the selector linkage might be partly from a Toro.
The mounting bracket is too short so I'll make a new one and hope I can get it sorted.

Ray at Global Roamer has been very helpful.

The rivet squeezer & dies turned up from the UK, just waiting for the rivets now.

Colin

Originally Posted by gromit

Investigated mass loaded vinyl instead of Hardura, went to a company but they will only supply by the 10m roll.

Surely that just means you just need to buy a few more Land Rovers to use it up on [emoji23][emoji23]

Originally Posted by drfish

Surely that just means you just need to buy a few more Land Rovers to use it up on [emoji23][emoji23]

I'm told that 6 is more than enough.
Problem at the moment is that my tow car was written off and I'm waiting for a new one so I'd have to borrow my old tow car back from the wife !

Yesterday I collected some vinyl that looks similar to the surface of hardura, basically offcuts from a company I deal with.
This will give a hard wearing, easy to clean surface that won't hold water, just not sure if it will reduce noise at all. I'll probably have to buy some Hardura for the transmission tunnel as the vinyl will be difficult the bend & sew.


Colin

Easily distracted from working on the Dormobile.......collected some Land Rover parts tonight.
Bamford winch, pair of parabolic springs (not sure what for), big box of assorted nuts & bolts plus a SWB roof.

The roof & door seal rivets turned up. $100 of rivets comes in a very small packet, to be fair post made up some of that cost.

Christmas is getting closer, need to order paint for the roof !

Colin

Well 2-pack paint is more expensive than I thought ! Luckily Limestone 007 was in their system because they were too busy to colour match the light green body colour till the New Year, they matched it a few years back but then changed paint suppliers. Different pigments so they have to match again.

Underseat tool tray made, not as neat as I'd like but it will do. Just needs painting.

The floor covering/sound deadening material I was given is too thick to bend in a tight 90degrees. I took it down to the Woodwork Club and used a narrow convex moulding plane (probably much older than me) to cut a relief in the rear of the material. Looks like it will now take a tight bend. I'll post a picture when I remember.

Busy installing seatbelts....sorry re-installing seatbelts, I'm sure they were always there when I purchased the vehicle.
Belts are Securon from Paddocks, only problem I had was that the inertia reels come with a stalk and I needed something flexible as the seats in the Dormy fold down, ended up buying 4 extra lap belts to get what I needed.
Still low cost and AU/NZ approved. I now have 4 lap belts with stalks spare.

Once the tool tray is painted and installed I can re-fit the front passenger seat.

Last day at work today but back on 3rd Jan, hope to get a lot done next week.


Colin