130 Station Wagon with side fold pop top build

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Originally Posted by danialan

I tried to match the rivet spacing with those of the original spot welds. I have now gone through over 300 rivets !!! Down the track when the tub gets resprayed I might paint over all these rivets as it looks a bit industrial for me somehow.

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Hey Danialan

Great work there - been through a lot of this in making bumblebee (see below) which is a 109 cut tub and had to do a lot of similar bending - I did all mine without heat no splits - using wood clamped work well as get nice right radius corners on bends

Re Rivets
For anyone reading this post buying an air rivet gun will be one of your best investments if you undertake such a project - there are lots of rivets to remove then replace (buy a 3 packet of same sized drill bits for drilling out and new holes too)

Paint removal
You seemed to have sanded - I gave up in the end on sanding and opted for much easier paint stripper especially if the alloy has had a few paint jobs - lucky yours was original paint but more layers means more work and paint stripper so much easier esp for difficult spots (vs flat surfaces).

Rivet finish
I used a very small brush and applied some etch primer (sprayed from a can into a glass jar then applied using tiny brush) to the rivet heads. Then did the same with the top coat paint. Rivets come up pretty good.

We used a 2 part mix paint - followed the mix proportions and virtually no runs - pretty good for a 4x4 home job. For anyone considering doing their own painting find a helpful (note comment in earlier post) paint shop with plenty of qu and advice will get the job done.

In the pic below of our Stage 1/Defender/shortened 109 tub/rangie chassis/extended cab you can hardly see the painted rivets - did the same for the black capping (2 pac painted galvanised capping) where all rivet tops hand painted black or yellow as appropriate
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...013/11/426.jpg

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...013/11/427.jpg

Keep up the good work.
Skiboy

Hey Skiboy, thanks mate. I remember reading your bumblebee build thread. It was inspiring how much you managed to achieve each day. Thanks for the tip about painting the rivets.

Alan

Alan

Had just seen your thread today - will be interested to see end product with camping set up

Funnily I am looking to make a camper trailer from a 130 tub bacause they are wider - but I am interested in how your to works.

Keith

I finally arranged all the Land Rover pieces floating around the yard, and made a new model - Series 3 high capacity pick up.

I had got some new defender brake and indicator lights, but the hole in the Series 3 capping is too small. So I've ordered some new Series 3 ones which have a smaller insert.

So next I moved onto the hardtop sides.

Originally I was going to make new sides, as we didn't really need windows, but a sheet of aluminium was going to cost more than I paid for the Series 3!! So after some measuring, I decided to cut a little off the front and back of the hardtop and reuse this panel.

So first I removed the windows. Interestingly (or maybe not) the left windows were "Triplex", while the right windows were "Secursiv" like the ones on the 130.

First I drilled out the spot welds - 23 of them at the back and around 20 at the front. Then drilled out the pop rivets of the internal galvanised support brackets, these were mostly corroded and already broken - like most of the Series 3 rivets have been. The front door rubber is bolted and screwed onto the front of the panel. After soaking them in WD40 for days they undid very easily (yay!). Land Rover has drilled 10mm holes in this panel for 5mm bolts! to allow for adjustment. Then after numerous measuring cut to size.

There was a bit of mucking around cutting the internal ribs and corners to size, and making room for the galvanised support brackets. I used a length of angle to make the bend as there is only 5mm clearance for the ribs with the bend.

Somehow I messed up the measurement at the back of the panel. Measuring multiple times doesn't help if you have the wrong number in your head. I had wanted the back of the panel to have 50mm of panel before the window similar to the other corner with little back windows. In the end its only 30mm, with 20mm folded over. I had marked both the cut and bend lines, but somehow mustn't have carried the "two". So its a little thinner than I had planned. I just think it looks a little odd initially, as I am just used to the way the original panel looked - oh well. But I am getting used to it now, and at the end of the day I doesn't really matter.

When I went to do the second side panel I was surprised at how heavy it was. So I weighed them, the new cut panel was 6kg, and the original 15kg with glass and rubber. The series 3 has 5mm thick glass.

Some more photos of joining the ends of the panels after bending them.

I ground off all the paint on the joins and used Sikaflex 11FC before riveting. Keen watchers will notice the rivets in the wrong way in one of the photos - this is just to make sure the hundreds of holes line up before applying Sikaflex as that stuff ends up covering everything.

I have now gone through around 550 rivets!

Oh how I remember the rivets and sikaflex everywhere!

I used black sikaflex and that stuff takes almost a week to get out of your nails and grains of the skin on your hands!

Looking good!
Skiboy

Looking very good Alan
Oh how I remember the drilling out all the spot welds and rivets on my last 130 csw on the tub and sides. :D This time around I am just fitting the 110 tub full length so I only have to reposition the wheel arch holes no shortening tub and sides this time. hope it goes as easy as it sounds.
Keep up the good work
Regards
Al

Been a bit slack updating this...

Soooo.. I tidied up a few jobs - sticking the foam and marine carpet on the rear bulkhead. Was much easier with the metal uprights, seat belts etc removed. The bulkhead is super solid now, as it is connected to the steel cappings which run the full length of the tub, plus the wheel arch boxes are riveted to it.

I spent a good hour trying to coax the seat belts out of the retractors as they had rolled in all the way. So next time pull some belt out and tie a not in it to save this fun!

I also checked the tub to side panel bolts. All were good except the rear right which snapped while undoing. Must have had a water leak. Once again the new replacement is inferior to the original.

And gave the exhaust a snip so it is just shorter than the chassis.