Thread: Series III SWB Soft Top Rear Seats - Advice Needed

It's an ex-mil 2a SWB that was built like that.
All the other questions, I have no idea.

Originally Posted by Alistair

I am sure there are too. The problem is convincing the clowns at WA DoT. (Although having just Cc the Minister for Transport in my last email to them, I probably at least now have their attention).

I have just been in to pay the DoT admin bunch a personal visit at their office to see what they are doing (or otherwise) about answering my questions. On the positive side, it transpires that I do indeed now have their attention.

Unfortunately or fortunately depending on your point of view, the consequence of having Cc copied what amounts to a complaint to the Minister is that the resolution now (according to them anyway) has to come back down the chain from his office rather than coming direct from them. So they hold that they can't now give me a direct answer - or even talk to me(!) - and I was rather imperiously informed that I had 'introduced delay' into the process (unspoken - and made them look bad)....

Although the amount of 'delay' I have introduced does rather assume that they were actually going to bother to respond anyway. And from where I was sat the chances of that were not looking good and I don't suppose I have exactly missed out on enlghtenment...

So I await a response from the Minister(!)

It is good to know the minister has asked the question.

I can't seem to copy the link. On Gumtree there is add for inward facing seats as his SWB is registered for 5, may be of some help to you. He is in Hilton. I jotted down s number

Mrs hh

Sounds like you poked a sharp stick up their bottoms and aggravated their brains, or the cavities where they should be!


Good on you Alistair!

Originally Posted by mick88

Sounds like you poked a sharp stick up their bottoms and aggravated their brains, or the cavities where they should be!
Good on you Alistair!

To be honest, I didn't think that going straight to the Minister was going to have much practical impact apart, possibly, for leaving the Technical Policy Service (TPS) section under no illusions that I am not just going to drop it and go away. TPS my backside - there is a misnomer if ever I saw one. They don't know one end of a land rover from another (and conspicuously have no motivation to check their facts and find out), seem confused by their own policies, and wouldn't know how to provide a 'service' if it was sat there on a plate infront of them.

Anyway the Minister (or his Office at any rate) has now responded and directed me to raise the issue with the Director General of the Department of Transport and has provided me with an appropriate email and correspondence address.

For now I will park that one and keep it for when it becomes clear that I am never going to get the requested explanation of what makes my Convertible a UTE in their mind. In the meantime something much more fun has come up. A couple of nights ago I noticed something else in the modification codes which I probably should have noticed earlier if I hadn't been pointed in completely the wrong direction at the outset by the boys from the TPS.

I applied to modify my seating and seatbelts under the LK codes and with refeference to Vehicle Standards Bulletin 5. In order to keep my rants relatively balanced and give some sort of credit to the TPS, if you start from the assumption that my car is a UTE that must mean that it has a cab around the driver and passenger. It hasn't, but based on this, the logical place you arrive at is what has happened, namely a modification permit is issued allowing you to bolt seats in the back, but you are required to install a ROPS to protect the passengers in the back tub or on the tray, which is evidently more exposed than the enclosed cab. Ok so we all know that in the context of a soft top without a cab this is complete bollocks, but evidently the DoT can't get their heads around the simple concept of a soft top land rover being a convertible car not a UTE profile truck.

Anyway, what I noticed a couple of nights ago is that really, if DoT are so entrenched in their position that my car is a UTE, I should have put a modification application in under Code LH7. This is to convert from one manufacturer's standard body style and seating arrangement to another body style and seating arrangement by adding and removing off the shelf original parts only. In a Land Rover that is easy. The base vehicle is a soft top. Everything else is a bolt on extra from the parts manual or the optional parts manual. Really the TPS should have advised me of this because it as an obvious route to quickly achieve what I wanted.... which rather leads me to the conclusion that they deliberately overlooked the idea becuase in reality they are desperate to get older soft top vehicles off the road as fast as possible and have an unofficial brief to be as obstructive as possible.

Anyway, that is what I have just done. I have just hit them with a second modification application to convert my supposed UTE variant to a Soft Top/Convertible variant.

Here the fun starts becuase this raises an intriguing and indeed impossible problem for them. They say that have a UTE. Fair enough. By logical extension there must be something that I can remove or add to make it into the manufacture's Soft Top variant... Except that there isn't anything that I can add or remove, precisely because it is already a blasted Soft Top - which they are absolutely adamant it isn't. So I am curious. When they work through my application what they are now going to do now? Assuming someone's head doesn't explode first, they can't refuse the application because the rules say that I am allowed to do it, but they will have to identify the specific UTE parts which need to be removed and replaced with soft top parts. This will of course pose something of a probem for them clearly my car is already a soft top and doesn't have a single UTE model part to be removed.

What were you saying about the insertion of a sharp stick?!

Looking forward to the answer to this one in 4 weeks time!

Guess what has arrived at our place...

88" Land Rover with side facing seats registered for 7, N.S.W. rego though and hard top.

Mrs hh

The one up front looks a neat little unit!
Where is it destined for?
Are they both yours?


Cheers, Mick.