Ibex 250S Build

[Ibex94]

Hi Folks,

Seeing Mike is doing so well with his 300 build and finding tie to put pictures up thought it was time I put a few up also after a momentous week when I got him fired up for the first time!

Been making steady progress with build since starting a concerted effort to get him on the road by the end of 2013 - missed that slightly due to work and being a little over optimistic but now think I have a chance of booking an IVA test in Feb.

The project started September '07 when I sent my deposit off to John - well if truth be told seed was sown some 20 years earlier when I still lived with my folks and one of our neighbours 'Mac' built chassis number 4. Still a cracking truck 1/4 of a century later. I liked the look of the short truck and took Johns advice about going for the 250 as it rides more smoothly than the 240, also the 240 has very little space in the back for installing passenger seats and with a 6 month old daughter at the time i was going to need more than 2 seats.

I already had the donor vehicle my old E plate 90 which eventually succumbed to the chassis beetle - which due to delays obtaining a suitable chassis a couple of years earlier eventually lead to a management sponsored Ibex project - she learnt to drive in the 90. Like Triggers broom my original 90 had matured with age! Gearbox failure lead to the LT77 being replaced by a short bell housing R380 when this was still a standard replacement part from LR. Then the old turbo diesel eventually died due to excessive oilism - became known as Smokey Joe. This was replaced by a 200Tdi which did sterling service until the chassis called time.

Below are pictures of the chassis as collected - what a day Hexham to Priddy in the soaking wet and dark.

The standard chassis / body incorporates an integral roll cage, the B frame also has mounting points for external tree protection bars. Don't plan to off road quite that hard but am looking to use truck with a roof tent so I got David to fab up some similar mounts off the rear structure which will then give me four hard points in the roof to attach a roof rack to.

The body was taken straight to the paint shop which with hindsight I wouldn’t do again as there are number of things I would have had fettled if I’d had a better look over the body before getting it painted.

I then rebuilt the axles and rebushed the suspension, replacing all seals and any bearings that looked tired. I also decided to upgrade the diffs at this point to improve traction and reliability. I chose a Truetrac to go in the back axle and an open 4 pin diff in the front. Didn’t to go to the extent of an airlocker at this time and the truetrac seemed a sensible solution which could subsequently be moved to the front axle if an air locker goes in the back.

Front Axle

Bare axle ready for painting

Axle casing awaiting assembly

Swivels built up ready for the axle

Installed axle with drag link fitted

Spanner modified to make a crow foot allowing the swivel housing fixings to be torqued up properly.

The old man pressed into service cleaning parts ready for reassembly.

Rear Axle - Stripped and repainted just as the front

Axle already installed under chassis

Stub axle installed

Stub axle and hub awaiting build

Rear hub built up using new bearings

To be continued....

[mmgemini]

Nice. I see your freezer gets used like mine

[miketomcat]

I hope your not expecting mine to be that shiney underneath. Looks like you will beat me to iva by quite a way mind then I can pick your brains before mine does ;-)

Mike

[Ibex94]

Diff building

Rear diff components ready for building

Diff fully assembled

Front Diff

4 pin diff unit ready for installation

Crown wheel assembled to diff and installed in casing to set up the backlash between the crown wheel and pinion.

Clock gauge was used just don't have pic.

Gear faces blued to check contact area

To be continued...

Rob

[Ibex94]

Electrickery

I decided to build the vehicle around a 300tdi loom as the old loom was getting a little tired (he spent a spell on Bristol Airport as an airside security vehicle and therefore had a number of additions (bodges) to the loom for various lights and radios) I also preferred the Econoseal connectors as it is easier to replace sections of wiring and the new lights would all require similar plugs plus they're waterproof. I also decided to incorporate a TD5 instrument unit to get the electronic speedo which would eliminate std swingometer speedo problems and hopefully allow me to recalibrate it for the larger tyres he will inevitably run.

Got the bulkhead loom with a bulkhead I'd bought when planning to rebuild the Land Rover. Some damage to each side of the loom running to the headlights but not too much of a problem as the Ibex is quite a bit shorter at the front.

I got hold of a TD5 bulkhead loom and a 300Tdi rear loom front CWS down near Glastonbury. The TD5 loom came attached to the dash board I also stripped out to use in the Ibex and came complete with the headlight adjusters. Its surprising how useful a scrap loom is for spare connectors and wiring, certainly well worth the money I paid for the looms.

Wibbly Wobbly Speedo thread is a really good source of information but you also need copies of the wiring diagrams so you can mark up what you're doing as you go along.

My first job was to carefully unpick both the bulkheads looms removing all the loom wrapping tape resecuring the cable form with cable ties so I didn't loose the shape of the loom too much in particular the position of key features.

I started off using a soldering iron and heat shrink to join the looms together as I hadn't found where I could get replacement crimps from - problem now solved - Simtek will supply all the econoseal connector crimps and grommets and vehicle wiring products the crimp used in the headers. Would recommend buying crimping tool for un-insulated crimps its a far quicker process.

I removed all the instrument wiring and all the wiring associated with the central dash board switches with tails as long as I could get them from the TD5. I then attached these section of loom to the 300Tdi loom with cable ties in order to get the sections in the right place before grafting the replacement sections in one core at a time removing the redundant 300Tdi sections as I went.

I then rewrapped the loom in self amalgamating tape and then covered most of it with split convoluted trunking for protection. The body was drilled and tapped or had riv-nuts inserted so that the loom could be secured. Had to do this all the way down the offside chassis leg to get the loom to the rear of the vehicle. I used M6 as its a good fit with the P clips I've used to hold the loom in place.

I'll post some more pics of the loom attached to the body tomorrow.

Rob

[Ibex94]

Radiator and Intercooler.

As the front of the Ibex is much shorter than the Defender the radiator needs to be sited slightly differently. Foers suggest that you move the radiator so that the outlet exits to the offside of the steering box. Makes things a little tight but is quite possible.

Above photos give an indication of how tight this makes space at the front.

It does also mean that there is loads of space on the near side..

just crying out to be filled with a bigger intercooler. I did a bit of research and got Allards to make me bespoke intercooler when they refurbished my Turbo. Intercooler has about twice the cooling capacity of the original and is achieved by the extra width and by also using a deeper core section.

In order to mount it I decided to modify the original frame by extending the top and bottom rails and by inserting an additional upright between the radiator and the intercooler - primarily to mount the intercooler to.

Here you can see the frame fresh from the powder coaters.

Also needed to fabricate brackets to sit the radiator frame on (LH pic). As it sits in front of the steering box it also sits a little higher so the upper brackets also had to be extended.

Not shown particularly clearly here, but I also incorporated brackets on the radiator frame for a Tripac electric fan which I obtained from Merlin Motorsport. With the radiator offset as it is didn't fancy trying to make a cowl up to continue using the original mounted off the water pump.

Here's a few pics of the finished item ready for installation.

Final pic showing installed view from above - didn't get a pic from behind before engine went in.

[Ibex94]

Yippee!

DVLA have now provided me with a VIN for the Ibex. They wouldn't want to make it easy - reminds me of Arthur Dents experience with planning permission for bypasses.

Took me three phone calls to find someone who could advise who I should contact. Then when following up my letter was advised I should have sent it registered. Rang to see if they got the letter, which after 5 mins on hold was advised they couldn't see anything on the system and not to try again until their 4 week guarantee for response expired. (Wish I could find emoticons on the ipad). Needless to say they used all the 4 weeks from the delivery of the registered letter so I chased again, nothing on the system they'll investigate! Suggested I might like to complain. Funny how half an hour later I receive phone call to say it had just been processed!

Anyway received letter this morning with the magic number on it, one issue however, they now want the dealer or garage to sign to say its been applied - don't think they get the self build bit, see what gets said when I sign for it.

Now to apply for the IVA test - form seems easy enough.............

[Team Idris]

Did they give you a number that reflected the number of phone calls like 1a2n3o4y5i6n7g-8loke

[Ibex94]

Did they give you a number that reflected the number of phone calls like 1a2n3o4y5i6n7g-8loke

Very good, however you forgot to factor in the number of FFS's which got used during the process. Therapy is helping can now smile about it

[Team Idris]

Undoubtedly worth it for a really cool 4x4

[Ibex94]

Seat upgrade.

I had fitted my original 90 seats to the Ibex which whilst in reasonable condition were never the most comfortable of things - particularly with the luxurious vinyl finish. So I've been casting my eye around for suitable replacements to match the forward facing XS rear seats I got for the rear. I had been looking at the std XS fronts but then they aren't particularly cheap. I would love some of those very sexy Recaro's they had in the last limited edition defender but they're just mental money.

I eventually came to the conclusion that with the smaller battery box the Ibex has with limited opportunity to stow gear in I may as well fit seats with fixed bases. My other requirement was to get something more supportive but not restrictive with relatively shallow squab side bolsters, adjustable lift would also be good. I looked at the various Recaro seats you find in VW and Audis but never really found pictures of the seat mounting. Then found VX seats which I thought would suit although thought shoulder wings may get in the way when off road would also need to modify the seat base and the boy racers love them clearly by the prices they're prepared to pay.

Anyway I eventually looked at Porsche seats and found a pair of 997 comfort seats going for very sensible money £300 on ebay - subsequently found the reason why they were going cheap as the sub frames had been retained by the previous owner to fit his replacement seats onto. Decided it shouldn't be too hard to find some replacement sub frames so did the deal. Seat bases are rarer than rocking horse muck! So I ended up looking a bit better at how to fit the seats and to be honest now I've seen what the standard subframes are like I think my install with a bespoke adaptor to go between the seat and the standard Defender sub frame is almost as easy to fit as adapting the Porsche subframe and is probably slightly lower than you could get the Porsche subframe. Adaptors have been made from 40x40x3mm aluminium angle. Having made a prototype set of brackets and a couple of production sets I recon the last set took me around 3 hrs to make.

Probably took me another few hours to make up the wiring loom to power the seats electric back rest but I've seen other just jury rig a power supply and remove it when the seats where they want it.

A few pictures for you - unfortunately they don't tell you how comfortable they feel.

Hopefully you can see the aluminium adaptor between the seat and the std defender runners.

I also got hold of some 996 seats having heard they shared common subframes with the 997 but that wasn't true however having thought about the problem I recon that they should also be a relatively simple adaption to make fit.