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Bobbed and caged RRC called The "JWH"


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Yeah came out okay, especially considered how quickly it was made :D

Only one picture for you guys today.

Started the day by cleaning up all my mess so that I could get it out for a little spin. Had to test some off the mods I had done to it.

First off the 2x4/4x4 thing is just too cool! With the power of the SD1 it can really draw some long lines in my gravel-road :D

The handbrake works a treat, and when in 2x4 it easily blocks the rear wheel (again on gravel) and in 4x4 you definitely feel it brake. Mind you the pads some old ones with lots of rust and dirt on them and the disc isn't degreased, so with proper dry and embedded pads it will work even better.

The locker works as I dreamed off, when you go gently around corners it doesn't mess up the gravel at all, but if you just give it a slight tab on the throttle it locks and stays locked perfectly. So for an offroad only toy I think it'll be plenty fine.

Afterwards I started making some rocksliders, a necessity because the way the lower 'sills' are made simply isn't strong enough to carry the weight of the car when landing hard on an edge. I did however have a problem as I didn't want them to hang on the outside, as it then simply would become way too wide and get hung up everywhere. Likewise if I were to put them underneath they would sit even lower than the chassis, leaving me hung as well..

So took a different approach and have decided to build them on the inside of the sills instead! hanging about 2cm below. Should give good protection without being in the way.

Got the first one hung and tacked in:

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Now this is far from the finished product, and it will be tied into the chassis rail so it doesn't rely on the body holding on to it.

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Thankfully got this sh**ty job out of the way! Hate welding upwards on rusty old cars! :D

But it turned out just as I had hoped, only using old scrap metal that has been lying outside doesn't make it less of a mess, but it's free :)

Here's how it turned out:

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was able to tie into an existing outrigger in the front

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Now I just need to make some sort of step to use for getting in and out. Previously I could use the rockslider, but no more since I've tucked it in..

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  • 2 weeks later...

I know I said I wouldn't be doing anything to this in a while.. But woke up this morning and had an overwhelming urge to remove the rear winch on it!

So after finishing up some TLC on the Jag that I had started on yesterday evening, I drove in the Rangie.

The reason why I wanted to remove the rear winch is I hardly ever use winch on my 4x4's let alone two! I feel like it is mostly something you use when competing, and when I do so, its always in the 80". And furthermore I really need to get rid of some weight on this thing, it weighs in at 2 tonne quite precisely and that is a lot for something that doesn't even need to have headlights! i like the fact that it looks like a Rangie, and that is where most of the weight lies, so not much to do about that.. But there is always stuff you don't need :)

Anyways, rear winch removed, was quite a task, all ancillaries, brackets and everything that has to do with the winch weighed in at 70kgs! quite a lot for what it was, actually all the steel used for the mounting weighed more than the winch itself! :o Mostly because it was made from thick stainless.

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A piece of old chequer- plate was cut out to fill the whole on the bed, using the ever usefull plasma-cutter:
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Popriveted it in so I can remove it later if I want to use the room for something else:

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Found a new spot for the front winch today, a rather unconventional spot even. But i won't show you just yet, what I can show you is the bracketry that I had to make for where its going to be fitted. Oh how I love my plasma, makes doing stuff like this so easy and quick :)

I freehanded all the cuts in the center so they're not that pretty, but as they are either bend-relief-cuts or as for the center hole, a welding-window it doesn't really matter:
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End result just before paint:

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Now yee shall wait no more!

Got it pretty much finished up today, just need to make and fit an small roller fairlead to the front when I redo the bumper. Part of my plan with moving the winch is the possibility to 'suck' in the bumper and thereby lessen the front overhang.

Anyway, let the pictures do the talking!

Bracket mounted:

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Body mount removed:

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Two holes punched in the coil bucket for the wire, winch installed and the wire ran:

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Now time to close up some of the big ol' hole I made:

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Made a rubber "curtain" to keep the worst mud out, I'm not overly concerned about water getting in, I just don' want the mud/dirt from the tyre spraying all over the cabin:

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And finally a clearance check to make sure everything still fitted without rubbing.

So next up is wiring and fabbing a battery tray to fit the battery in the cabin!

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yeah well I know it is hard to see 3D on a picture, but the wire actually fits behind the spring, it doesn't pass through it. I've had a fair bit of tension on it, and the route it takes when under tension isn't through the spring. But undeniably, if used A LOT it'll both scuff the chassis and spring what ever might be hit, but with the amount I use the winch on this thing it won't be happening in the next decade! :D

Had it been for more frequent use I would have passed it through a tube, something I could easily add to this system as well, but for serviceability I'd rather the cable hanging loose, it passes through behind the bracket for the brake lines so it cannot catch onto anything.

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Not overly concerned about the axle movement as the panhard pushes the spring away when compressed (where there is the biggest risk of pinching the wire) and the spring will be wide open when its drawn towards the wire. Anyways lets not get into a big argument about this in these merry days :D

Snug out to the workshop today for a bit and got the wiring sorted. Also for the new battery placement, must've removed atleast 5kgs of 35 and 50 gauge wire from the car. Just need to have a session with the plasma to make a tray for the battery:
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Spent the initial part of the first day of the year sleeping, and then going for a ride on the KTM. Then as I got home I decided to start on the custom battery tray. Ended up taking all afternoon! Some good practice with the plasma, and it turned out okay I reckon:

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Welded on a couple of nuts making assembly easier:
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With cutouts for the side terminals, battery should go nowhere in this bracket:
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Now I could've spent much more time grinding and filing it smooth and lovely, but frankly for this old Rangie its plenty fine this way. Now I just need to paint the thing!

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Battery tray painted and fitted:

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Also I finally found a suitable 'Mule' for transporting the Rangie around in the coming season, a good ol' Merc with the trusty (yet gutless) om617 5 cyl. diesel. Just MOT'ed on the 4th of December, and in Denmark an MOT lasts for 2 years.

We drove my Dads 88" up to pick it up (about 130kms) loaded it on the bed of it and saved double fuel costs for the way home! ;)

A couple of piccies for you:

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Got the front end almost finished completely today, well at least as far as the fabrication goes.

Took forever as I had to cut up another old creation to get the material to use for this, but it was worth it not having to spend £££ to go get some new tube.

How it looks on the winch side:

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Now the corner of the fairlead that sits in free air, has a brace on the backside so that it won't twist itself into oblivion.

Complete view of the front: saved about 15kgs this way compared to the old bumper

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PS: I removed both front rubber body mounts, the one on the winch side was right in the line for the cable, and seeing as it is stronger to weld the body to the front *bumper* I choose to do so on the other side as well.

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Loaded the Rangie onto the Merc yesterday to get the exact measure of the combined weight. I new there would be a bit of overload, it actually weighed in exactly as I expected. So now it has become a weight game! have to find some kilo's to remove.

Loaded up:

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Started by stripping the front end of unnecessities, I trimmed the 'cowling?' down to a minimum and added a little bit of 1mm ali just to make it look right again:
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Then took the headlights and side markers/blinkers. None of them are hooked up, nor will I ever need them, but I still want them as they make it look like a real car, not just some scrap banger. So decided to cheat a bit. The sideligths are now the lens only! Screwed directly to the bodywork, removing the ridiculously heavy cast Ali back plates, saving no less than 1,5 kilos just in that spot! Removed the front headlights and replaced them with some old Plexiglass just to get the sense that a real headlight was still there. All in all I was able to shed 8,5 kilos from the front end, without making it all that apparent. My total tally is at 21 kilos now. The weight is getting harder and harder to get rid off and I won't be going super-magnesium-connectingrod-crazy. Here's how it looks now:

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Thanks for the suggestions guys :) I'm really aiming to not go too much for the swisscheese look on this particular one Dan. I'm sort of known for my drilling holes to everything, so a change of pace on this one is in order I think. I do however have to find some way to shed some weight from the bonnet, it is stupidly heavy. However removing all the backbone of it as I have done on Defender/Series bonnets will do little good as it is all Ali. So open for suggestions on how to lighten this stupid thing. :D

There's not much wiring left to be butchered sadly, only brakelights, wiper/washer and ignition/fuel pump along with a Voltmeter an oil light and an oil pressure gauge (which is really needed with these old RV8's and their poor pumps) An most of the unused wiring has already been removed. Neither is there really any dash left. But am wondering how heavy my stainless tank is? It's quite big and seems to be pretty heavy gauge. So maybe swapping this for Ali or plastic would help?

Synthetic rope is a great idea, but doesn't really add up to the cost vs gain ratio on this particular build.

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Today I added another 19kgs to the list making it 40 kilos total.

The air tank was a weird twin tank thing that I had just slapped in there, but actually the twin tanks was quite annoying as the compressor took ages to fill it up. So had for a while been contemplating making it a single tank. And today I did, saving no less than 3 kilos on something that actually annoyed me!

Then came time to look at the heavy stainless tank and its equally heavy bracketry. Bought a new 30l plastic tank and saved 11kgs on the stainless one! And furthermore I now have a fuelgauge in the lid, something I didn't have before. And the way the filler neck was made you couldn't see how much was in the tank.

Here's how the new tank sits:

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And I also removed the wiring for the now gone rear winch. this was another 2,5 kilos in 35¤ cable and connector.

Not much more to loose now before it'll become the really use-full things.

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Yeah Bowie, I've heard similar rumors, but am yet to see one in the flesh! We have few 'Seniors' in the Club that has scrapped Rangies for decades, and none of them have ever seen an Ali bonnet. So I think it might be a simple misunderstanding because the framework is Ali on the older ones. But I may very well be wrong!

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