J193 CUC - Full Dakar build on '91 donor.
Completed 20^th August 2005.

This '91 3.9 V8 Efi Automatic Range Rover Classic was sourced by one of our customers to be used as the donor for their Dakar 4x4 build. It's one of the latest donors we have used to date and an initial check of the vehicle shows it to be in excellent condition with many later model updates that we hope will make for an interesting build. It is also an ideal specification level with no ABS or air conditioning to accommodate during the build or for the customer to maintain and service once built.

Easy bits are removed first, doors, tailgate and bonnet. Be very careful when removing the doors, they are much heavier than you would expect. The glass in the rear quarter lights and the windscreen is also removed.

The roof can be unbolted and if you have plans to re-use or sell it then this route should be used. However, it's a time consuming, and thus expensive job, that can be cut much shorter with the aid of an Angle Grinder. We've also removed the front wing and spotted the first of the 'interesting' parts of this build. The inner sides of the foot wells have recessed panels to accommodate relays, these may make the fitment of our newly developed fibre glass side panels difficult without either trimming the panels or removing the recess. The latter will leave us with a problem in re-locating the relays and so we plan to modify the side panel - stay tuned to see how we get on.

The A, B and C posts are now removed and we inspect the floor plan to find the best place to cut the side sills away from it. All the brake and fuel pipes are traced and moved out of harms way. The wiring loom to the rear that used to pass up both A-posts and travel to the rear of the vehicle behind the roof lining is neatly wound up and labelled, ready to be re-routed inside the roll cage side frames.

With the floor removed we run into more of the interesting aspects of this build that using a post '91 model donor introduces. Firstly the fuel tank on these models is a plastic type with it's in-tank pump mounted on a large access panel. Our Dakar fuel tank is made to accept the pump from the previous metal type that has a different mounting plate; so an earlier pump will need to be sourced. Our second challenge is in attempting to keep the anti roll bars. These mount to the chassis behind where we normally cut the overhang off. To keep them will mean moving the mounts further forward and reducing the depth of the chassis mounts for them. However this will change the angle at which they operate and may well over stress the rubber bush mounts that secure them. Our current plan is to compromise and leave more of the donor chassis in place to mount the anti roll bar to, but until we have the cage and body in place we are not sure on the aesthetics of this decision.

The Chassis has now been jet washed, cleaned and inspected. A few areas of rust have been repaired before being painted and the whole chassis Waxoyled. The cage has been assembled, powder coated and fitted, the coverings you can see on it are merely there to protect it during the rest of build process, especially during the body fitment that can easily scratch the cage simply because it is such a big panel to manoeuvre precisely. All the cable looms have been routed to the various areas of the vehicle and securely cable tired into position.

You can now see the colour choice for this Dakar from the gel coat coloured side panels we have fitted. Our earlier concern that the recessed panels in the footwell sides would prevent us fitting the standard side panels has been addressed by slightly trimming the front mounting edge of the panel to fit around what is a raised area on the outside of the foot wells. The foot well itself has been cleaned and painted in flat black even though it will be hidden by the body shell once it has been fitted.

The Vehicle battery is relocated from the engine bay to the inside of the vehicle as part of the Dakar build. A hole is cut into the floor under the passenger (Left hand side) seat and a 2.5mm thick steel box is bolted into place. The battery and it's connections remain accessible once the seat is in place by fully sliding the seat backwards.

The fibre glass body shell is now out of the mould and has been given a good clean and polish, we also carefully cut the bonnet and bonded the optional air scoop in place. Our next job will be to lift the body shell into place over the roll cage.

Our donors automatic gearbox fluid is cooled by being passed through this cooler that is no different from earlier model donors, however the pipe work that links the cooler to the gearbox is much bigger. This bigger pipe work is no longer easy to re-route by gently bending it and so some new mounting brackets for the cooler have been made and the cooler is bolted into place, pretty much in the same location it was on the Donor vehicle. It will remain protected behind the nudge bar once we fit it and hidden from view.

Several of the engine ancillaries are different on this later donor, the header tank for one has been replaced from a small metal clamshell to a huge plastic affair. This used to bolt to the right hand wing top on the Range Rover, we have been able to rotate it through 90 degrees and weld a support bracket for it onto the bonnet strut brace. As it is still in roughly the same location as before all the existing hoses and coolant level sensor wires still reach without any adjustments or modifications required.

After a lot of measuring and calculating we cut the rear over hang an additional 4 inches further back, this allowed us to keep the angles for the rear anti-roll bar to their original specifications. To maintain the strength at these points of the chassis a 60x40 metal section was welded between both ends within the existing anti roll mounts, this strengthener also provided the rear tow bar mount, that was braced back to the rear cross member.

The cloth interior of this donor was in excellent condition and so after a quick clean it was re-fitted and complemented the new blue bodyshell colour of the Dakar. Speakers for the Stereo were fitted into our dash trim panel and wired back to the original loom in preparation for the in car entertainment to be fitted.

All the body mounted lights both front and rear are fitted, wired back to the original loom and tested. The customers chosen nudge bar is one of our new custom fabrications and we are waiting for it come back from the powder coaters at this stage.

Both front and rear nudge bars are now on and the glazier has fitted the windscreen and and all the glazing to the side doors, which are the solid type in colour coded gel coat finish. The side steps have also been plated on the top to provide additional footing and reduce splashes from the wheels. The additional length of this Dakar that was necessary to accommodate the anti roll bar has done little to affect it's departure angle and from most angles is not even noticeable.

The consequences of having the rear nudge bar further back are the spare wheel no longer rests on it and the rear mud flaps can no longer be fixed to it. Without the ability to fix the mud flaps at the bottom we are hoping they will remain strong enough.

Finished! Another Dakar is completed in under a month, even with the added complications of accommodating new donor features. As soon as the soft top is back from the trimmers the vehicle will be ready for collection, or sooner if you wish to gamble your luck with the weather.