Tawàyama Safaris - CrewCab, Page 1

About 3 years ago I knew I needed something larger than the Range Rovers if I were to take clients out into the wilderness for extended trips. I wanted something that could haul 4-5 people comfortably, carry a large load if needed, and also able to tow the Chuck Wagon trailer. The chance to buy all of the parts that I would need to build the CrewCab basically fell in my lap, and so I couldn't pass it up. The following are photographs showing various steps of the CrewCab's construction. I'll try to caption photographs with accurate information so that those who are into the technical aspects of how the truck was built can appreciate just what was done. It was one of the most demanding projects of my life, and hopefully I will be able to share the process here with you, the viewer.

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Here's the first of two trailer loads of frames, axles, body panels and random 'stuff' that was associated with the construction of the cab. All of the parts I used to make the truck existed in the US prior to me purchasing them, so I fortunately didn't have to track down anything in England and have them shipped over.

The first thing to do was create a corner in the shop where I could actually take all of the parts and do an inventory of what I did and didn't have. I ended up with two 127 inch frames, two bulkheads, one pair of axles (front Rover and rear Salisbury), a windshield frame, roof, hood, front and rear 2-piece doors (very rare) for an early 127 inch Crew Cab and a shortened 110 pick-up tub which ended up being turned into the ChuckWagon. The truck was originally right-hand drive, which we intended to convert to left-hand drive.

Here you can see that the bulkhead has been galvanized after being chemically stripped. The frame has also been galvanized, as has every single steel part on the entire vehicle. One of the things I didn't want to do was spend a lot of effort building a custom truck then having to worry about corrosion and rust in the future. This was a one-time project and I intended to do it right.

Being prepped for installation is a Chevrolet 350 motor which has an Advanced Adapters 'Ranger' overdrive behind it, then mounted behind the overdrive is an SM-465 transmission from a 1-ton Chevy truck. The engine was balanced and blueprinted and completely built using all new parts. Not a high-performance motor, it is a low compression engine designed to run on low-octane pump gas, the type that would be found in remote areas of North and South America. The overdrive can be run in any gear and will prove very handy climbing long grades, especially when towing. The SM-465 is a very robust transmission which can be rebuilt easily if need be at just about any transmission shop around.

You can see the front axle has been rebuilt with Maxi-Drive inner half-shafts, the axle housing has had the diff cover removed and replaced with a 1/2 inch steel pipe end cap. The front differential has been replaced with an ARB air-locking differential for added strength and the ability to lock the front wheels together offering identical power to both wheels if stuck in sand or mud.

The rear Salisbury axle has also been upgraded with vented rear disc brakes and a second ARB locking differential. Dunlop Radial Mud Rovers in size 255/75/16 have been fitted to the rims which we had sandblasted and powdercoated.

Old Man Emu springs are sold in the US by ARB. They provided the stiffest heaviest springs they could find me, the rear springs being imported espeically for this project. They are normally fitted to the Perentie, Australia's customized military Defender which comes in both 4x4 and 4x6 configurations. We knew this truck was going to be big and heavy when it was done, so we didn't want to skimp on the springs. All new bushings were also installed prior to the axles being placed under the frame.

Here you can see the custom removable cross-member that was fabricated for the transmission to rest on. Made out of 1 1/2 inch square tubing and reinforced with a welded-on strap running the entire width it is built to take the punishment that it will be subjected to. The raised section of the crossmember was made to allow for clearance of the prop-shaft when it comes out of the LT-230 transfer case.

You can also see that we have reinforced the entire frame with 1/4 inch steel strap that runs the entire length of both the top and bottom of the frame section. The frame was lengthened from 127 inches to 145 inches (measured by wheelbase length) to accomodate what we had in store for the cab section and the rear cargo box. The interior of the bulkhead was also painted Hammerite Black to cut down on glare.

Here are two views of the LT-230 transfer case as it is installed. The divorced-mounting allows for the weight of the driveline to be placed farther back towards the center of the truck, and also makes it very easy to service the transfer case or transmission should it be needed. The t-case has a 3-point mounting system on custom brackets. The mounts are GM transmission mounts and are identical to the mount we used on the transmission. The intermediate driveshaft uses all Spicer off the shelf parts which made it very inexpensive and easy to get parts for future servicing. This particular LT-230 has also been modified for part-time 4wd. Used in conjunction with the front axle's free-wheeling hubs we expect the front axles and CV joints to last a very long time due to the absence of constant use.

Once the engine was mounted we could work on steering. One of the things that we knew we could improve tremendously was the power steering. We used a box from a Scout II, a slip-yoke column from the same scout and used some stock-car u-joints to mate the slip-column to the Saginaw box and the stock LR steering column. From this angle you can also see the bottom of the brake tower and the accumulator for the GM Hydroboost brake setup. You can see the ceramic coated Ram's horn exhaust manifolds in this picture too.

With the weight of the vehicle exactly undetermined but with a good guess that it was going to be quite heavy, a Hydroboost brake unit from a GM van was used. The goal with all of the upgrades and modifications was to be able to use 'stock' parts available at any parts stores we would commonly find in the USA, but have them interface with the stock LR parts cleanly. This is a perfect example of that. An adapter was made to go between the stock LR brake tower and the stock GM Hydroboost unit. The pushrod for the hydroboost was not altered at all, neither was the brake tower, and the only custom part is the adapter which is a non-wearing item. Should anything fail in the future it will be a simple matter of locating the stock GM part and installing it without any modifications. The same holds true for the Saginaw steering box and the Chevrolet engine. All adapters and mounts interface with the stock LR parts they correspond to.

From the back of the truck looking forward you can see how well the transfercase, transmission and engine line up within the stock LR frame rails. The emergency brake cable is what is sticking up in the air. The chrome shift lever with the black knob is for the overdrive.

Part of the way through the basic frame construction of the CrewCab we decided to move to a larger less-expensive shop. It was a mad-rush to get the truck to a state where it could be moved easily, but with the help of a few good friends we were able to make the change of location quickly and relatively easily. You can see how much weight we're dealing with on the CrewCab by the way the rear suspension of the Range Rover is sagging. In the rear springs are two internal air springs which we ended up not using after all.

We had free reign of a 10,000 sq/ft. warehouse for the remainder of the time the truck was in Portland. Here you can see the front ARB winch bar installed with IPF lights. The bumper has inside it a custom Warn Series 12 commercial winch. The hood has been wrinkle-coated flat black, as have the tops of the wings. The springs have not started to sag yet, but they will when more of the weight is placed onto them. The frame stretch was placed between the bracket for the rear trailing arm and the rear-most outrigger. I don't think I ever really saw the true size of the truck until we got it out of the corner it was in and out into the open where we could take a good look at it.

Once we got settled in with all the tools, steel, vehicles and parts we were able to continue on setting up the cab section. One of the main design changes of the CrewCab was to make the cab section roomier than the factory Land Rover configuration. After owning a 109 inch station wagon for a few years and ridden in plenty of 110 station wagons, I knew we could do it better. I decided to lengthen the cab section 4 1/2 inches at the rear door opening, and use a pair of modified front station wagon doors in the rear door opening.

That modification alone would have been worth it, but I didn't want to stop there. I also decided that instead of the factory seat-box that the front seats rested on I would instead create an entirely flat inner floor structure with no breaks in it from front to back. This would be made possible by fabricating a seat-frame that would be fastened independant of the floorboards.

The flat-floor and seat frame allows the rear seat passengers to slide their feet underneath the front seats giving additional legroom. The results are pretty amazing and you will be able to see how it all worked out later.

So, in order for all of the flat floor and seatframe modifications to work, we needed a good strong foundation, and an entirely custom sub-floor was created Made out of 1 1/2 inch channel steel we combined some of the existing bracketry that was earlier galvanized with some custom pieces to make a very ridgid and strong structure.

Once the basic structure of the cab had been completed we measured for some aluminum floorboards to be cut and bent at a local shop. Shear cut, and brake bent, they fit in the location absolutely perfectly. Here's the rear section before we installed it. Note the break in the leading edge where the front floorboards would overlap the rear section. you can also see the central fuel tank we had made up at the same shop.

Designed to straddle the frame and extend down into it without compromising driveline angles or suspension links, the center fuel tank is made out of two pieces of steel that were bent and seam welded. It was up to us to install the senders, supply tubes, fill tubes, and mounting tabs. At this point is honestly closer to say it's just a big steel box. Only later was it turned into a fuel tank. A rear tank was also made at the same time with nearly the same fuel capacity.

Here is the rear floorboard placed loosely into position. Once we had the floorboards mocked up, we removed them and took them to be Rhinolined both inside and out. The factory stiffening ribs were re-used on the rear section to give it some more ridgidity and were rivited in place prior to being coated. You can also see the wiring harness beginning to be installed.

While the floorboards were out for Rhinolining I took the opportunity to begin the wiring harness installation. Painless Wiring makes a good product, but it's certainly not painless. Slightly less painfull than doing a harness from scratch I suppose. In the foreground you can see the Ron Davis triple-pass aluminum racing radiator that was installed into the factory location using factory bushings on the bottom and a third factory mounting bushing on the top with a custom bracket. Perfect fit, works wonderfully.

Before the frame stretch occured I knew how much additional room we needed for the rear door opening and I also knew that I wanted the rear cargo box to be 6-feet in length. What I wasn't sure about was how it was all going to look, and the final dimensions for the box were still up in the air.

This is a computerized mock-up to see proportionally how the doors would look, the extended roof and the rear box. I spent hours in Photoshop redoing the rear box with all kinds of different measurements. I'm not proficient in Auto-CAD, so I had to make do with a 12-inch ruler strategically placed on top of the rear tire to give me a true scale measurement.

I created a grid system in Photoshop based on the ruler and was then able to accurately determine the measurements for the storage box. This was also the first time I ws able to see how the larger rear doors would look. Land Rover Special Vehicles now makes a door that is this size and shape, but at the time of the construction of our doors it had not been done before as far as I know.

Here's a pretty good diagram of all the main things we accomplishd in that big warehouse. Got the T-frames mounted, rear bulkhead mounted with the rear cab section, got the floorboards fabbed up and Rhinolined and installed with SS fasteners, did quite a bit of the engine wiring and loaded it onto the trailer for the next phase of the project. I had been doing research on utility truck bodies for about a year (a thrilling thing to be studying...really...), and found that no one was making exactly what I wanted (why was I not surprized?). The closest thing I found was going to have to be manufactured in Oklahoma, trucked to us and then we'd have to modify the frame to fit it because it was fiber glass.

I didn't want to deal with the logistics of long-distance fabrication, so I dug a little further and found a company in Vancouver Washington that makes ambulance bodies, fire-truck bodies, utility bodies and semi-truck accessories. I had them make the custom boxes we used on the ChuckWagon and was very comfortable with their work and our relationship.

They said they wanted the truck delivered with the rear bulkhead in place, the fuel tanks mounted and be able to be rolled in and out of their shop. The only thing we didn't get done in time were the steering controls, so they had to deal with steering two tires as they moved it around. Kind of a bummer for them, but they were great and did what needed to be done.

By that time I had the glass installed into the painted windscreen frame, the rear cab windows tinted and installed and the rear sliding window also installed. I was starting to see things come together, which was satisfying.

It took about a month, and I checked in on them several times a week to make sure that their questions were answerred, but when it was all said and done I couldn't be more pleased. Made out of aluminum that's both adhesive taped and huck-rivited together, the rear cargo box is quite the piece. A fully gasketed rear hatch that lifts upward keeps everything in the rear nice and dry and dust-free, the locking latch keeps all the gear safe, and the 3-sets of lifting rings will both give points to lift the box off for servicing the fuel tanks as well as give options for lashing down larger items on the top of the box.

Strong enough to hold me on the top of the box, but light enough to not be too bulky, I'm very pleased with how it turned out. Painting, wiring, lights and the wheel cut-out will be done later on after the truck is shipped to BCB Offroad in California.

The interior of the box has two levels of shelving on three sides. The shelves are spaced far enough to fit a standard sized jerry can of fuel or water on each shelf. Fully seam-welded wheel-wells are also visible and so far we've had no leaks at all.

Prepped the truck for delivery by loading the rear box with all of the rest of the parts I had been collecting. 2-pair of front station wagon doors, a dozen crates full of wiring, brake parts, shrink tubing, bolts, rivits, tools, etc...just about every single piece that would get used for the remainder of the truck was placed into the back. Got it loaded onto a low-boy trailer heading for So-Cal and sent her on her way.

Once the truck got to BCB things could move along pretty good. This was going to be the last major stop to get all of the mechanical items figured out and working. To do the final modifications to the fuel tanks the rear cargo box had to be removed. Fortunately BCB is fully equipped and has a 2-post lift that we used to raise the box off of the frame and move the truck out to where we could see it.

While the tanks were being equipped with all the necessary parts to make them work, I took the chance to start working on the lighting on the rear box and you can see the rear turn/brake lights installed.

The tanks were drying prior to being installed back in the frame. The tank to the right is about 18.5 gallons and is designed to be locaed in the stock tank location. The bottom layer is 1/4 inch plate, so it acts as it's own skid plate. The other tank is the central fuel tank and holds just under 20 gallons. Both tanks are mounted in 3 points and use Jeep body mount bushings to isolate them from frame vibration and twisting.

The brake master cylinder is now plumbed in this shot and is operational. Also you can see the alternator mounting bracket and the upper-most of the dual Sanden air compressors that mount to the left of the alternator. The upper compressor was purchased new and will be used for the air-conditioning unit which will be mounted on the roof, the lower compressor was off of my 1990 Range Rover and will be used for on-board air to power the air lockers, air-tools and future air suspension components.

The fuel tanks are mounted and you can see how far outboard of the frame rails the central tank sits. There are plans for a set of rock-sliders that will add excellent protection to the tank in the event of a side-impact, so we weren't too worried about that. Also visible is the wiring for the lighting to the rear box and the wiring for the rear power supply outlet.

In the background on the table you can see the instrument panel mock-up that I made out of foam-core. Axles from a 101 Forward Control are alxo visible as well as a few other 'custom' goodies that BCB was working on.

Before the rear box was reinstalled I took the time to paint the front face. Knowing that once we put it back on, it wouldn't come off for a long time and this was only the real chance to paint it cleanly before it got reassembled, I painted it. Roughing up with a 320 random orbit sander, hitting it with about 2 coats of self-etching primer and finishing it off with about 3 coats of factory-mixed Alpine White, it turned out pretty good...for a work truck that is.

We used a stainless-steel fuel filler fitting from a Jeep TJ both on the body for the central mounted tank, and another mounted in the box for the rear mounted tank.

Front seats are from Corbeau and recline and adjust front to back. They were mounted about 3 inches farther back than in a stock Land Rover Defender, as we felt the traditional seat placement was more than cramped. Starting with nothing was both a pleasure and an excercize in faith not knowing 'exactly' how it would all work out once it was done. One of the nicest things about the CrewCab is the seating for both front and rear passengers, the seat frame system we devised is the reason for that success. The seat frames are incorporated into the T-frames (which form the door openings) and the center transmission/transfer-case cover. It is removed and installed as a unit once the seats are removed.

Another shot of the seat frame without the seat in place. You can see how the horizontal members tie into the seatbox and the T-frame on the rear, and curves down to bolt to the floorboard in front. The tunnel cover was designed to mate up to the stock bulkhead and fits it perfectly.

After all modifications to the seat box were made it was taken out to be Rhinolined inside and out to offer some sound-deadening and corrosion protection as well as being very easy to clean. Also visible is the centerally mounted Tuffy box. We really like the Tuffy center consoles, having had excellent results with the one we installed in our prevous custom truck, an 80-inch Series One Land Rover.

The rear doors are an interesting story. I bought two pair of front roll-down window station-wagon doors, one pair was already Alpine White and were complete take-off brand new doors, the other pair I got a little cheaper because they were just the doors and were missing all of the internal trim panels. That was perfect because we were going to chop and modify them anyhow.

The forward angled piece was removed and a completely new inner channel section was bent up and welded to precicely duplicate the construction of the factory piece. An additional aluminum skin was cut out of an old scrap Land Rover door from the '60's, cut and welded in.

The resulting door is as factory identical as we could possibly have made it, right down to using the same aluminum as the originals. A hint of filler and a quick sanding made them perfect for painting. The only trouble with this door is the fact that we had to have custom glass made. I was unable to find a local source for glass tempering, so I had some windows made out of laminated glass. Never being entirely satisfied with them due to the weight of the glass, I have had some Lexan panels made that are anti-scratch coated and tinted. I figure I will have saved perhaps 20 pouds of weight using the Lexan vs. using the laminated glass.

During the time that the CrewCab was in Paso Robles, California at BCB Offroad I had sold my house in Portland, Oregon and moved to Las Vegas, Nevada. Every other weekend I would do a 6-hour drive to Paso Robles, leaving Vegas on Friday afternoon, spend the weekend working on the truck in Paso Robles, then leaving Sunday afternoon heading back to Vegas. Quite a round-trip, but I believe that it was time well spent and I got a lot done.

Finally the day came that we could fire up the engine and take it for it's first test-drive. I was terribly excited and even though we didn't have the doors mounted or the roof finished I wanted to see how it drove anyway.

We headed out of town and found a sandy river wash. I engaged 4wd, locked in the front hubs and headed down. Had a lot of fun just kind of getting a feel for the truck and just the fact that it was moving under it's own power for the first time ever was a thrill for me. Riding around with the doors off and the top missing made it all that more exciting.

Words can't describe how much fun driving that truck around open-topped for the afternoon was. I didn't go very far, didn't conquer any trails, but just had some time alone to myself to look back and see how far the project had come. It was this afternoon that I started to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I gave the boys at BCB 2 weeks after this date to get the truck ready to leave Paso Robles for good. In that time the doors were installed, rock sliders were built, and the roof stretch was completed.

I flew a friend down from Portland to Vegas to convoy out to Paso Robles with me for the return drive home. That trip saw a few snafus, but what Land Rover adventure would be complete without them?

There's more to the story of this incredible vehicle!

Go to Page 2 to finish reading how we managed to create this one-of-a-kind Land Rover.