As I posted some time ago, I purchased a Rangie ute that had been professionally converted back in 1994. I still do not know why I purchased it or what I am going to do with it when it is finished. I am just a sucker for Rangie Classics.
The idea when purchasing it was to fix up a couple of things and give it a paint job. Once home and closer inspection showed it need a bit more than this. So I decided to strip it completely and rebuild it from the ground up.
I have divided this thread up to a number of posts as I can never work out how to post photos amongst the text. So I will write a little and post the photos related to each post.
Below are the photos of the ute when I got it and the 2 door I purchased for parts.
Everything is being stripped back to bare metal. the chassis and driveline parts were painted with special chassis paint.
It was then reassembled back to a rolling chassis.
That was the easy stuff out of the way. Now for the rust repairs. What really pissed me off is that after I scrapped by 84 I threw out anything that would not fit my 93. I also threw out anything I thought I would never use. This included rust free firewalls and front inner guards.
So now I had the fun job of taking the rust out of the ones I now had and painting them.
Of course there are the little mods you do along the way. Like adding radiator mounts to the front due to the 2 inch body lift, closing in the back chassis rails and dropping the front brake line brackets so that I can run standard brake lines with the body lift.
Then came the rust in the sills and the rest of the side frames.
I ended up replacing the sills with 65mm box tube, so they are now rock sliders.
I also got rid of the moulding for the old type door seals and added a lip to the bottom of the door frame so that standard door seals can be used.
The side and bottom of the rear tube had proven not to be strong enough over the years for the abuse and weight carried. So these areas were reinforced with 30mm box tube.
Then everything is painted in 2 pack paints. 2 pack etch primer over the bare metal, 2 pack primer filler, and then 2 pack black gloss for the frame and engine bay.
So this is far I have got after 12 months. Only one side has been done, the other side will be started soon.
Is the single carburetor an original configuration? We don't get to see many carbureted Rovers in the US.
The grille behind the ARB bumper, what's that? It doesn't look like the "Euro-spec" grille like on the parts truck.
I'm kinda surprised at the rust. Pardon my American ignorance, but I had expected Australia to be more arid and less prone to rust. Is the soil corrosive, or are you near the ocean?
The rust repair you did looks so familiar. With the amount of road salt used around here, trucks like that would have rusted away long ago.
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P. T. Schram Rover Repair
Full-service independent Land Rover facility
I ain't got much a nothing at all, but I damned sure got it made. If you don't like the way I'm living, you just leave the silly Rover boy 'lone!
Yeah, my PM box is full. If you want help, need parts, are on the ledge and need to be talked back, e-mail me at PT@PTSchram.com or call me at 260-804-0458.
If you don't like my attitude, I really don't care, but I will help you fix your truck anyway.
Is the single carburetor an original configuration? We don't get to see many carbureted Rovers in the US.
The grille behind the ARB bumper, what's that? It doesn't look like the "Euro-spec" grille like on the parts truck.
I'm kinda surprised at the rust. Pardon my American ignorance, but I had expected Australia to be more arid and less prone to rust. Is the soil corrosive, or are you near the ocean?
The rust repair you did looks so familiar. With the amount of road salt used around here, trucks like that would have rusted away long ago.
The carbie on it was a holley. We have reasonably strict rules here about engine and other mods, so I might leave it there to get it registered and then convert it to EFI. The motor that was in it was a pre 76 3.5. The 3.9 out of my 93 will be going in it once I rebuild it.
The grill was a home made piece of shit that someone put in it. The original grill (like in the 2 door) will be going back in it.
The sills have large holes in them as standard. I assume it is to let any water out. However, they let all the mud in. Mud and moister will rust anything over time, especially over 35 years.
Other rust was caused by it being a ute with water sitting in the tub over time.
The floors rust out due to the rubber mats that were fitted to them. Water gets under the mat and cannot dry out properly. Combined with dirt accumulating under the mats, it slowly rubs away the paint and then rusts the floors.
Where the sides and the inner guards bolt to the firewall leaves a spot for mud to accumulate and again results in rust occurring between the two surfaces.
Of course the rubber body mounts rust out the metal mount which they sandwich.
Spent today cutting a perfectly good sill out of the left side frame of the ute. I had to cut the right side, so had to make the left the same with the built in rock sliders. It was 110F here today, so cutting and welding in the garage was not a lot of fun. But it could be worse, up in Northern Australia an area larger than Texas is currently under water due to the worse floods in nearly a century. Combined with your snow storms, it looks like we may be having global cooling.
It took me a couple of weeks to do the first sill and only a day for the second. It is marvelous what a difference knowing what you are going to do makes.
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Rangie Ute (Pickup) project
It is gonna look bad ass in black though.
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