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Modeller Build Logs
SAS Land Rover 110 DPV |
| By James Wechsler | | Started: | Sep 26, 2007 | | Updated: | Feb 9, 2008 |
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When Paul asked if any one was interested in writing a blog, I offered but my requirement was no more Shermans! Instead I proposed this project because I thought it would be an interesting subject and I haven’t seen a blog of a wheeled vehicle for some time.
The Land Rover 110 DPV is the most current version of the famous SAS Land Rovers that include the more well known ‘Pink Panther’. This version is based on the Defender 110 commercial Land Rover. It is still in service with the SAS seeing action in both Afghanistan and Iraq along with other not named place around the world.
The build will use the following kits:
Accurate Armour LR009 SAS Land Rover 110 DPV
Accurate Armour FS11 SAS 110 DPV Crew Set #1
For reference, I’ve found a few photos on the internet and in some publications but the main source is this new book:
Military Land Rover, Development and in Service, Pat Ware, ISBN 0711031894, from Ian Allan Publishing
This is a new book that covers all of the Land Rovers in military service and is quite detailed and well written. A must for all Land Rover enthusiasts.
In addition, I spent some time in a commercial version of the Defender 110 this summer and took a lot of notes on some of the details. It may not seem it, but it’s a pretty large vehicle, bigger than most SUVs but a bit smaller than a HUMVEE. |
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| The Body and Wheels – Part 1 | Oct 30, 2007 |
OK, I’m sure you’re looking at this photo and thinking that I must have forgotten to write up a few steps. Actually not. The next part of the build sequence is to put on the body parts. After looking at what was necessary, I completely abandoned the instructions.
First, for those of you not familiar with this vehicle, it starts life as a Defender 110 which is a pickup truck. So the body has the familiar truck bed, cab, and front fenders and hood (bonnet). Realizing this makes it a lot easier to see how to attach all of the parts.
Also realize that on this kit the only piece that has a definitive mounting location is the truck bed so you must start there and attach the rest of the parts from back to front.
I decided to mount the rear tail door to the truck bed to help make sure the assembly was square. My part was a little warped but the rear door squared it up. This is completely out of sequence but a crucial step. Then I assembled the major pieces of the cab. Really there’s only the cab body and the dash board but I also added the gas, brake, and clutch pedals since gluing them in later would have been much more difficult once the dash was mounted to the cab.
At this point I mounted the truck bed to the chassis frame. Then I mounted the cab to the truck bed. My logic was that from an overall view point, I needed the body parts to be aligned to each other more than anything else. Turns out this was good choice because this in when I realized that the chassis frame was badly warped (unfortunately there’s really no way find this out sooner). It was both twisted left to right (i.e. cork screwed) and drooping from back to front. I nearly cried.
But after thinking about what to do I decided to use the hair dryer to straighten it as much as possible. Then I mounted the front fenders to the cab and the radiator to the fenders. Should have been easy but the alternator on the left side of the engine interfered with the left fender. So I ended up cutting it off, mounting all of the fenders, and then reattaching it (it’s not visible anyway since I’ll be closing the hood). Then I glued the hood in place (which also required a bit of trimming).
At this point, the front body work wasn’t even close to mating to the chassis. So out came the hair dryer. I simply heated up the entire front chassis and pushed it into place against the body.
Thank goodness I mounted the body parts relative to each other. Otherwise I’d have never gotten everything to line up and I’d be reporting that I’d scrapped the whole project. |
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