Land Rovers and transporting engines

[wolseley phill]

Hi all,

At the weekend I should be taking delivery of an ex army (CL) Land Rover S3 109 pick up. It's a 2.25 Petrol, fitted with a canvas tilt.

I'm going to need to fit the load bay with some sort of eye hooks so that I can strap engines in for transporting them to shows.

If I make up strengthener plates, is it acceptable to bolt them to the floor/bodywork?

Any advice on the type of hooks to use would be great.

I also would like to fit my "handraulic" winch to the bulkhead, any advice on this would be very much appreciated - the biggest engine it will have to deal with weighs about 225kg and my ramps are 6ft long.

Thanks,

Phill.

[listerdiesel]

The body is all aluminium, Birmabright to be precise, and there isn't a lot of places you can attach things to, only the bulkhead behind the seats and the floor, but it isn't that strong.

Peter

[listerlad]

Petrol, ouch!


Ollie

[wolseley phill]

Ok, thanks Peter.

So presumably, I would need to fit steel plates either side of a bolt on "eye" in order to spread the load?

Or is another way round it?

Phill.

[Secret Anorak]

If it was me I would fix some heavy duty lash down eyes in the back. The rear floor of a Landy is made of aluminium and the eyes could rip out fairly easily if they weren't fixed in the right place. Underneath the load bed are support struts to provide strength to the floor, I would fix the eyes through these to give you the most chance of holding the load down on the event of an accident. The vehicle will have a bulkhead behind the cockpit but not a full height one which you can utilize by placing the engines up against it and then ratchet strapping the engines down to the floor. The problem with Land Rovers is the height of the load bed from the floor (depending on springs/wheels fitted) so even with 6 foot ramps they would be at quite a steep angle. It would be a case of working around it once you've got the vehicle in front of you really.

[wolseley phill]

Originally Posted by listerlad

Petrol, ouch!


Ollie

Yeah, keeping the 107 for work and college Ollie, average 65- 70 to the gallon with that.

The Landrover is just for rallies and the odd trip here and there.

Phill.

[wolseley phill]

Originally Posted by Secret Anorak

If it was me I would fix some heavy duty lash down eyes in the back. The rear floor of a Landy is made of aluminium and the eyes could rip out fairly easily if they weren't fixed in the right place. Underneath the load bed are support struts to provide strength to the floor, I would fix the eyes through these to give you the most chance of holding the load down on the event of an accident. The vehicle will have a bulkhead behind the cockpit but not a full height one which you can utilize by placing the engines up against it and then ratchet strapping the engines down to the floor. The problem with Land Rovers is the height of the load bed from the floor (depending on springs/wheels fitted) so even with 6 foot ramps they would be at quite a steep angle. It would be a case of working around it once you've got the vehicle in front of you really.

Thanks for the advice, sounds sensible.

Yes I'll have a better idea when I have it, but wondered if anyone else had done all this and could give me some hints before I start.

It has oversize tires fitted so does sit quite high.

Thanks,

Phill.

[Secret Anorak]

You could always buy a Sankey trailer and use that as well.....

[wolseley phill]

I wish! No space for a trailer as well.

[listerdiesel]

We've had three LWB Series III's though our hands, all the floor and supports were rotten as a pear.

Chassis were even worse....

Yes, you can spread the load, but if you get a serious strain on the lashing points, you're likely to have a mobile engine on your hands.

Have a GOOD look first before you rely on the body.

If the chassis is OK, then replacing the floor panel and the supports isn't a bad job, but if the chassis is weak, forget it.

Peter