1: Joining the HOFS

In part 1 I described how a crusty but functioning 109 had been dismantled, found to need a new everything, and then vast amounts of time & money had been spent with not a lot of progress to show for it. Things were looking bad.

Then I had an e-mail.

A friend in the Shire Land Rover Club was building a buggy using Unimog portal axles, and was in contact with another guy who was building a “big, stupid car” in Basingstoke. He was up against it and needed some help with the wiring.

It just so happens that I can do wiring, and was young, free, single, and stupid enough to feel it was worth driving to Basingstoke just for the interest.

And so I fell in with The House Of Flying Spanners.

That is a separate story in itself,but the short version is that having helped Jez and co get Petal up & running in time for Ladoga, the mad fools said “When we get back, bring your 109 up here & we'll help you finish it”. I'm pretty sure none of us really knew what we were letting ourselves in for.

Taking Jez and co at their word, I arrived with my vehicle collection of parts at The Lab, full of optimism;

After a bit of a walk round and appraisal, and despite best efforts at diplomacy, the consensus was “nice idea, f'ing awful execution, start again”.

So we did.

The story that follows is in pure chronological order based on timestamps of the photos - so if it's a bit all over the place, just imagine how all over the place I was at the time!

In the over-a-year I'd been failing to make progress with the 109 I had been accumulating parts, some via eBay, Sodbury Sortout, or club members, and some by doing work on websites in exchange for Land Rover parts - yes I was blagging a fair bit, but by crikey did people get good value out of me in return! Young and hungry and stupid…

The inventory of parts was at least quite promising;

• The brand-new R380 I'd originally bought
• An almost-new LT230 I'd bought through a friend in the club
• A 4.6 V8 short-block plus the heads & Megasquirt EFI setup from the old 3.9
• A bargain pair of Volvo C303 portal axles from a dead C303
• A Gon2Far leaf-spring suspension mount setup & looong ProComp shocks
• The original T.I. Console parabolic springs
• A Fairey H14W hydraulic winch setup including PTO (bought at Sodbury)
• The original body of the 109

By now I was not flush with spare cash, so buying a new chassis was not an attractive option, especially given the required modifications which would effectively rule out galvanising (or mean building a vehicle on a plain chassis, then dismantling it, galvanising it, and re-re-building it).

So, a bit of scouting round eBay and £100 later I had a good 2nd hand 109 chassis with a (not good) bulkhead and rear tub thrown in:

Onwards to Page 2 - The Grindening