Project update : Resurrection

We all have that special edition P38 we like. For me it is the Rhino. I just love the ostrich seats and the mystic green wood trim. As luck would have it there was one on craigslist that needed some TLC and more importantly it was in my price range. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened.

The downside to this choice was we needed to move every one of those accessories and modifications over to the Rhino. In retrospect putting in another motor would've been far easier and faster.

Without further ado here is the new L8  P38

OK that pic sucks..

Hows this one ?


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I'm sure a few of you with a keen eye have already noticed some differences beyond the color of the truck. The rest of you must still be looking at our new shop girl Amy

The first thing we wanted to do was lift the truck a bit more.  Changing the springs was an option but we were very happy with the current ride quality.  To keep everything the same but get more lift we added 1 inch spacers. On any other classic generation Land Rover adding springs spacers is a no-brainer, but the P 38 is not just any Land Rover. The issue is the air to coil conversion plates.  The studs on the conversion plates are only long enough to accommodate the spring seat.

The first thought was to get longer studs but we decided that drilling two holes in the axle mounting bracket would be the best solution.  The easiest way to accomplish this was to use the air to coil conversion plate with the studs knocked out of it as a template.

Another way to do it his use a 1 1/2 spacer and remove the air to coil conversion plate but in the interest of science we went with this.

The front was a completely different challenge. You cannot drill all the way through because the axle housing is in the way.

We needed to get a little bit creative with this one. The solution that came to mind was drilling and tapping the air to  coil conversion plate

In the front we were not getting any dislocation and I was not afraid of the stress put on the air to coil conversion retaining pin.

Here is a side view with the new lift.

With the extra lift the axles were way off making new panhard bars a must. A quick phone call to Rovertym and we had 2 new ones on our tailgate.

Did I mention they were fully adjustable ?

With the suspension squared away it was time to try out the new prototype bumper from Terrafirma The initial test fitting went well, the only possible downside for some is you need to remove the trailer hitch . Personally I didn't want the trailer hitch on the truck so this is a non-issue.  Do you guys care if you need to remove your trailer hitch in order to fit the bumper?

With VOT" Vermont expedition trophy " right around the corner there was no time to send the bumper out for powder coating. So we rattle canned it black and threw it on the truck.

For VOT we needed a winch but the Terrafirma bumper was not ready yet. As the old saying goes necessity is the mother of all invention. A look around the shop for options landed us a Terrafirma discrete winch mount for a Disco 2. After a quick mockup of the side plates we knew we had our answer.

The side brackets almost fit, but one of the frame mounting holes needed to be slightly extended.

The next issue we ran into was the bumper was in the way of the winch. In order to make room we simply cut out the section giving us a problem.

All together we had this.

And with the winch installed

An unseen advantage to this installation was the winch tray acts as a lower radiator guard.

And the poser pic.