PROCESS:
Make a rectangle of 50×25x2.0 mm RHS.
2 Lengths at 1600mm
2 Lengths at 2000mm
All cut at 45 degree angles.
Lay out on floor, raised on some 50×20mm flat bar. Hold all angles with magnetic 90 degree clamps.Check square with set square.
Tack 2 dots oninside and outside edge with ARC welder, re check its square.
Tomorrow:
Cut 5 ‘ribs’ from 50×25x1.6mm RHS and cut them on a 45 degree angle. 2 x tack welds on each to check they are ’square’ Flip and square up the other side and tack 2 dots in each corner. Then weld one surface at a time in each corner, checking angles and square as we go.
Welding will be done with a Tig welder.
I ordered the steel for my tray today from Robot Trading, http://www.robottrading.com.au.
Steel ordered:
The first step to building the tray is to come up with a design. Having never build one, nor paid particular interest in how they are built, I sort the advice of a few friends. Michael was kind enough to mock up a design for me which ‘looked the goods’. I have sent off 2 quote requests for the steel, the first one coming back as $408 which was great as i had a budget set aside of $1000 for the tray. I have the water tank, air tank etc ready to mount under the tray once it is completed. The basic design is: 2x 75mm ‘C’ Channel to bolt the tray to the chassis and lift the tray up off the chassis. These fle a little to avoid fatigue, apparently. 50mmx25mm RHS to become the ribs that the aluminum checker-plate will bolt to. The 2 sides are also 50×25 RHS. The roll bar behind the cab will be 40×40mm SHS with a piece of 1.6mm flat sheet folded to be the head board. Some 22mm tube will form the rope rails. The sides will be made from 25mm angle iron and wooden inserts to give it the period look. I still ‘may’ replace the checker-plate floor with timber. A decision to be made closer to completion. At this stage I don’t think i’ll fold a sheet to be the back of the tray as the lights on the Landrover are already mounted to the chassis and the tray isn’t going to overhang the chassis by more than 40mm or so. So far Speedy Steel in Airport West is winning the race for the best, cheapest, most professional steel supplier, having my quote returned in just a few hours of email which i thought was fantastic. 
The ute was originally Grey. Which, in my eyes is a little bland. My favourite of the Land Rover colours was Limestone and having a photo on hand of a LWB Trayback in limestone only confirmed my thoughts. I was recommended Standox paint, a little more expensive that other paints but gives an excellent finish. $127 for 4 Litres should see the job done. More news on this to come… I found this photo as inspiration, this is the colour ‘Limestone’ and will be what my SIIA will look like in a weeks weeks - Touch wood! 
A few links I found when researching Land Rover Paint:
NCJ Limestone 59-84 LRC.007
Paint Colors
Description Rover No. DuPont Ditzler Glasurit RM-Supermax Unipart
Pastel Green RTC4041A 38504* ROV-605 RV-028Bronze Green RTC4042A 38500* 46451 LEY-637 RV-027Marine Blue RTC4043A 38503* 16514 ROV-504 RV-017 GAP407Limestone RTC4044A 38505* 46251 RV-040Poppy Red 38506* ROV-303 RV-029Sand 38502*Mid grey 38501*Burnt grey 38508*Davos white 38514*Mexican brown 38519*Cameron green 38520*Almond yellow 38521*Sandglow “Camel Yellow” is also an old Jaguar colorSand (ACF/004 or 26291)Artic White”Detroit Diesel Alpine Green” #225, made by Tempo.*For DuPont add suffix “A” for Centari Acrylic Enamel, “L” for Laquer,or “D” for “DuLux” Alkyd Enamel.
Well, not a lot has happened in the last few weeks. The Original motor was stripped down and it is very worn. The body is back together and all in primer awaiting paint, i’ll leave that to a separate post. It won’t be long now until everything is completed. Next phase is paint the whole cab in colour, build and fit the tray and finish the wiring. Last step is to fit the shocks, new tyres and adjust up the brakes.
Over the course of the project my tool box needed additions to make life easy. Snap on are very expensive tools but are they worth the $$? Firstly, they contain a lifetime warranty. They are well made and sized perfectly. There is a tool for EVERY job. I am shocked and amazed what they have. Over the last few months I have purchased:
- Imperial Flank drive plus ratchet spanner set
- 2 sets of flare pipe wrenches
- 3/8″ Drive deep and shallow single hex (6pt) sockets (imperial)
- Various screw drivers, allen keys, torx bits
- Ratchet Screw driver
- Nut Drivers (imperial)
- Torque Wrench (3/8″)
- Bluepoint double flaring tool
- Set of Long nose pliers
- Carbon Scraper
- 3/8″ extension set
Plenty more to buy yet!
Of late, a few things have progressed. The bonnet, grill and gaurds are back on and looking fantastic in Etch Primer. The doors are back and also in Primer. I have fitted a new fan belt, Fuel Filler Hose, Radiator hoses, new Exide Extreme Battery, new starter button and coil to distributor lead. All the brake lines have been replaced with new pipe and fittings as well as new flexible hoses fort he rear and front. New Clutch slave cylinder was also fitted thanks to Rover Parts and the Landrover now fires up and drives (and stops!) . All the rear lights are fitted and the wiring has been replaced. Now I just have to connect the wiring in the dash and sort out the years of butchered spliced wires. Next steps will be paint the roof in Etch primer then the whole car in original Limestone. The Tray is all designed and the steel will be ordered and welded up to make a new steel tray with aluminium checkerplate floor.I have stripped the original motor and will start to slowly rebuild it to put back in the landrover shortly.
Before the engine goes in, it was decided it was the best time to replace the brake lines. I was lucky tohave some handy tips on hand from the gents at www.aulro.com A quick trip to ABS and $140 lighter, I picked up 10 Metres of 3/16″ Steel brake pipe (Bundy Tube) and some fittings. I purchased 8 Tube Nuts, 3/8″ as well as some other fittings. Carefully measuring and cutting lengths of pipe, bending roughly into shape and fitting them to the vehicle one by one took a few hours, but was worth the effort. The next step is to flare the ends and actually bolt them p, something I can’t do until the Blue Point flaring tool arrives. 
With litle progress over the last few months, it was time to get the ball rolling. I picked up some 5mm x 50mm bar to fabricate up some new bumper mounts which had badly rusted and needed repair. The Bar would also patch a small section of the chassis that had some rust holes that proved to be more cancer than a few holes. A sheet of 2mm plate was also acquired to fabricate some new light mounts for the rear of the tray. This proved much easy than I thought. Now I am the first to achknowledge my welding skills are terrible and steel skills equally as bad, but with some new tools I thought I’d give it a go. The Light mounts were simply traced from the pattern of the old tin ones. These are quite battered and bruised. Once traced I centre punched the holes and preceeded to drill the pilot holes, uping the drill bit in size. A 22mm Hole saw cut the holes for the ‘guts’ of the lights to hang through. I don’t have a jigsaw to cut the rounded corners so careful for with the angle grinder, then die grinder managed to cut them to shape and round them off nicely. Some work on the hand file and emery paper managed to clean them up to be quite presentable. Overall, a job done nicely (i think anyways.) Now to clean them up and paint them Chassis Black, mount the lights and bolt them to the chassis.
Due to being on the later shifts, and it being unbearably hot on weekends, I haven’t touched the Land Rover for a month. But.. Today.. I painted the bottom of the Passenger floor and also re fitted the rear axle/ spring setup. All good this far. Just have to bolt the front spring hangers and put the wheels back on. Next phase will be remove and exchange the front diff/axle housing for the new unit I picked up from Slunnie and then fit the engine. Hopefully get this beast mobile before too long (then its time to make it stop!