03/23/2026
Have been dragging parts back to the farm for more than a decade and buying the occasional bit here & there with the intent of building myself the truck I want as a daily driver/ and exploring truck. I got a NAS 110 frame that needed a rear crossmember so welded on the new part and had the chassis sand blasted and hot dip galvanized (hdg). I also got a bulkhead that needed a footwell, made that repair & again sandblasted & hdg.
Sill/B Pilar aka “T” posts. These were also from a NAS 110 & while they required no repair there were spots of rust starting so these were also blasted & galvanized.
In 2012 I was hit by a semi on interstate 95 in Maryland & the accident destroyed the low mileage Discovery I was driving. I kept the drivetrain from that truck and used it in this chassis. It’s a gems V8 with ZF automatic & 1.2 lt230. After sitting in storage for 14yrs we have it up and running again.
The body is from multiple different donors.
The tub was a gift that needed considerable repair and we rebuilt it with YRM components. We used galvanized cappings as well as galvanized supports underneath. The rear corner cappings were swapped out for NAS spec ones so that 95/97 rear lights could be used.
The front seatbox was again one where the battery box & tool box were both compromised and was again free but was made new with YRM aluminum to replace the original stamped steel components.
The body is being assembled with YRM’s gasket kit to isolate steel & aluminum anywhere the two come in contact. Any aluminum corrosion was chemically treated with an aviation product called Alodine & then epoxy primed. Every effort is being made to make the vehicle as corrosion resistant as possible.
Rear and side glass as well as the roof alpine windows is all dark tint glass. The roofside windows are fixed/ non sliders to eliminate leaks and rattles. Glass is all from Masai except the alpine windows which are from SP4x4.
You can see the body cuts for the frame supports for a Safety Devices external cage. I found a cage in Western Mass from a NAS 110 that had burned due to an oil cooler line burst. The powder coat was gone & there was surface rust but nothing was misshapen so had it sand blasted & re powder coated.
Dash is one I bought as a “new take out” in 2009 from a 2006 300 tdi that was taken apart and imported for parts, it is a td5 type dash. I had also bought the entire 2006 wiring loom so that loom was modified to operate the gems fuel injection system. My new years resolution was to stop working on customer Defenders 7 says a week and reclaim some sanity and life satisfaction by making time for our own projects. It is a work in progress & only working on it evenings after dinner & a little on weekends. It’s taking shape but long way to go
