It took three days elapsed time, and about a day and 3/4 effort between me an my son, but the Defender 110 now has a new crossmember. A good job I got one with extensions as it was pretty rotten.
Not a too bad job. A few niggles:
I had to cut the loom, so I have about 18 wire joints inside the chassis, so I hope I did a good job as I will never be able to repair them!
The welding wasn't too bad (by my standards) - it does focus your mind when you realise that anything you tow (to be accurate, anything you tow remaining with you!) is totally reliant on the quality of those welds!
I needed to spread the chassis to make it fit over my chassis (but not totally unexpected). When it fitted I bolted it to the tub, checked that the anti roll bar would fit, then welded it all up.
I had a bad earth when reconnecting the lights on the offside, so the high intensity rear lamp was earthing through the brake light. That was soon sorted!
The main gripe I had was near the end and that was after re-fitting the fuel sender unit, I couldn't get the fuel pipe back on! It turns out that the old chassis had a semi-circular notch cut of the body support that the fuel line went through. The replacement didn't (I wish I had realised BEFORE I'd welded it all up! A bit of a bodge at the moment as it now comes around the outside of the support and I have notched the slot to make it fit. A little too close, but it will do for the immediate future.
Richard - is that small piece of pipe and nut available separately, alternatively what's the thread and will see if I can make one myself.
So, a good weekends works, we'll see what the MOT tester thinks of my welding in a fortnight!
Cheers
Peter