L955NBF - Blog
In the Workshop - Underbody Protection
When originally built, the car was fitted with a full length aluminium 'belly' plate, but this was removed, chopped up by the previous owner and replaced with various bits of plastic sheet. I think this was an attempt to save weight, but the resulting creation was not as good as the orginal guard and would not have stood up to any serious use in a UK safari event. In the array of parts that came with the car, there were various pieces of aluminium. I managed to piece the jigsaw together and work out what originally went where :
I decided to recreate the original, with a few minor modifications. First job was to clean up the steel box section guard that fits under the engine. This was removed and taken to Hampshire Padock Mangmanent near Romsey that offer a really good blasting service. Once cleaned up it was painted and refitted.
First job was to replace the steel box section that ran the length of the car as this was missing. This was fitted to add some rigidity and to give the belly plate something to mount to. It ran from fabricated pads with a tapped hole welded to the rear of the front subframe, to similar pads welded to the rear differential carrier. This was easily sourced from ebay any drilled to suit.
The original rear aluminium plate section that covered the diff was strightened and reused. The center section could not be saved so was recreated with a few improvements. Originally the centre section was fitted as one large flat piece, but after some thought I made it in 3 pieces. This was for a few reasons; to make it cheaper to make and buy, to make it easier to handle and fit / dismount, and to allow the side sections to be removable for access to parts of the car for servicing and checking things, especially when single handed in the workshop.
The centre was made approx 500mm wide with a 25mm return along each edge to create some rigidity, and on the 2 removelable side pieces I also added a return fold in on the outer edge, again to add some stiffness and to prevent debris from find a way in along the sides of the car.
One thing the orginal builder of the car Paul Lund did say, was the belly plate used to fill up with mud and stones. Behind the front wheel was a fairly significant 'hole' where on lock material would be directed straight into the void. To prevent this I've extended the mud flaps inwards, time will tell if it enough!
