Land Rover Defender chassis

Land Rover Defender chassis

A chassis for the two jobs that normally pull against each other: a full restoration, and an engine conversion that needs mounts the factory never made. It is galvanised throughout for corrosion resistance, and the engine mounting is carried on bolt on engine mounting plates rather than on the chassis rails themselves.

Those plates are bare steel and they come off. Mounts get welded and adjusted on the plate, then the finished plate bolts back on, so the galvanised structure is never ground back, welded to or contaminated. A conventional galvanised chassis makes you choose between the coating and the conversion. This one does not put the question.

The problem the mounting plates solve

Galvanising and engine conversions have never got on. You buy a galvanised chassis because you want the vehicle to outlast you, and then the first thing the conversion asks you to do is grind the zinc off and weld to bare steel, in the enclosed corners of the chassis where corrosion starts and where nobody will ever inspect it again. Whatever you paint over it afterwards is not what you paid for.

The plates move that work off the chassis. Mounts get welded to a removable bare steel plate on a bench, where the welding is easier to do well and easier to see, and the finished plate bolts on. The galvanising is never touched. It also means the mounting is reversible: change engines in five years and you make new plates rather than cutting the chassis about again.

This galvanised Defender chassis and your engine

That is also what makes the chassis engine agnostic. A Cummins, a BMW M57, a Mercedes Benz OM606, an LS3, a TD5, something nobody has tried yet — whatever the build is based on, the mounts are fabricated onto the removable plates at the bench and the finished assembly bolts to the chassis.

That flexibility is the reason to order this chassis rather than a conventional one. Look down the engine list below: Cummins R2.8, Cummins 4BT, Ford Barra, Toyota 1HD, Nissan TD42. We do not make bolt in mount kits for any of those, so on a conversion like that somebody is fabricating mounts, and this chassis is designed for that to happen away from the galvanising. If your engine is a BMW M57 instead, we do sell bolt in M57 Defender mounts, and the two approaches can be combined.

All wheelbases, body and engine versions available.

Vehicle Compatibility

Available Variants

Wheelbase

• Defender 90
• Defender 110
• Defender 130

Chassis Configuration

• 200Tdi
• 300Tdi
• V8
• TD5
• TD4 Puma
• Discovery Based Chassis

Engine Compatibility

Suitable for virtually any engine conversion, including:

• BMW M57
• BMW N57
• Mercedes Benz OM606
• Cummins R2.8
• Cummins 4BT
• Chevrolet LS3
• Rover V8
• Ford Barra
• Toyota 1HD Series
• Nissan TD42
• Land Rover TD5
• Custom engine conversions

A bare chassis, and only that

Be clear about what arrives. This is a chassis with its mounting plates. There is no bulkhead, no body, no axles, no suspension, no steering, no brake lines, no fuel tank, no engine and no gearbox. It is the starting point for a rebuild, which means the rest of your project has to be either salvageable from the old vehicle or already on order.

That is a different proposition from the + 2500€ new chassis option on our conversion kits. There, we build the conversion onto a new chassis for you. Here, you are buying the chassis and doing the build. If you are not sure which of the two routes suits your project, talk it through with us before ordering either.

Before you order

Two lists above decide it: the wheelbase and the chassis configuration. Confirm which of the six configurations matches the vehicle you are building, because a 200Tdi chassis and a TD4 Puma chassis are not interchangeable and the body and running gear you already own have to sit on it. If your engine is not on the compatibility list, that is not necessarily a no, it just means we should discuss it first.

7 years warranty

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