Making over Rover.  We went to work on Tuesday afternoon adding hardware to the 110 doors like handles and locks. On Wednesday we removed the bull bar, rear bumper, skid plates, doors, seats, and interior trim from Rover.  Marty sanded then Allison painted a used Salisbury rear axle that is heavier duty to handle the additional weight of the wagon. On Thursday we moved the 110 chassis and Rover into the bay, where Scott and Marty removed all the fluids and prepared the engine for the move.  Then we lifted the engine out of Rover for a good cleaning before moving it into the 110 chassis.  Mark drove the JBC to push Rover and Marty back into the bay.  On Friday Marty detailed the engine and replaced the valve cover gaskets.  We removed Rover's front axle and moved it onto the 110 chassis along with the engine and the refurbished Salisbury axle.  At the same time, we added new heavy-duty springs and Old Man Emu shocks.  Next, we moved the bulkhead from Rover to the new chassis.  

Rovers North hasn't kicked us out of Westford yet.  In fact, our motivation to get the Rover running in record time has earned us a knick-name; Mark calls us the "Roverettes".  I'm going to recruit Rovers North's furry friends, Fargo and Shadow, to join our team.  

Our conversion from the Defender 90 to a 110 is going to break records if we keep up our pace. We worked through the weekend and added the 20.5 gallon gas tank, a new exhaust, rear drum brakes, and the bonnet (a.k.a. hood). Scott and Marty added a couple of gallons to the new tank and got the engine running on Monday! On Tuesday they bled the brakes and the hydraulic lines for the clutch.  We said goodbye to the old 90 bucket and chassis.  Then Marty steered the new chassis to the 110 body, where team-Rovers North helped move the tub on to the chassis.  Then, Marty proudly drove our new Rover back into the bay.  Now, we're working on the electrical and the interior.   

What's a 110 anyway?  A Land Rover Defender 110's wheel base is 110 inches, versus the Defender 90's 93 inches.  Range Rover USA only imported 509 North American Standard (NAS) 110 models into the US in 1993.  The NAS model with a V8 engine and an external rollover cage is radically different than those sold in other markets .  To learn more, Land Rover enthusiast's May 2001 magazine includes an extensive article on the NAS Defender 110, from which I gathered these fun facts:

• The NAS 110 had a 3.9 litre injected V8 engine with 180bhp and 227 lb ft of torque.  The engine was in the same state of tune as the contemporary US Range Rover, had catalytic converters in the exhaust and ran on unleaded petrol.
• The transmission consisted of a five-speed LT77S primary gearbox and an LT230 two speed transfer gearbox with manually lockable centre differential.  All vehicles had disc brakes at the front with drum brakes at the rear, and came with power-assisted steering.  
• There were 500 US vehicles, 25 Canadian models, and nine prototypes, making a grand total of 534 NAS 110s in all.  

For example, check out Dave's 4 door, V8 110.  We're lucky to have Dave's 110 around Rovers North as a reference point when we have questions. However, our 110 is NOT one of the 500 NAS models imported in 1993.  Our tub comes from a 2000 model that was dismantled to be used as an armored vehicle.  And, Rovers North is the type of place that can get a hold of rare finds like ours.  

On Wednesday the Border to Border Expedition Society kicked off their trip to Labrador at Rovers North.    We got some more ideas from Paul's 3 door dorm mobile with loads of modifications including pressurized water from an onboard water tank (or an outboard intake from another source such as a stream) for the sink or shower, a propane intake and tank for the kitchenette, a generator and pelican case for his computer.

Allison learned to make Swedish cinnamon rolls from Janice who lives next to Rovers North.  Janice, Morgan, Lena, and Daniel's family was visiting from Sweden this week, where it is customary to offer visitors cinnamon rolls.  Here is her family recipe for those who would like to try these scrumptious, but easy to make goodies:

Swedish Cinnamon Rolls from Janice 

100 g (6 2/3 Tbsp - 15 g = 1 Tbsp) margarine
2 c milk
2 cakes fresh yeast
1/2 tsp. salt
2/3 c. sugar
2 tsp. ground cardamom
5 1/4 c. (13 deciliters) bread flour
1 egg for brushing on top of rolls

Filling:
5 Tbsp margarine melted
1/4 c. sugar
3/4 Tbsp cinnamon

Melt margarine; add milk and heat to body temp. Break up yeast cakes in large mixing bowl and pour enough to melt yeast and blend evenly. Blend rest of liquid. Add salt, sugar and cardamom.

Gradually add flour (about 1/2 - 1c. at a time ) setting aside approx. 1/2 c. Work dough (around and back and forth, front and back) until it release from the sides of the bowl (with a whisk or wooden spoon). Sprinkle with small amount of flour, cover and let rise 30-40 min. Using rest of flour, kneed dough until rollable. Divide into 4 parts. Using rolling pin, roll each fourth into rectangles, about 10-12 inches. Brush with filling mixture. Cut into 10 strips, 3/4 inch. Roll each strip into a bun and set on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper (4x5 to a sheet). Cover and let rise 20 minutes. Brush tops with beaten egg. Sprinkle with pearl sugar (Janice has friends bring her from Sweden). Bake about 5-7 minutes at 475° until tops are golden brown. Makes 40 rolls. 

We did it! Rover is now longer, safer, dryer and tougher than ever.   We can't thank Scott, Mark and everyone at Rovers North enough, for without them we never could have accomplished the Defender conversion in just 10 days.  Anxious to hit the road and make our friend, Nell's seafood cookout in Maine, we started work at 6:00am on Saturday and finished by 8:30pm.  Mark couldn't believe we wanted to leave without a test drive, so Marty made him get in the truck and test drive it.  With Mark's blessing we quickly packed and made it to Maine without any troubles.  Although we missed the lobster we got to visit Neil, Heather, Jim, Katie, Alex, Pep and Buck in Kennebunk.  The next morning we followed Jim, Katie and Alex back to Connecticut.  Alex kept Marty busy as she fixed him up as a "Qweenie".  We headed to Jersey Monday to do some laundry and get reorganized before heading back down to Virginia.  We stayed with Scott and Cyndi in Centreville and went to Citibank first thing on Wednesday morning to obtain a letter of credit for the Carnet de Passage en Douane.  The Carnet is required by some countries in South America to ensure we bring our vehicle back out of the country when we leave.  Visit the Canadian Auto Association's web site for more details on obtaining a Carnet if you're planning to drive to South America.  We decided not to bother with trying to get the suggested letter of credit as it seemed to be more of a hassle than a benefit.  Besides visiting Citibank, our main reason for trekking back to NoVa was to change our title and registration from a "2 door sedan", as we expected some troubles with the old registration while crossing boarders in our 4 door wagon.  The DMV revised the title to read "Land Rover Defender" as the make and model.  After all of our chores, we headed up to Bull Run Mountain to visit Elena, Lori and Paul, who helped us build our original "big rack".   

On Friday we headed down to Richmond to visit John Bradley-Smith since we were only a couple of hours from his shop.  While John is an expert at rebuilding vintage printing presses, he's converted his shop and expertise to building Rover parts for extreme four wheeling.  Check out the pictures on his web site to see how his parts enable Rovers to keep four wheels on the ground in all terrain - incredible!  

We passed through VA once again on our way up North to eat sushi with Scott, Cyndi, Kristin and Carmelo at our favorite place called Arigato.  

We got online at Kinkos Friday to check email and felt like I was finally back to reality.  I felt out of touch while we were camping in Vermont.  After years of being directly hooked to the Internet 10 hours a day, I was having withdrawals only being able to upload files to our web site over a 28.8 modem weekly (thank you Rovers North). Now we're getting used to finding payphones to make calls and accessing the Internet on a periodic basis.  We prefer to rely on email as our primary means of communicado - as we don't have a cell phone and pay phones are becoming a rare species.  

Saturday night we met Pep, Jim, and TJ at his place and then we went to the local races in Wall.   Thanks to our good timing, we celebrated Molly, Grace, Marty's brother,   Mickey, and his sister, Meghan's birthdays on Sunday.  

We'll return to Westford on Monday and spend a couple of days at Rovers North to finish up details on the truck.  Then we should be ready to start the journey in Newfie, up to Labrador, across to Hudson bay, down to Toronto, across southern Canada, to Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, west to California, up to Oregon and then down to Mexico.  We should leave for the Southern border by October 25th.