From sigs to SF

VUR 553W was purchased on the 10th Feb 2008 via an ebay transaction, as I already have a fully kitted out FFR I decided to do something a bit different & I could not have been more happy with the result, it went from a sigs truck to a special forces recce vehicle in 4 months.

The front near side wing was a right mess, the exhaust was knackered, there were several holes in the chassis, it wasn't charging, some of the tyres had seen better days but it drove lovely, I was surprised at how much more confortable it was to drive than Katy & decided I'd keep it for a while.

The first thing I did was change the generator for the spare out of the shed, this cured the charge problem straight away, next job was to tackle the wing which was easier than I thought it would be, aluminium is so much simpler to shape & with a little skim of filler the job was good enough, I say good enough because I wanted to keep the in service look.

I wanted to make up racks like I'd seen on another Land Rover so I drew up plans & spent £50 on materials, they came together quite easily.

& once painted they started to look the part.

I cracked on with the welding & changing the exhaust, a complete new exhaust was only £50 so I changed the lot rather than mess around with the odd section.

I then turned my attentions to the body, I had decided to front mount the tools so I took all the mounts off the tailgate, a light rub down & the NATO green was added.

It was already looking lke a different vehicle, I had taken pictures of it before I started so when I added the black I kept to the original cammo pattern, next job was mounting the tools.

I purchased a GPMG mounting frame for the rear, this was very easy to fit although I did have to change the fog light lenses so the frame could fit but already having the smaller glass lenses meant it was a straight forward job. Once it was fitted it was just a case of blending it & the racks in with the cammo pattern.

Head light blinds were next & with some old canvas laying around this was another straight forward but effective job.

This 109 was really beginning to take shape but for the lack of a GPMG gun cradle, I decided to knock one up out of some scrap metal which went together quite well despite the unclear pictures that I was working from.

It was now time to start stripping the top & door tops off.

I had most of the radio gear but just needed 2 lengths of dexion but once this was fitted.....

It looks finished but it wasn't, I had to fit the insulated terminal bracket for the radio gear, Paint the cab, stencil the tyre pressures & battery cover & fit rear seats.