Fitting a Mantec Swing-Away wheel carrier to a 2004 TD5 Land Rover 110 County Station Wagon © Clive Turner 2014

Price from Mantec £268.00 including delivery. 3 hours to fit with great care.

Tools and equipment required (that I used):

Torx driver, (to remove and refit safari door handle).

Small electrical screwdriver, (to remove the small cover under the safari door handle).

Large flat-bladed screw driver, (to pry off safari door card).

Power drill, 4mm and 11mm drill bits.

Light oil (for drilling).

Good quality electrical tape.

Centre punch.

Marker pen.

Long piece of 10-12mm threaded studding and 2 nuts OR similar straight rod and tie wraps will work.

Tub of regular grease. Tube of low-temp silicon grease. Copper grease.

Big grommet (see Final Assembly).

10, 13, 17 19mm spanners and sockets.

The wheel brace and security nut-remover for your spare wheel.

Round Files for deburring.

Several cleaning rags / cloths, or a new roll of kitchen towel.

Preparation.

Make sure you’ve got all the parts you need, and that it all fits together as it should. I assembled the entire wheel

carrier and all the brackets etc. fully so that I was very clear what went where and how it should look. It only takes a

few minutes, but well worth it. Make a note of where all the different sized washers and nuts and bolts go. If there

are any parts missing or bolts that have spoiled threads, now is the time to find out, before you start the job!

Make sure you’ve got all the tools you need, too. Remove the spare wheel, and put it out of the way. Keep the spare

wheel nuts safe. Open the safari door, and remove the grab handle. Mine was fitted with torx-head screws.

Next, lift the inner door handle, and prise out the small plastic panel behind it. Using a large flat bladed screwdriver,

start at the bottom of the door card, and prise it away from the bottom first. Pull gently on the bottom of the card

and the rest of the plastic trim plugs holding it to the metal of the door frame should pop away leaving the door card

in your hands. Watch out for any falling foam pieces which should be glued to the door to stop rattles and vibration.

Glue them back as soon as possible so the glue has time to go off before you refit the door card.

You will now have access to the 6 nylock nuts and huge washers on the inside of the safari door, which retain the

bolts and the original Land Rover wheel carrier. Loosen all of them, but leave the top two (left and right) till last.

Have someone remove the last two nuts and washers while you support the old metal wheel carrier, otherwise it will

be able to move and swing about and will damage good paintwork and even dent or pierce the door skin.

Keep the old long bolts, the giant washers and nylock nuts for re-use with the Mantec carrier. Clean up the entire

rear door and make good anything which is not. Make sure everything is in good order.

Inside the landy, remove the rearmost right-hand seat squab, the interior trim at the rear quarter window, and any

lower trim at the back (I have the loudspeakers in mine). Clear any cables from the area behind the body capping

where you will need to drill through. Finally, patch up any paint or rusty areas on the rear cross member where the

lower bracket needs to go.

Fitting the new one.

I started by removing the grab-handle I’d fitted at the back which revealed some surface rust on the cross-member. I

cleaned and painted this first.

I checked what was behind the cross member where the riv-nut plates had to go, mine was waxoyled not long ago.

Clear out any muck, mud and grit that may be in there and make sure it is all dry. Have a test fit and make sure that

the holes the new bolts need to fit through are clear and that you can reach and hold things in place while you fit

them. I started with the riv-nut plate that fits vertically at the left of the bottom bracket. I smothered the riv-nut

plate in grease on the side that goes to the cross member, and then did the same with the back of the lower bracket.

I put the plate in place behind the cross member, and used one of the bolts to hold it (right-most pic, above).

I could then fit the bottom bolt only through the bracket and get it started into the riv-nut plate so that the bracket

was hanging on one bolt, without having to hold the riv-nut plate too. I don’t have a pic of that as my hands were

covered in grease. At this point, the riv-nut plate will have a top-bolt that is only through the cross member, and the

lower bolt is through the lower hinge bracket which is dangling but not touching the cross member. I then removed

the top bolt, swung the bracket anticlockwise into its correct position, and refitted the top bolt correctly through the

bracket and into the riv-nut plate.

These first two bolts can be fastened finger-tight so that the riv-plate and the lower bracket are in good firm contact

with the cross member. You can now fit the

slightly more challenging horizontal riv-nut plate

(smeared with grease as before) and get the bolts

into it without needing to support the lower

bracket as well. I’ve no pics of this because my

hands were covered in grease!

It doesn’t matter which bolt is first of these two.

Do all 4 bolts up all the way and then loosen them

enough that the bracket can be moved with some

difficulty. Leave it so it’s at the top-most place it

can get to.

I now used the long piece of studding, I fitted the studding roughly at the centre of the bottom bracket where the

carrier will bolt, tight enough that it doesn’t move at all but not more than that. Don’t want to bend the bracket! The

studding now goes up to where the top bracket needs to be. I ran a nut down the studding, then put the top bracket

onto it so it rested on the nut, about at the place it needs to be permanently. In my case one bolt hole (left) sat over

the last body capping rivet, but the other was where no rivet had ever been. This is not the same as the Mantec

instructions, which says both holes will line up with an existing rivet.

In my case, I had to make sure I drilled the new hole level and true to the rivets and in the right place for being able

to adjust the top bracket. I removed the top bracket. I then used some tape to cover the bottom bracket so that no

metal swarf went behind it or anywhere it wasn’t wanted, but would collect on the tape or slide off to the ground. I

used the smaller drill to drill out the rivet, changed to the larger drill and opened up the hole to the right size. I

cleaned up the swarf and deburred the hole. I then stuck some tape along the capping where the next hole needed

to be, and secured the top bracket in place temporarily using the studding and one bolt simply pushed into the first

hole as a guide, while pushing the bracket all the way to one end of the slotted hole.

Figure 1

After making triple sure I’d got it all in the right place, I marked the hole at the same end of the slot for the right hand

bolt, and rechecked it by eye twice more. There’s no going back if you get it wrong here! See Fig 1. I removed the top

bracket and put it out of the way, but left the studding. You’ll see why in a bit.

To be absolutely certain, I checked and rechecked the marking using the backing

plate because THAT is what the bolts MUST fit into so the hole centres MUST

align. You can use the backing plate for marking out too, but the marking tools

may not fit through the nut. Mine didn’t.

With the hole marked with both a marker pen (slot shape) and the centre punch

(right place in the slot, and level with existing rivets) I drilled right through with

the smaller drill, opened it out as before with the larger drill and deburred it.

There are several layers of metal here, and the hole is quite deep so it can take a

while.

Tip: use the light oil such as 3-in-one to lubricate the drill. If you don’t have any, a

few drips off your engine oil dipstick will do the job.

After drilling and deburring, clean everything up well and remove the tape. I finger-squeezed some grease into both

holes because I didn’t have any special paint. I then totally smothered the back of the top bracket with grease, and

also the riv-nut plate that goes inside the rear quarter panel.

I put the top bracket back on the studding and pressed both bolts through their respective holes. Note that at this

point none of the bolts are secure. Standing at the inside of the door, I could get a finger onto the nearest of the two

bolts through the gap in the hinge side of the safari door. At the same time, I put the internal riv-nut plate in the right

place, and managed to secure the nearest bolt most of the way in – enough to get the riv-nut plate to stay in place,

while I went around to the rear and got the other bolt into place! If there’s two of you, this bit is easy and you won’t

need the studding. If there’s only you on your own, this worked really well for me because the bracket is supported

in the right place the whole time. As before, tighten up all the bolts and loosen them just enough to move a little.

You can now remove the studding and put it away.

At this point, you have both the bottom and top carrier hinge brackets fitted securely, and ready for final fit. Neither

will need removing again, but don’t tighten the bolts all the way quite yet.

Check which way the plate on the safari door needs to go. There are

studs for the piston mechanism, which must face the door handle when

it’s correctly fitted. The plate will only go one way so all the holes line

up – but if you don’t already have the holes, note that the piston

mechanism is more towards the bottom of the plate than the top.

Figure 2

On mine, I’ve used good quality tape to

create a surface between the steel

plate and the aluminium skin of the

door. I greased the rear door only at

the places where the old wheel carrier

had been, with plenty of grease

through the holes too, then fitted the

plate but not yet fully tight. The plate

does two things, it hides the ugly mess left by the OEM carrier, and

holds the piston mechanism that lets the swing-away carrier operate

together with the door. I fitted the piston mechanism to the door plate,

and tightened the nuts so that it could just move.

THIS PART REQUIRES CARE, AND IS NOT ESSENTIAL. I pulled the piston out, and temporarily fastened it to the wheel

carrier frame. With the door fully closed, and by VERY CAREFULLY holding the carrier, it’s possible to slide the piston

into the piston mechanism and check the alignment of the hinge brackets are about right. NOT recommended if you

are clumsy or unsure, but helps confirm that you have everything fixed to the landy at the right place.

FINAL ASSEMBLY

With the piston out, I smeared a good bit of low temperature silicon grease inside the piston cylinder and a little on

the piston itself (to prolong its life and ensure smooth operation), then pushed it back into its rightful place. I then

smeared the same grease onto the plastic washers and the metal washers that fit onto the hinge brackets, and some

on the big hinge bolts shanks as well. This won’t degrade the plastic, will help protect the bolts from corrosion, and

keep everything easy to dissemble if needed at a later date. In my case, I want to sort the body cappings at a later

date. To get the frame on by myself, I balanced the top washers on the bushes of the hinges and managed to hold

the heavy wheel carrier and get the bolts in enough to hold the frame and the top washers in place, and then

withdrew each bolt in turn enough to add the bottom washer while supporting the weight of the wheel carrier.

Now, look to see where the bolt of the piston comes in relation to the wheel carrier, and adjust the alignment of the

wheel carrier using the movement in the hinge brackets till everything works like it should and is straight and true,

and then tighten the bolts of the hinges all the way. Check tis still in the right place afterwards, then temporarily fit

the piston into place (open the door, swing both the door and wheel carrier until the piston bolt goes into the hole,

then close the door and the carrier together).

Next, fine tune the position of the piston carrier fixed to the door until it operates smoothly and evenly on your door,

and then tighten up all the bolts you can reach except the piston bolt. It’s about now that I noticed the possibility for

the piston bolt to move around in its slot a little, and strike metal-to-metal on the wheel carrier frame.

While new, it probably won’t do that, but it bothered me so I found a grommet that would fit the bolt and fixed it

into the slot of the rear wheel carrier. I tightened all the remaining bolts and nuts on the piston carrier and the door

plate, and then after rechecking everything I secured the piston onto the carrier, through the grommet, with its lock

nut.

The final part of the job, after making sure everything is properly aligned and tightened, is to fit the alloy wheel

backing spacers permanently, I smeared each with copper grease at the back of it, before putting the spare wheel

back on the back and then refitted all the trim.

Job Done. Test drive.

In my case, it’s made the landy a lot

quieter at the back, and the door opens

and closes much more easily and

smoothly. There’s no vibration of the

back door either.

This was how I did it without any help

on my front drive, I hope this write up

helps you!

// Clive Turner //