Received the certificate from the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust today, which informs me that this Land Rover was originally completed on July 18, 1960, and was shipped out to the Rover Company of Toronto on July 20. Another birthday to celebrate next summer! :)
Started cleaning the front panel. The rear side is pretty good, easy to deliniate between good surface areas and bad (and where there is paint, it is like new), while the front is different. There clearly was some surface corrosion originally over which there was no Pastel Green paint left, which may have prompted the overlying gold repaint scheme. Where the was surface corrosion, the present paint layers chip off easily, revealing a lightly pocked steel surface. Where there was only minimal corrosion or wear, the black primer coat is still attached, but the gold and Pastel Green colour is gone. Where the corrosion/rust stopped, all paint adheres well. And then, there are areas where just the gold is not adhering (see centre-bottom of panel). Makes it hard to know what's doing what.
Here's a view of where the corrosion/rust stopped. All paint layers still adhere well. The black area is where there is just original factory primer. I'm not sure why the factory Pastel Green comes off but not the primer. Incidentally, the rear side of the panel does not appear to have any black primer under the Pastel Green paint.
Finally, a view of the other side (front), where the Pastel Green is adhering well, but now it's the gold that's not adhering well. Those tiny bumps under the gold paint of the curved grill-holder bracket are what surface rust looks like under paint, on this Land Rrver. All in all, I think this all calls for a complete stripping of the front side of the front panel, to make sure all surface rust is exposed and given a primer coat of rust converter. Would have been nice to have had the entire panel soda blasted (and then galvanized!), but that's not possible, and so I'll have to do it with stripper and elbow grease and hope that the primer and paint offer enough protection.
