More Rear

One of the things being done has been refurbishing the original grab handles for the rear bumper, in all their hand-made not-quite-straight looking glory. These are now installed. Nice to have originals back there, even if the after-market black ones did look pretty good as well.

The Defender tailgate is very temporarily on, just to make sure there are no general problems with fit. This will be stripped of all Defender fittings, and have those of the orginal tailgate installed, in trying to keep things as orginal as possible (there are enough differences in the fittings to make this worthwhile). This will include top capping. Too bad the previous owner had backed into something with the original tailgate open. I've tried to repair it, but it's just too badly damaged, and original tailgates appear to be impossible to find.

 

And just a view from the front. Pedal boxes and related parts are on the front bumper, waiting for assembly. Fuel tank is still out, as the hose pass-through hole in the tub is still waiting for its small modification. Bulkhead is now fully painted.

More Painting

Have been doing a number of things, not the least being painting the 'breakfast' and apron. With this done, the radiator can now go back on.

Also started assembling the pedal boxes, but when putting the rubber pads on the pedals, one of the tabs on a pad just broke off after just a few degrees of bending. I tried attaching the pad anyway, but it looked bad and was potentially dangerous, and so have order another set for the clutch and brake pedals, just to be sure.

Doors are out having cracked joints in their frames welded.

The acrylic enamel aerosol paint is a pleasure to work with, and I think the not-overly-gloss finish is well suited to a Land Rover. As mentioned before, it matches exactly the finish of the original paint found on the vehicle. However, care has to be taken to make sure that whatever primer is under the paint is sanded very smooth, as the enamel really shows every tiny texture and surface marking underneath.

Body Alignment

It took a lot more work than expected, but finally managed to get tub/doors/bulkhead/steering/vertical bulkhead support brackets to all work together. Surprisingly little can make a big difference down the line. Everything is now nice and straight. Had to adjust the holes in the replacement footwells by a few milllimeters, and there will be some small shims needed between the tub rubber buffers and chassis support brackets. I would have prefered that the tub sit directly on the chassis supports, but there was absolutely no way that could happen and have everything else line up. They weren't touching on the original chassis, either, and so I guess that's just one of the idiosyncracies of this particular Land Rover (as are door curved sections which do not line up with the curves on the bulkhead; not by a mile). As well, the middle cross member brackets to which the tub attaches are way out, to the point where either the mounting points were different in a 1960 model or the chassis manufacturer made an error, and so new holes will need to be drilled in the tub there.

Once the last few details are taken care of, the last areas of the bulkhead can be painted and then all those completed parts in the storage area can start to be re-installed.

Driver's side door is schedued to have it's two frame cracks welded on Monday, if all goes well.

Door

Had the first door on, to start the body alignment process. The door itself had its 'elephant-hide' inner trim off for perhaps the first time since since the vehicle was made, revealing that everything is in pretty good shape. A little surface rust, but that's all. This will be taken care of and the door repainted. The same can't be said for the driver's side door, the frame of which has some serious rust and a couple of seam cracks. That will take some sorting.

Rear View

Just thought I'd post this, as it's the first time the project looks a little more like a Land Rover.... The grab handles will be replaced by an authentic galvanized pair, provided by Peter at 3 Bros.

Tub Installed

Tub was installed on the chassis tonight. The hoist worked well, and there was really not much to the operation aside from calculating how much room was needed, etc..

In this view: preparing to lift the tub. Looks darker in there than it was!

The tub just cleared the chassis at maximum lift. Here, just making sure it's in the correct location...

...followed by just lowering it gently into place. Note I took the fuel tank out, as in some cases the fuel filler pipe will not be in quite the correct location for the pass-through holes in the tub, and in this case the tub has priority.

A little while later, voila, in place. Tomorrow the bolts will be put into the mounting points, and then the general body alignment can begin. And after that, the remaining gold paint on the exterior can start to disappear. If the rear exterior panels are any indication, the gold does make an exellent primer coat, and sands down very well. And the fact it's been on there for some 35 years and still going strong probably means it's not about to fall off any time soon.

More Tub Painting

The only panels on the tub not painted now are the outer sides. These will be done once the tub is in place and body panel adjustments done.

I emailed Eastwood just to enquire if they had shipped the Pre, and they replied that they only send items to Canada on Fridays, and as I ordered on a Friday it would be a week until they shipped, and then another 8 business days to get here (assuming customs doesn't keep it for a couple of weeks, as well, as they have done in the past). Well, I didn't want to wait that long, and so muscled down and laboriously scraped all the remaining glue-from-hell off. Altogether, this has now exposed the largest suface of original paint yet.

This view, an illustration of the amount of "orange peel" in the original factory paint. This appears to be standard throughout, even on the external panels.

The black marks on the paint are areas of surface corrosion, into which the black tar glue has flowed and hardened. It'll be left there as it appears to make a good filler. Note the galvanizing, looking like new after being hidden under glue for 50 years.

Taped and ready for paint.

Painted! Surface looks slightly dull here for some reason, but it's actually has a good gloss. Tape will come off after checking that no surface needs re-doing.

Rear was also painted. Did a very careful wet-and-dry sanding rub-down here before applying the paint, and the results are really nice, very smooth. The body wrinkles on the right hand side are not quite as obvious in real life, and in any case will be mostly hidden by the corner capping (which can just be seen lying on the bed under the plastic covers).

Windshield Wiper Motors

New arrivals in the storage area are the original windshield wiper motors, which were first cleaned by me, then given to 3 Bros. for servicing, and then painted when they returned here. There was quite a bit of the original paint left on the motor covers, which enabled an almost exact match to be found: it turns out to be the brake-fluid resistant paint , made with stainless steel, by Eastwood's. It's almost exactly the correct (and somewhat metallic) shade of the original motor covers, which has a slight gold tone. Couldn't get all evidence of corrosion off the covers' surfaces, but they appear to have come out pretty well.

Peter at 3 Brothers Classic Rovers replaced the inner wires of the motors, as well as the comm-posts, as they were too tarnished to work with the brushes. The gears were then re-greased, and new external wires prepared for the motors. Both motors were then bench tested for approximately 30 minutes.

A good time to paint the covers, as I'm presently out of Pre to finish cleaning the old adhesive off of the tub's front bulkhead...have ordered more.

Tub Bulkhead

I was originally planning to leave the original Hardura insulation on the tub bulkhead in place, partly as an authenticity thing and partly because removing the black tarry glue that was used as an adhesive is just so unpleasant. However, the bullet has been bit, and it will be a good thing overall as the entire tub will then have been inspected, repaired and painted.

After about an hour of scraping the glue, it suddenly occurred to me that Eastwood's Pre also claims to be able to remove road tar, and the adhesive has some decidedly tar-like qualities. And so I tried it, and lo-and-behold it did the trick, albeit it took a lot as the adhesive was very thick and the Pre just took off one top layer at a time. However, in the photo below, you can see that the upper half of the bulkead has been cleaned in just a couple of hours work. Mineral spirits were used for the final surface cleaning.

In this view, the Hardura felt insulation lies on the ground, having been carefully scraped off, while the remaining scrapings are to the left. This piece of Hardura insulation will be kept, because while there are is a Hardura replacement kit out there, it doesn't appear to include this piece. Hardura felt itself can be ordered, and perhaps the local upholstery shop will be able to make a nice new duplicate.

Tub Interior Painted

Masked the galvanized parts, and then prepared and painted the tub interior today. There's no way the tub surface will ever look as if it just left the factory, due to the dents and scratches of carrying a load of cinder blocks and assorted junk as ballast weight while snowplowing for decades, but after sanding and three coats of paint, it does look a lot better!

Masked:

Painted. The surface will be checked tomorrow, and if all's well and no touch-ups required, the masking can come off.

Tub Interior

I'd debated leaving the tub interior " as is", but as the bottom turned out so nicely it would be nice to have the rest looking as good! And as the tub is presently in the perfect position to be worked on, so it will be. : )

It also looks as if the remaining original insulation will have to come off of the front side to access some of the bolts, but may also just be a useful thing to do in helping preserve the tub in the long run. I'll take it off carefully, and perhaps it can be cleaned up and reapplied with velcro or some such method (but no permanent glue!).

Here's the tub interior having been scrubbed, and the omnipresent surface corrosion/oxidization pockets rubbed down. In front are the parts that were removed. It'll receive a light dusting of self-etch primer, a rub down with fine sandpaper, then paint. First, however, the galvanised capping will need to be masked off.

More Tub

The Pastel Green coats are on the undersides, and now it will wait until the paint is sufficiently cured before it goes onto the chassis. Hard to get the Pastel Green to come out the correct shade in a photo!

The photo also shows the hard-earned 'wrinkles' on the right-hand rear, obtained while on the job over the years, which will be staying as a nod to her long half-century working career.

Tub Work

Now that the bulkhead is in position, and knowing that a Land Rover body is essentially installed from the rear forwards due to the mounting points, it seemed the right time to prepare the tub for installation. This way the bulkhead, doors and tub can be aligned correctly, before anythig else is done.

In this view, with the Pastel Green looking distinctly bluer than it is, the tub bottom has been cleaned (with the exception of the 'lower' wheel well), which has exposed the factory spray pattern plus a great deal of bare aluminum with surface oxidization pockets. The cross-members, or 'spreaders', have been also been cleaned with a wire wheel, and given a thorough coating of Dom 16 rust paint. The cross-members had been sprayed Pastel Green originally, at least in some areas - Land Rover apparently didn't paint the entire underside.

Here, once as much oxidization was removed as possible, the bottom surface was given a light coat of self-etch primer to help seal the aluminum. The 'lower' wheel well and things that side will be done when the tub is turned over on to its other side, to make things easier and also to make sure those areas are done as thoroughly. Once all is primed, the underside will get a coat of Pastel Green. Then the tub can go on the chassis for alignment purposes, and the exterior painted later.