Painting Before Winter

Been a bit of a frenzy, trying to get the last of the larger parts that will be Pastel Green painted before the temperatures in the garage become too cold for painting (Limestone-coloured top will probably have to wait intil next Spring). Looking at the two-week temperature trend and then extrapolating, this looks as if it may be the last week in which it will be possible to keep the temperatures around 20 C inside. An insulated garage would have been nice to have!

ABS outer wings have had their plastic adhesion primer coats and have now been done in normal primer; hood is painted; inner wings are ready for paint and should be done today at lunch. With luck, the outer wings will be painted this evening. Perhaps even the tailgate can be done.

One day this will look like a neat and tidy garage again (well, as much as it ever was). : )

Hood Underside Completed

Found a little time in the late afternoon to finish the underside painting. Tried to match the Pastel Green overspray with the original that's still on the aluminum, and as it was applied to the frame; hopefully it's close enough! Fold-around surfaces will be done when the top is done.

Did a little preparation work on the inner wings, and noticed this feature: the hood has actually worn a groove into the upper surface of the wing, including two circular bowls where the pop rivets are that attach the rear crossmember of the hood frame. If you look closely, these even include the centre holes in the rivets. I hope the hood will fit better now, although it can't be tested until the paint is dry. If not, it's just one of the many idiosyncracies of this particular Land Rover!

...And a little careful late night hood fit test, the paint being dry enough to handle. Good to have done, it revealed a few more areas on the hood that need filling and sanding before painting. The gold paint is an extraordinarily hard paint (which is probably why it has lasted as long as it has, without fading or chipping, with only surface oxidization), and makes a very good undercoat . The fitting also showed that the driver's side corner will continue to hit the top of the wing, although just lightly. And now, on to fnish all the wing and hood prep and get as much painted as possible over the next few days....

More Wings etc.

Finished adjusting the wing brackets, and now the wings are basically ready to be sanded, primed and painted. The front end is definitely looking like a Land Rover! It would be nice if the hood was fully painted, as that could be tried on as well.

Was hoping to prime the outer wings, as it's a three day weekend (Thanksgiving, here in Canada), plus it's relatively warm, but NAPA is shut until Tuesday and so I can't buy any primer for ABS plastic until then. The hood upper surfaces will probably be painted instead.

Below, the front end (note completed upper doors, too). Hood hinges are just in place so I know where they are. The inner wings have been straightened as much as possible, but, like the rest of the Land Rover, will have their little souvenir wrinkles and dents here and there. Nothing too noticeable, however. At least they fit properly now.

Hood frame has been through the primer stage and has now been painted a high-temp black. The forward cross-member of the frame plus the fastening bracket were painted in Pastel Green, in a sort of overspray method, and so will have to wait until at least Monday to try and copy that. Then the hood will be turned over and painted Pastel Green. The surface has already been sanded and prepped.

Wing Test Fit

As anything needing painting is on the fast track these days, and while the hood/bonnet frame dries in preparation for primer tomorrow, thought I'd do a test fit of the right wing, along with the ABS plastic outer wing. Didn't really fasten anything together, just enough to hold things in place. Had to do quite a bit of panel beating first on the inner wing, as it was more damaged that previously thought, but eventually it came together. Hope to do a test fit of the other wing tomorrow.

Aside from some small adjustments, it appears everything will fit together well. The plastic outer wing is a very good quality part.

Square hole on the inner wing near the headlight is the air intake for the Kodiak Mk.II heater.

Paint: Limestone; More Hood/Bonnet

Was at NAPA today, at lunch time, picking up some more Pastel Green paint, and asked about Limestone. It turns out it's already in the system, as an official Land Rover paint, which was a very nice thing to discover. The guys at NAPA very kindly mixed a sample for me to try out, and it is indeed an exact match for what's on the Land Rover.

Here's the computer entry and code (3307, but can also be found as 516 in the same system) that NAPA has on file. In case it's useful to those who don't have a NAPA at hand, the entire formula is here:

Worked further on the hood, finishing up the scraping, sanding and wire brushing. Where the old paint resisted well, it was left alone and sanded smooth, as I'm not going to argue with paint that has stuck well for 51 years. Then masked off the aluminum (including the rivets, as they would not have been painted originally when the frame was installed; however they were covered by the Pastel Green overspray) and then two coats of Eastwood's Rust Converter (which smells a lot like tea, incidentally, which may be the tannic acids used).

The Rust Converter needs 48 hours to dry completely, and then the frame will receive a primer coat, and, following that, some black high-temp paint. Then work will switch to the other side.

Here, the exposed steel and rust are turning black, which indicates that Rust Converter is doing its job...

Hood (or Bonnet)

In an effort to try and paint everything possible before it gets too cold to warm the garage effectively, I made a start on the hood yesterday and today. At this point, this involves just removing 51 years worth of dirt and oil. As ever on this Land Rover, it's been a pleasant surprise to find that corrosion has been relatively light - outside of the bulkhead and chassis.

Day 1: Cleaned some sample spots just to see what I was up against, and then did the central aluminum areas. Then, a light scraping of the steel frame to see how things were there, exposing some red oxide primer at the same time. Result: very minor corrosion on the aluminum, and just light surface rust on the frame. That was some very well baked on dirt and oil. Frame is painted black with red-oxide primer.

Day 2: Aluminum done, and most of the frame scraped and gone over with the wire wheel. Interesting to see the factory overspray of the Pastel Green, including what looks like a little test of the spray gun from whoever was painting that day. Hood hinges have been removed for stripping.

Vent Seals; Windscreen

The vent seals are proving to be a challenge all of their own. I purchased Land Rover-manufactured seals, and they are a very nicely made product, but unless I'm missing something I don't believe they work properly. There's no groove for the vent lids to settle into, and so the lids have to be jammed down in the hope they will eventually make their own groove through pressure. It requires a lot of pressure to press the lids down, and even then they don't go all the way.

A search on the web and Land Rover forums revealed a lot of frustration over vent seals, and no real answers. The seals themselves, like almost everything else on the aftermarket side of things, come with no instructions. The most common answer that I found was to keep the vent pressure on the seals by clamping or whatever, and after a few weeks or months the vents should be properly seated. This can't be right. When original Land Rover owners needed new seals, did they just have to endure rain and snow and blowing wind in the cabin for weeks until the vents sealed properly? I can't see a practical and experienced engineering company like Land Rover doing that.

It seems logical, at least to me, that the original and correct seals must have had grooves of some sort, and not have been as thick.

I tried cutting a slit in the seal for the lid edge by tracing around the vent lid, but that wasn't successful as the lid lip didn't always catch the slit.

Peter at 3 Bros. kindly sent photos of the aftermarket seals they sell, and they appeared to have the same flat-top profiles as the official current Land Rover ones. The only seals I could find on the web which appear to have some sort of shape that might be correct are part number MUC4299, as imaged on the L.R.Series website here. I'll have to look into this, preferably with Peter, even though they are apparently only for Series 3 and Defenders.

And so, I experimented with other seal types, and one which appears to work well, at least in the short term, is a self-adhering, water-proof, closed cell outdoor rubber weatherstripping available at Home Depot here. I bought a few sizes to try things out with, and this was best. For now, I think this will do.

(If you know of any other solution, leave a comment!)

Here, view of the weatherstripping. Pro's and con's: Pro: very inexpensive, easily available, and easy to remove/replace if necessary. Plus, the lid can be lowered/closed completely right away, with fair pressure on the seal. Likely good for keeping wind and light rain out, and heat in. Con: May not be good for heavy rain or trying to chip ice off of, and, don't know how long they'll last.

A view with the lid closed. (Incidentally, the weld blobs around the hinge welds, etc. are factory original, and so I sort of like them, which is why they're still there.)

On a different note, and no big deal other than it's really starting to feel like a Land Rover now, the windscreen went on today. (By the way, the high-quality Land Rover-manufactured bulkhead-to-windscreen seal, also appears to be too thick, as with with the vent seals. Even with considerable force the windscreen won't lay back at completely the correct angle. May just go back to the original 51 year old seal, as it was working just fine except for being slightly tattered at the ends.)