The Range Rover Classic thread:

[DonkeyApple]

vanquish spirit said:

Indeed you are quite correct the Daos car was in both magazines and amusingly made it onto the cover of Octane for the "cool" issue along with James Dean and Steve McQueen. I think that's pushing it a bit though

Indeed but some people do insist that James Dean was cool.

[DonkeyApple]

Paw said:

Great thread. They are more and more on the streets of SW london, even my kids are noticing them.

Anyone know of any uprated Anti rollbars for air sprung cars?

Paw

Used to be Scorpion but I don't know if they are still around.

[DonkeyApple]

Flatinfourth said:

DonkeyApple said:

Paw said:

Great thread. They are more and more on the streets of SW london, even my kids are noticing them.

Anyone know of any uprated Anti rollbars for air sprung cars?

Paw

Used to be Scorpion but I don't know if they are still around.

Need to be a bit careful fitting uprated anti-roll bars, they can make the car awfully fidgety over drain lids etc in a straight line as a side effect. Nothing wrong with a bit of body roll in a Range Rover, not like a discovery where the C of G is a bit too high.

Yup. My 89 doesn't have rollbars. CSK designed them to pivot on a very low centre but they ended up fitting the handling kit as road use became much more prevalent and many people didn't like the roll.

I'm fitting the standard front and rears to my 72 in due course.

[DonkeyApple]

Rangie No 1 sold for £132,250 yesterday. Which is nice.

[DonkeyApple]

We should definitely exchange In Vogue notes

[DonkeyApple]

task said:

DonkeyApple said:

We should definitely exchange In Vogue notes

I have sent you an email/PM

Replied.

[DonkeyApple]

The only real problem is being forced to mingle with the hoi poloi on the cross channel ferry.

[DonkeyApple]

I'd say it is all down to frame and chassis rust. Everything else can be remedied using Ebay and a basic toolkit.

Lift up carpets around A and B pillars and all around the boot. And the whole rear arches, top to bottom. Under the bonnet look where the inner wings meet the bulkhead. Sticking your head under its arse and looking for spalling metal at the back of the arches and around the body mounts. If all those areas are clean and free from bodge work then it's worth having a much more extensive look. But if you find proper rust in those areas then personally I wouldn't bother looking any further.

Very easy to make the outside look brand new so you have to ignore appearance. I would also ignore price. Plenty of £10k+ ones that are just as rotten as £2k ones.

If I wanted an easy life then I'd budget about £15k/£20k and look to buy one of Kingsly's soft resto cars. They buy pretty solid ones to start with and the soft resto specifically deals with all the rot prone areas. That'll give you a car that will probably be solid for a decade and hold its value also.

[DonkeyApple]

Breadvan72 said:

You get hissy prissy because a freebie is not to your perfect specification". Bless.

I must have missed something because I read it that he politely asked a very simple question and you and someone else have been unnecessarily fking rude. I honestly don't get the 'face palm' remark, that's gone straight over my head I'm afraid.

PS, junk the bonnet, all the value is in the original bonnet liner. They are hens teeth and anyone doing a true resto needs them. Stick it on Ebay at a silly price and one of them will come knocking for a haggle. My money will be on it being a chap who is only a few miles away from you.

[DonkeyApple]

jonny_c said:

I've a 92 LSE - which has a rubbish heater - mildly warm air only...

Any idea's?

Engine warms up fine - pipes get hot - i suspect a climate control issue - but where do I even start with that?!

I change the abs pump once as the pipes were shot - what a song and dance that was to bleed! It was basically a voodoo dance ritual!

That's a very well known issue and easy to fix (apart from the bugger of a job getting to the matrix by removing the dash).

I can't tell you the specific fix but know a lot of people have fixed it themselves and ended up with a seriously hot heater. I'm sure that if you Google you'll find a walk through for it.

[DonkeyApple]

I must report that the acquisition over the summer is going great guns. Fantastic run at the weekend down to friends for Sunday lunch.

A nice and clean as I'm sticking it through a car wash after every outing to keep salt off it as much as possible:

[DonkeyApple]

Lovely. I owned the last Classic conversion from Overfinch until recently. Mine was the 5.7. The standard 6.2 first found its way in to the P38. When was yours taken out to 6.2? It must go very well.

[DonkeyApple]

desolate said:

DonkeyApple said:

Lovely. I owned the last Classic conversion from Overfinch until recently. Mine was the 5.7. The standard 6.2 first found its way in to the P38. When was yours taken out to 6.2? It must go very well.

The invoice from Overfinch is December 1987

620T engine conversion
Auto with Overfinch Transfer
Suspension and Handling
Front Brakes
Larger Petrol Tank!

All for........

£20567 inc VAT.

That's an interesting bit of history. I never knew there was a 6.2 until the 90s.

Mine was an LSE converted in 2005. The total spend by the owner was £110k!!!! About 15 of that was on some ridiculous sound system that I only ever used for R4.

Excuse for photos:

[DonkeyApple]

gforceg said:

I've just seen this link in the truly briliant Cool and old <5k thread. Anyone know much about these?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/JANSPEED-TURBO-1985-ROVE...

A couple of years ago when I was looking at options for increasing the power on Rover units I met someone who had been part of the Janspeed operation.

Unfortunately I can't remember much but there was something about the manifolds that was important. I was told that if I wanted to fit a turbo I'd do well to find a set of Janspeed manifolds as building from scratch and getting it right was going to be costly.

[DonkeyApple]

goodwoodweirdo said:

Just a quick question, I have a 89 white 3 door and just been offered a early vertical grill, as I also need a front bumper I could ditch the corners, will it fit or is it hours of work !

Lastly looking for teddy bear material for the seat, anyone know where I can buy it ?

cheers
Matt

You could probably bodge the grill in but it's not a hideous job to do. You need to drill the holes for it as the plastic ones basically clip into those tin straps on the metalwork.

But also don't forget that you'll need a set of light surrounds as the later plastic grill was full length. And those will also need screwing in place.

It's not a straight swap but it's certainly something you can do yourself. The only concern I would have is that those new holes are going to get blasted with every type of road muck and will relish the thought of turning to rust.

Re teddy bear material, it depends, the early herringbone stuff that came after the plastic is about to be remade but sets are going to be in the thousands. The beige with dark brown panels (my favourite) is hard to come by. The later grey fluffy cloth from mid 80s on should be available from Trevor at Nationwide or he would at least know where but it's going to be cheaper to find a good set on eBay and put them through a washing machine.

[DonkeyApple]

There was an amazing two tone set on eBay a while back but I'm sure I've seen another recently.

The export 2 doors usually had the earlier rear bench right into the 90s, which makes using post 85ish rear trim messy as that's when the UK rears changed.

[DonkeyApple]

goodwoodweirdo said:

OK spent an hour online last night looking at RRC parts in the Netherlands, seems I'm now the owner of a complete two tone brown interior from a 4 door and a early back seat… I’ll see what I can make of it all ?

Pixs to follow…

Now for a road trip…

Was that the chap with the very big shed of old Rangies about an hour out of Eindhoven?

[DonkeyApple]

goodwoodweirdo said:

I'll let you know.. but I'm guessing not... only has a window frame and the seats, the back seat comes form else where...

:-)

Any idea if I can fit a 4 door rear seat into a 3 door body without hours of work ! then at least everything matches

cheers
Matt

I believe the tears of a 4 door are fitted further back than the two door of that era, Ie back in 83/4ish when the 4 door came out. But I think your two door shell, being late, is the same as the 4 door. Ie the step up in the floor pan to the rear seats is sloped rather than vertical?

The big difference is going to be the actual seat design. Again I believe that almost to the end the export 2 doors had the same single piece rear seat as the early 4 doors, whereas the 4 door changed seat design to the 60/40 split type around 84/5.

You can probably form up some details using the www.range-rover-classic.com site.

Out of interest does he have a set of actual front seats for a later 2 door?

[DonkeyApple]

Very nice. Does it have the bespoke binnacle with those big Jaeger dials?

[DonkeyApple]

goodwoodweirdo said:

DonkeyApple said:

I believe the tears of a 4 door are fitted further back than the two door of that era, Ie back in 83/4ish when the 4 door came out. But I think your two door shell, being late, is the same as the 4 door. Ie the step up in the floor pan to the rear seats is sloped rather than vertical?

The big difference is going to be the actual seat design. Again I believe that almost to the end the export 2 doors had the same single piece rear seat as the early 4 doors, whereas the 4 door changed seat design to the 60/40 split type around 84/5.

You can probably form up some details using the www.range-rover-classic.com site.

Out of interest does he have a set of actual front seats for a later 2 door?

Even better...

Quick update, so after 6 hours driving, arrived at the chaps house.. there in front of me is not a 4 door interior but 3 door, in the correct fabric, only the side panels are velour rather than my commercial leatherette… the drivers seat is dismantled but all there … he even included 2 seat bases which aren’t rusted to hell ..

DonkeyApple is there something you were looking for ? as I’ll have my old seats over ?

Cheers
Matt pixs to follow…

Sounds like a good little road trip.

I'm looking for a pair of later two door front seats. I'm changing the Trans tunnel on mine to the later design to accommodate the new gearbox so need a pair of the later seats.

I do have a set on hold but keen to find another pair.