Defender 110 Restoration
Discussion
Hello Everyone...
I have been keeping my eyes on a few build threads here and thought I might share my latest project!... Perhaps not going to get the pulses racing but we'll see!
Firstly abit of previous on me..
First car... Spent lots of effort making my Peugeot 306 look like this.. Wasted lots of time and money in the process but it made me feel good about myself at the time
After the Peugeot I had a company car for a while then I bought a S2 Lotus Exige..
After the lotus which I didnt keep nearly long enough I opted into the bangernomics car scheme and have run bangers for the last few years up until recently spending slightly more than banger money to own a Saab 93 Aero.
Last year I restored a Defender 90....
The defender kept me busy for most of the year then when I sold that I hankered for another project so that leads me onto the subject of this thread...
1991 Land Rover Defender 110 200tdi... The plan with this defender was to do a similar refurbishment to the last defender however as work has progressed it has turned into more of a nut and bolt restoration. I would say Im on the home straight on the 110 and have already got 230 photos but I think I will need to be selective with what I do and dont post otherwise it will be very photo heavy!.. Anyway this is how it did look.. You'll have to excuse the crap photos as I didnt think to take any before I parked her in the shed!
[url]
|http://thumbsnap.com/ZZcBQfB5[/url]
Ok Im trying to get the hang of the photo uploading aspect on here... Can anyone help with transferring a photo straight from photobucket.. (Im abit of a thicko when it comes to technology Im afraid!)..
More photos and info to follow........
I have been keeping my eyes on a few build threads here and thought I might share my latest project!... Perhaps not going to get the pulses racing but we'll see!
Firstly abit of previous on me..
First car... Spent lots of effort making my Peugeot 306 look like this.. Wasted lots of time and money in the process but it made me feel good about myself at the time
After the Peugeot I had a company car for a while then I bought a S2 Lotus Exige..
After the lotus which I didnt keep nearly long enough I opted into the bangernomics car scheme and have run bangers for the last few years up until recently spending slightly more than banger money to own a Saab 93 Aero.
Last year I restored a Defender 90....
The defender kept me busy for most of the year then when I sold that I hankered for another project so that leads me onto the subject of this thread...
1991 Land Rover Defender 110 200tdi... The plan with this defender was to do a similar refurbishment to the last defender however as work has progressed it has turned into more of a nut and bolt restoration. I would say Im on the home straight on the 110 and have already got 230 photos but I think I will need to be selective with what I do and dont post otherwise it will be very photo heavy!.. Anyway this is how it did look.. You'll have to excuse the crap photos as I didnt think to take any before I parked her in the shed!
[url]|http://thumbsnap.com/ZZcBQfB5[/url]Ok Im trying to get the hang of the photo uploading aspect on here... Can anyone help with transferring a photo straight from photobucket.. (Im abit of a thicko when it comes to technology Im afraid!)..
More photos and info to follow........
As i was stripping down I decided to do all the necessary repair work to the doors which were very rusty. One of those jobs that with the benefit of hindsight I would probably not have bothered with and just bought 4 new doors instead.. Still worried that when everything is painted up and I go to shut the doors for the first time everything will come apart!..
Anyway below are some photos of the repair process for one of the doors.
This was one of the rear doors which were by far in the worst condition.. I repeated this process with all four side doors and decided to just buy a new rear end door as for what they cost its a no brainer... The process of repairing the doors was quite a time consuming one but will save about a £1000 in new doors (touch wood!)
Anyway below are some photos of the repair process for one of the doors.
This was one of the rear doors which were by far in the worst condition.. I repeated this process with all four side doors and decided to just buy a new rear end door as for what they cost its a no brainer... The process of repairing the doors was quite a time consuming one but will save about a £1000 in new doors (touch wood!)
The strip down continued...
I had decided that I wanted this defender to be to a higher standard than the last one so the plan was to get everything off the chassis so it could go to be blasted, repaired then powder coated.
To make everyone aware the plan with the 110 is to do the same colour scheme as I did with the 90.. Land Rover Stornoway grey with black wheels and chequer plate. Standard ride height as Im not a big fan of suspension lifts but with some new chunky tyres as with the 90. True Chelsea tractor style..
Ok so anyway as I was saying... The strip down continued...
I had decided that I wanted this defender to be to a higher standard than the last one so the plan was to get everything off the chassis so it could go to be blasted, repaired then powder coated.
To make everyone aware the plan with the 110 is to do the same colour scheme as I did with the 90.. Land Rover Stornoway grey with black wheels and chequer plate. Standard ride height as Im not a big fan of suspension lifts but with some new chunky tyres as with the 90. True Chelsea tractor style..
Ok so anyway as I was saying... The strip down continued...
Altrezia said:
Awesome. I really wish I had the skills to do this. My disco has a few holes I need to get done and it's so frustrating that I need to get someone to do it.
Please keep this thread updated, I really want a defender and this is going to push me over the edge! LOL
Its even worse when you have the skills yet not the equipment nor storage space to do it!!! Please keep this thread updated, I really want a defender and this is going to push me over the edge! LOL
KP328 said:
Hi, looking forward to future updates, are you are not tempted to fit a galvanised chassis on the rebuild?
Well I decided not to use a galvanised chassis for a couple of reasons... 1) Rate vs Reward... £1600 for a new galvanised chassis is a lot of money when for a third of the price I could have the original blasted and powder coated.. Personally I dont think galvanising is 3 times better than powder coating. 2) I think a chassis should be black so even if I bought a galvanised chassis I would have had it painted black so that would have been more money and time..I will be posting some photos of the powder coated chassis soon.. I was pleased with the results.
So anyway the tear down continued.. This part of the job is never pleasant as you have to deal with years worth of mud, oil and other associated pains in the arse.
The sill rails on the 110 were well Fudged but fortunately I had a spare set.. The C pillars were completely rotted out so I had to order some c-pillar repair sections which were eventually welded onto my replacement sill rails.
Still a few more photos of the process of stripping the defender down to a bare chassis so it could go and get blasted..
As i was doing the strip down I encountered my Boge unit... (The purpose of this bit of kit is to self-level the suspension) My best guess was that the boge unit would be goosed and I had no easy way of telling if that was the case or not.. You are meant to load the vehicle up with as much weight as poss to get it to sit low on the rear then go for a spin and if everything is OK, when you get back the suspension should be at normal ride height despite all the weight. I didnt have the luxury of being able to do the above test as i had already stripped the rear tub and I had a seized transmission brake so a drive was out of the question.
After doing a bit of research the decision was made to do away with the boge unit all together and get some heavy duty rear springs... Some people might be of the opinion that LR wouldnt have put it on there if it was ok to just do away with it however you cannot buy a replacement non genuine unit, cant buy repair parts and the genuine LR item costs way more money than its worth!.. So after listening to everyone say "do away with it".. I did!
The sill rails on the 110 were well Fudged but fortunately I had a spare set.. The C pillars were completely rotted out so I had to order some c-pillar repair sections which were eventually welded onto my replacement sill rails.
Still a few more photos of the process of stripping the defender down to a bare chassis so it could go and get blasted..
As i was doing the strip down I encountered my Boge unit... (The purpose of this bit of kit is to self-level the suspension) My best guess was that the boge unit would be goosed and I had no easy way of telling if that was the case or not.. You are meant to load the vehicle up with as much weight as poss to get it to sit low on the rear then go for a spin and if everything is OK, when you get back the suspension should be at normal ride height despite all the weight. I didnt have the luxury of being able to do the above test as i had already stripped the rear tub and I had a seized transmission brake so a drive was out of the question.
After doing a bit of research the decision was made to do away with the boge unit all together and get some heavy duty rear springs... Some people might be of the opinion that LR wouldnt have put it on there if it was ok to just do away with it however you cannot buy a replacement non genuine unit, cant buy repair parts and the genuine LR item costs way more money than its worth!.. So after listening to everyone say "do away with it".. I did!
Time for a my engine lift to come into action... Its not mine, I've borrowed it from a friend but Im pretty sure it could lift a lot more than an engine!
With the bulkhead off the next job was the engine and box...
With the engine and box out it was time to get the axles off.. I used my crane to take the weight as I rolled each axle out..
With the axles out the chassis was suspended so I could access all the associated brackets and pipework still attached..
With everything off the chassis was propped up waiting to get trailered away to be blasted.
On its way...
With the bulkhead off the next job was the engine and box...
With the engine and box out it was time to get the axles off.. I used my crane to take the weight as I rolled each axle out..
With the axles out the chassis was suspended so I could access all the associated brackets and pipework still attached..
With everything off the chassis was propped up waiting to get trailered away to be blasted.
On its way...
Well the chassis had its first sand blast and came back looking like this....
The blasting was certainly helpful to enable me to see the bits of rust that needed repairing.. The chassis was set up on some old stands ready for me to get to work! The most obviously corroded parts were the bulkhead outriggers however there were other small areas.
New items were welded into place..
After a bit of work the chassis was ready to go back to the blasters for another blast and then a few coats of powder. Along with the chassis I took the opportunity to get various other small components such as radius arms powder coated at the same time.
Anyway after a couple of days I was given the shout to collect the chassis so off I went.. Anyway this is how it looked after its coating.
And my associated parts looked like this..
So it was time to get busy with a big box of new parts I had bought to get the chassis back into rolling status...
The blasting was certainly helpful to enable me to see the bits of rust that needed repairing.. The chassis was set up on some old stands ready for me to get to work! The most obviously corroded parts were the bulkhead outriggers however there were other small areas.
New items were welded into place..
After a bit of work the chassis was ready to go back to the blasters for another blast and then a few coats of powder. Along with the chassis I took the opportunity to get various other small components such as radius arms powder coated at the same time.
Anyway after a couple of days I was given the shout to collect the chassis so off I went.. Anyway this is how it looked after its coating.
And my associated parts looked like this..
So it was time to get busy with a big box of new parts I had bought to get the chassis back into rolling status...
Right well a bit of an update... (did this once and laptop crashed so we'll try again!)
It was time to try and get my newly coated chassis to the rolling stage so I set about it.. Whilst the chassis was away at the coaters I gave my axles a freshen up with the wire brush and some hammerite..At the same time I took the opportunity to put a new diff pinion oil seat onto the rear diff as it seemed to have failed.
Some of you might pick up on the fact the hubs havn't been touched.. My plan was to wait til the axles were back on the chassis as in my opinion it makes it a bit easier. Anyway the front axle with some new shiny bits bolted on..
With the rear axle in place..
And back on all four wheels
Looks pretty naff on the original wheels however there is a new set awaiting refurbishment..
Rear anti roll bar in place.. not tightened up yet as need access for the new fuel tank..
Rear dampers in place...
Front end coming together with new steering damper and new heavy duty steering arms(the basis for my gold under body colour scheme!)
I put a new A-frame ball joint in and got the A-frame back together...
And Ill leave you with a nice shot of the underneath showing the A-frame and polybushes...
It was time to try and get my newly coated chassis to the rolling stage so I set about it.. Whilst the chassis was away at the coaters I gave my axles a freshen up with the wire brush and some hammerite..At the same time I took the opportunity to put a new diff pinion oil seat onto the rear diff as it seemed to have failed.
Some of you might pick up on the fact the hubs havn't been touched.. My plan was to wait til the axles were back on the chassis as in my opinion it makes it a bit easier. Anyway the front axle with some new shiny bits bolted on..
With the rear axle in place..
And back on all four wheels
Looks pretty naff on the original wheels however there is a new set awaiting refurbishment..
Rear anti roll bar in place.. not tightened up yet as need access for the new fuel tank..
Rear dampers in place...
Front end coming together with new steering damper and new heavy duty steering arms(the basis for my gold under body colour scheme!)
I put a new A-frame ball joint in and got the A-frame back together...
And Ill leave you with a nice shot of the underneath showing the A-frame and polybushes...
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