1989 Defender V8
Discussion
What Is It?
Certainly not a new purchase, I bought it in June 2008. But it has recently been the subject of a bit of attention over the last 12 months.
A 1989 Factory 90 V8 Country Petrol.
I bought it because I previously had a 1981 Series 3 Stage 1 V8 which I got rid of many years ago, and I fancied another one. I'm not a particular Landrover fanatic like many are - but I do like a V8 engine under the bonnet. So I wandered in to Safari Engineering in Yateley and asked dave if he knew anyone with a 90 V8 for sale. It just so happened he did. The blokes nickname was Jesus and he used it as his dog walking car, until the engine had expired (little end failure). Now, a wet dog is a smelly thing, so it took a lot of time and effort, mostly by jetwashing the inside of the car, to eventually get rid of the smell of dog. But the name persists and it is known as "The Dog" in our household.
Over the years, have done many many jobs on it, when I first bought it I replaced the engine, going from a broken 3.5 carb to a 4.0 EFI, which I then later put a megasquirt on. Various welding jobs over the years as and when it needed them (rear crossmember, for example)
A few years back:
And sometimes I do work on it:
This time it needed a little more work, so I gave it a fairly decent going over. I wanted to fit rear seats to it, but proper, forward facing ones with 3 point seat belts, not the sideways facing ones only with a lap belt.
On inspection of some of the bodywork in the vicinity of where the seatbelts would mount, I realised some work was needed:
The lower panel - easy to replace with a stock item from landrover, but that upper bracket is not available, so I had to make one.
First I made a template in CAD:
And then cut it out in steel:
I think it came out well:
Bulkhead Removal
As is often the way, I then started to get carried away, so I then removed the bulkhead, replaced with a bulkhead brace bar, to give a lot more room in the interior and make it easier for the kids to get in and out:
Body Cappings
And carried on replacing any rust as I found it:
Brand new cappings:
It was starting to come together quite well:
Leaky Sunroof
The sunroofs are well known for leaking, so I decided to remove the sunroof entirely. Even though the roof is a bit old and dented, I still wanted the new panel to sit flush and look tidy:
A nice sheet of 1.5mm NS4 ready to cut:
Seemed to go OK:
And fitted nicely:
Quite happy with the end result:
Bulkhead Repairs
At this point, I was looking at the bulkhead. I knew the top corners were a bit rust and I'd put some patches on them a few years back. I decided it was time to do them properly. It was fairly scary how rusty the structures were underneath once I started cutting:
This took a fair bit of work to make:
But came out pretty well. I did both sides, naturally:
The Repaint
As I then suffered a severe bout of scope creep, I decided that as I'd just replaced a bunch of rust with steel, it just wouldn't do to leave them unpainted. But what colour and how to do it. I decided it might be fun to learn to spray a bit. I did learn a bit - the main lesson being, it's well worth paying someone else.
Nevertheless, it came ouf OK, although I intentionally did it in white because that's more forgiving of my errors. All done in cellulose. Would have liked 2-pack, but I don't have the booth or breathing equipment to do it. Felt like I spent forever filling and sanding - and even then, it's not a great job!
Slowly but surely, things progressed:
Gradually it started to look like a landrover again:
Apple Carplay
One thing I like in cars is to have apple carplay, plus I wanted front and rear hitchcams to help me line up a trailer first time. But I don't like the bulky dashboard solutions mosf of them end up with, so instead I found a suiper compact 5" screen carplay unit which I fitted along with some auxiliary switches:
The slighty curveball here was that the LT85 gear stick is further forwards than the other variants, so I had to modify the gearstick to make it fit:
Somewhere during all this I replaced the gearbox too with a refurbished LT85 from Ashcrofts.
Rear Seats
Finally I was in a position to start fitting the rear seats, using the exmoor trim Loc N Fold ones. They're really good.
Cab Heat
I also decided to add another heater to give a bit more winter heat in the cab:
Oil Cooler
And made some proper brackets for the oil cooler:
Finally
So with it all back together, here's where we are today. Still on the original chassis, I will replace that one day, and I need to do new roof lining and carpets in the cab. But looking smarter than it was, I think:
Edited by Arnold Cunningham on Sunday 5th February 12:25
Stick Legs said:
I don’t like Defenders…
…I love what you have done here!
Excellent work.
Neither do I, I've always kind of viewed it as a meccano based container for a V8 engine - so if it didn't have a V8, I wouldn't own one.…I love what you have done here!
Excellent work.
It has a tubular manifolds and sports exhaust exhaust too - so sounds great. Even my Mrs' hairdresser who was round earlier in the week commented "that sounds amazing".
Thank you all ^^ for the kind words.
I spent most of the summer spraying it - including annoying the neighbours with the constant smell of cellulose emanating from the garage!
Nuts and bolts, electrics, electronics, fabrication - I enjoy all these.
But I won't spray a whole car again. Wow that was hard work.
I spent most of the summer spraying it - including annoying the neighbours with the constant smell of cellulose emanating from the garage!
Nuts and bolts, electrics, electronics, fabrication - I enjoy all these.
But I won't spray a whole car again. Wow that was hard work.
Looks good & I deffo don't do Defennders or LR for that matter.
PS Having sprayed loads of cars in Celly I recently started using Rustoleum. Available in aerosols & cans, a lot easier to work with & in summer after a week its rock hard & can be compounded/wet n dried to whatever you want. Also can be bought in RAL & ISO colours.
PS Having sprayed loads of cars in Celly I recently started using Rustoleum. Available in aerosols & cans, a lot easier to work with & in summer after a week its rock hard & can be compounded/wet n dried to whatever you want. Also can be bought in RAL & ISO colours.
Nice lovely job. Galvanised chassis next and then it’s done. Just don’t ever sell it, I had a 90 300tdi CSW and despite it being: slow, noisy, windy, uneconomical, it’s general habit for £500 worth of work every MOT and the interior puddles, aarhhh the 
water leaks, I still miss it, totally regret selling it. R90 PSJ I’d have you back in a heartbeat! People still ask me about it 3yrs since it went and it didn’t even have a V8 so I cannot imagine how bad it would be to part with yours. Enjoy 
Gratuitous pic:
water leaks, I still miss it, totally regret selling it. R90 PSJ I’d have you back in a heartbeat! People still ask me about it 3yrs since it went and it didn’t even have a V8 so I cannot imagine how bad it would be to part with yours. Enjoy Gratuitous pic: 
Arnold Cunningham said:
Oo! I like the colour, that's not a common one. I debated at length about keeping mine the stock colour (Arles Blue - and many other things stock too), but on the basis that I do plan to keep it, I thought I'll make it what I want it to be.
Rioja Red. Quite a rare one. The white looks good and the car play install is neat. Galvanised chassis on the cards? Absolutely. I think it'll outlast me, then. And I think I'll go to 4.6 or more on the engine at the same time.
However, somewhat stubbornly, I want the original chassis to make it to 40 years, just to see if I can. 6 years to go.
That said, so far I've done rear crossmember, 1 bulkhead outrigger, both body outriggers, 1 dumbiron.
I can see the other outrigger and dumbiron will need doing soon - but it passed the MOT last month, so it's doing OK for now.
However, somewhat stubbornly, I want the original chassis to make it to 40 years, just to see if I can. 6 years to go.
That said, so far I've done rear crossmember, 1 bulkhead outrigger, both body outriggers, 1 dumbiron.
I can see the other outrigger and dumbiron will need doing soon - but it passed the MOT last month, so it's doing OK for now.
Arnold Cunningham said:
Absolutely. I think it'll outlast me, then. And I think I'll go to 4.6 or more on the engine at the same time.
However, somewhat stubbornly, I want the original chassis to make it to 40 years, just to see if I can. 6 years to go.
That said, so far I've done rear crossmember, 1 bulkhead outrigger, both body outriggers, 1 dumbiron.
I can see the other outrigger and dumbiron will need doing soon - but it passed the MOT last month, so it's doing OK for now.
Trigger's broom?However, somewhat stubbornly, I want the original chassis to make it to 40 years, just to see if I can. 6 years to go.
That said, so far I've done rear crossmember, 1 bulkhead outrigger, both body outriggers, 1 dumbiron.
I can see the other outrigger and dumbiron will need doing soon - but it passed the MOT last month, so it's doing OK for now.
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