Bonnet and wings

 Another busy day at the office... working untill 5 then i got a call fom Iain to say that he had some pannels ready to pick up. so i got a loan of the new tonkatoy to go and collect as it has one of these great bed rug things which is great for protecting new pannels. My god though i lost the will to live by the time i got back, took over an hour to make the round trip . could have went to bloody edinburhg in that time, mind you i wouldnt have come back with theses great pannels though.







Couldnt resist this pic of the galvanised bonnet hinges and check out the shine on the paint...... its not even been polished yet.

 wink wink, one light in one to go.... really taking shape, need to get the new galv front pannel painted and fitted.....

Lights.... sort of

this is possably my favourate part of these kind of builds, you really start to breathe life into them and it transforms the look of the project. The boring bit now though is wiring them up

Riveting....

Would you actually imagine i went through over 100 rivets to fit these rear tub pieces. well worth it though its really starting to take shape. really like the way the paint looks at this angle 2

Now that's that time for tea..... bloody sore arms now working the riveter.also need to go and get the lights ready to fit and decide where to put the fog and reverse lights... awnsers on a post card... actually who does that anymore lol emails are good. its a shame photos really dont do the real thing justice, hope Neil will be more impressed with the real thing rather than the pics

Pole dancing debate

So much more important than the job in hand, rod and i try to decide wherther or not they will let us open the pole dancing club in clovenfords...... i think not. However 10 point to anyone who can guess what  we are looking at......................

Thats right its the steering column out of the willys jeep currently being restored by Rod, under my supervision of course lol

Delivery has arrived............

pics to follow soon as thats all the final galv stuff here, so tub tops rear light surrounds and windscreen panel. cant wait to get riveting and then get some of the lights in so she starts to look like a s3 again........ watch this space...........................

Wheels and sand blasting

 Managed to get her outside today on her own steam, if nothing else to give the garage a good clean out. Couldnt resist getting a shot of the new wheels in the day light. really starting to take shape now......

 Got to the sand blasting unit today and got the locking hubs all blasted and ready to paint, will make such a difference as the chrome plating was all coming off them. was so much easier than sanding them down or wire brushing etc. think ill need to invest in one for the next project.....

Engine parts

 Lots of different tasks today, air box painted plus the big bracket that holds it and the battery tray.

Here is part of the auto locking hub assembely, tomorrow ive got acsees to a sand blaster so im going to blast the hunb parts.Also a litte side projcet im doing is a 1960's paraffin traffic lamp which ill also sand blast tomorrow. Ill add pic of that once there is more to show.

Finally got round to doing some of the wiring 2. got the lower dash pannel in and ther ignition barrel wired up and got her to fire up, not for long though as there is no coolant at the moment.

Refurbished Wheels

These reconditioned Wheels look great. Look how corroded they were before they went away.

So i decided to get the wheels sand blasted then powder coated, reason for this is because when i built my landrover about 2 or 3 years ago i got my own wheels done in the same way and there still like new with no corrosion or marks on them at all. actually thats a lie, there is a small scuff in the passangers wheel but that was very much pilot error

Thats the wheels fitted now and looking great, will add a pic of them one once ive rolled her out the garage, hopefully on her own steam.....

Dashboard parts

 Here is the dashboard panel that holds the front vent handles and some of the switches, also on the drivers side it holds the instrument pannel . Was quite surprised to find it in such poor condition.
I think its because of all the holes in the bulkhead and how saturated the carpets were when i picked it up.

Here's the pannel basking in the sun after being primed 

 Now That the paint is on and dryed i fitted it back to the car. In between waiting for paint to dry etc i managed to get the wiper motor fitted and the mesh vents for the front vent panels.
Its takes bloody ages to file out holes once there full of galv, primer and paint.

Starting to take shape now, next is to tackle the wiring and the instument panel. Need to Clean up the speedo and the gauges also.

Before.. Reminder

Just a little reminder of how she looked before i started.... just in case anyone forgot......

Pedal boxes

Back at the Bat cave, my high spec state of the art painting jig gets put into action to paint the pedal boxes. was loving how well the clutch master clyinder has come up after its overhaul. there was an unbelievable amount of grey shit came out of it and also the brake cylinder. the brakes and the cluch will be like new when i get the fluid in.
Hope someone is keeping track of all these nuts and bolts that are new... need to book them out or the stock take will be all to cock lol

Mounting brackets

Thanks again to www.ashteelandrover.com for the nice galvanised mounting brackets they chucked in with the bulkhead

Steering

Steering column mounted back in.
before i fitted it i took that end plate off for a nose inside plus it was leaking slightly, sadly dont have a pick but its a pretty cool worm gear set up in there. proper old skool stuff.
you'll also notice all the wiring hanging about... thats going to be fun plugging it back in.

Although on a modern car there are a lot  more wires, to some extent its a bit easier to remove an instrument binicale as the wires are on a series of multiplugs which are all colour coded and different shapes, so you almost cant get it wrong. On the landrover all the wires are seperate and a lot of them are the same colour and length. This actually make it more time consuming as ive had to mark all the wires so i know where they go....

Rod Barry.....

just out of shot is a ramp and a landrover about to jump over him

Getting there.. Cup of tea well deserved

Here we are back at the Bat cave, tub ploped on and bulkhead fitted in place.  needed to get a lift on from Gator as i really didnt want to scratch either item as it was so painfully slow to get them up to the standard weve got. took a bit of fileing out the bulkhead holes as they were full of galv and paint.

More Painting

Tub Time

New Tub!

For some reason i couldnt get a replacement rear wing for the old rear tub, tried a few places and even got a company to send me what i thought ws going to be a rear wing, turned out it was the very rear quater where the lights mount. Being Scottish and the man on the other end of the phone being from deepest darkest yorkshire we probably needed a translator.... "ken"! lol.
so that got sent back and i found this new to us tub in a barn!. in really good condition for its age and importantly it had straight wings.

So rubbed it down, which took about a day, chucked it into paint and the whole thing reacted... gutted!!!
After many more cups of tea and cakes and discussion it was seen best to use paint strippers to clean back all the old paint back to the bare bones and hit it with etch primer and go from there.
sounds easy i know but it isnt. wish i had taken a picture of Eilidh and my fingers after all the sanding and stripping.
No finger prints left Eilidh and i set off to rob a bank........

Paint Time

Massi Red!!

After much disscusion the colour was chosen. this is the colour that the landrover was when Neil got it. however the originality perv's (Rod and others)  or as there known in the trade the rivet counters, will tell you that it shouldn't be red. The colour she left the factory all those years ago was actually marine blue and she wouldn't have had  back windows, however in this case i agree with Neil and if he wants a red landrover then thats what he will get. of course anyone who knows me will understand why agree with red so much.
So here is Iain applying the paint to the new bulkhead, looks great, untill we got it out and noticed a run lol the joy of painting, so we chucked it back in again with some of the other  pannels and gave it another coat. So glad we did though as its given it more of a deep shine

Galvanised Bulkhead

New Bulkhead!!!!

Thanks to www.ashtreelandrover.com for supplying us this newly refurbished galvanised bulkhead.
this is it in the priming stage as the paint shop.
The painting is all getting done at my good friend Iain Oliver's place. I would at this point love to add a free plug for his website but he still dosnt have one. Claims he is 2 busy or something but we all no he actually loves going to the ship too much. Ill Make up one for him instead www.imamazingatlookingbusyandgettingnotmuchdone.com.

Rolling Chassis

Back on all fours.! Sorry Neil you cant have my wheels and tyres!!)
Front axle rebuilt, both sides stripped and new swivels fitted seals and nuts and bolts.
What a carry on i had with the inner bearings though. Bloody Britpart or should i say Shitpart!!! they have starting using a new manufacturer for the inner bearings, they must be bloody chineese or something, got 2  from my very good friend Rupert Leng of Leng androver, one was old stock he had and the  other one he got in specially. so needless to say one fitted and one didnt. thought i was going mad so of course made a cup of tea and asessed the job with fresh eyes.... still didnt bloody fit. so i made a phone call to Rupert who also thought i was going mad. Anyway long story short, turns out Shitpart are churning these things out in there  thousands and they dont bloody fit.

Soo after Many cups of tea and jaffa cakes etc  got the axles and suspension on and fitted new steering arms and ball joints and i think Neil will agree its looking  pretty good.

update

Only a couple of more posts untill we are up to real time. as you may have guessed i havent done all this work since yesterday. Started the project about 6 weeks ago and have only now got round to starting my own blog.

axle build

So,  Axles fitted now. Fitted new parabolic springs, new shockers and fitted all new brake flexis and copper brake pipes.
pics 2 and 3 show the front axle swivel hubs being fitted with new seals and bolts.
begining to think Mr chilvers will be afraid to use it as its looking so clean lol