BACK TO 4X4 TRAVEL HOMEPAGE

BACK TO 4X4 TRAVEL HOMEPAGE

This is the New toy. First registered in 1996, she is a 300Tdi, commissioned by the Electric Board from LR Special Vehicles, consequently fitted with a PTO shaft drive winch, all the relevant HD springs and bump-stops and a dual battery system.
The second owner was a game-keeper, he didn’t like the vehicle and it showed, when I got it there was an inch of straw/mud, etc in the footwells.
Before going to look at the car I visited a local LR garage, AL Services, to ensure I knew what I was looking for in terms of rust. Andy was extremely helpful, showing me old bulkheads that he had removed form vehicles because they were rotten. He also showed me which areas of the chassis were most prone to rot.
I went to view the vehicle on a weekend. First impressions were good, it was advertised for £3,300 which seemed ok for the year. I had a look around but couldn’t really see a lot of the chassis due to the mud etc, clinging to it. The bulkhead looked good and generally there was a good feel about it.
I took the car for a drive and it all seemed pretty good, tested the winch, which the owner didn’t even know how to work, and found it to be faulty but fixable and we

bolts with A2 stainless, this has made a good water-tight seal and the stainless bolts will last forever.
Having stripped the cab bear of carpets and sound-proofing I decided to replace anything that was damaged with some rubber matting that I had. The sound-proofing that fits the top of the passenger foot-well just under the dash had drooped out of shape, after much deliberation I decided to pop-rivet a piece of chequer plate to the top, just under-sized, so that the rubber would still locate in the retaining rail. All of the seats have been scrubbed using a hand/nail brush with either swafega, hand cleaner or washing powder, they look really good now but the driver’s seat back needs replacing because it is ripped. I removed the seats to clean them, while they were out I cleaned all of the under-seat boxes. The battery box was quite rusty, and full of crap, so I removed the metal section in the base, cleaned it out and gave it the same treatment as the bulkhead. Before replacing the batteries I cut a piece of rubber matting and now the batteries are seated on this. Next page

mainly to clean it but also to treat the bulkhead to stop the surface rust from getting worse.
I removed the bolts that hold the screen in place and removed the surface rust from the bulkhead, I then brushed on some rust treatment and allowed it to dry. The repair was then sealed with Red Oxide Primer, and finally finished with two coats of black Rustoleum. I did the same to areas of the foot-wells that had a little surface rust on them. I made new gaskets, from a neoprene dinghy repair kit, for the windscreen brackets and bedded them on body caulking, and replaced the