1971 2 Door Restoration Project

[mwgriffiths]

I have a 72 engine (and overdrive gearbox) which I'm not using any of, there are carbs etc with it but not on it, so i don't know if the linkages are in the car somewhere.. .

That'd be awesome if you could, don't put yourself out on my behalf though Theres LOADS of other stuff to be getting along with

--

It was raining fairly hard on Sunday, so all engine work stopped Instead the rear bench came out and the floor came up to reveal this:

Needless to say I'm quite impressed about how solid it looks The previous owner said it had had a new chassis at some point in its life, which almost certainly explains it.

On the downside I also had time to poke around the rear quarter panel. This clearly hasn't been replaced in a previous life

Whats left original isn't much, the arch has been plated and the rest is mostly body filler Oh well, 'least that's a part YRM make new

[disco_al]

make sure you don't lose those tools in the back quarter - it's rare to find one with them still in place.

is that a self levelling shocker i see in there as well??? be surprised if it still works.

here's some inspiration for you mmmmm

[mwgriffiths]

make sure you don't lose those tools in the back quarter - it's rare to find one with them still in place.

is that a self levelling shocker i see in there as well??? be surprised if it still works.

here's some inspiration for you mmmmm

Finding all the tools was pretty cool, I had no idea they were there when I brought it TBH

The centre damper is still there, no idea if it works though

Yet another tidy looking 2 door. I think I need to fake some Royal connection on mine too

[Ragtag]

bad news today.

The goodbad news is lots of bits have arrived from Paddocks

[

I've edited that for you.

Paddocks/Britparts ignition components are the spawn of satan

[mwgriffiths]

I've edited that for you.

Paddocks/Britparts ignition components are the spawn of satan

The dizzy cap does look a bit suspect, that was the only pattern part, the rest are Lucas, for better or worse

---

Finally got round to uploading a lil video from last weekend.

This was shot on Sunday, first time I tried to start it that day, having been started for the first time in 10 years the day before Its running on some cylinders and has some compression, which is a good start in my book

[Ragtag]

The dizzy cap does look a bit suspect, that was the only pattern part, the rest are Lucas, for better or worse

---

Hey good news on getting it started and running

Regarding the parts, I was being serious from bitter experience! The coil is not a Lucas one, it is a Paddocks special...manufactured in China. It may or may not last. The leads say lucas on them but the quality is iffy and they break down quickly. I can't see what is in the Britparts bag but I assume points, condensor and rotor arm. The points are ok but it is impossible to get reliable condensors any more (they are only made in China now).

I know it is some time in the future but when you have achieved your goal of getting the beast back on the road, take a tip from an old hand and go electronic. Best thing I ever did with mine.

Good luck with the project.

[mwgriffiths]

I know it is some time in the future but when you have achieved your goal of getting the beast back on the road, take a tip from an old hand and go electronic. Best thing I ever did with mine.

That was the plan Probably won't last much beyond the first dunking in the mud anyway After that I'll look at modifying it for reliability, because she won't be a pavement Queen that's for sure

[Shackleton]

Hi Matt

Congrats on the RR. I'm a little jealous, I searched for a good early one for the right price for 2 years before getting hacked off waiting and buying my '73. Always get a little green when someone gets an earlier one.

I can confirm;

1. Shiny bottom runner on rear glass is right.

2. It should have a bonnet mounted mirror both sides.

3. Rear wiper should be there - motor should mount in the NS rear corner and drive the wiper via a worm and wheel box. (the latter is currently doing the rounds as a special with the LR specialists, it's worth buying cause they seize eventually)

4. Those holes in the dash are defo for air vents.

Few things I can tell you after 5 years with an early RR as my only car:

Chris Hobson really is a good guy in to know (in every sense). If you need something in perfect nick you need to emphasise it though. He'll certainly have a 3 spoke wheel I'm sure. AFAIK He's in France at the moment though. Careful when sourcing the wheel. They're made of what seems to be some alloy and it cracks. Least when I took mine off the back of the spokes had some cracks near their base. Potentially dangerous in an emergency stop situation.

Your vinyl is typical of what happened to early cars. Get 'em redone by an upholstery crowd. On the crazy off chance that you can source original vinyl, don't.

I bought a BRAND NEW (still in LR box) door from a LR specialist here in Ireland. They might still have some. Can't remember which side they had. Think I paid them €250. http://www.kings4x4.com/ You'll need to put 00353 in front of that number and drop the 0.

Paddocks and the like are great for cheap consumables - but cheap consumables tend to be a false economy. Hang out here, do searches and you'll get to know what is worth considering from the mail order crowd. Case in point, your bonnet mirrors. Mine were in tact but the original metal round glass housing was returning to nature. I ordered a pair of replacement mirrors (excluding the stalks) and was chuffed with how cheap they were. When they arrived they had plastic housings. I wasn't too bothered, they looked right, but then I had to file them considerably to make them fit and lock into the original stalks.

Judging by your photos your Boge strut is still working. I encountered the same doubt that mine would be from LR enthusiasts and to be honest from that assumed it was shot. Then it actually bit the dust and I knew all about it. It gave me a fright as it leaked fluid all over the fuel tank which of course made me think I had a fuel problem. If your springs are standard the rear will drop somewhat. The Boge and rear springs work together rather than either one being adequate without the other.

You are lucky that the rear tools are in tact. Here's an interesting one though that you might uncover the answer to. I have a suspicion that one of the tools might have originally been a crank handle. A mates father once starting taking the mickey out of me telling me that the hole in the front bumper was for cranking the engine. I of course told him he was full of **** only to investigate later a realise it absolutely is.

When you offroad it - LEAVE THE TOW PLATE SKID ON THE BACK. I destroyed my lovely straight rear coachwork bottoming out bacause of the rear overhang and resulting departure angle. The tow plate while drastically reducing the departure angle even more, will save your ass. Literally. I plan on making up some sliders to attach to my rear chassis rails. Y'know so that I have more clearance but still have protection for my bodywork.

Check inside the rear of your front wings. Near the bottom there should be a bracket on each side, staying the lower part of the wing. Whenever these were taken off an early RR for whatever reason they were rarely put back on. Mine were missing and still are - I've never understood exactly what they were for but presume my panel gaps would be a little more consistent if I refitted 'em.

Man this is a long one - there's more though.

You seem to have the same conundrum I was posed with. There should be a pointy metal guide, one on each side, where the rear seat locks into place. It would correspond with a loop (a hole) in either end of the seat back that would sit back over this pointy thing (lol) to guide the seat into place. Mine were gone and the holes in the seat back were cut off!

You're also missing your scuttle panel Range Rover badges. But I'm sure you know that.

Oh yeah - little niggles. If you're key turns stiffly in either door DON'T FORCE IT. Get in behind the door cards and clean / grease the lock linkages and make sure they're free to move easily. There's a ball and socket link system connecting your key holes with the locks and the sockets are made from plastic. You can force the key hard enough to pop the socket. It'll pop back on but it's a fiddly little biotch of a job where you have to feel what your doing cause you can barely see in. Plus, just like a human dislocation, once it's happened once, it's probably gonna happen again. One of my ball and sockets is now tie wrapped for extra staying power.

Your rear lenses are disgustingly perfect. Keep 'em that way. They're not hens teeth but just one of those things that can be tricky to get in good nick sight unseen.

Rear heated glass. You'll know if it's as period (unlikely) as your front screen if the lines of the heating element go straight across and only cover about half the glass. Thats how the early ones were, later cars initially had more lines and then had lines that angled down towards the sides. I've seemingly original front glass too, didn't realise till read this thread - some days I can see a pattern in a portion of my windscreen aswell.

RE your history - not sure if this is a standard thing in the UK but my side glass had the original first registration etched into it.

I love the non inertia reel seat belts. They confuse the hell out of new passenger but screw those guys. I have a plan to fit inertia reel belts inside my seats though - I think but not sure, that some of the later 2 doors actually had intertia reel belts in the seats. I may be making that up though. On that note, make sure you're seat runners and most importantly runner locks are free to operate and lightly greased. My passenger seat periodically scares the carp out of people. If I have to stop suddenly, sometimes the seat hasn't locked into place and fires the passenger at the windscreen. They get a massive fright and a half second theme park ride until they realise they're strapped to the seat and the seat is actually attached to the car and will stop.

Not weird that your rear plate hanger is gone but the original number plate lights are missing too. There should be two of them, hanging from the overhang of the tailgate. When I went to refurb mine I realised they're made of brass or something similar and if you're so inclined you can polish 'em. That'd be girly though. Don't know why I even mentioned it

That's it. Why the hell aren't I at the pub?

George

[Shackleton]

One other thing... I love the rat look stripes too. They're funky. The cool thing is they must have happened while the car was still being used. You'll find out once you're back on the road that there's an aerodynamic (not usually a word used by LR people) vortex in the bonnet when the car is moving. If it rains, water will pool along in the area of those rust lines in your bonnet and stay there trickling around as you go.

EDIT:

I found this thread cause I'm having my wheels sand blasted so I can refurb them and am wondering does anyone have a code for the original wheel colour? Failing that, any suggestions for a good looking paint colour for LR rostyles? Also does anyone know catagorically whether the early cars had bumpers the same colour as the wheels or not. (both grey, but different shades?)

[mwgriffiths]

Hey George, cheers for that, some interesting reading

To respond to you question first: I've heard Halfrauds Aluminium paint is a pretty good match for the bumpers, and I'd guess they'd match the Rostyles, but some of the wheels were painted Sahara Dust, depending on the body colour.

Masai Red, Lincoln Green and Sahara Dust all came with Sahara Dust coloured wheels, the remaining 3 body colours (Bahama Gold, Davos White and Tuscan Blue) came with "Aluminium" coloured wheels. That info is from here

--

Do you know if the mirrors are fairly generic? I.e. did BL fit them to some of their other cars of the period or are they unique to the Range Rover? My dad may have a set of Series mirrors somewhere so I'll put them on if they re-appear

As I said earlier most distributors won't like what I have planned for them so I'll use this for now to get everything going then switch to electronic ignition (Possibly from an SD1 to keep it kind of stock)

I have a personal vendetta against this towbar, and it is coming off, although it is putting up a fight at the moment - It is bolted through the rear cross-member in the centre, and some clown put the bolts pointing up with the nuts on the top side of the chassis and left a good 30mm of thread exposed, and as I lowered my newly fitted tailgate down they bent it I was livid, and as a result it must die In its place I'm looking at a Terafirma "receiver hitch" which is essentially a very slim profile towbar with interchangeable ends so I can use a recovery eye for RTVing and a drop-plate and tow ball should I need to tow something, It protects the tank and bodywork nicely while not really hurting the departure angle. Its not a cheap solution, but it seems to tick all the right boxes.

Willfromsussex has the same decisions to make about belts, and I saw he asked Task on Retro Rides (Also on here) for some photos of Task's CSK front seat belt mounting points to see what's different and what could be made to fit etc

I'm actually only missing one scuttle panel badge, there is one on the drivers side and I won another for the passenger side off fleaBay for £7 yesterday That almost compensated for someone stealing "my" red bonnet that was up at £95 buy it now and still had all the correct lettering! I was only waiting to see if I could fit it in the Freelander before bidding, should have just gone with it

No problems with keys and locks: The only one that works is the ignition barrel I need a full lock kit for it at some point....

As my dad will tell you those lights may not stay perfect for long, I have an unnatural affection for trees

Number plate bracket is another fleaBay find, a bargain at £5, but it only includes the sheet metal and light housings, so I need to consult the magic book of Range Rovers to see what else I need to put it back on, I've already put a new tailgate on. its the picture with the P plate reg showing on the back which I didn't bother blanking out because I have no idea who that belongs to, but it isn't me

And that might be it for now

--

I've not done much recently because I'm dissertation panic mode, but that's in in 3 weeks after which I'll get stuck in and update it more often I promise

[Shackleton]

Pretty good site, haven't seen that one before. Cheers.

I see on there that my assumption about the mirrors is wrong. They were actually supposed to be plastic. Thing to do is take the mirror itself off the stalk and examine the inside of the stalk. You'll see there's a tab to lock the mirror in place. The shape there will dictate whether other BL mirrors will fit. Like I said though I had to make mail order ones fit anyway.

[willfromsussex]

ooh new one on me too that site. Love the vid where they're driving the chassis about.

[mwgriffiths]

Guess what: UPDATE TIME

Dissertation is done and dusted and it was time to play

Had a great day in the sun, then went round to a mates where I spotted a YVB xxxH parked by the side of a road next to the Peacock Inn near Wythall. Bahama Gold and absolutely MINT. I was just a tiny bit jealous

Rear wings off, shown alongside my eBay bargains (That inner wing was £5 from the guy I got the doors from ). Theres another genuine in wing panel for the other side hiding in there too

Some more eBay bargains:

I thought that badge was period correct because it had recessed lettering, but turns out the one I do have on the RR is printed with the recessed lettering. So they don't match. Oh well Does anyone know the name of the font in that pic btw?

Also in the post are some new pressed black and white plates. Its the little things..... The little things that are years away from being needed

Those outers will clean up nicely. Unlike the inners. I need to take a photo of the rear arch seatbelt anchor: Its still there, but I can see daylight around all 4 sides of it

Interestingly its nowhere near as bad on the other side. Not sure why but I'm not complaining. The drivers side sill is also much better than the passenger side. Not that there really is a passenger sill anymore

And again, the rear goal post was worse on the passenger side. It must been parked up half under cover or something Best course of action? Does anyone remake the bolt up goalposts, or at least repair sections, or do I try to have to find a non-rusted RR to cut one off?

And the drivers side floor....

And the old, not very effective, rear "silencer"

And last but not least my new favourite photo of the beast. I need to reset the wipers to the off position and try it again tomorrow I think

[mwgriffiths]

So, update time once again:

I retook my last photo after re-setting the wipers and windscreen seal. This will probably be the closest this gets to being functional and complete for a while to come

The bonnet, grille and lights all came off:

Next came the bumper, slam panel and then I tried to take the passenger inner wing off. Some monkey had welded a patch onto the wing, not normally a problem surely? Except this patch was also welded to the bulkhead So out came the angle grinder again.... leaving this little mess:

And a close up:

On a side note did you know that not all Range Rovers had their engine numbers stamped by the dipstick? I didn't which caused some mild confusion and panic, but the V8forum pointed me in the right direction (Left side of the block by the bellhousing "ear" for anyone who's interested)

And seeing as the angle grinder was out a little surgery was performed. I need to take lots more metal than that out before I find something strong enough to weld onto Why does nobody make footwell repair panels anymore? These old stock items (Probably from Rimmer Bros) went on ebay earlier for £122

With the bonnet off its hinges I could finally see the back of the carbs to have a look at my lack of linkages:

Then I started Gunking the gearbox which cleaned up reasonably well:

Then I found this plate on the side of it. I don't know why, but it amuses me every time I look at it (Probably because I was born after we switched to metric, and I can only imagine the shock this caused in 1970 at an indy garage )

Then I went down to Gaydon on Monday for one of their Heritage shows, Wasn't worth the entrance fee IMO, £12 and you still had to pay if you wanted to wander around the museum Still, despite not being able to see chassis number 3 because it was inside, which was one of the reasons I went, I was still able to see another two pre-pros, including this one belonging to the Dunsfold Collection:

That's the third pre-pro I've seen this week

Anyway, that's your lot for now, don't expect any updates this month, Uni finals have a habit of getting in the way of the fun stuff

[task]

It's weird looking at your bulkhead/footwell area having just spent a weekend replacing my A-posts and sills, seems like the A-posts on the CSK were fairly unique. There was certainly a lot less of mine left than there is of yours at the A post section

Your C posts/rear "goal posts" look to be in a bit of a state, might be fun when you come to repairing those!

What's the deal with that exhaust manifold on the N/S, has it been welded back together?!

Looks like you're having fun and making good progress either way.

I have seen those footwell panels for sale but it may have been on ebay, if I come across any on my web-travels I will let you know!

[mwgriffiths]

It's weird looking at your bulkhead/footwell area having just spent a weekend replacing my A-posts and sills, seems like the A-posts on the CSK were fairly unique. There was certainly a lot less of mine left than there is of yours at the A post section

You seem to have coped fine with yours! I'm truly stunned stunned how good this car is, almost all the panels are those that were fitted when it left the factory!

Your C posts/rear "goal posts" look to be in a bit of a state, might be fun when you come to repairing those!

Its not worth saving I reckon, if I open the lower tailgate once more I risk taking what remains of the goalpost with it. I'm going to try to find one on eBay I think....

What's the deal with that exhaust manifold on the N/S, has it been welded back together?!

Yup! Someone from the cars past attempted to teach a monkey to gass-less MIG weld and used this car as a test bed

I have seen those footwell panels for sale but it may have been on ebay, if I come across any on my web-travels I will let you know!

That'd be great if you could, I'll keep my eye out for those rear 3/4s too, but you'll have no doubt finished by the time I track a set down

[Quagmire]

Looking good! One thing I would say is get something over/in those open Carb throats, not good to be getting any Carborundum dust down there.

Also, be careful with any glass too, I ended up leaving tiny specks on my 90 windscreen when I cut out my footwell and I hadn't covered up stuff enough. V annoying!

Other than that, keep up the good work

[mwgriffiths]

Looking good! One thing I would say is get something over/in those open Carb throats, not good to be getting any Carborundum dust down there.

Also, be careful with any glass too, I ended up leaving tiny specks on my 90 windscreen when I cut out my footwell and I hadn't covered up stuff enough. V annoying!

Other than that, keep up the good work

Cheers for the advise, I've got some rubber gloves on them atm

Got any advice for what to cover it with? I don't really care about the doors, got some replacements for those, and the current ones already had some grinding marks on the glass when I brought it

[Quagmire]

Whatever you have to hand really that will fit- I ended up using a few sheets of thick corrugated cardboard wedged across the glass- just keep a fire extinguisher handy and try not to have the sparks hammering the cardboard and you'll be fine.

[Pete The Biker]

be careful with any glass too, I ended up leaving tiny specks on my 90 windscreen when I cut out my footwell and I hadn't covered up stuff enough. V annoying!

Good advice - guess how I know!

Pete

[mwgriffiths]

Engine number is present, correct, matches the V5 and is probably the original one

Lets start with where the Book of Lies says it should be, namely in the centre of the block on the left hand (passenger) side in between the exhaust manifold branches where the dipstick meets the block:

Problem is, on early cars it isn't there. (Up to at least the first 2000 cars, probably up to Suffix B at a guess). Instead, it hides here:

What do you mean you can't see it?

Its very hard to read with the engine in place, and almost impossible to photograph. I took this standing on the front of the chassis, in the foreground, nicely out of focus and overexposed are the carbs, and the only shiny in focus bit visible is a flat surface which butts up to the "ear" on the bell-housing. And thats where Land Rover decided to hide the early P5 and RR engine numbers. So now you know

[p76rangie]

Interesting. That is where the Leyland P76 version of the Rover V8 had the engine number.

[willfromsussex]

Yikes rangies can be deceptivly rusty. They look all solid from the outside saying 'save me.. save me' then when you strip off their clothes, my goodness.

I remember a goalpost being on ebay a while back

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180633228149

so they do come up now and then

[mwgriffiths]

One in need of slight touching up (but still about 400 times better than mine) went for 99p a couple of weeks ago!

Thing is I have no idea how I'd collect something like that, its just too bulky. Even a set of doors won't fit in a Freelander 2 with some disassembly.

I've also just bought some "twin SU cabs and mannyfold" with linkages for £11.49 - a bargain that was!

Here's hoping the seller meant carbs and manifold rebuilding that lot properly will probably cost 5 times what they cost, but hey hoo, maybe I can just use the linkages for now.......

[Anderzander]

Great thread :-)