XRP669

Personally I'd recommend using tractor or plant enamel - it's not (how shall I put this?) quite as sensitive to the preparation and application as car paints, sticks very well, is ideal for brush / roller application, covers a multitude of sins and is available in a wide range of colours at reasonable prices (check out eBay, your local agricultural suppliers or Google "tractor restoration" / "tractor paint"). I know that this will have some people spitting feathers , but with tractor enamel you can even get away without rubbing down on a reasonably well weathered Landy, just wiping over to make sure there's no oil or grease! Most important thing is to make sure that there's a good key (rub down with wet and dry paper if the paint is all shiny) and clean grease-free surface (wipe over with white spirit / thinners or meths as available). There's no need to create a perfectly sanded base as per more traditional car paints. I did my last Series IIA in dark blue with a yellow roof (approximately coastguard colours) and she was still looking very presentable when I sold her three years later - that was without sanding down at all, but the original paint was well weathered.

My first Land Rover back in 1982 was a Series II diesel (2L, which caused a bit of confusion at the motor factor's when they'd only heard of 2.25s... ) hardtop in grey, registration XRP 669. Just wondered if she still exists, and if anyone out there has seen her lately, or whether she's now only a memory and maybe a few parts living on in other Landies? (And a username in cyberspace, of course - the one on eBay is also mine, by the way.) After a while I sold her to a friend of mine as a proper 4x4 restoration project to replace the Dutton Sierra kit-car which he'd lovingly built and then seen go up in flames due to a fuel leak and / or electrical fault thereby demonstrating one of the drawbacks of non-corroding glassfibre bodywork! (My replacement IIA petrol was blue soft-top 948 JWP, but I know that one had her registration sold on after I parted with her.)

Thanks - plan of campaign involves a new rear 1/4 chassis in fairly short order, so I was planning to do a bit of loosening and relevelling then... The good news is that the "horribly noisy rear diff" that the (very honest) vendor told me about was, as I suspected from the description, actually the exhaust knocking on the chassis at certain revs...

I've just acquired a Series III SWB diesel (1983) as a towing / utility vehicle after a break from Landy ownership forced by lack of parking space. It's been fitted with parabolics quite recently by the looks of things, but still suffers from the infamous "Land-Rover lean" - there's a distinct list to starboard , when one would expect that on new springs there would be a lean the other way when parked up . I just wondered if the parabolic springs come in handed pairs in the same way as the original multi-leaf springs (and I seem to recall that the diesel SWBs had a different set of front springs to the petrol ones in the original spec)? Have searched the forum, but can't find an answer!

Dixon-Bate do a backing plate - I'd advise using it as I have seen the two large (lower) bolts which go through the crossmember pull into the holes even with fairly substantial washers behind them...