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New guy with first defender (Hereford)


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Hi 

 

my name is Carl I have just brought my first defender after being in the VW world for a long time, 

 

The defender is a 89 county totally original not been on the road for 7 years.

 

I am located in Hereford and looking for someone to help out in there spare time or as a day job to weld In Door pillars both side and a ready cross member with extensions! Plus just some advise on clutch and breaks if possible I will pay for the work of course, 

many thanks hope to see some of you guys around Soon.

 

carl

 

 

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Welcome!

Looks like you've got a project there, but it sounds like you're not planning on doing it yourself? That could get really spendy really quickly.

Reminds me a lot of Miketomcat's "45" when he first got it, and that turned out nice:

 

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I'd be looking for another bulkhead to replace that one as the the rust will be much more widespread. As fridge has said, if you are not doing the work yourself then you've bought yourself a bottomless money pit ?

Mo

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Buy a complete new galvanised bulkhead, the labour alone for welding that one up will eclipse the spend. Ditto the chassis to be honest, far far nicer & worth more resale to have  a galv chassis than something patched up & slathered in gunk.

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If you are going to undertake something like that it's not a bad idea to get a welder and learn. MIGs are inexpensive these days and the ammount of tutorial videos on YouTube will get you going in no time. The money spent paying someone to do it will easily out weigh the cost of learning and doing it your self.Aside from that Landrovers are a massive mechano kit so you'll learn quickly. Enjoy

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Half the fun of owning a Land Rover is taking them apart or wondering what is making a funny noise!

They are mostly quite easy to work on with simple tools, not much more that a good socket set, spanners and screw drivers (plus welder) really. Parts are readily available including sections of body and structural parts. Also, this is a great place for advice and bouncing ideas off people who have done this stuff before.

As the post above says, make a list and figure out stuff that needs to be done urgently to get it through an MOT then go for the rolling restoration approach - Mine's been rolling for 7 years!

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Seriously, if you're doing it properly rather than just want to bodge it up & drive it until the next MOT failure, a galvanised chassis & bulkhead are far less faffing about than welding and will increase the value of the truck quite a lot as two of the major problems are solved forever.

Welding requires something solid to weld to and I'm not convinced you're going to find that on the bulkhead you've got.

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Good restoration candidate there :);) 

It may sound major, but FF is right, new galvanised bulkhead and chassis will put you right there, and if you can't afford to do it all at once, just bolting the un-refurbed axles etc to it is fine to do, just note to do them at some point in the future :)

@FridgeFreezer Do you have that chassis swap in a weekend time lapse handy? Just for encouragement ;)

 

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Anything can be played, but I wouldn't waste my time or money on that... Unless I just played it to get through an MoT in the most nasty way possible with a view to changing it in a few months... But no, I wouldn't even do that :)

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To be honest I'm surprised the chassis is OK when the bulkhead is like that but there are many reasons that may be the case.

Yes you could repair that bulkhead and the galvanised ones you buy often look like that before they are repaired and zinc plated - but myself, I'd replace that.

I didn't galv my replacement bulkhead, it was almost new and in good shape so it got careful seam sealer, good paint and very careful cavity waxing. The original bulkhead lasted from 1985 to 2013 and would have been easily repairable.. It had not been protected in the first 12 years of its life and thereafter I only did cursory protection as I anticipated changing it at some stage

So my un galvanised bulkhead might last longer than the fuel needed to use the vehicle and probably longer than me!

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I would replace the bulkhead rather than attempt to patch it.  Looks like hours of work to patch and, once it gets in that state it's like painting the Forth Road bridge.  There's also a fair amount of stripping down needed to patch.  You may as well bite the bullet, strip down further and replace the bulkhead.

If the main chassis is OK, replacing the cross member is fairly straightforward.  However, I'd want to have a very good scrape and poke underneath before completely dismissing the idea of a replacement chassis as well.

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I have bitten off more than I can handle here should have done my research first it's going on the evil bay with a buy it now of 1500£ that's what I paid for it. Will raise some more funds a buy one with the chassis and bulkhead done already. I don't have the space to be stripping it done at my house unfortunately.

 

if any wants a project please pass on my details. 07920 224292 

Is 1500£ realistic. 

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