Vehicle Builds

The Solent And District Land Rover Club

That won't cost much!    PART TWO.

By Jez Bell

When I last told you about my little Series 3 project I had just replaced the Radiator and the Heater Matrix after they leaked like a sieve, the next job was to bolt on the passenger side wing and paint it to match the vehicle colour, paint was rollered on after a coat of etching primer had been applied by brush, when dry it looked quite good, I then replaced the passenger side door with one I bought for £10 at Old Sodbury that was a lot less dented than the one I already had. Painting it was simple as a roller was used for the primer and the top coat, just using the brush for the fiddly bits, I now fitted 2 new door tops I had bought from Paddock Spares, I had already painted these when they were off the vehicle before putting in the glass and new runners.

It was now time to fit the hard top, I had managed to swap my windowless hard top sides with a mate who wanted to do away with the windows in the side of his Series 2 109 Station Wagon so then all that was left was to paint carefully round the windows before getting out the roller again, once it was painted I fitted the hard top, it looked great, just a rear door and the interior to go, the rear door came from the same mate who had swapped the hard top sides with me (cheers Dave!) it needed painting and some new hinges but once I had done that, the door went straight in its hole with only a tiny bit of tweaking needed to line it up square.

Only interior and electrics to go, I was beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel. I fitted new Halogen conversions from Paddock (£55) as series lights are useless at the best of time's, all the light lenses were damaged but a little scrounging round in my shed meant that I only needed to buy two indicator lenses and one tail light lens, so I decided to fit a fog light to it as well as I had managed to save a few pennies on the other lights.

Wiring the new ignition was fun as I was going from a diesel to a petrol, I had an old ignition switch assembly amongst my spares which made fitting the choke cable a doddle but  I still ended up buying a new rotary contact assembly for the back of it as it had corroded badly and didn't always make the connection, I ran a new supply to the coil and contact breakers as well as a separate switched supply to the solenoids on the Webber Carb.

I replaced the heater motor with a spare I had and fitted a new washer pump and horn as all of these were knackered, then the new exhaust from Paddocks (£35 complete) arrived and that was decided on to be my next job, fitting a Series 2.25 exhaust to a 90 2.25 engine should be simple, but no! The studs are spaced out wider on a 90 than a Series and you have to file out the holes to get it to fit.

So now it was time to see if my little beasty would run, after 5 mins of turning it over, Nothing! not even a pop! I had already replaced the plugs, points and condensor, I checked again and found I had the timing out, quick bit of static timing and try again, it ran ! Not very well but it ran, twisting the dizzy round got it to run a bit smoother but still not right, fiddling with the mixture only made it worse so I got it to run the best I could and left it at that.

Getting on with the interior was next on my list, I "borrowed" a centre tunnel out of a slightly dead series so I could put a floor back in, and started to wire up the dashboard as I had used one from a long wheel base Series 3 so as to keep the speedo reading correctly with the 750X16 tyres I was fitting.

It turned out a lot easier than I expected with just the repeaters for the indicators confusing me for a while.

Dash and wiring done, floor in, panels fitted and painted, I was nearly there!

I had a bench seat to fit in the back, a set of tyres to fit and the running to sort out and that was it, fitting the bench seat wasn't to difficult thanks to a second pair of hands (thanks Rob) but then I decided that the Landy needed seat belts all round, inertias in the front with a lap belt in the middle and 3 point harnesses in the back for holding the kids in firmly. again thanks to Rob the job went quite smoothly, my arms are not long enough to hold a bolt  inside a Landy while trying to tighten a nut on the outside.

I had been lucky enough to acquire a set of 5 almost brand new Michelin Hi Milers 750X16 so I painted up a set of LWB rims and spent a day trying to fit tyres to them myself before giving up and asking my Dad to help, it took 2 hours to change 5 tyres with his guidance.

So here I was with just the poor running left to sort out, I checked everything again and found the distributor was worn out, meaning the points gap was all over the place, a new dizzy was £35 from Paddock so I decided to get one, it improved the running but did not cure it completely, I decided that maybe it would benefit from a good thrashing so I hammered it up and down the farmers track and parked it up where it ran as sweet as a nut, cured!

Started it again the next day and it ran as badly as it had done previously, choke didn't make any difference, when it was warm I hammered it up and down the farmers track again and it seemed to be better but still not right.

Speaking to Craig who had had similar problems with his 2.5 petrol, he suggested replacing the 2 solenoids on the carb, again this seemed to help a bit but not cure it.

I finally got it to run fairly smoothly but just a bit rich, after hammering it to an MOT station it managed to PASS! I just had to replace one bulb in the back light to get it through.

Taxed it and drove it round for a week or two but the running was still not right, then I found the alternator wasn't working properly, flattening the battery , I replaced it with another from the shed and that fixed the charging.

The running eventually annoyed me so much I put it on Ebay for £1000. While it was on there I found that the air filter was half full of water and was restricting the airflow into the carb, cleaning it out and filling it to the correct level sorted the running at last!

I went on Ebay to remove the Landy from auction but it had already been bought! A guy in Norway had bid £1000 for it. I was dumbfounded!

When it was all sorted out I was surprised at how easy it was to export a Land Rover, the guy who came to collect the Landy on behalf of its new owner said that he had done this before for other members of the Norway Land Rover Club and that the guys in Norway are often buying Land Rovers in England and importing them back to Norway.

I was sad to say goodbye to my little Landy but I hope it has a nice life in Norway with its new owner Trond.

Back to Top