In June 2000, whilst living in London, DJ & Kris [haha, as if!] bought Smudger the Land Rover, a 1974 Airportable formerly owned by the RAF. Here we'll chronicle the transformation of the car from its former state (peeling NATO paint, some rust, bad electrics, body damage) to a reasonably well restored antique.
First, let's meet the car where we originally found him--on the streets of London, near Portobello Road market.
This is Andrew, whose wife Heather, the distraught former owner of the car, took this photo. On the bonnet is their daughter Lena, who was mightily annoyed at Mom & Dad for selling off the car before she had a chance to drive it. Andrew & Heather, also Americans living abroad, had actually owned the car twice since it was taken out of military service and only parted with it because they were moving back to the States.
DJ is sporting that wide grin for two reasons. First he's happy to have bought the car, and second he's trying to maintain a brave front in the face of his first "driving on the left side of the road" experience. [Kris adds: Good thing you can't see me...I'm in the background taking last rites]
We actually had some problems getting home. The first involved the car itself--it was having a bad day due to the fact that the battery was on its last legs. Thus, the beast was a pain to start and even harder to keep running until we got it warmed up. Even then, the battery was dragging the idle down to a very low level and I had to keep the gas on a bit at lights & stop signs to prevent it from stalling. And little did we know the choke cable had pulled loose, rendering that handy little control useless.
This, coupled with the fact that neither of us knew where we were going (aka "the second problem") made life interesting. I handed Kris the London 'A to Zed' Street Guide, gave her a basic idea what route I figured we should follow to get home, and said that navigation was her problem. The route suggested by the dear folks at mapquest.com went directly through the heart of the city; knowing better, we didn't go that way. Instead we went due North, then turned East and kept going straight home. Well, more or less anyway...but we made only one wrong turn!
My worries included:
The idling problem meant I had to use the hand brake to hold the car back on hills while keeping my right foot on the accelerator and the left on the clutch. No problem, except that the low battery added a new twist in the guise of barely-functional directionals, thus hand signals were the rule of the day. Happily, I was using my left hand to hold the emergency brake so my right (remember which side of the car I was on) was free to wave around outside in a vague semblance of left/right hand signs.
Mind you, I'd no idea if hand signals in Britain were the same as in the States, so the locals were treated to the sight of a '74 LR barreling down the road with a guy's arm hanging out the driver's side window and flailing about madly at intersections. Most of them likely said something like "oh christ, it's a Yank with dead directionals who's never driven on the left before!" and thus had the sense to stay out of my way. I was sort of wondering what all those police helicopters were about...
The only good thing was that I wasn't called on to add anything else to my list (driving, signalling, pedaling, shifting, panicking) of activities or we'd have been in trouble...I had only one unoccupied appendage left, and it wasn't one I wanted to use for, say, pressing the horn button.
The real fun came in when we got near Belsize Park, where a number of narrow and twisty streets awaited. Most people won't challenge an old, tatty looking Land Rover so I was treated to several BMW and Vauxhall drivers doing the "back to the end of the street to let the behemoth through" shuffle. During all this, Navigator Kris made comments about scenery and promising-looking restaurants ("ooh, a Thai place!") while looking desperately for street signs to guide us in. She did a good job, too, and kept her sense of humour about it [barely].
I'm sure the gray hairs will go away shortly [you'd best hope so].
Okay, time for another egregious photo...
Here we see the happy couple in position and ready to roll. Well, almost. This was just before we discovered that the battery wasn't happy and had to get one of Andrew's friends to give us a jump-start. Even the hand crank wouldn't do the trick.
DJ is in the process of releasing the single security device present in the vehicle: a "Club." It doesn't even have door locks, though I'd be amused at the reaction of most people these days to the idea of a choke! The "integrated vehicle protection device" acts both as theft deterrent and weapon of opportunity should some moron try to clean the car's windscreen at a traffic light without being asked.
Kris is frantically looking for the ejection switch as well as the seat belts. Smart woman!
The initial work was done while we lived in London. There aren't many photos here since the work was largely hidden, involving a new rear crossmember and a replaced side footwell panel as well as extensive electrical work.
Note how previous painters just masked off the instrument cluster prior to hurling NATO green paint at the dash! This was taken after most of the instruments were replaced. The odometer was non-functional, the trailer-light indicator switch assembly had been shattered, the panel lamp switch was broken, and so forth. A great deal of the damage was caused by delinquent boys who got into the car and kicked the glass out of the panel sometime in the distant past
Here's a shot of the newly replaced rear crossmember. This is one of the weak points on a Series car since it catches a lot of road debris and dirt, causing early rust. The rest of the frame is in impressively good nick due to the bitumen-based military rustproofing that was applied way back in the '70s.
A lot of work occurred once we moved back to the States and I had a reasonable place to set up shop; all the London repairs were done whilst the car was parked on the street near our flat. The first major replacement was the front bumper, which had been bent at each end during minor accidents sometime in the distant past. This was acquired and installed in June 2001. Then I completed the major electrical work, stripped and repainted the instrument panel and heater box, then replaced the Zenith carburettor with a new Weber that actually lets the engine idle smoothly.
Compare the photo above with the "Electrical Panel Rebuild" shot taken in London. Also note that the steering wheel and the lower steering shroud (underneath the wheel) are new.
Another needed repair involved removal, disassembly, and rebuilding of the starter motor. The car had always started badly but I'd ascribed this to old wiring or a flaky ground strap. Once I diagnosed the starter circuit -- the starter relay died and gave me a good excuse to perform this work -- I realised the problem was actually in the starter itself. Brushes were cleaned, the commutator was polished, and the case was hit with engine paint to cut the rust. It turned out one brush was barely making contact due to a wire that was preventing it from moving forward completely. Once replaced, the car started like it'd just rolled off the assembly line. Total cost: $25, including all the new #4 gauge wiring (I rebuilt the starter motor myself).
Last, the brake cylinders were all checked and several were replaced when it was found the bleed screws were seized. The (original!) rubber brake hoses were also renewed at this time.
Body work started in earnest in the Fall of 2001. The car needed a lot of metalwork to correct a hacked-up bed floor, twisted support stanchions holding the seat-back bulkhead in place, and it was later discovered the seat bulkhead was torn in two places--the tears were concealed by a patch panel. Since I had to strip the car back to bare metal (the NATO paint was applied badly and anything applied over it would just peel right back off) it seemed time to correct these problems. Some .065 and .080 aluminium stock--not Birmabright, but close--was acquired for this work from a local machine shop.
Here we're stripped back to the minimum (except the rear tub). Both petrol tanks have been hit with several coats of Rustoleum Industrial paint to keep the rust down; exposed areas of the frame have been wire-brushed and attacked with POR's "Metal-Ready" spray as well as a thick coat of POR-15 rust inhibitor. The seat-back bulkhead has been removed, and the newly replaced bed floor is visible. A great deal of paint has been stripped to bare metal using several gallons of aircraft-paint remover.
Here's the same area from the rear, with the new seat-back bulkhead in place along with the vertical support stanchions (stiffeners). The new panels were cut by me and bent on a huge brake at a local metal shop; they fit quite well overall and should be more durable since the metal is about 2x as thick as the original. Below is the work from the front quarter.
The last of the old paint (except a few bits on the tailgate) was finally removed, so we proceeded to the next stage...applying a finish rather than removing it! The following two shots show positive progress; the car after being hit with a red ScotchBrite pad, wiped down with PPG AcryliClean surface-preparation fluid, and shot with two coats of PPG's DP-40LF/DP-402LF two-stage epoxy primer. This stuff stinks to high heaven, so be sure to wear a high quality mask if you decide to use it. It's considered PPG's "restoration primer" so it's really good stuff.
I'd planned to be back on the road around 1 August (yes, 2002!). I missed this date by only a small margin due to delays in getting the wheels sandblasted and primed. More below.
Painting of the car was accomplished in early August, after some research into various types of paints and their advantages. Dupont Centari was the initial choice, but I was told by several paint dealers that it would be a good choice only if the car was a) mostly garaged, b) kept out of the weather, and c) not taken into areas where rock chips might be a problem. Three strikes for a Land Rover, so I did some more research and ended up using PPG's Concept DCC urethane, a high-grade product that is supposed to be the most durable in their current line. Along with this I used their DCX61 reducer and 885 hardener (the 'warm' version, for use in 75-90 degree F environments). The freshly-shot parts are below.
The bed was the hardest part to paint for several reasons. It was hot and I had trouble with perspiration drips from my wrist to the bed floor; the junction area between the vertical and horizontal surfaces caused a lot of 'blow-back' that made it difficult to get the paint to flow cleanly, and I had to be constantly aware of the position of clothing and the compressor hose to make sure I didn't touch a freshly-painted area. It came out pretty well though--only a few small defects that aren't apparent except at close inspection.
Seat box, gearbox tunnel front, floor plates, headlamp boxes, and the rear cubby await re-assembly.
New rubber (National (a.k.a. Yokohama) 215/85 x 16s) and a nearly complete front end. Wheel arch spats were added to dress up the car a bit and keep the rock chips down.
The car was basically done by November 2002 except for minor fiddly bits, and it's running quite well overall except for a minor rear-end leak that may be a plugged axle breather. Here's the fully assembled vehicle in all its glory.
I acquired a used hard top and door, and am now trying to find the time to rebuild them so that option is available if desired. Naturally there are odd bits and bobs that need replacing here and there: I finally found a protective cover for the (disconnected at present) NATO trailer connector, and fitted a brand new convoy lamp to the rear crossmember for completeness' sake. Hinges are being replaced to see if the doors might close a bit better, as the existing hinge straps have been bent repeatedly and don't align properly.
I'm considering a winch but need to find something that looks correct for the car.
In July 2002 we took the old boy to the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix auto show; I knew a bloke who was taking his immaculate IIA and decided to have some fun. To my total astonishment Smudger won 2nd place in his division!
More soon, presuming anything interesting happens. I expect to fully rebuild the engine and gearbox in a few years, but at present they both perform quite well so there's no need.
Interested? Contact me at djoltes@attglobal.net if you'd like to chat about LRs or British Iron in general.