ex MOD to civvy conversion?

for whatever reason, plenty of ex MOD landies are now up for sale around northern ireland, and a lot of them are really well priced.

still hunting for my first defender. so really, what i'm wondering is....
can an MOD defender be converted easily to what would more or less be a 110 sw?

of all the ones i've seen, they're the turbo diesel (not the tdi) and no power steering (so what!) and mostly hard tops, with a few soft tops

obviously there'll be insurance snags with adding more seats...

has anyone done this before?

any info much appreciated

Like you say, the biggest snag will be with the insurance so approch your insurer first to see if they will cover the modifcations. If they won't or want to increase the premium, shop around the specialist insurers to get a feel for what you can & can't do.
The most important thing is to use standard LR parts when you do the conversion, it is still classed as modifications but most insurers are much happier if standard parts have been used.
You say you want to produce a SW but if the vehicles are hard or soft tops then it is a bit more involved then just adding a few seats, we are talking replacement rear body & associated work which may be too much for some insurers but once again, do your homework first and approch the insurers direct to see what they will & won't allow. Also you will be changing the body style so although I don't know what it says on the logbook of a SW but I guess it might be different to that of a hardtop?

What force are these coming from, GB MOD or Irish? I only ask because the GB MOD did not use the TD, just the NA right up until they started using the 300TDi.

i think there's a few from both MODs. i only had a chance to glance round the back of the lot (and those had no union flags on them). all the ones at the front had union flags so may have been NA. haven't yet seen a 300 tdi although did see 1 desertised snatch with the V8 (and under the covers it had all PSNI markings! just goes to show)

as for the bodywork, i was somewhat hoping in time i could just find a sw shell and drop it on, but i havent really researched that fully.

just gotta keep looking!!

To my knowledge the military only used the normally aspirated engine and then the 300TDi in the late Wolf land rovers. Certainly in my time in the mob I never saw a turbo diesel Defender. So I would check carefully if you are expecting a turbo D. There is nothing wrong with the manual aspirated engine but they are a bit slow!

I have an ex RAF Defender 90 that I swapped the engine out for a 200TDi. It has not trim at all, no radio etc but its a great runner and brings a smile to my face every time I get in it!