no mot, welding required (and there may well be more than the garage spotted), brakes that possibly/probably require a thorough going over and electrical gremlins, it's not guaranteed that it's wheel bearings on the front that need doing especially if your mot man doesn't know landrovers, it could be your swivel pins/railcos
forget the unleaded head for now, this motor is a project in my opinion without any photos to see
my last 88" cost me 100quid, the 109 before cost under 500 and my first 88" cost 350 (all projects) i also bought a breaker with overdrive for 300 (rotten chassis)
i've a reasonable idea of what i can be getting myself into now as i only buy projects but it's a little bit of a gamble for you,you could be looking at a replacement chassis in reality (i had to condemn a mates landy chassis recently as the rot was far more extensive than he thought and he'd bought it with 12months mot less than two years prior)
you don't say whether it's a station wagon or utility, probably originally utility at that age, you might do well to get yourself a few photos together of the areas that normally rot, dumbirons, rear crossmember, bulkhead A posts, vent areas, footwells, bulkhead outriggers (all out riggers) rear shackle mounts, check under bumpstops, check the bottom of the crossmembers inside the chassis
yes they do rot and can rot badly (from the inside out)
i've just spent 9 months stripping and repairing my 500quid 1965 109, chassis repairs (quite a bit, dumbirons, outriggers, rear crossmember), repaired (lots) a replacement bulkhead, swapped springs/shocks (engine change by choice) and i've now got to change my front axle as the diff pan has pinholed, plus i built my own wiring harness for it
i don't know why you want one (nor do i care, welcome to the addiction
) but be prepared for work
may i suggest you pop over to the Series 2 Club forum as i'd say that your 1961 is a Series 2 (or should be) and there's some very knowledgeable folks on there (rivet counters/nutters) who would be able to help you with any specific enquiries if you're interested as well as us lesser mortals that just like our landrovers for fun
anyway, as far as i'm concerned without pictures and without crawling over that landrover and stabbing it with a big screwdriver i'd put it's value at an absolute maximum of 500quid (no mot and requiring work) and if it required substantially more repairs than you've been told about (you cannot rely on an mot testers results with these) or had lost too much originality i'd halve that number as it could end up as a very expensive time consuming project
some people have stupidly inflated ideas of what thier classic tax exempt landrover is worth, i had one guy want 600quid for a completely rotten T.E. mid sixties 109 utility, there wasn't a solid section to the chassis and i was crumbling sections with my bare hand, a new galvy 109 chassis (period correct) is about 2k, the bulkhead also had degenerated to the composition of weetabix (try and find a good correct replacement that doesn't need work), there was very little that could be rescued from it
i've tried to give a fair valuation on the information you've given and i hope it helps
Pete