With the floor up the R380 serial number is much easier to read.

Its prefix is 68A with a suffix of L.

Which, I think, means its a long stick originally fitted to a Defender. This may guide future choices for an engine swap...some may be easier than others.
And no, the V8 (as much as I love em) is not on the list.

my compliments for the project! As an engine to have a simple thing you could use the BMW M51D25 of the P38, also mounted on the E39 525tds, using the gearbox bell of the P38 for the R380. This engine was born with an electronic FIP and an ECU, but you could eliminate them using the mechanical FIP of the 524tds. Of 4 cylinders without ecu the Toyota 1KZ, Nissan BD30 and TD27 (immortal with timing gears) are valid but you will need an adaptation flange

Removing the lh wing has proved...problematic. The snorkel is right in the way of the bulkhead bolts, and to remove that means the heater box is coming out.



So that little project was parked until I could create a 3D record of the as-is of the engine bay. Its an aide memoire for when stuff has to go back together. 169 stereo images and some processing later the model was ready:


And a link if anyone fancies a look around the engine bay is here:

Link to 3D model

The grandson arrived this weekend so wing removal was put on hold for other tasks. Like getting to know a Land Rover:

And getting the mud out from under the footwell:

Handy to have a small person for such tasks.

The eldest nipper then set about stripping the wooden liner and cubby holes fitted to the rear by the previous owner.
Which exposed a snakes wedding of wiring:

In spite of that mess, it all works...
Then we turned to getting the bullet resistant locker out. In the end the not-asking tool was applied:

As it refused to just cooperate.

Its a solid 3mm steel construction. And it consumed 4 slitting wheels. Hardcore resistance now destined for the scrap bin.

Which leaves a large hole in the tub:


I am wondering what to do here. Invest time in patching...or cut the losses and find a replacement?

Going to kick this one down the road for a bit and see what the rest of the tub is like.

Any and all thoughts on this are most welcome. So would be hearing from anyone with a decent 110 tub looking for a new life in West Dorset...

An hour spent before dinner last night saw the wayward electrical wiring examined...

Its not pretty:


The horn wiring seems to transit the engine bay via lh wing, cable clips in front of rad, rh wing...back into the engine bay and onto the air horn compressor. The heater fan is currently inop and I'm not sure the choc strip wiring block is helping.

On the plus side there has been liberal use of self adhesive sealing tape and most of it still works. Which is a good starting point.

One key decision; wherever possible connectors will be replaced with Deutsch automotive types. Should keep the sparky gremlins at bay.

Second key decision; wherever possible a rivnut is going to replace every frigging difficult to access bolt or nut.

Both should make the world under the bonnet a better place in time.

The rh wing gave up the battle and is now off. The bulkhead is still looking OK for some small repairs, a strip & galvanise and refit.

The lower steering UJ was knocking and an MOT failure, but turns out it was not clamped tight enough on the steering box shaft...but thats a minor point.



And then onto the most irrelevant job...the rivnut setter tool and rivnuts arrived today. It was impossible to resist having a go...and the washer bottle bracket was just gagging to have those original captive nuts removed:




Never mind the rest of it looks awful...the rivnuts look good.