Peat76 said:

As a side note. What do people use to paint over the rusty rear bumpers? The bodyshop bloke said yeah just sand it down a bit then paint over it. He said do that for front bumper as well and dont bother replacing it. But there's tons of products on the market and some look nuts.

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I wire brush/sand it down to remove loose and flaky paint, the a coat of red oxide primer followed by machine enamel (very similar to the tractor paint @tottot recomended). You can get various finishes but even if you get the gloss if will not stay gloss for very long one the bumper of a land rover! Both the red oxide and especially the enamel will need a good few days to properly cure and harden.

Peat76 said:

oh and also can anyone tell what tyres i need to get ? one in the front has a screw in it (typical) but they are also worn badly on inner edge so need to be replaced. When i stick the tyre size in tyre places they come up with tred patterns that look nothing like these ones.

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Asking about tyres on here will open a whole can of worms, about size, tread pattern and make! It depends on your usage as to what would be best.

If you are happy with what is fitted for now I would just replace with the same as they are fairly cheap and seem to have a reasonable reviews. Being an AT tyre they will be suited for road work and light off road giving the best of both worlds.

I've never had a range rover, but is that rear axle correct? Nearside damper looks ok, but why is offside behind the axle?

EDIT, just looked on t'interweb and seen about it on another forum, why would they design it like that?

manchestershire said:

I've never had a range rover, but is that rear axle correct? Nearside damper looks ok, but why is offside behind the axle?

EDIT, just looked on t'interweb and seen about it on another forum, why would they design it like that?

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I think that’s what threw the garage , he mentioned something about that. I think I’ll leave the axles as they are since no one is saying it’s a complete disaster

dag019 said:

I wire brush/sand it down to remove loose and flaky paint, the a coat of red oxide primer followed by machine enamel (very similar to the tractor paint @tottot recomended). You can get various finishes but even if you get the gloss if will not stay gloss for very long one the bumper of a land rover! Both the red oxide and especially the enamel will need a good few days to properly cure and harden.

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Thanks , for the primer do I have to get all rust off first ? I’m not sure its going to be possible to get all the rust back to bare metal so if not do I have to get some sort of rust remover paint or something ?

Peat76 said:

Thanks , for the primer do I have to get all rust off first ? I’m not sure its going to be possible to get all the rust back to bare metal so if not do I have to get some sort of rust remover paint or something ?

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Remove as much of it as possible. If there is still rust present and you haven’t managed to get it to bare metal it would be worth treating it with a rust converter first before painting. This will chemically react with the rust to form and inert compound that will “stop” the rust from spreading. Then prime and paint.
I cannot recomend a rust converter as I was using a tin of trustan that was from the 70’s I inherited from my grandfather. But I have now finished that and beginning to look into the modern ones myself.

Phosphoric acid has served me well. Rather than some fancy stuff

Well nothing much is happening on my landy. Im still waiting for a quote from the bodyshop for the chassis weld repairs and the garage want that doing before they fix oil leak etc.
In that time I have found both front door seals absolutely ripped to bits so when it rained water has gone all in the footwells.
Are door seals easy to do? Ive watched a video and it looked a right faff.
Oh and my front door barrel replacement fell out at the garage so that was good. (the tiny little screw holding the barrel inplace has apparantly fell out. It looked pretty goosed when i did the barrel so I should have expected it really)

Also just to try and make it look more like a normal land rover I bought a new plastic grill (since they are cheap) as currently it looks like this.

This doesn't seem to look like any other defenders I see driving about and I much prefer the look of the normal defenders with the slopping grill thing.

This is the grill I got. I assumed it would just be put the current screws through the grill and that metal bit and job done.


but when i went out to have a go there's some clip type things on the top edge

where does those bits slot into ? I had a quick look at youtube and the closest thing I found that matched had a moulding that this grill slotted into.
Is my defender missing that moulding or am i being a complete thicko and just havent spotted where the clips slot into?

Cheers

Don't know about the moulding/clips but you could have sprayed the metal one Satin Black.....

Thanks. That looks decent. Looking at yours though has made me think I am being an absolute idiot.
Im guessing now the metal thing just comes off and the plastic grill clips in in its place.
I originally thought the grill goes over the top of the metal mess thingy.

the clip slots should accept the top inner edge of the grille surround in them, it is pretty simples once you look at it.

Cheers

neilly said:

the clip slots should accept the top inner edge of the grille surround in them, it is pretty simples once you look at it.

Cheers

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Cheers, yeah just did it. Hardest part was removing a few rusty screws. I had got myself confused thinking that metal bit had to go underneath rather than the grill is a replacement.

Issues I have now is the previous owner has put 4 extra holes in the top of the moulding to fix that metal mesh thing that aren't used now with the grill. Is there anything I can use to fill those holes? Like is there a metal filler product or something?

Would a pop rivet blank them, and just get a bit of the body colour to paint them. Or some sort of of plastic rivet?