landylewis

New Member
Hi Guys,

I posted in the "Introduce Yourself" section a few months back telling everyone I'd bought my first car, a 1995 Defender hard top.

Just thought I'd share some pictures and let everyone know what I've been doing on it, since people seem interested in reading anything!

When I first got the car it looked like this:





It was in decent condition but just a little bit tired in places! It had been a working car all of it's life, with the last owner using it to transport gun dogs. I am the 5th owner.

When I bought it it had:

  • Full service history for all 137k miles
  • Decent set of Michelin tires
  • Decent-ish attempt of ply lining in the back
  • A dog guard
  • Decent-ish attempt of a wading kit fitted
So far I've:

  • Replaced lots of little accessories (pedal rubbers, wiper arms and blades, rear reflectors, door card clips, rear grab handles, number plates, wiper park switch, handbrake switch, bonnet slam buffers, rear door hinge pins, passenger seat belt and buckle, rear fog light rocker switch) :eek:
  • Mounted the spare wheel on the back door (I know this probably isn't the best idea and a swingaway would be better, but the back door needs replacing in the near future anyway so it's a cheap solution for the time being instead of having the spare lying in the back)
  • Fully cleaned and waxoyl'd the chassis (only found one small hole in the near side front outrigger!)
  • Ground down and painted the rear crossmember
  • Fixed the rear door stay
  • Fixed the door speakers
  • Replaced the exhaust mid pipe and back box
  • Ripped out the ply lining (I plan on getting it done again properly or do it myself very soon)
  • Replaced the radiator and all coolant pipes
  • Fitted some black modular wheels and BF Goodrich All Terrain tires
  • Replaced the rear trailing arm bushes (front and back)
  • Cleaned what seemed like 3 tonne of mud and crap from the chassis and inside (including a bullet, some feathers and plenty of dog hair!)
It's coming along nicely and just passed it's MOT the other day with no advisories! On the previous MOT it had 2 (passenger seatbelt frayed and rear trailing arm bushes worn).

It now looks like this:





I'm so happy with it. I'll keep this thread updated and add more pictures of the repairs I've done if people want to read it.

Cheers :D
 
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Love it - but I'm biased as i have a green 90 hardtop that i crave a set of black modulars for!

Tom
 
Very nice one! Well done on all the work. Mine came with white wheels, I very much want black or graphite ones. Also been prepping my chassis, painted so far, wax to go on.
 
thanks again guys

nice. what size rims are those?

16s, although for some reason I think they look bigger

Very nice one! Well done on all the work. Mine came with white wheels, I very much want black or graphite ones. Also been prepping my chassis, painted so far, wax to go on.

I'd definitely recommend graphite or black wheels, it's really set it off I think. Keep it up on the chassis, mine was pretty red with surface rust but now it's all black :D

Here is a picture of the latest repair:



The tub was cracked here where it attaches to the chassis. Sorted it out with a nice shiny bit of metal, some new bolts, sikaflex and some blind pop rivets for strength then waxoyl'd the lot.
 
Nice bodywork :) Might wanna get some rock / tree sliders to replace those sills though, they dont last long off road.
 
Nice bodywork :) Might wanna get some rock / tree sliders to replace those sills though, they dont last long off road.

The plan is chequer plate sills, they should be a bit stronger shouldn't they? I did fancy tree sliders but I've decided to get chequer plate wing tops so thought I'd continue the chequer plate theme.

Tip top pal get some boot polish on those light surrounds bring them back to black!!

Good idea. I've used back-to-black on them but it fades over time. I'll try some boot polish over the weekend.
 

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