A

Aaron James 1

New Member
Hey all,
So me, my brother and step-father recently took the plunge and decided to buy ourselves a twelve seater 1979 109" Series 3 Land Rover to restore together. We have since been frantically searching through lots of forums trying to work out where to start and how we want the vehicle to look in the end. She was originally painted blue but somewhere in its history has received a generous coating of both black and gold paint, applied with a paint brush!!!!:mad: We are currently in the process of stripping down the vehicle fully so we can repair any rot and build her back up.
I'll start posting pictures up shortly and I hope to get talking to lots of you soon. Any advice or information would be greatly appreciated!!

Cheers
 
Where to start? as in, where to start disassembling? I started with the obvious, doors, bonnet, roof, windscreen, stuff like that. Then i did the front end. Wings, bumper, radiator, rad hoses. I then took the tub off, then the seat box, sills and finally bulkhead. I don't know if you want to go that far with your project, if you do, make sure you paint the chassis up nice, please? :) Full strip down and rebuild of the axles, of course. Paint em up noice. If you disassemble the bulkhead, as in dashboard, all electrical components, that will make the job easier. Bit more work, but makes sure you don't damage anything from the heat from the welder, and everything goes back together nicely. As for chassis repairs, patches work, in the event that the sections are too far gone, you can find replacement parts on the internet for quite cheap, or if you're good at making stuff, build one! Okay, maybe i had an easy life with mine. it was a 90, so less stuff to take off it. Good luck with the project, don't rush anything, take your time, it's not a race. most importantly though, have fun! i did!
 
Welcome. How you get hold of it? They are relatively difficult to find. Good luck with the re-build, sounds like someone tried to do a Tomb Raider paint job. Try to get hold of a workshop manual and parts list. Is it petrol or diesel?
 
Welcome to the forum Aaron and family :)

You should have a lot of fun, my dad had an old Series 3 Safari 109, lots of character :) Ended up sticking in an isuzu engine I think.

As for the paint-job, don't be angry at the brush job, a surprising amount of Defender and Series owners opt for the simple paintbrush technique :D
 
Thanks for all of your replies!!

It was a pretty lucky find on Ebay tbh. It was a project started by somebody else but he had ran out of time to get it done. He managed to strip it down to just the bulkhead, engine and axles before we had it. Lucky for us though he had purchased a large number of new parts for it, doors etc.

Procrastinator Fraser - it's more where to start on the restoration of the parts as the majority are already off of the vehicle. We have started a simple inventory of parts but as we didn't take them off ourselves, it's difficult to know what we are missing etc. Luckily the chassis is in pretty good condition and the previous owner had a new rear cross member welded on. There are a few holes here and there so we will be patching them up shortly.

John S - it's a diesel but we are a little unsure of the size. We know it naturally asperated but the HPI check we did has it down as a 2.5. According to Haynes manuals and everything else, they were 2.25L until 1984ish? Hopefully we can get to the bottom of that soon o_O

FMog - we have a safari roof on ours too, needs a bit of tlc though

Can anyone recommend decent paint strippers to prevent any damage to the aluminium? I've been reading that Nitromors is a lot less effective now that the EU put loads of restrictions on the chemical content etc. Has anybody tried Starchems?
 
I've had two Series III 109s in the past, loved 'em to bits. Just treat it like a giant Meccano set when taking it apart! Hope you have as much fun with yours as I did with mine. Used the first as a daily drive many years ago, the second as workhorse for my business then as well as daily drive. Wish I'd never sold that one but somebody waved a large pile of dosh under my nose. :rolleyes: You'll find several useful threads on paint strippers and respray/repaints if you use the Search facility, can't remember exactly who posted their paint jobs now but there are several really good threads with demo pics and suppliers details for paint and paint strippers etc. Good luck, looking forward to seeing the rebuild.

This site here might help you identify what should be in and on your vehicle as original:
http://seriesdiesellandrover.com/identification numbers.html#1975-1979
 
This is how she looked when we picked her up:
20150801_132334_zpsryhxwwfv.jpg

20150801_132334_zpsryhxwwfv.jpg


And how far we got at the beginning of the week. Wings off, pedals out, brake servo off. Just need to remove steering column and some other bits and bobs to get the bulkhead off:

20150806_133408_zpswnvzp5sn.jpg



20150806_133408_zpswnvzp5sn.jpg
 
Last edited:
I'm not certain, but that could be a 2.5 NAD engine from an early Defender, supposedly they put out the same level of performance as a 2.25 so don't need a great amount changing. What does everyone else think?
 
FMog said:
I'm not certain, but that could be a 2.5 NAD engine from an early Defender, supposedly they put out the same level of performance as a 2.25 so don't need a great amount changing. What does everyone else think?
Click to expand...
Thats good to know. What's the best way to know for sure?
 
Pics are fine now ta - great rolling project there; does look like the 2.5 to me as well based on my own limited knowledge (never take that as a given thought ;)). Again, best of luck and have fun rebuilding it. Look forward to the progress.
 
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