Allow me to introduce myself and my new Land Rover a 1962 Series 2a 88" . This has been a loooong time coming, having not been particularly searching for an old Landy, but is a hugely welcome addition to the fleet. I will confess I absolutely love it! Much more so than I thought I would seeing as it's 30 years since I last played with a Series Land Rover.

I have only had it since Christmas but have been very much enjoying getting to know it's inner workings. It was acquired as a non-running project needing work, any MoT long since expired and my investigations have turned up a number of queries I am hoping the collective knowledge of LandyZone can resolve.

It appears to be a generally straight and honest example of an 'a' suffix chassis number car that has been largely un-messed with, e.g. it is still +ve earth electrics and has no seatbelts. There are some upgrades - the most obvious being the chequer plate wing toppers - plus some period upgrades like a round Smiths heater; updated rear lights (now larger Lucas L551 items with matching indicator and additional reversing lights); and a plethora of additional dashboard gauges.....

I prefer my vehicles to be largely to original specification and would like to understand what this particular Series 2a would have looked like when new - I can then decide what of it's upgrades to keep and what to replace with original parts.

The questions:-
What would the original dashboard have looked like? A combined fuel and ammeter? plus lights for oil, ignition and choke? (plus the combined ign. & lights switch, +ve & -ve plug sockets and speedo). was there a switch to illuminate the panel? Can anyone link to an accurate photo of a correct 1962 Series 2a dash please?

I think my car has always and should always have had indicators - should there be a tell-tale light on the dash somewhere to blink when the indicators are flashing? if so, where?
Is it possible to get new wheels for the indicator cancelling mechanism? or replacement 'tyres'? the rubber on mine is toasted.

My car has the correct (I believe) individual wiper motors on the 'screen. There are also washer jets, but nothing else other than an old disused accessory washer pump on the bulkhead. Would it originally have had windscreen washers? foot operated pumper or electric? and if so what reservoir and switch would it have had, where would it have been mounted? what would the switch look like and where would it be mounted?

My car has the round Smiths heater, with the 2 heater controls together under the dash - a rotary control for the heater fan speed and a cable for heat - but nothing to connect it to! What sort of heater control valve should my car have had? and where should it be mounted on the engine?

Is there any way to tell whether my car was originally supplied with a hard top or canvas top? Having contacted a previous owner from the late '80s he recalled the car was a hard top but it's clearly not now! How can I tell what it was originally?



There are bound to be lots more queries over the ensuing weeks as I coax the old girl back into a semblance of functionality, so I will leave it there for now. Thanks in advance to anyone that takes the time to reply to such a load of basic, newbie questions! I am loving learning about this Land Rover and thrilled to have the chance to bring one back to the road

Very nice. I'm afraid I'm not familiar with specifics of S2's but it looks lovely all the same. Enjoy and welcome.

Hi angello,that looks an unmolested Landy.
A pic of the inside would help.Inicator repeater light would be in the switch on the colume.
The basic model would have come with no heater and wiper only on the drivers side.Screen washer would be an add on from the mid 60's when all vehicles without them had to be retrofitted. My 63 has a hand pump on the dash.
However the front grill is of series 2 type with projecting headlamps.What does it say on the identification plate on the bulkhead?

Looks very straight and neat.

Dont like the plating on the wings though and I get the feeling you prob dont either.

More pics as already stated may help with your question about the hard/soft top.

I have both for mine...came out of the factory in 75 with its hard top...bought the soft top gear soon after.

I have been its only owner.

Nick.

Hi and welcome.

For a small fee you can obtain a Heritage Certificate from the British Motor Museum at Gaydon. This will provide you with the original build spec (body type), colour, retailing dealer and often extras fitted such at passenger windscreen wiper. As you're probably well aware already, most Land Rovers have been 'upgraded' over time by previous owners who have used the vehicle as a tool. James Taylor has written specification guides for the various Land Rover models. These are very comprehensive and well illustrated - worth a purchase!

It looks like a nice little honest Land Rover you've found. Enjoy!

De green bit connected to de green bit.
De duck egg bit connected to de black bit.
So say de word o de lord.

Nice trattor.

Thanks for the welcome
It does seem to be generally unmolested, which certainly appeals to me. I agree on the chequer plate on the wings - not to my taste either and I will be investigating the viability of removing it!

A Heritage Certificate is a good idea, I'll look into that.

I have found a source for the rubber tyre for the Tex Magna indicator switch on eBay HERE so will pick up one of those and tick one item off my list.

Here is a shot of my somewhat faded VIN plate - it isn't easy to make out but it says "Land Rover 88" Series II A" and the stamped vehicle number begins 241 and ends in 'a'. Its on the bulkhead in front of the gear lever.



This is a shot of the dashboard.... and it's fancy upgraded additional instrument and switch panel above. My car clearly used to have a hard top at some point as there are switches for rear interior lights and heated rear window! Not much use now! You can see how the original 4" Land Rover combined ammeter and fuel gauge has been replaced by a rev counter and a clock has been inserted between the two. The clock will be going to make way for a Smiths temperature gauge (to match the additional instruments above). Clearly there is a fair amount of work to do here, stripping out redundant wiring, tidying up what is left and getting it all working properly. I may even junk the whole lot and try and pick up a correct Land Rover combined instrument and revert to original...... undecided yet. Any opinions?
Plenty of work to do on the wiring though.





Speaking of the dash - what the heck is this?? (circled in red) Whatever knob / front portion it had is missing but the little thing sticking out of the middle is the end of a what looks like the square drive on the end of a speedo cable, with the flexible portion disappearing off inside! There is a long speedometer like cable sheath running from the back of this thing down the side of the engine bay and all the way up to in front of the radiator, almost where the bonnet catch is, where whatever was on the end of it is also missing. What on earth could it be for?





Lastly a picture from the rear where you can see the upgraded rear lights and additional reversing lights. Again, am undecided as to whether to keep these or replace with original yet.... they actually quite suit the Land Rover and look pretty good in my opinion. Can anyone confirm what the correct lights would have been on the back?

Choke cable?? Have got the same thing in my now diesel series 3

The number plate lame is not chrome...should be black.

Could it have been originally a diesel and that unusual thing was the engine pull stop? Clutching at straws really.

Clearly some previous owner liked their clocks and gauges! - perhaps they worked in a power station

Sounds far to long to be a diesel engine stop.
Wonder if a PO had a retracting rad blind fitted and the was the control.

I would keep the lights for now, they work and you can change them later if you don't like them. Reversing lights are really handy. I rather like the extra dash panel, few Series are alike after 50 years and few individual touches can be nice, other wise its just a row of identical vehicles. I think the way the classic car scene is going is interesting, exact (rivet counting) restoration seems to be going out of fashion with either unrestored "patina" being in or "re-imagined" classics with uprated engines and brakes. the thing about patina is once it gone its gone.

For an example of what you might learn for the fee of a BMI heritage certificate, see http://spannersonthefen.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/bmi-heritage-certificate.html

e.g. "hood (top) - Not Applicable", may leave you none the wiser, as it did me.

I paid for the Military spec sheet for mine from the REME archives, had a similar exprience, while some seem to have lots of detail mine pretty much told me it was a Landrover.

Just in case you didn't know and hadn't found it there is a Series II owners club http://www.series2club.co.uk/public_pages/index.php with some knowledgeable people on there (not to say that LandyZone isn't full of knowledgeable members!). Looks a very nice vehicle; I frequently regret selling my IIa, they are loads of fun. Good luck with it.

nickjaxe said:

Sounds far to long to be a diesel engine stop.
Wonder if a PO had a retracting rad blind fitted and the was the control.

Click to expand...

That thing is bugging the hell out of me, I feel sure I've seen something like it before but I can't remember what or where...
I don't think it is anything to do with a rad blind; the same idea popped into my head only to be quickly rejected. I once fitted a roller rad blind for a customer many moons ago and at the operator end the cable it had one of those chains made of tiny silver balls. The idea being that the operator could select the length of cable and hence the amount of coverage of the rad by the blind and then slot the balls into a little slit, holding the position. This thing has, according to the OP a speedo cable type of thing. I wonder if he can pull the inner cable out and post a pic of it or at least confirm what it is?

Yeah, it's bugging me too! Here are some more close up pictures - you can see the square drive end on the end of the cable. As said, it terminates (looks like it has been cut off maybe?) in front of the radiator, near the top and there is nothing in that region it could have terminated into. Radiator blind was also one of thoughts I had.




Thanks for the pointers on Series 2 Club - lots of useful info there! Will look into that further too.

I'm on there too, they're really very friendly and helpful You'd be welcome.

I had a thing like that on a 1960s Jaguar, it was a manual wind up aerial. Looks very similar.

angello said:

Thanks for the welcome
It does seem to be generally unmolested, which certainly appeals to me. I agree on the chequer plate on the wings - not to my taste either and I will be investigating the viability of removing it!

A Heritage Certificate is a good idea, I'll look into that.

I have found a source for the rubber tyre for the Tex Magna indicator switch on eBay HERE so will pick up one of those and tick one item off my list.

Here is a shot of my somewhat faded VIN plate - it isn't easy to make out but it says "Land Rover 88" Series II A" and the stamped vehicle number begins 241 and ends in 'a'. Its on the bulkhead in front of the gear lever.



This is a shot of the dashboard.... and it's fancy upgraded additional instrument and switch panel above. My car clearly used to have a hard top at some point as there are switches for rear interior lights and heated rear window! Not much use now! You can see how the original 4" Land Rover combined ammeter and fuel gauge has been replaced by a rev counter and a clock has been inserted between the two. The clock will be going to make way for a Smiths temperature gauge (to match the additional instruments above). Clearly there is a fair amount of work to do here, stripping out redundant wiring, tidying up what is left and getting it all working properly. I may even junk the whole lot and try and pick up a correct Land Rover combined instrument and revert to original...... undecided yet. Any opinions?
Plenty of work to do on the wiring though.





Speaking of the dash - what the heck is this?? (circled in red) Whatever knob / front portion it had is missing but the little thing sticking out of the middle is the end of a what looks like the square drive on the end of a speedo cable, with the flexible portion disappearing off inside! There is a long speedometer like cable sheath running from the back of this thing down the side of the engine bay and all the way up to in front of the radiator, almost where the bonnet catch is, where whatever was on the end of it is also missing. What on earth could it be for?





Lastly a picture from the rear where you can see the upgraded rear lights and additional reversing lights. Again, am undecided as to whether to keep these or replace with original yet.... they actually quite suit the Land Rover and look pretty good in my opinion. Can anyone confirm what the correct lights would have been on the back?

Click to expand...

That could have been for a radiator blind