Welcome to the build thread of my 1998 Defender 90 300tdi pick up restoration, so when the vehicle was bought it looked all perfect and straight from the outside, but we knew there was going to be a mess underneath with the vehicle being 'off farm' condition, the strip down of the vehicle proved this to us.
after buying the defender we thought it right to treat it to some freshly refurbished wheels (bought these before the actual vehicle its self!) and a set of new mud terrain tyres seen as it was coming up to winter and we wanted to play in the snow!






So once the snow had gone we realised it was time to start stripping the land rover down to find the extent of the rot underneath the perfectly straight body.


After all the body panels were taken off we could easily see that pretty much all the suspension and drivetrain parts would need a lot of work to see them looking nice and shiny, at this point we figured an investment in a 20 gallon blast pot and 1 tonne of crushed glass blast media probably wouldn't go a miss as the current blast cabinet wasn't really up to the job, the results were pretty amazing to be quite honest.


The plan for this build is to pretty much galvanise anything that can be galvanised, hopefully a new galvanised chassis will be a starting point, then any steel brackets, including radius arms and trailing arms, A-frame and shock mounts will also be galvanised, including the bulkhead which as could be seen from the pictures needed new foot wells putting in which was the next job on the list. (the shock mounts as pictured will be galvanised, however due to the plan to put +5" shocks on they wont be used as we're needing to put the +5" shock brackets in (which will also be galvanised) so they will be left spare, if anyone wants to purchase these send me a message on here, i'll be happy to post them too)

The bulkhead foot wells have now been both replaced properly, the bulkhead is now ready for galvanising as the blasting of this has already been done (forgot to take a picture, I'll add one when I get chance)
so this is as far as we have got so far, hopefully next weekend the engine and box will be lifted out and cleaned up a little, including new gaskets and seals where necessary, and a new clutch and timing belt kit fitted for safe measure, I will try to keep you all regularly updated with any changes to the vehicle, thanks for reading, any tips and tricks to aid this full restoration will be much appreciated!

Looks tidy from the outside, how deceiving things can be ay
Good look with the rebuild and I look forwards to more updates

Looking forward to seeing how this rebuild pans out!

Dont forget any closed in sections will need holes drilling each end, trailing arms etc as they can explode in the zinc tank.

Looks like this will be a good 1 good luck fella.

lynall said:

Dont forget any closed in sections will need holes drilling each end, trailing arms etc as they can explode in the zinc tank.

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Ahh I never actually thought about that! thanks for the advice!

Looking great following you're thread with great interest [emoji106][emoji106]

Just goes to show what looks like a really nice Truck can turn into a bag of worms
Good luck with the rebuild
Looking forward to seeing more as it develops

Tremendous. Have you made a decision about the make of chassis yet? Looks like you have the set up and skills to make a great job of it. Keep the posts coming and remember, 'pictures paint a thousand words'

Al2O3 said:

Tremendous. Have you made a decision about the make of chassis yet? Looks like you have the set up and skills to make a great job of it. Keep the posts coming and remember, 'pictures paint a thousand words'

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Haha i'll make sure to add plenty of pictures! I know too well reading a thread without pictures can soon become a choor, much more pleasurable being able to see the rebuilds happening!
as for the chassis I will be more than likely going with marslands chassis, not much in the reasoning for this to be honest as there is not much between any competitors

Something I never got a picture of and forgot to mention was that when I was removing the radius arms, and trailing arms for that matter, they were both ridiculous hard to get off, had to use the 1" drive air gun on them, this resulted in completely stripping the threads on one of the radius arms, if anyone has a spare radius arm or even a pair and they're near Sheffield i'd be happy to come and buy it off them, i'll upload pictures on saturday

nice! there's a members vehicles section now so these posts don't get lost.

prob wise to hit the warning icon and ask beasty to move the thread and tweak the title

trax said:

nice! there's a members vehicles section now so these posts don't get lost.

prob wise to hit the warning icon and ask beasty to move the thread and tweak the title

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So let it be written....so let it be done

blue beasty said:

So let it be written....so let it be done

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buy BB 4 fish and chippy suppers and a case of bud to go with it!



.... waits for it to be done .....

trax said:

buy BB 4 fish and chippy suppers and a case of bud to go with it!



.... waits for it to be done .....

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Very kind but really there's no need

S884 said:

Something I never got a picture of and forgot to mention was that when I was removing the radius arms, and trailing arms for that matter, they were both ridiculous hard to get off, had to use the 1" drive air gun on them, this resulted in completely stripping the threads on one of the radius arms, if anyone has a spare radius arm or even a pair and they're near Sheffield i'd be happy to come and buy it off them, i'll upload pictures on saturday

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Are you in any rush for the radius arms ? I've got a pair I've recently galvanised waiting to go on mine, when I get chance.so I'll have a set spare, can get em galved too.

XRIZLAX said:

Are you in any rush for the radius arms ? I've got a pair I've recently galvanised waiting to go on mine, when I get chance.so I'll have a set spare, can get em galved too.

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not in a major rush no, will depend on how much you can do me them for as currently bidding on a pair on flea bay

So been on with the land rover again today, we didn't manage to get a real lot done today though because of how much hard work everything sempt to be however I got plenty of pictures none the less!

So decided we would try and tackle the axles to see where we could get, figured that we would be best starting with the callipers, turns out what should of been an easy job was actually a nightmare! the axles needed a lot doing anyway just by looking at them.



From first glance It was obvious things might be a struggle



After a massive battle struggling to get the calliper off the vehicle we then started to attempt disassembly, which was just as difficult, if we hadn't of been able to heat the calliper up we'd of been screwed!





After the calliper was split it was off to the blast cabinet to get it cleaned up and ready for paint, will more than likely paint these one night this week, in a nice bright yellow



Didn't remember to take any pictures of the blasted callipers but I may add these tomorrow if I get chance, got a picture of the blasted bulkhead though which is ready to go for galving.



So due to the suspension lift The vehicle will have we decided to buy some +2 tubular shock turrets, got them pretty cheap off fleabay then they turned up and they were just standard size! still blasted them and they will be going to get galvanised but I wont be using them, if anyone is interested in them send me a message



So that's pretty much it for todays update, however I am free tomorrow so I'll probably be able to get more done and give you all another update in the evening, hopefully by then the callipers will be fully ready for paint and maybe even have their first coat on given the chance to go out and buy some paint

So managed to carry on with the landrover today, started off by removing the last calliper that we left yesterday as it was such a struggle, got it off using allsorts of methods, ended up having to remove studs from the calliper where the bolt had been cut, thought this would be a nightmare but with a pair of stillsons they came out as easy as anything just goes to show what using the right tool can achieve



Then we got to work stripping down all the callipers so that could be blasted and cleaned up before having a layer of etch primer put on, went out to buy some yellow smoothrite but couldn't get hold of any so have ordered it in off of the internet.





Invested in a full set of stainless steel pistons as well to put in the callipers whilst they are being rebuilt, have to say only one of the brakes was properly working before so there should be a lot of difference with these finished!



Ordered loads of parts recently that are necessary to the rebuild, however decided to treat ourselves and order a few little trick bit to put back on the land rover as well, these include a set of LED gauges and a rolled exhaust tip for the soon to be side exit (behind passenger door) straight through exhaust pipe

There are a lot of very rusty, crusty bits of Land Rover there. It looks like it has lived at the seaside judging by the corrosion. It's amazing the difference the blast cabinet makes.

Good progress so far