The eighteen months of our Land Rover restoration project brought us into contact with many people who in their own…
Category Archives: 3. Restoration: Focussing on the basic mechanical and body work
When you buy a fifteen year old 4×4 in Africa you can expect that a major effort and expense will be required to gain something that is at the same time functional, comfortable and aesthetically pleasing. Our plan for the actual journey through West Africa, which will be the focus of Stage III, will require not only basic mobility functionality but also outfitting for long-term camping and survival in remote locations. It should take the year and a half remaining in my posting to Ghana to tear down and rebuild the vehicle, including restoring or replacing the motor, the gearbox, etc; complete all the exterior work such as repainting and replacement of all the trim, completely redoing both the interior including repainting, soundproofing, carpeting and upholstering. That does not include outfitting for the journey, which merits a whole category unto itself.
Finishing the Interior: Carpet and Roof Liner
With the soundproofing in we could then do the ceiling and the floor covering. For the latter we had decided…
Looking Back at a Year of Restoration
It has now been a year since we took delivery of the an old Land Rover Defender in very poor…
Queen Victoria’s Carriage Steps
All 4x4s have plenty of ground clearance, in our case there is 18″ between the bottom of the front door and…
Painted at Last – What a Great Looking Water Delivery Van
We got the Defender back on Saturday, painted at last. The colour is exactly what we wanted. …
Demoblization
Almost two years ago when this blog was started just before we purchased the beat-up 15+ year old Land Rover…
Putting it back together post-Painting
I just had a very productive weekend. I took the Defender up to the Land Rover farm on Saturday for…
Finishing the Interior: Soundproofing
What with all the body work and painting of the past six months most of the interior and exterior…
Restoration of the Seats
When we bought the Defender in February last year the original seats were in a pretty sorry state.  The…
Still Getting Ready to Paint…..
So we finally delivered the Defender to Bernard at Sikkens (Kolours) for painting on November 19, complete with the roof…