Tayside Classic Car Club

Further progress (if you can call it that) on my 72 Range Rover. This car is full of surprises-as soon as I think I have finished the welding, another hole appears.

I had planned NOT to remove the wings, but I noticed that the carpet was wet in the footwell. After removing the lower dash, cutting out miles of defunct wiring and removing a dead Carlos Fandango graphic equaliser I found the lower bulkhead was a wee bit porous. I removed both front wings, bonnet and screen scuttle to reveal another 6 hours welding. It seems that the BL designers engineered in as many mud traps as possible. In a bid to halt the monster rust, all the panels I have welded in have been treated with “metalmorphosis”. I have tried many rust curing preparations over the years and this is the best-paint it on, within 30 minutes it is dry,black and stabilised, and can be finished and primed.

here is the link    Land rover Defender,Discovery,Range Rover chassis Rust treatment 2 Litre pack | eBay

I bought a 1 ltr bottle-I think 1 ltr would coat a whole Lancia Beta, so no need to buy any more!

The rear section of the Range Rover, known as the “goalpost” is the the frame that holds the tailgates and ties the body to the roof. On early cars it is bolted on, but on my donor car in pic(bought at last weeks Morris Leslie sale) it was spotted on, so I had to drill out every spot weld and dress it off. It was worth the effort as there are no replacement panels for these. In the pics you can see the two cars back to back with the goalposts clamped on to trial fit. at the moment it fits like a sock on a rooster, but I have a hammer…..

Another small job (gritted teeth) was a couple of coolant leaks. While I am waiting for body panels to arrive I decided to replace all the hoses. The thermostat housing outlet, water pump outlet and bypass hose outlet were all so badly corroded you could not get a hose to seal on them. the water pump and stat housing were fairly easy, but the bypass hose outlet is in the rear of the timing cover… I had to remove sump, dizzy, timing cover. I managed a repair, as BL had thoughtfully fitted two bypass outlets and plugged one with a steel core plug, so I swapped the core plug, filled the back with tiger seal, and the flushed over the core plug inside with good old chemical metal-just waiting for a new bottom end gasket set and it can go back together…

Tony Allen