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Sparky
@Sam_Doman
Massive, picture-heavy post:
So, I've had a 1972, 88", diesel series 3 for a while. She's called Dora, and this is her:
I used her as a daily driver, and adventure vehicle for a while, and she never skipped a beat (apart from one time, when the alternator seized and broke the fan belt, but fixed it with shoe laces to get home). Decided we wanted to use her for some winter climbing expeditions, so gave her some much deserved love:
The chassis was very good, but needed a littile bit of welding. Was all painted and waxoyled. Bulkhead is also very good too, with no rust. Rebuilt the head, rebuilt the steering (box, rod ends, swivels etc), fitted new brake lines, hoses, slave seals, drums and shoes all round. Replaced the springs and dampers, and had the injector pump and injectors reconditioned. Also fitted some reconditioned diffs from a discovery, giving a higher final drive ratio for long-distance cruising. When I do jobs like this, I'm pretty thorough, especially if doing something now means not having to do it in the future, so I replaced the Hardy-spicers and wheel bearings too.
After all the work, she drove like a dream, and even topped out at 72mph with the new diffs! We drover her 1800 miles in a week, and carried on using her as a daily driver.
However, she was still a bit tatty, so we (my climbing partner restores classic cars for a living) decided it was worth restoring her properly, with big ideas of an intercontinental over-land trip... So in the spring we stripped her back down, and started. Had the engine and gearbox professionally rebuilt, full nuts and bolts rebuild of the rest of the car, and professional respray. Decided not to replace any of the body panels, as I wanted to keep it as original as possible. It's a 45 year old farm vehicle, at the end of the day, not a concourse show car, and a few little dings and ripples in the aluminium panels shows the character!
My mate, Josh, has done most of the work, and he's very good at what he does. Very happy with it now! Have replaced all the lights etc (not with LEDs, kept it all original, but uprated the headlights), and the wiring is all sorted too. Not shown in the pictures, but also had the roof resprayed. Unfortunately it's cost me too much money, and I'm rebuilding a boat at the moment, so I'm not going to be able to keep it. It's kind of sad, but as I haven't been driving it for a few months, it's slightly easier to let it go. It will all be fully finished in the coming weeks, and I'll photograph it properly. Will be sold with zero hours on the engine, so will include the first service. So this is an advanced opportunity, before it's officially advertised, in case anyone on here is after a restored classic land rover.