KEEPING
DELTAS
DRIVING
Lancia Delta Integrale specialists and enthusiasts
Land Rover
Unexpected events led to me be the new owner of an old Land Rover. Me and the Hilux went to collect the Landy from Leeds.
The Landy fired up first time, with the diesel engine having new heater plugs it started easily. The wagon did drive itself onto the trailer, it was a bit juddery and had no brakes, the old bus was a bit worse for wear. This Landy had been farmer owned,
and was left in a barn for at least 10 years.
With no urgent Delta work waiting, I bought the Land Rover home
and began to assess the task ahead. I wanted to get the
vehicle at least roadworthy. Like most people with a tricky task ahead
I hit Youtube, this was interesting, there is a lot of information
on these vehicles and the many jobs required.
As I watched the vids it was shown that these are a special truck,
there are lots of parts available, and a well turned out Landy
can be a valuable item. I decide to do the best I could
to make this old girl as good as new.
It was like a teenager picking his dad up from
the pub! Hauling the old man home.
The Hilux enjoyed driving the old boy,
showing how 4x4s drive
in the modern world.
You'll notice a little high mounted turbo on the engine, well here's the story.
There was a simple diesel engined Land Rover which was very slow, so for the Defender the engineers fitted a Garratt turbo to this old engine to add some power. It wasn't a success, the turbo overstressed the old diesel engine, and most of these engines had blown up by 60k miles. Land Rover had developed a new diesel engine which was designed to use a turbo.
This new 200tdi engine was retro fitted by LR to many Defenders with a failed turbo motor, some were fitted by the customers themselves.
Our Defender was fitted with a new 200tdi engine at some time, the 200tdi motor is strong
and very durable, it's said to be the best engine Land Rover ever made.
This Land Rover is a 1998 Turbo diesel 90 model,
with hinge opening back door. It's had 1 farming owner from new and has some good parts, not many though!
The first obvious problem was the chassis being rusted beyond repair, this is a common landy problem, new galvanised chassis are available. So I set about stripping the body off the frame.
All panels are aluminium, so everything is just about light enough for this to be a one man job. Every rusty bolt could be undone without shearing them, this is quality British metal and a nice surprise, after suffering many sheared bolts on Integrales.
I drove the landy into the garage one last time, I removed the rear tub with the engine crane. Then the seat box, which really is just a box
then I removed the bulkhead. The bulkhead is the fence post that the rest of the wagon hangs on, the rest of the bodywork's aluminium, but the bulkhead is a pressed steel sandwich fabrication, this corrodes from the inside out and can get very rusty. It's also quite heavy.
The body is in sections, all have to be bolted to its neighbour, then bolted to the bulkhead.
With the bodywork removed, I pushed the chassis outside and gave it
a pressure wash. then I pushed it back in and removed everything else.
There are some big lumps on that chassis, the gearbox unit is very heavy. Everything else had to be removed ready for the new chassis.
With everything finally removed, I shoved the chassis outside,
I optimistically listed it on ebay for £85, but no one was interested.
I cut it up and Hiluxed it to the scrapyard, I got £50.
I did some internet research, and asked a
Land Rover rebuilder, Richards Chassis were the general favourite, accurate body mounts seemed most important, and Richards's were good. After a helpful chat and payment when the unit was built, the frame was delivered.
We pulled it up the driveway and into the garage using the yard's old Slingsby trolley.
The chassis is just about a 2 man lift.
The Defender 90 was introduced in 1984, despite the 90 name the wheelbase is 93 inches. The Defender has coil springs and radius arms which are a big improvement over the previous 'Series' model's leaf springs. I have fitted many new parts to our Defender,
like big rubber bushes for the radius arms and new spring and shocker mounts. All parts fitted well to the Richards chassis,
all holes and mountings in the right places.
Our Defender seems to have suffered some kind of trauma to the driver's side, there's a new offside front wing and the
fuel tank under the driver's seat is almost new. I've renewed shocks and axle parts with new standard items.
So I'll continue with the rebuild and keep this site updated.
Thank you for reading about our Land Rover project, I'm enjoying the big spanner work
and the wide open spaces making access easy. See you next time.