90 Update, Feb 2013

Well, the dent has been repaired faultlessly, with the two complete panels being resprayed  It was done by our local “Chips Away” in a few hours, and they have done a great job.  I also had them spray up a pair of new windscreen to bulkhead clamps, having primed them thoroughly in the hollow rears my self, as one of the original clamps had already succumbed to the typical corrosion they suffer.

I have also had the whole underside and the bulkhead and door voids waxoiled professionally by Rustmaster in Hatfield.  The waxoil that Micheal uses is very different from the shop-bought stuff most of us are familiar with – it has much better inhibitors in it and dries much tougher than the shop stuff.  It dries more like thin asphalt, fairly hard but not brittle and very resistant to abrasion.  It seems really strong stuff, so I expect it to last well.  The shock was the condition of the underside of the 90.  It had looked pretty respectable, with just a little light surface rust here and there, but once all the road grime and small amounts of oil and grease had been removed by a very thorough steam lancing, it was clear that about 20% of the aft chassis and 50% of the rear axle were covered by thin surface rust.  It really does pay to get the treatment done at a very early stage.  I also cleaned up a tinge of surface rust around a couple of the outermost bolt holes in the rear cross member and treated them with Kurust before rubbing down and respraying the whole cross member face – it’s outrageous how thin the factory paint is there and shows well why five year old Defenders normally have complete rust coverage of the cross member – rubbing with the scotch pad just to provide a key went straight through the paint to bare metal in a single pass of the pad!

Ad for the snorkel, I’m now trying to find a sensible insurance company who will allow it to be installed without charging silly money – Tesco gave us a good policy and cheap premium, but won’t allow the snorkel to be fitted at all, and the insurance companies I have tried who will accept it want between two and three hundred pounds a year more than we are paying now.  It’s ridiculous that insurers will refuse cover for the fitting of an accessory on the grounds that it is a modification, even when they concede that if it had been factory fitted off the first buyer’s options list, it would have been accepted at no extra cost!

The pictures show the result of the steam cleaning and the last photo shows the waxoiling partly done – everything underneath other than the engine, gear boxes, exhaust and prop shafts was done.  Wet waxoil doesn’t photograph at all well – it’s much smoother and duller now.