January 2013 Update

A few things on the brink, now, so here’s where everything stands.

Helena’s 90 is going to Rustmaster in Hatfield in February .  They seem to have a good reputation and are quite content for me to watch and photograph the work.  I have fitted security hinges to the bonnet, as the humped bonnets are prone to theft, and will be fitting the Safari snorkel quite soon.  Helena is really pleased with the car, which is good news after all the hassle getting hold of it.

The 109 is going well.  The speedo has been recallibrated and seems about right, though I haven’t measured it against another car at a known speed yet.  The dash work to cure the temperature and fuel gauges over-reading with the lights on worked – I think it was the earth connection (bolt) from the loom to the foot well/steering box bracket that was poor, but the entire dash earthing was replaced except the main wire, and that got its ends trimmed, re-stripped and new terminals.  The pioneer tools were all cleaned up and repainted, and are now back in their rightful places.

Helena bought me a pair of Masai windows for Christmas back in November, but they were waiting on the stock to arrive from Turkey.  They arrived just a week ago.  They’ll be going on once Helena’s snorkel has been fitted, and after that I’ll be re-routing the wing mirror heating wires in a prototyping effort before fitting the same heaters to the 90 – we don’t want any visible wires on that one.   I will also be buying LED indicator bulbs as the orange incandescent bulbs keep fading.  The problem is that these LEDs need to have ballast resistors to keep the flash rate correct, but SuperLEDS have a new product coming on line imminently for that, so sourcing them should be easy enough.  I have also decided not to bother with replacing the roof bag – I’ll be boarding out the front half of the rack with chequer plate, just like the rear, but with a hole aligned with the sunroof.  The rack will have that section cut away so that the sunroof can be used as an escape route in an accident.

The Range Rover is now in our garage, SORNed and awaiting its strip down.I bought a second hand Southdown tow hitch system for it which will mean that I don’t have something resembling the Forth Bridge at the back of the car – it’s a much more discrete system that is almost invisible when not in use; the mounting and receiver stay in place, but the drop plate and hitch are quick release items secured by one hefty pin, so it takes seconds to remove or refit the visible parts.  The towing electrics will be hidden behind the bumper.  I have also found the body shop which will deal with refurbishing the exterior panels and the painting: Auto Effects in Barton Le Clay.  They were recommended by a local E-Type specialist, and the great news is that the boss is a Range Rover fan, and as a former Wood & Pickett worker, very experienced in them too.  He explained his plans for the various panels, which were far more insightful and detailed than the other shops I visited, and his estimate was very good too.  I’m going to try to slowly accumulate the hard to find parts for the rebuild, but work won’t start until the 90 and 109 are done as I plan to do this mostly off the credit card.  Meanwhile, I’m reading articles on forums and in magazines about RRC rebuilds to get an idea of what lays ahead – I know I have to replace the boot floor and its flanges, and probably the rear cross member, and there’s a lot of good information out there already on how to do it.   I’m also thinking of how to rejig this site to accommodate the rebuild – the way the index works at the moment won’t really work once I get under way as it’s geared around one vehicle, with just one header for the other vehicles like this RR.