Painting

I have stripped the Defender bonnet of its hinges, catches, buffers and noise blanket ready for painting. I recalled seeing the lightest of surface rust on the burrs of the frame edges when I bought it at Billing 18 montsh ago, and expected to find worse behind the original noise balnket (black pressed fibre type). In fact, despite being sttod uncovered in the garden ever since, there is no trace of rust or ali corrosion anywhere – looks like I got a good’un. I’ll spray the frame with black enamel and fit the Noise Killer material to the underside (same as on the bulkhead), then refit the original noise lining after tidying it up a little and cutting in some holes to create noise trapping cavities between it and the NK blanket. Once that is fitted, it’ll go for painting.

I’m still undecided about fitting a spare wheel mount to the bonnet. I like the look and the practicality of at least 2 spares for an exped vehicle, and am not concerned about the weight lifting the bonnet. I do, however, have reservations about driver visibilty over the bonnet spare. I’ll have to take a trip to Rogers and try it out on one of theirs. I need to make my mind up soon, as I plan to have it painted within the next 3 weeks.

I have booked the 2 previously painted doors in for remedial work on Friday (there are some defects in the paint, and I damaged the coating on the front door). I should get them back next week. I can then build them back up (and clear 2 more big boxes of bits from the garage and 2 sheets of galss from the hallway in the process).

All the door and bonnet hinges will be painted up at the same time – I stripped, checked and chemically cleaned the hinges today. Both front top hinges are relatively new (1 unused), while the bottoms are less than 5 years old and checked to be in mint condition. The rear hinges were disassembled to replace the pins and brass balls – the new parts will be fitted after painting.