Progress is Slow

In all honesty, I think I must have spent the best part of 4-500hours on this rebuild alone, but that doesn’t include rebuilding the overdrive, engine or front axle, or fitting the sunroof, Defender doors or seatbelts previously (refitting will be simple because of the previos mods). A lot of time is spent on dull, repetitive tasks like the filling and sanding I’ve just been doing, and bteween 10 and 20% of the total project time has been spent sitting, looking at a job and wondering how the hell I’m going to do it (sometimes because I haven’t done it before, sometimes because it’s a unique mod, sometimes because I have to find a new way as I don’t have the normally requred facilities or tools). A good example is spending almost an entire day figuring out where to fit the air filter and how to connect the snorkel. Electrics require an awful lot of sitting and tea.

The time and expense is enormous, and this level of work is for the commited only, but there’s no rocket science to it. Anyone could do it so long as they have the time, space and (some) money. An understanding partner and neighbourhood helps too. It’seasier and cheaper if you go for a project based on a fairly common vehicle of standard spec, like a 4cyl SIII, where parts are easy to obtain, new or used, and the vehicle design is simple.

What is costing me the most time and money is all the modification work. Rebuilding a Land Rover to a more standard specification would save about 70% of my time and expense, but that’s the beauty of Land Rovers; you can do all sorts of tailoring to your own desire without changing the fundamental character of the vehicle.