Scruffy old Land Rover UPD@TE with failed Wayne Carini attempt and H&H auction chod

[cros]

Heres the 107 series 1 which gave me 8 years of service. Taken before I'd had time to finish it, I made the body as low as possible as I carried a lot of heavy fence posts and worked from the vehicle. It had an early Transit Di, and was on ebay a while back- according to the description the engine had gone on to give another 8 years service without problems. The tractor is a D8 which I drove for a contractor. I'm well out of touch but I don't think they use this sort of thing these days, sadly. As for the caravan, it was a no hoper, the body had de-laminated, but it did have a cocktail cabinet. Luxury after previous years of sleeping in the back of a 109 hardtop landrover.

  The other picture is all I can find of the finished 107.

[cros]

Just remembered the 107 came from somewhere on the east coast. It was in the playground of a caravan site and painted white. I presume it had been off the road for a while as the number was long gone and there were no brakes on the front axle- not as in they didn't work, but as in the mechanism had been completely removed. There were some oddities about it - because it was from the first year of manufacture (1954) the chassis was different to the later types which were altered to accomodate the station wagon body. It came with a bench seat in the front which was similar to the station wagon type. 

[scruff]

Hello gang

 

Well as a few of you know towards the end of last year I decided to part company with the old Landy. This was not a decision taken lightly and has not been entirely straightforward as you will soon see!!

 

Basically it boils down to a few things. I've had old leaf sprung Landies non stop since I was 17 and, don't get me wrong, have had a great time with them and made loads of friends (plus a job). However I am desperate for a change, I've always wanted (for example) an Austin 7 to play with. Also the whole LR scene now just pisses me off, people on my wavelength seem to be diminishing.

 

Also of course is the KRAZY price situation with early Land Rovers now. It's gone mental!! Never in my wildest dreams did I think these old crates would fetch so much. So I swallowed my morals and decided to cash in!! Real enthusiasts don't do that so I'm told, well fuck em, there's more to life than old Landies and I would be lying if I said a few quid would not considerably ease life at the moment, so after talking it over with the wife I got some advice on pricing and kinda half heartedly advertised it for sale.

 

Then someone suggested an auction, this seemed a good idea, Series ones have been making good money and mine ticks all the provenance boxes and stuff. I duly booked it in the H&H sale at Donington Park in November. This was promptly cancelled and moved to Chateau Impney in December... I was a bit concerned about it being close to Christmas but thought it would be a nice day out if nothing else.

 

We took it down there a couple of days beforehand on a trailer behind the RR, further cementing my status as "not a real enthusiast"

 

 

 

Some nice company...

 

A few days later we went back to the sale itself, giddy with anticipation.

 

 

They had put mine and another 80 either side of the entrance. The other one was nice enough but full of filler.

 

 

Some more lots:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The crowds were quite big by the time the sale kicked off, with the bikes. Hardly anything sold. Initial thoughts were the auctioneers were not quite as slick as the ones you see on telly.

 

Then came the cars. Again lots of no sales. Hmm

 

Ours began with an online bid of £8k. Stalled at 13 just shy of the reserve. Bugger. 

 

Went to see the sales office after to see if a deal had been done and the fuckers had been bidding off the wall. No genuine bids! Well that's the game I suppose. 

 

So quite disappointed we hung about to see a few choice items not sell then loaded up and came home.

 

I then pondered things for a bit and kinda decided maybe to keep it, then one day thought I'd try on eBay. I still wasn't 100% so I stuck what I probably subconsciously considered was a daft reserve on it and a starting bid of a grand. It's pretty close to the reserve with 24 hours to go so I'm crossing my fingers. 

[andrew e]

And.....? I have an irrational distrust of specialist auction houses, and you have just cemented that feeling. Serious question time, how are you getting on with the Austin 7? Are the clubs and parts people as easy as it seems?

[PiperCub]

A purple gasser-style A35?

 

I think I've seen it all now! 

 

Was the MG Maestro one of those with a speaking dashboard?

[scruff]

Yes it was!!

 

I haven't got one yet Andrew, I need to sell this first. I do have a couple in mind and from chats the folk all seem very nice. 

[djimbob]

What a brilliant thread, thanks for sharing, shame these enthusiast types can't just chillax and have some fun, like you say life is too short to adhere to all these fucking rules they're only cars at the end of the day

 

I'm more interested in what clever chaps in sheds the world over do to improve on the original designs, nowt wrong with that I reckon, and good fun to boot, looks like you had a great time with your Landies, long may you continue to enjoy whatever you decide to play with next, and I'm eager to read the next installment

[Jon]

Jeepers (sorry, LandRoverers), I knew that S1s were pricey nowadays but I genuinely had no idea a 'scruffy' example would command such dollar - also, please don't be offended, as I'd much rather pootle around in a careworn one than a yawn-inducing shiny green one with wob. I'm going to be sad to see this leave the fold, as I've been living vicariously through your ownership, though maybe it's a sign to seek out my own.....

 

Perhaps it really is time for me to dig a little deeper when window shopping though, as it seems that around £2000-3000ish is about starting price for a roadworthy one here, though naturally they often modified and don't stay available too long!

 

There's a '57 station wagon project at £3000 locally if you want to spend the proceeds on the sale of yours to buy another to sell on?!

[cros]

I told a lie earlier when I said I'd replaced my series 1 diffs, I only changed the rear one to a 3.54, leaving the original 4.7 one in the front axle. To avoid unpleasantness when engaging four wheel drive I finally got round to correcting this anomaly. I'm told early Freelanders have different ratio differentials front and rear and this gives no trouble at all....

 

The centre of the front axle appears to have remained undisturbed since it began life 1957 and was a bit dusty;

 Doing this job usually involves removal of hubs, but by unbolting the entire swivel housing (best not to leave it hanging from the brake hoses)

the halfshafts can be withdrawn enough to allow the diff to be unbolted.

After a bit of a clean up (only a bit) an ex-Discovery diff is shoved in and the prop shaft can be re-connected, a fun job carried out in the squalor of my workshop.