The oldest Land-Rover Series 3 around - new boots arrived

[mat_the_cat]

Tyres removed, and prior to wire brushing.

Rust has crept into the seam, so unable to mechanically remove. My plan is to dunk in Bilt Hamber Deox C, and allow to remove the rust over a day or two.

It works much faster when warm, but after 12 hours still has more to do. But looking a helluva lot better already!

[mat_the_cat]

After a little while longer it's all gone.

TBH, I was using it at the minimum strength of 1 kg to 20 water, so have ordered a bit more so I can do them faster. Still, it's not a bad result for little effort; all I did with the wire brush was to remove any flaking rust and paint.

I've now put a coat of galvanising primer on, and moved onto the next wheel.

[mat_the_cat]

Eventually I got all 4 wheels clear of rust, and painted with galv primer. It made sense to get the tyres fitted at that stage, before the top coat in case of damage. 

No in-progress photos I'm afraid, but I painted them in 2-pack ivory colour, LRC354. My first time with 2k and I was worried about the paint setting in the can so gave rather a heavy couple of coats. So there are a few runs, but looks so much better!

[mat_the_cat]

It's been ages since I updated this, but the reality is that nothing really has needed to be done on it. Only thing I can think of is the rear crossmember, replaced before I bought it, had started to rust already - actually looking worse than the original chassis. It also had hinge points for a tailgate, which are not required. So I lopped them off, and de-rusted the crossmember.

A quick couple of coats of paint later, and looking a bit tidier.

It was quite a nice evening tonight (at least not raining *continuously*) so I took a photo in its natural habitat.

Before stopping for a takeaway by a lake...there are worse places to enjoy a pizza!

[mat_the_cat]

I've done a few minor jobs on this over the past few months, to solve some little annoyances. The push on wiper blades seem to have a very short ife before the plastic clip fractures, the blade disappears, and the arm is left scratching the screen. I've had several go this way, so I bought some stainless ones from a LR specialist, thinking they'd be an improvement. Oh.

Absolutely fucking useless! They were so curved that they only cleared a tiny portion of the screen, but unfortunately I'd lost the purchase details so couldn't return them.

I assumed it was tired springs in my original arms, but struggled to find just the springs on their own. So splashed out on a pair of new arms from Emberton Imperial (who have got a reputation for not selling shite), which also came with new blades. I fitted my new arms but kept the curved blades, to find that they were better but still not perfect.

Then it struck me - the new Emberton blades were dead simple and just a straight edge - but hence ideal for a totally flat screen! Problem solved. Apart from the washer pump, which failed again; now onto the 4th replacement in just over 4 years. I'm pretty sure the Lucas branded one I put on last was either a fake, or just crap, so I searched for a NOS pump.

Time will tell...

Lastly I found some seats with head restraints, so popped those in for a touch of (almost) luxury!