1956 Series One 86" Land Rover

I found this Series One Landrover on the forecourt of a small local petrol station , I go there for my leaded petrol and had a number of looks around the vehicles to discover that it was almost a complete but partially dismantled vehicle , the chassis looked in good condition and most of the body panels were much straighter than my own 88" model , the gearbox I was told was a reconditioned unit and the chassis looked reasonably solid

The owner had started a strip down restoration but had bitten off a little more than he could handle and due to an elderly age he had sold the vehicle to a dealer who had an interest in Landrover's , it had not been possible to sell and so had been passed to my local garage . After a weeks pondering I mentioned to Shirley that it would be a good vehicle for cannibalizing for spares to help with the restoration of my 88" and so after a little haggling a deal was struck

On arrival at home I stripped down the vehicle and after much pondering decided the vehicle was too good to use for spare and decided to restore this vehicle also before my 88" the original chassis was shot blasted and any rotten metal was cut out and replaced although most chassis repairs were the result of poor repair by the previous owner who had started the restoration

It was then treated with Oxysolve rust killer and the 2 coats of Bonda rust primer followed by 2 more coats of Smoothrite , both axles have been stripped and rebuilt with new bearings and seal , the diffs were checked over but need no rebuilds other than new oil seals , the axle casing was cleaned , stripped and painted in the same way as the chassis

New Springs,  bushes and shock absorbers were fitted and the whole thing rebuilt to a rolling chassis , a new bulkhead was purchased as the original one had been chopped up and most parts were missing, the New Bulkhead has been trial fitted to the chassis and has been sprayed in several coats of primer

As you can see from the picture above I don't think Shirley was too impressed with yet another Land Rover turning up "For spares you say?" work has currently stopped on this Land Rover as my attention has been diverted to USK . The next area of work is to manufacture the opening ventilators on the bulkhead as the original ones were missing , indeed there wasn't a lot of the original bulkhead left 

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