1983 Land Rover SIII 109 diesel truck rebuild

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Posts
39
Location
Wessex
Hi all,
I recently turned 17 and was looking for a first car last summer which would be more interesting than a knackered old corsa. I made a list of cheap, economic cars which are comfortable and easy to drive... and threw it in the bin and went on ebay. A Landy has always been my dream car and I decided that a Defender was much too modern and refined so I went for a series III instead. I had a very low budget and was generally looking at piles of rust at the botttom of a field or some boxes in a garage. All the cheap ones seemed to be up north and I had almost given up hope when I saw this delightful gem in the classified ads.
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2.3 diesel truck cab, 67,000 miles, no rust? Sounded a bit dodgy to me as it looked like it had been thrashed about offroad and heavily upgraded with loads of offroad bits. However, I went to look at it because it was the only one with four wheels and an engine that I could afford.
When I went to look at it, it was a lot better than I expected. The modifications were entirely cosmetic and the previous owner had otherwise done a great job, mainly in replacing the rear half of the chassis and getting the vehicle back on the road after 10 years in a barn. I bought it and thought it was a brilliant idea to drive it the 110 miles back home. It actually made it in one piece although all of the lights stopped working (this is something I have become very familiar with) and the mountain of spare wheels and parts almost fell out the back a couple of times.
Since then I have started work on restoring it back to original condition and have found out a lot more about the vehicle's history and will post more photos soon.
 
Hi all,
I recently turned 17 and was looking for a first car last summer which would be more interesting than a knackered old corsa. I made a list of cheap, economic cars which are comfortable and easy to drive... and threw it in the bin and went on ebay. A Landy has always been my dream car and I decided that a Defender was much too modern and refined so I went for a series III instead. I had a very low budget and was generally looking at piles of rust at the botttom of a field or some boxes in a garage. All the cheap ones seemed to be up north and I had almost given up hope when I saw this delightful gem in the classified ads. View attachment 231043
2.3 diesel truck cab, 67,000 miles, no rust? Sounded a bit dodgy to me as it looked like it had been thrashed about offroad and heavily upgraded with loads of offroad bits. However, I went to look at it because it was the only one with four wheels and an engine that I could afford.
When I went to look at it, it was a lot better than I expected. The modifications were entirely cosmetic and the previous owner had otherwise done a great job, mainly in replacing the rear half of the chassis and getting the vehicle back on the road after 10 years in a barn. I bought it and thought it was a brilliant idea to drive it the 110 miles back home. It actually made it in one piece although all of the lights stopped working (this is something I have become very familiar with) and the mountain of spare wheels and parts almost fell out the back a couple of times.
Since then I have started work on restoring it back to original condition and have found out a lot more about the vehicle's history and will post more photos soon.
That actually looks pretty straight under all the chequer plate. Restoring it to a more original state, and repainting it, is a good idea.
But I would be tempted to hang on to the Wolf Wheels and tyres, they look in very good nick.
 
Hi and welcome!

What a great Landy! I’d keep it as it is, it’s part of its history and looks totally unique. I had a series 3 as my first Landy when I turned 17 (some years ago now!) A good choice of first car!:cool::cool:
 
Diamond in the rough there well done and welcome to the forum, if there is anything you need to know about dealing with rust and landrover ‘quirks’ then I guarantee someone on here would have experienced it before and would be happy to help.

loose the chequer plate and the cage and paint it all one colour and that will be very smart!
 
Pretty cool . Looking forward to seeing what you do with it . Ive been on the hot rod forums trying to convert a few folk to landrovers lol I honestly wish I started out with them when I was 17 .

There is a ton of skills that can be learned from working on these that will stand you in good stead for future projects, or even life skills . One thing for sure, you will learn the art of patience and experience great frustration . Its all character building stuff though :) .

Great to see a young fella starting out on the road to classic car ruin:) You do know that this is now going to be in your blood, there is just no getting away from it, no matter how fast you run or how well you hide , this bloody hobby and fascination for old junk just keeps finding you and continually seduces you .. Its all good though..

I was saying to my buddy today that we are leaving behind our legacy, The stuff were messing with today that was new 90 years ago in the case of my other car avenue , or 60 in the case of some landys, will see us out and part of us will be sitting either in a field or being cherished by a new owner .. Its unlikely they will fully appreciate the effort and heartache we put in to the old junk to ensure its survival..

Above everything else, have fun with the projects and the eventual results. As you work on them though let these words ring loudly in your ears .

You only get one pair of eyes, one pair of ears and one pair or lungs .. Protect them well , No body told us 40 years ago that there was a problem with dust and debris , You dont need to be a heath and safety anorak but always be careful

If your jacking the thing up always support it with good stands or serious lumps of wood . Ive lost 2 hot rod buddies to crushing and suffocation, for the sake of 2 minutes to support there pride and joy properly while they worked on it .

Looking forward to seeing you succeed :)
 
Pretty cool . Looking forward to seeing what you do with it . Ive been on the hot rod forums trying to convert a few folk to landrovers lol I honestly wish I started out with them when I was 17 .

There is a ton of skills that can be learned from working on these that will stand you in good stead for future projects, or even life skills . One thing for sure, you will learn the art of patience and experience great frustration . Its all character building stuff though :) .

Great to see a young fella starting out on the road to classic car ruin:) You do know that this is now going to be in your blood, there is just no getting away from it, no matter how fast you run or how well you hide , this bloody hobby and fascination for old junk just keeps finding you and continually seduces you .. Its all good though..

I was saying to my buddy today that we are leaving behind our legacy, The stuff were messing with today that was new 90 years ago in the case of my other car avenue , or 60 in the case of some landys, will see us out and part of us will be sitting either in a field or being cherished by a new owner .. Its unlikely they will fully appreciate the effort and heartache we put in to the old junk to ensure its survival..

Above everything else, have fun with the projects and the eventual results. As you work on them though let these words ring loudly in your ears .

You only get one pair of eyes, one pair of ears and one pair or lungs .. Protect them well , No body told us 40 years ago that there was a problem with dust and debris , You dont need to be a heath and safety anorak but always be careful

If your jacking the thing up always support it with good stands or serious lumps of wood . Ive lost 2 hot rod buddies to crushing and suffocation, for the sake of 2 minutes to support there pride and joy properly while they worked on it .

Looking forward to seeing you succeed :)
With old stuff you're never it's owner just it's custodian:)
 
I started work on it in september (i kept forgetting to start a thread) and removed some of the chequerplate and it looked a bit better. Also the previous owner who fitted all the chequerplate had put a pop rivet every 3 inches or so, meaning lots of body filler is required! If anyone knows a better way to get rid of thousands of tiny holes please let me know as I would like to get the bodywork in a reasonable condition without having to completely spray over the original paint.
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As you can see there are a few missing bits and the floor panels have been replaced by chequerplate, it also had an 8-track cassette player fitted which wasn't connected to anything and some extra switchgear which operates the spotlights and manual reversing and rear fog lamps.
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The Ramsey winch might be original, I will probably keep it on there but remove all the rollcage and spotlights. I also have the original yellow bonnet so it will lose the black military one. Unfortunately the catch is missing and has a piece of chequerplate bolted over the hole so it will need a new one.
 
I was going to suggest dimpling each hole and poping a blind rivet back in before filling otherwise the filler will pop where the holes are .. Then saw how many holes there were . If you had an ac tig you could have spend a few hours tig welding them but having done just a few on mine tig welding manky old ali is a pain . There is also a product on the market thats a low temperature alloy welding rod which might be an idea and worth a try rather than spending a fortune on filler and forever sanding it flat .. If you have a compressor you could also cold rivit them It will take time but in the end can save time and money ..
You would need to use a countersunk rivet, and be carefull with the drill to coutersink every hole pop in the rivit making sure its cut to the correct length and rivit it flat with a flat head in an air chisel Weld something like the head of an old valve to a chopped down chissel tool for the air chisel , Back up the back side of the rivit with a flat dolly .. Just remember your working the rivit not the panel so dont go mad just set the rivit . It should end up kinda flush with the panel dont worry if they are proud when you have done a dozen or so file the heads flush with a body file . Being ally they will file easy and blend into the panel . If you bucked them right they wont move .. Its good enough for aeroplanes its fine for an old landy .. :)

If thats all a bit high and mighty it might be worth having a grapic printed for it that you can simply stick along the side to cover the holes .. you can get anything printed these days :)

Or leave them and repaint it a dark colour, maybe even camo, and they will just blend in without doing anything with them ..
 
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How about bonding some thin strips of aluminium behind the panel holes, allowing to cure, followed by a thin a skim of filler on the visible side? The resin tends to fill the holes and can be flatted off with some 180. Any remaining imperfections can be dealt with by a minimal amount of filler, which should stay in place as it has a soilid backing against it.
 
How about bonding some thin strips of aluminium behind the panel holes, allowing to cure, followed by a thin a skim of filler on the visible side? The resin tends to fill the holes and can be flatted off with some 180. Any remaining imperfections can be dealt with by a minimal amount of filler, which should stay in place as it has a soilid backing against it.
Thanks, I think I will probably do that as it will make the bodywork a bit stronger behind all the holes
 
I was going to suggest dimpling each hole and poping a blind rivet back in before filling otherwise the filler will pop where the holes are .. Then saw how many holes there were . If you had an ac tig you could have spend a few hours tig welding them but having done just a few on mine tig welding manky old ali is a pain . There is also a product on the market thats a low temperature alloy welding rod which might be an idea and worth a try rather than spending a fortune on filler and forever sanding it flat .. If you have a compressor you could also cold rivit them It will take time but in the end can save time and money ..
You would need to use a countersunk rivet, and be carefull with the drill to coutersink every hole pop in the rivit making sure its cut to the correct length and rivit it flat with a flat head in an air chisel Weld something like the head of an old valve to a chopped down chissel tool for the air chisel , Back up the back side of the rivit with a flat dolly .. Just remember your working the rivit not the panel so dont go mad just set the rivit . It should end up kinda flush with the panel dont worry if they are proud when you have done a dozen or so file the heads flush with a body file . Being ally they will file easy and blend into the panel . If you bucked them right they wont move .. Its good enough for aeroplanes its fine for an old landy .. :)

If thats all a bit high and mighty it might be worth having a grapic printed for it that you can simply stick along the side to cover the holes .. you can get anything printed these days :)

Or leave them and repaint it a dark colour, maybe even camo, and they will just blend in without doing anything with them ..
Thanks mate, I don't have all the tools for this but aircraft rivets would be useful on refitting the original tub floor (guess what the previous owner replaced it with???)
 
I removed the black bonnet which had military bonnet catches and replaced it with the original yellow one. I also had to buy a new bonnet catch as the old one had been removed for some reason.
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Gave all the electrical contacts a bi of a clean as it has been sat in a barn for the last few years.
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More chequerplate removed without too much hassle, but now there are even more holes. Some chemical metal filler did the trick on the doors (they aren't original so I have tried a couple of filling methods on them and this seems to work best). There seems to be a lot of mud and water behind the chequerplate, which hasn't damaged the paint too badly. I managed to get the rally stickers off the side without peeling the paint off using a bit of white spirit.
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Took her out for a little drive to the paint mixers to get some paint made up as the yellow seems to be a custom colour, possibly British Rail paint.
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Fitted a new 120AH battery as the old one was way too small for cold starts.
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Thanks to everyone who has replied to this thread, it is really encouraging and nice to know that other people out there are interested in the project.
 
I removed the black bonnet which had military bonnet catches and replaced it with the original yellow one. I also had to buy a new bonnet catch as the old one had been removed for some reason.View attachment 232318 Gave all the electrical contacts a bi of a clean as it has been sat in a barn for the last few years.View attachment 232319
More chequerplate removed without too much hassle, but now there are even more holes. Some chemical metal filler did the trick on the doors (they aren't original so I have tried a couple of filling methods on them and this seems to work best). There seems to be a lot of mud and water behind the chequerplate, which hasn't damaged the paint too badly. I managed to get the rally stickers off the side without peeling the paint off using a bit of white spirit.View attachment 232320 Took her out for a little drive to the paint mixers to get some paint made up as the yellow seems to be a custom colour, possibly British Rail paint.
View attachment 232321
Fitted a new 120AH battery as the old one was way too small for cold starts.
View attachment 232323 Thanks to everyone who has replied to this thread, it is really encouraging and nice to know that other people out there are interested in the project.
Now that's a big battery o_O
 
Is that roll cage off of a SWB series Landy or 90? You might be able to sell it if you remove it in one piece.

Good write-up, it’s coming along nicely.
 
Is that roll cage off of a SWB series Landy or 90? You might be able to sell it if you remove it in one piece.

Good write-up, it’s coming along nicely.

Thanks mate, yes it is an 88 / 90 rollcage and I am going to sell it once it is removed. Any idea whether it is worth repainting and scraping the surface rust off, or just selling as is?
 
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