About to maybe purchase a series III, help!

Looking at getting me a series III.
It has perkins diesel fitted and starts and runs well.
Has pitted swivel balls.
Chassis ok tho one beam of metal toward rear that runs above chassis supporting under body is gone rusted through.

Being sold as spares etc as had oil leak from drain hole in bell housing, browny clear oil according to owner tho none seen today when i went to check it out. Was a very clear drip of oil under the actual gear box(suspect different thing altogether tho). Do you reckon it's the rear crank seal? What kind of labour costs would this incur to fix?

What do you reckon?

Thank you for any help!

Will

Rear crank seal is favourite but you can usually identify the difference between gearbox and engine oil by smell. It's an engine out job but I've no idea what a mechanic would charge - depends a lot on the mechanic. The swivel balls can be replaced along with all the bearings/bushes/seals for about £100-£150 quid a corner plus a couple of hours labour. Or do it yourself, its not too hard and it's a good introduction to Land Rover mechanicals. It's like any old car, they're rarely economic to maintain unless you're rich or prepared to do most of the work yourself.

swivels i can cope with but don't have the gear to do an engine out type job!

The rear tub supports are quite cheap, too. But I suspect they're a bugger to fit in situ. The secret is to find a small independent garage that understands older vehicles, particularly landies. You could try asking here. (I lost mine last year, seriously injured in a trike crash and I'm still looking)

drilled the rivets holding the rear floor panel in, removed the floor panel, that gives you full access to the supporting bars and much easier to repairs tops of chassis rails, and do brake lines, exhaust etc. One of the ribs on mine was rusted aswell, and because the ally floor touches the steel ribs the floor had started to go in holes aswell, so got a new sheet cut and bingo bango bongo new floor, I had some 3/4 box section lying around so used that to make new floor ribs,
just big boy mechano set, everything is doable if you need to do it

The oil seal is not such a bad job if you have engine lifting gear, and its not expensive.
The perky is a good motor, allthough some dont like them, might be good to do some research to see how much the vehicle would be worth sorted.
Pitted balls is a bit worse and could fail the test, spare ones are a bastid to fit, but if your an experienced car basher can be done.
The chassis rot is the one that I'd be concerned with, if you dont have a welder or cant weld then maybe better forget it, it'd be expensive to have a garage to weld another member on, its a bit of a job, and a mucky one.
If you have the kit and experience though then you might get a cheap landy, I wouldnt reccomend this as your first welding job if you were thinking of buying a welder, chassis work really needs a good weld set and someone with fab experience.
No insult intended, esp if you allready have fab experience.

i don't think it is the actual chassis that has gone. It's a supporting bar that sits above it and supports the rear floor

Is it these bits? this is what mine looked like,






took them off and scrubbed them back and now they look like this

(the grey is underseal)

I had to replace all three on mine - fortunately they're fairly cheap, less than £20 each. You could fabricate something that worked just as well but I'm not sure it's worth the time and money.