James Mac's Defender 90 Rebuild

cube1729 said:

Awesome build, how long has it taken you to get to this stage and how many hours a week do you get to work on it? Having just started taking mine apart to rebuild I can't wait to get to this stage.

Click to expand...

It's not taken too long to be fair, as everything is new/refurbed it's gone together quite smoothly and quickly. Waiting for parts is the worst bit!
Iv probably been at this around 3months and I work on it every other weekend, and the odd evening through the week, don't get as much time as I'd like tbh.

Brown said:

Looking like a thing of beauty.

Click to expand...

Cheers mate. That's the plan

GATSO said:

Wow !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Click to expand...

Almost as good as yours ehh :-D

So its time for an update on this as its been a while since the last one and....

I haven't touched it since the last pictures were put up in July, but it's been tucked away safely for the winter and I it's looking like I won't get a change to start again until the summer which is a bit sh*t, But work has to comes first atm.

I'm half tempted to pay sombody to finish it for me but on the other hand I really want to be able to say that I did everything myself, and gain all the knowledge that comes along the way so I can do another one after.

Crikey, you have been busy then!
If you know you're definitely going to get the time to work on it, then finish it yourself. The satisfaction knowing you've built it all yourself is much greater.
But, if you aren't going to get time, or very little of it, possibly get someone to finish it for you. For me time scale isn't an issue, and have already come to the conclusion mine is probably going to take 2 years or so.
It is hard though when you go do a bit on a weekend and hardly get anything done and you think, I could pay someone to finish it and it'd be done in a month.
All swings and roundabouts in the end, whichever way you go.

great read, even better rebuild, well done

aaronmorris said:

Crikey, you have been busy then!
If you know you're definitely going to get the time to work on it, then finish it yourself. The satisfaction knowing you've built it all yourself is much greater.
But, if you aren't going to get time, or very little of it, possibly get someone to finish it for you. For me time scale isn't an issue, and have already come to the conclusion mine is probably going to take 2 years or so.
It is hard though when you go do a bit on a weekend and hardly get anything done and you think, I could pay someone to finish it and it'd be done in a month.
All swings and roundabouts in the end, whichever way you go.

Click to expand...

I think i will do it all myself but it will just end up turning into a long build, i think I have acquired myself a second car for the summer so I'll be able to strip it down and still have transport so that's one problem sorted.
The mrs wants a defender too so once Iv finished this I'll probably do another one for her.

andy_v said:

great read, even better rebuild, well done

Click to expand...

Thanks mate

Defender will be cheaper than a baby anyway !!

Stop slacking James and get it done!

Time for another update and yet again it hasn't changed, I haven't had anywhere to work on it since I moved premises with work in July last year and it's getting very annoying now, Iv been looking for a garage/workshop to rent locally but there's nothing so I think it's time to admit defeat and get sombody else to finish it for me can anybody recommend sombody who isn't going to rip me off?


I have however recently bought myself a set of 5 challenger wheels with cooper discoverer STT on' so they will be going on the project eventually, and recently Iv been doing a lot of motorway miles so Iv pulled my roof rack off as I never use it, so if anybody is after one, give me a shout.







They are a little bit bigger than my current wheel/tyre combo

What size did you go for on the rims and tyres? They look big!

lucifus said:

What size did you go for on the rims and tyres? They look big!

Click to expand...

they are only 265/75/16 so about 32," they do look big compared to my current 235/70/17's, i was planning on getting some 33" or 35"s but i couldn't pass up the deal i got on these

I like the wheel / tyre combo James, they look good. And I feel your pain ref finding a workshop to rent I have looked on and off for ages and haven't seen anything suitable.
It's a shame you can't get on with the project mate, how far are you realistically off James, ready for stripping your 90 down to swap parts over?
I was thinking the body is the easy bit, I could offer you some of my time/assistance, but I'm not sure if that would help in your situation..

aaronmorris said:

I like the wheel / tyre combo James, they look good. And I feel your pain ref finding a workshop to rent I have looked on and off for ages and haven't seen anything suitable.
It's a shame you can't get on with the project mate, how far are you realistically off James, ready for stripping your 90 down to swap parts over?
I was thinking the body is the easy bit, I could offer you some of my time/assistance, but I'm not sure if that would help in your situation..

Click to expand...

The best option I have found so far is a 20x20ft barn with no power and it's a hour away

Tbh it's not that big of a job now, the chassis is rolling with the engine,gearbox and transfer box, props all bolted on, a few bit need fitting to the engine but it's mostly there. i just need to take the bodywork off my 90, re-spray it, take the wiring loom off, refit it to the new rolling chassis then put the bodywork back on.
The place I bought my galv bulkhead from said they could finish it for a grand but that wouldn't include respraying the bodywork. So if it comes to that I'll just leave it the current colour (red) and get the bulkhead that Iv already painted blue painted red.
I'll send you a pm mate about some assistance.

Time to get the ball rolling again, i still havent got anywhere to continue the rebuild myself but i have enlisted the help of a friend from here and over the next few months we should see some significant progress i can't wait.....


so after over a year of being sat on the trailer under a tarpaulin in a car park at work it was time to uncover her and bring her home, so i hooked her up and the 250mile journey to my parents started, it was all going smoothly and then 10miles from home we got a blowout on the trailer, ripping the wheel arch off in the process but we got home eventually.



once it was home, i spend a day tinkering and checking how she's weathered.

it wasn't too bad tbh, some of the engine bolts are a bit rusty, so were all the pulleys but that was about it, 95% of the parts are new/reconditioned so that helped. The bushed from the new steering damper were crumbling, which i wasn't expecting, so ill have to order some new ones, it is a cheap steering damper with britpart bushes so thats probably the issue, maybe i should of got and old man emu one to match the rest of the shocks.

then as i was bored and they were taking up space in the garage i fitted the steering guard, tank guard and rock sliders, there have been sat in the garage for a year so it was good to get them on, i also put the winch bumper on, but i need some longer bolts to fix it on properly.

iv got loads of new bits on order, new radiator, new intercooler, a silicone hose kit, hand brake disc kit and a fuel tank to name a few so that lot should be here soon and hopefully next weekend we will be cracking on and striping the 90 down to a rolling chassis and starting to transfer things over.

heres a few pics of the guards and bumper and that on...

Good to see you working in it again. Looking forward to seeing more fast progress now do you have a target finish time? I got asked that all of the time and it's hard to answer when you're working outside and at the merci of the weather.

Al2O3 said:

Good to see you working in it again. Looking forward to seeing more fast progress now do you have a target finish time? I got asked that all of the time and it's hard to answer when you're working outside and at the merci of the weather.

Click to expand...

no not really, it'll take along as it takes, the plan is to get all the mechanical stuff sorted, get it water tight and get it running. that way its still useable and then i can just plod along doing the little jobs (fitting LED lights, interior, extras/cosmetic stuff) as and when,

Due to my situation and also to make the rebuild simpler, i have had to sack off respraying it blue, i sent the bulkhead to the paint shop last week to get painted in rioja red to match the rest of the car. Eventually ill probably book it into the body shop for a freshen up once i happy with it and i have the spare money

Sounds like a good tactical plan. Looking forward to the updates. Good luck with it.

So this weekend was the start of the strip down and rebuild process. And it's been very productive.
I didn't take as many picture as I would of liked as I'm working on a tight time frame now and I'm planning on having it back in the road in 3/4 weeks time.


To start off I pulled out all the seats, carpets and that was it for Friday night.





Saturday went well, pulled the headlining out, and some other bits and bobs, and in a couple of hours we had the majority of the bodywork off.













All the bodywork is in decent condition, the tub need a little repair near the seatbelt mounts and the seatbox need a pair of ends, but that's about it.

The bulkhead was in really good condition too, so I'm probably going to get it shot blasted an galv it for my next project

After that we just started striping any other bits off that we needed and made some piles for cleaning, then took the wiring loom off and re wrapped it in some self amalgamating tape.













And by close of play Saturday, the majority of stuff had been stripped off and I was left with this



So now the strip down was pretty much done, Sunday was spent striping a few more bits off like the engine loom, and we started transferring some bits onto the new bulkhead and pulled the wiring loom through, after that we roughly organised all the bits and started making a list of new bits/consumables that I need to order, so then hopefully we will have evenyrhing we need and can rebuild it in a week without too many setbacks.







We put the tub on the back of the new chassis to get it out of the way for now and it's starting to resemble a defender again.

It feels like it's really high atm, its got a 2" lift kit and bigger tyres on now, it was standard before but it just seems really high, it'll be interesting to see what it's like once it's all together.

Anyway after that we started to clean up some parts, hung them up in the garage and gave them a lick of paint, the pictures rubbish but there are parts hung up drying in it.



So that was my weekend, Were not going to be working on it for the next few weeks now but then were going to spend a full week rebuilding and hopefully it'll be 90% finished by the end of that week.

That's looking great and I am in admiration of your pre-planning. Superb organisation. I hope you've taken enough pictures through! Having said that, if your doing it over a short period of time and your memory is better than mine, you'll be able to remember where/how everything goes back. Well done, both of you.

So this week is the week of the rebuild, I didn't have any time to put any pics on last night and I haven't taken half as many as I would of liked but ohh well.

here are a few of the bits that I painted last weekend.



First job of the day was to p clip the wiring loom to the chassis as we failed at trying to thread it inside the chassis rail, after that we sorted the remainig brake pipes and fitted the exhaust.





We then fitted a repair panel to the tub as it needed a little tlc



And then put the fuel tank in


Then we attached the heater box, pedal box and some other bits and bobs to the bulkhead.






And I think that was pretty much it for Monday, well that's all the pictures I have anyway. We did some other odd jobs but that's about it.

So Tuesday's work now, the aim of today was to get the bodywork on, aligned and tightened up, so that's what we did.

Sides on


Windscreen on