My First rebuild - 110 station wagon

Looking great. Did you paint it outdoors? Much better red than the bulkhead.

Thanks. Yes, painted it exactly where it stands. No room in the garage for this. Now just got to repaint the bulkhead.

Keep up the great work, great job on chassis

Great work. Following your thread.

Thanks for the replies. I've got the rear tub on the chassis now, but am having a few problems with alignment. It's sat on there right up to the 5 tabs on the crossmember. But if I look down the sides it's not in line with the bulkhead.

It measures a whole 1mm closer to the bulkhead on the right than the left, but sits sort of pointing to the left. Is this normal? Am I just being daft? I know the panels that sit on top will twist to allow the roof to sit properly but just wanted a second opinion. Also,I don't remember any shims being in place behind the rear footwell heel board area where it fixes to the body crossmember, yet I seem to have a 1/4" gap on the left and 1/2" on the right. Any ideas?

Are you sure you mean 1mm? That's negligible! Is that the door gap you are talking about? If it is, I went through this trauma a few months ago Expecting to get it perfect, but if you get the door gap parallel from top to bottom within 5mm you're doing well.

some are shimmed and a lot of trucks are not very precise its when your rebuilding etc when you notice , id alter the holes on the cross member brackets

Yes 1mm! I knew it would read like I wanted it perfect. It just looks a bit on the p*** that's all. I wasn't that bothered but I saw a battered old 110 on the car boot this morning and the tub sides were perfectly in line with the bulkhead which got me thinking. I'll just fix it down and move on, cheers guys

It'll be hard to tell, mate. Especially to the tolerances you are thinking of. The doors, on the old 110 you were looking at, will be giving the impression that the bulkhead and tub are perfectly lined up. When I was fitting my doors I faffed about for ages moving the bulkhead, roof etc. then I went and looked at my mates 61 plate and his is all over the place and nearly new! As James said, you don't realise how bad they are until you are rebuilding one and so have to look closely and then consider how to get them back together.
Having said that you want to have high standards, but a realistic idea of what Defender high standards are. I'm still struggling to come to terms with that!

Cheers Al, I'll just wait until I've got my sills / c-pillars done, fit them, hang the doors and then see where it's at.

Great thread. Your Defender has "Character"

I have purchased a decent secondhand bulkhead and have had it shot-blasted, metallised and coated. my next mission is to find a workshop/double garage space to enable me to strip out the old one and fit the refurbed one.

Keep up the good work. I'm very much enjoying the thread as I have a similar CSW. 200TDI 110.

Cheers Twelsh. It certainly has character all right, hopefully I won't lose too much of it during the build. As you can see, my garage is pretty packed. The only work I've done in there was paint the chassis and a few brackets (by brush) and weld the bulkhead up. All the stripping and rebuilding has been done outside along with any spraying, welding, etc. But now the weather has turned again. If love a big double garage that I could get it all inside, still consider myself lucky though - some in here have to work in the street! Good luck with the b/h change. And get some photos on 'ere for us all to see

Finally got chance to pick my parts up from the blaster yesterday, then got in at 7 this evening and started rebuilding one of the sills.

Not much more to say about that really, I can't wait to get these done and off to be galved.

Tremendous.
It's great getting stuff back from the blasters. Even better when they come back galvanised We're like big kids with this stuff really - well I know I am
Excellent progress, mate. Good milestones these!

Well I finally got my side frames built up. Some bits are a bit rusty as I went out the other day and it rained whilst I was gone. Shouldn't be too much of a problem for the galv though. I just need to finish cleaning up the welds when I get more flap discs for the grinder. I've a lot of stuff that needs paint - left that til the right time of year haven't I! I bought the 'C' pillar sections from YRM. They are a perfect fit and the only modification was to cut off the inner lip as my new sill was 2mm wider than the existing.

That looks great! I'd be very proud of that if I'd done it. Well done, mate. The pickling tank will take that tiny bit rust off no bother, when they go to the galvanisers. I'm looking forward to it all coming back shiny.
When are you planning to get it all dipped?

Cheers Al, off to the galvanisers as soon as I get a day off. I'm just adding more to the pile all the time at the minute.

Worth having a good think before you go. Since I had my lot done, when I've been doing other jobs, I've thought 'why didn't I get that galvanised!' Nugget!! Of course, some LZers are getting everything dipped

I know, if he leaves all his bodywork bare aluminium there's only that freshly painted gearbox that won't be silver

Ha ha, he's not the only one though