Newbie Needs your help - Series 3 welding!!!!!

First of all, a big hello folkes. By way of an introduction, I'm asking for a bit of advice. I'm on the cusp of buying my first proper Land Rover!!! A 1980 Series 3 in absolute charismatic condition. (read 'used')! Yeah, I know, its a big day for me! The truck I'm considering is sound with the exception of some welding needed. The chasis looks solid - yes could get stung later, I know!! - and footwells will need replating, however, the concern I have is in the A post, the rust has made a gap (just on the post) below the lower door hinge. Just asking the question, would this normally require a new post, in which case how much of a task is that, or just plated underneath??? Yes as a bloke I should know these things, but hey, we've all got to start somewhere.

Many thanks for any comments and advice, and looking forward to posting further posts as I'm a mechanical biff!!

post a picture of the "gap" and we'll see if we can figure out what needs doing to it

even if you have to replace it the entire pillar it's no big deal

DA2026O BULKHEAD / BRACKET RH REPAIR | Land Rover Series 1948-1984: Chassis | shop | www.lrseries.com | L. R. Series

It depends how badly it has gone. I would say get a hammer and screwdriver and give it a good poke about and see where good metal is. Otherwise you might jsut be plating up what you can see and nothing more. I would recommend taking the front wing off so you can see all the way round it - with mine what I thought was just going to need a new plate ended up me replciing the whole post.

Mine looked like this before poking it, not too bad you might think:



But after taking the wing off and give it a good poking you can see the extend of the problem!:

oh so this is now the "post pictures of yer rusty landy" thread is it eh ?

Cheers chaps, so need not be a reason to not buy the thing then?

Being a newbie, I realsise there's gonna be money and work needed, just didnt want it to be a major 'walk away from this now' type of thing!!

I'll get some pictures and post, but on the face of it, not nearly as bad as your photo.

Cheers

Nah, D-Post is not a good reason not to buy it alone...but give it a good check over. Wish I took my own advice and did that before buying one blind on ebay tbh!

oh so this is now the "post pictures of yer rusty landy" thread is it eh ?

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LOL, no, don't start that, the thread would be endless. I would have at least 5 blodey pages of it for a start!

this vehicle flew through the MOT

aihenderson said:

Cheers chaps, so need not be a reason to not buy the thing then?

Being a newbie, I realsise there's gonna be money and work needed, just didnt want it to be a major 'walk away from this now' type of thing!!

I'll get some pictures and post, but on the face of it, not nearly as bad as your photo.

Cheers

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the trouble with series vehicles is that if you can see rust and "gaps" there's going to be a lot lot more rust that you can't see - good example of which is the dumb irons shown in the pictures above - again no big deal to sort out but a pain if your expecting to have it on the road most of the time and you like having soft clean hands

Nice, almost looks as bad as my dumb iron! Mmm rust. Makes me wonder how much I have accidentally inhaled over the years.

Out of curiosity did you replace or rebuild your dumb irons sean? I only found out about my dumb irons once I put the front end abck together and didnt fancy doing that again, and didn't want to order parts etc, so rebuilt the bugger.

i replaced them - think they were only about £20 ish each would have taken me a day to fabricate a pair - didnt think it worth my time making them

Yeah they are cheap, I just wanted the job done there and then.

Pfft, a day, you have too many tea breaks

If the door pillar is starting to go it would be worth having a good poke around the rest of the bulkhead to see what state that is in, although getting a Series 3 bulkhead must be easier than one for a Series 2.

Andy

Many thanks for all your advice chaps.

Me thinks I'm gonna be calling on your expertise alot more in the near future