Newbie - restoration with my lad

Morning all,

I want to locate a Land Rover 90 that is a spares/repair vehicle so that my son (12) and I can restore it from the ground up. He can then learn to drive it and once he's passed his test, use it on the road. That's the plan.

I'm an Engineer and in the past found myself up to my elbows in grease on a freezing cold garage floor in the middle of Winter with my dad, trying to repair ropey Triumph Spitfires. So I thought it was only fair that my son should experience the same misery

To that end, my first step was to read up as much as possible before taking the plunge. I've ordered the Haynes restoration manual on 90/110 models and look forward to reading that. If anyone can offer some helpful tips and advice I'd be very grateful.

Thanks in advance.

so wot you get for wining dad of the year lucky lucky lad dont forget the rebuild thread loads of pics ho and :welcome2: to the nut house

Land rover workshop manuals are available free if you google.

With regards to basket cases unless your buying one to put a new chassis on then it is difficult to find one cheap, but not impossible as I picked up a 90 two and half years ago and put a quad cam v8 in it.

I paid £450 for it, but expect to pay a lot more generally.

If you want a project a series 3 and do a 200 di conversion may give you a cheaper project, it depends what your budget is as 90's fetch stupid money still for tat

Welcome to the forum

Thanks for your comments so far.

Saw this one on ebay:
Landrover defender 90 galvanised chassie with id | eBay

What do you think?

That looks like a good place to start, although im a firm believer in learning from taking it apart first (a lot more oppertunities to use the angle grinder and get absolutely covered in oil dirt and grease) a 90 will be great to learn on. Nice and easy to work on really.

My dad did the same thing too, with a morris minor to start with but it was too far gone so we picked a mini up for cheap. That was great and i rebuilt that, then a series 3, and currently a ferguson tractor. Next up is a lightweight series 3 we didnt really stop with the first car, and i dont intend to either! When the disco i have now rots out it'll be a 100" defender hybrid thing

scottant said:

That looks like a good place to start, although im a firm believer in learning from taking it apart first (a lot more oppertunities to use the angle grinder and get absolutely covered in oil dirt and grease) a 90 will be great to learn on. Nice and easy to work on really.

My dad did the same thing too, with a morris minor to start with but it was too far gone so we picked a mini up for cheap. That was great and i rebuilt that, then a series 3, and currently a ferguson tractor. Next up is a lightweight series 3 we didnt really stop with the first car, and i dont intend to either! When the disco i have now rots out it'll be a 100" defender hybrid thing

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Yes, totally agree with you about taking it apart first - that would be the plan on that one too, to strip it back, engine strip down etc etc.

I think the cost of galvanised chassis alone are what £1500 roughly? So I thought this might be a good way in but maybe I'm jumping in too quick?

Welcome to lz!