1964 Series 2a Landrover - Bitsa

[Nathan]

So with the Anglia completed and since sold the hunt was on for something I've never owned before.
As much as the Anglia was a brilliant car, I just couldnt mesh with it having sold the 2.8 Capri in 2021 I thought I wanted back into the Ford fold.....evidently not!

As the Anglia arrrived:



Just before a mop and sale:




It was at this point a mate asked me to drive his freshly restored 2a to a local gathering:


Yeah that got me hooked!
So with the Anglia gone the hunt was on, there were some points it needed to have ideally:

2a (Only because I prefer the look against the 3)
Diesel (Because everything else I own is Petrol)
200TDI swap (If not I was pricing the motors up).
Galv chassis
Decent bulkhead.

Not much to ask but as my daily driver was getting a little tired and my commute being none existant, why not have a Landy for the job eh?
Much searching of eBay and FB for a few months, then Taaa Daaa












It's ugly
Has some S3 and S2 bits
200TDI
Galv Chassis
Absloute minter of a bulkhead

So the previous owner had the car from 2014, used it for lots of offroad trips ect. In 2021 they decided to fit the new chsssis and rebuild the bulkhead due to the usual rot etc, perfect for me then! The car was around 150 miles away so that was a perfect test of reliability, soon into the journey we noticed the water pump was leaking it did get us home though.

The Green on the chassis needs to go and those S3 wings!



Pulled it into the workshop to check the water pump the following day, how it got us back I'll never know so a new one was fitted:

Those that know will see it's a bit of a bitsa, sporting the S3 dash which at first I didnt like but it's grown on me. This means the bulkhead is S3, I was planning on changing this back but it's so mint it would be a shame.

Old military seats had to go, my spine compressed far too much on them!




Week after purchasing it I ordered replacement front wing sections to get rid of the S3 lights.

Half done here, typically broke down due to the lift pump falling to bits


Frontend basically reverted back but the green has to go!
As you will also notice we got a roof tent for it and some new tyres due to the originals being past their best!







The puppy loves it, all Dogs love Landrovers though!


As this will be my Daily driver and a vehicle we use for campiing trips, some heat over the wheezy heater was needed.
Plumbed in a night heater and secondary battery on split charge.


It's even accompanied the Standard at a few local shows!







We even got a spot of green lanes in to test my numpty skills.
First time doing anything like that, certainly wont be my last!










Daily dog walking duty..

That's about where we are up to, I will need to repaint and get some of the panels a little straighter in the future. The green simply has to go, meybe a blue or grey, not quite sure yet. In the next few months I'll be changing the

[glenanderson]

Nice. Welcome to the fold.

Are you going to fit the side sill panels? If so, I might have a set for a SWB, or most of a set anyway...

[Nathan]

Jul 11, 2024 12:40:42 GMT glenanderson said:

Nice. Welcome to the fold.

Are you going to fit the side sill panels? If so, I might have a set for a SWB, or most of a set anyway...

It did have a set of rock sliders fitted, but I'm not that hardcore :-p
I do have a set that need knocking straight, are yours better than crunched paper :-p

[misteralz]

Did I see this in Sheringham a couple of months ago?

[glenanderson]

I’ll have a dig around in the shed and see what I can find.

[jjeffries]

Cool truck and pretty dawgie.

I was going to say that P.O. obviously used that special green zinc on the chassis. Wow. Is it paint or powder coat.

John (‘57 Willys Pickup)

[Nathan]

Jul 12, 2024 2:25:54 GMT jjeffries said:

Cool truck and pretty dawgie.

I was going to say that P.O. obviously used that special green zinc on the chassis. Wow. Is it paint or powder coat.

John (‘57 Willys Pickup)

I think it is paint as some areas chipped showing the galv, I was under the impression to paint galv you need to prep with with something else first.
The external parts of the chassis I simply painted black, just to remove the "In your face" shade of green

Thanks the pup loves it.

[Nathan]

Fast forwards to getting the roof tent.
I left the GF in charge of picking a sutible roof tent to use, as I bought the truck she thought it only fair she got the RT. The only factor to take in was it's size, we have 2 small dogs and the pup which is going to be a large Golden Retreiver. So fitting them and two adults means a small one wasnt going to cut it!

Whilst I was working she had got this delivered!
Large enough for 3 adults, Annex area and an insulated liner......I couldnt have picked a better one myself!

Test setup before a weekend in the peaks.











First outing.



So that's hopefully this summers car show accommodation sorted.

When I bought the truck the previous owner said they had changed the cambelt, but just to be sure this weekend we shall be pulling the water pump and timing cover off to check for sure. I've assisted in repairing one of these before, I'd rather just change it than go down the rocker/push rod replacement route. This also gives me a chance to flush the coolant out again, it's pretty clean now and a far cry from when it got us home....but still another flush wont harm.

[ducklooker]

Lovely wee thing.
I have a question about the tent though.
How does it mount please?
Like, do you specify the car and they send on the attachments or??
I use a Grand Vitara for camping etc.
Thanks

[Nathan]

Jul 15, 2024 1:28:39 GMT ducklooker said:

Lovely wee thing.
I have a question about the tent though.
How does it mount please?
Like, do you specify the car and they send on the attachments or??
I use a Grand Vitara for camping etc.
Thanks

It could mount to anything with roof bars attached really.
There are simple sliding bolts on runners underneath, you simply put them in line with the bars and bolt the spreader plates to it.

[motardman]

You must know Ratchet and Bob then? I spotted the Jurassic Jeep and Bobs V8 110 in a pic back there...

[Nathan]

Jul 15, 2024 11:17:39 GMT motardman said:

You must know Ratchet and Bob then? I spotted the Jurassic Jeep and Bobs V8 110 in a pic back there...

Certainly do, I'm from the same Village Bob is :-)

[Nathan]

Well what should have been a couple of hours work, ended up taking up two Saturdays :-p
So as a reminder the trucks sale thread stated a recent belt change but I've been down that road before so I needed to check.

Radiator out, pump off and I suddenly remembered that I didnt buy a timing case gasket. Now if this was an MX5 it would be fine, but in LR's wisdom the top right of the water pump passes through the taking case cover so both need gaskets DOH. If anything this allowed me to flush the cooling system a few times, certainly not perfect but it's no longer a sludge!

As I require the truck daily, I slapped the pump back on and ordered the bits.......

Last weekend all the bits arrived, time to strip...ohhh errrr

At this point I needed to get the crank nut off, new Hilti impact gun didnt budge it! Breaker bar, 4WD Low range and hard on the brakes....NOPE. I was convinced that the nut was so tight they never had it off so the belt was old.

Last go with a bit of heat and cranking the engine with the bar attached it came off...pheww!


New belt and tensioners in place YES!

Time to putit all back together then, sure I could have just taken then vendors word for it but that feeling of the belt letting go would have eaten away at me.

Took it as a win so loaded the puppy into the truck and went for a drive!



This week I'll start to check the levels as like all Series LR's it loves to mark it's spot :-p

[glenanderson]

The main thing to check for is that the crank bolt is FT. I have seen several otherwise good engines wrecked because people have not tightened (and loctited) that bolt.

[Nathan]

Jul 23, 2024 0:54:28 GMT glenanderson said:

The main thing to check for is that the crank bolt is FT. I have seen several otherwise good engines wrecked because people have not tightened (and loctited) that bolt.

Exactly this!
The previous owner put on an insane amount of thread lock so I obviously did the same.
Gunned up then breaker bar fo good measure.

[glenanderson]

I have been rumbling through the stores, looking for something else, but found these two rear sections of SWB Series 2/2A sill sections.

They were originally a pair of LWB station wagon ones that had suffered some damage, so I shortened them to fit my 88” when I couldn’t find any back in the late 90s.

Yours if you want them.

[Nathan]

Time for a small update:
Been doinga lot of camping up and post RRG this year and one thing that I know needed sorting was the rear springs.
They look to be very old and generally just worn out, the drivers sags quite a bit so during a weekend trip to Castleton I ordered a set whilst a bit drunk (I don't recall ordering them jsut chatting to a Landy mate who camped with us HAHAHA).

As you can see here the back does sag, it's about this low without the RT but once loaded up she was bottoming out!!











Can see how bad she sits here.

Trip away done but with Statfold classic around the corner, and the fact I am trailering another classic there we needed to get this done.
Into the garage:




I ended up using the lift to just raise the rear up as the perch areas are the places I needed to get parts off. The leafs had been in the compressed position a long time as the noise when lifting her up was horrific!
Seeing as the chassis was only built up last year removal was easy going, apart from one shackle bolt. I ordered a new set of these in anticipation of it being an issue!











The old leafs out.



Parabolics ordered as the amount of hard laning she will do is minimal.




Reverse the procedure...




Taa Daaa

[darrenh]

wait a minute, you actually decided you wanted a landrover AFTER driving one ?



looking at your photos the only 2a bits seems to be the reg plate and nose panel ?

liking the work so far, i agree with you on the styling, series 3 got rough end of the deal with the plastic

[Davey]

Aug 29, 2024 9:04:36 GMT darrenh said:

wait a minute, you actually decided you wanted a landrover AFTER driving one ?



looking at your photos the only 2a bits seems to be the reg plate ?

I think its professionally known as a traumatic head injury?