Thread: Saving the defender

Hi all,

Well, this is something I hope you will enjoy following:

A few months ago I decided I wanted to buy a defender to rebuild and set about looking for an old 130 as a project. Only prerequisite was that it was tired and not something that had been 1/2 done by someone else.

Given my very basic mechanical skills, I had decided a 300tdi would be the right engine and I came across a few over several months - one was a rough old truck via gumtree that was located in Noosa ( I live in Sydney).

So anyway, I flew up to Noosa on the 20th of November and the owner said he would pick me up at the airport in the defender. I'm thinking "great - this will give me a chance to check it out before I buy it"

From the airport carpark, it was a total of a 500 metre drive - to the flatbed truck he drove it in on.... At this point, I'm rather bemused

Poking around underneath, I found rust, worn suspension etc and poking inside I found a few cockroaches, more rust, mould, a drooping headlining, torn seats...even the original cassette player...

So facing the choice of either a 500 metre walk to a plane ticket and 90 minute flight back home, or a 1200km 15 hour drive back to Sydney, with no tools or spares - the only logical thing to do was part with some cash, get the keys and head south.

The drive, which started at about 4pm- was long and uneventful - I drove from Noosa to just north of Newcastle in one hit and slept on the back seat from 3am to 5am at 'the rock' truckstop - then it was a short 2 1/2 hours from there back home to Sydney.

I think the thing that kept me awake until 3am was the NOISE !! My iphone Decibel metre was reading 90 DB.

Wife and 2 kids were happy to see me, and a bit surprised at the ' new' truck in the driveway ( which the neighbours fell about laughing when they saw it)

Now, In regards to price - All I can say, is I paid 1/2 the price he wanted, and twice what a wrecker would pay for it

Phots to follow once I work out how to load them.

PS: Nice to be here - this forum has been a goldmine of interesting information for me, so thanks to all of you for the threads that have been laid down over the last few years !

An almost but not quite blank canvas