Thread: Saving the defender

well, I finally got the chassis under the cab section finished in 3 coats of KBS tonight. I also did the 'body rails' ( whatever they're called?) as they had bad rust in places.

Over the past few weeks I removed all the grease, then the surface rust, then sanded back to bare metal, then hit it with rust converter and then finally, the paint x 3. I will try and get the top coat on tomorrow night.

I do keep lamenting that I've started this project without a full disassembly back to the chassis. With more experience heading into this, I would have definitely have planned to do a full strip/ rebuild, rather than the workaround im doing.

With that said, it is what it is, so I'll just push on - there is no going back now and time is ticking.

I also got the sikaflex finished in the gutter - so im slowly ticking off the list.

I'm now thinking through my next steps - planning to hopefully paint the cab/ roof/ floorpan and seat boxes over the Australia Day long weekend then once thats done I'll be moving onto the engine ( p gasket, timing belt, rear main seal) - its all a bit piecemeal, but I have limited windows that I can spray in ( as well as a looming deadline to move the truck from its current location.

Originally Posted by Andy130

I'm now thinking through my next steps - planning to hopefully paint the cab/ roof/ floorpan and seat boxes over the Australia Day long weekend then once thats done I'll be moving onto the engine ( p gasket, timing belt, rear main seal) - its all a bit piecemeal, but I have limited windows that I can spray in ( as well as a looming deadline to move the truck from its current location.

Is the rear main seal leaking?

If not, DON'T TOUCH IT!!!

I just replaced mine as a maintenance thing and $4,000, three seals, two clutches and three days off work later, I finally got someone who could fit one and not have it leak. I could have bought another car for that money. Now I think my head gasket has gone.....I need a money tree

yikes, that sounds like a nightmare Corgie Carrier.

Unfortunately, mine is leaking, there is quite a bit of oil at the back of the engine/ bell housing- noen coming out of the wading plug though.

P gasket is also leaking - and the timing belt is due - I figure it will be best to tackle all of this in one go.

Originally Posted by Wanderlust

Hi Andy
.....What condition are your doors in?

Well, since you asked, here is one..

Originally Posted by Andy130

Well, since you asked, here is one..

I feel your pain with doors one of mine is real bad the others i think there is enough good metal there to weld to but Ill probably still need two or three new door sins.
There was YouTube clip buy a guy in England who was making fiberglass doors that would be the go if they were available at the right price.

Ahhh! Wondered where that had gone? Used to be here in Tewantin, was pretty rough but ran and still worked for a living. Tewantin?? That's the town that was here before Noosa was even a thought bubble.

Good to see that someone has taken it on.

Cheers

RF

Yep, here she is Rick. I've almost got the rust under control...almost...I keep saying "one more week" but i probably have 1-2 more weeks until I've really got it sorted and can lay down some primer- then I will move onto the mechanics.

I just had the mobile sandblaster here for 4 hours today to help speed things along - I'll post a few more pics in the next few days, tonight was all about sweeping up crushed glass medium from the blaster...

well, i was a little dismayed to discover sections of the rust paint coating have failed. I 100% followed all instructions, you can see here that its failed on the chassis section that had no rust - but it had been sanded back to bare metal, then cleaned and then treated with the phosphoric acid.

The coating has taken fine over the rusted sections, but failed on a few sections of ' clean' steel.

You can see by the photos that the chassis was sanded with 40 grit in both directions - it was very rough.

In other news, I've started on the sandblasted steel wheels - they will get painted tomorrow.

I also bought the spray guns ( one for the primer, and one for the raptor liner with a 3.5mm nozzle) and the primer, tint etc.

Should be spraying undercoat on the 26th, weather permitting.

The big ' near disaster' occured the other day when the paint shop sold me acrylic primer to go under the raptor liner. The raptor technical sheets dont say you cant use it - but they also dont say you can - but they recommend either an etch primer or a 2k epoxy.

Because I'm spraying in a garage I want to avoid the 2k paints.

So I decided to call the shop back and ask them some more questions , luckily I got a guy who really knew what he was talking about and he said 'thank god you called - raptor will peel off an acrylic undercoat"

Yikes - that would have been a nightmare!!

Anyway, they sent a driver over to pick up the acrylic primer and hand over 4l of a 1k etch primer, so no harm done at the end of the day.

ok, back to prepping for the paint job and refixing the paint fail on the chassis...