NEW BUILD SERIES 3 - 130 DUAL AB

[jay_guess]

Morning all,

I have a few questions / food for thought.

Has anyone ever build a series 3 - as new from all new parts - not a rest, but a new build. Eg new gal chassis, all new drive line from ashcroft, new motor, and as many new panels as possible? - what are the potential costs involved own this?

Secondly has anyone built a hybrid series 3 / defender 130 HCPU? so it would basically be a 130 underneath with either a 300 tai, or international 2.8/3.2 with series 3 body, and defender 130 HCPU rear tub.

Thoughts, suggestions, links, photos all invited.

[Phil B]

Land Rover themselves are doing rebuilds like that. From memory the cost was upwards of £30k
The second option sounds interesting but before going down that road speak to an engineer about getting it road legal

[JDNSW]

Series 3 did not come in 130" wheelbase, so you are looking at a custom chassis unless you go the 130 chassis route. (S3 did not come in dual cab either, for that matter, but that is less of an issue)

While mixing Series 3 and Defender body/chassis it doable, you need to be aware that there are a few issues. The wider Defender axles mean you need to fit flares to the S3 body. Also, you need to be aware that the axle position is different between S3 and Defender, with both front and rear axles further back, complicating matching the different body/chassis.

Starting with a completely new chassis will cause significant problems with legality. The identity of a vehicle is tied to the chassis - a new chassis has no identity, and you run foul of laws designed to stop rebirthing (you can replace an existing chassis with an identical new one). Starting a build from a new chassis is that this becomes a completely new vehicle. This means meeting the ADR requirements for 2017, for a start, and there are also likely to be issues with your not being an approved manufacturer (there are some ways round this designed for hotrods, but I think they vary between states, and I doubt they allow full registration).

So my take - first step is to seek advice from either an approved engineer of your state authority.

[jay_guess]

So what about if I purchased a fully new built defender / series hybrid internationally from nowhere like Nene Overland. Would there then be issues importing?

Or I guess the second option is to buy a complete dog just for the papers, and then buy a container ship of all the parts required to build up my hybrid, and use the numbers from the original??

There must be a market in Oz for "new Defenders and series landys"

[JDNSW]

You would need to check the legality of either of these approaches. The more straightforward one would be to start with the complete dog and work from there, but be aware that any significant change from original specification will need to be engineered - and the engineer would need to be involved from the start.

A fully built Defender/Series hybrid would either be treated as a new vehicle, requiring proof of compliance with all 2017 ADRs (probably impossible), or as a rebuild of the base vehicle, in which case it would need to have engineering approval of all significant changes from original specification (except for the ones that were options at the time the original was built).

Hope this helps