Slowly coming together

John, just confirming this with you - the late S2a widelight radiator grilles were really originally chrome? I had no idea - I thought mine was galvanised so I had it re-galvanised…I guess I need to drop the “re” from that, but it’s disappointing because I’ve tried to restore mine to completely original and now it’s got a galvanised grille where a chrome one should be. Were any of the other grills chrome? I can’t imagine seeing a Land Rover with a chrome grille, but I wasn’t around when these S2a’s were new…

Cheers, Matt

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Originally Posted by JDNSW

Problem with it was that it was chrome plated, not galvanised, giving it quite a short life, especially near the coast.

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As far as I can remember, all those ones with horizontal wires rather than squares were. There were two variants as I remember, one with the close set headlights, one with the wide lights.

Of course, since they are fully interchangeable with the home market type, what is fitted now is not a good guide to what it had when it left the showroom!

As a side note mine had been used for cooking and as such was burnt and rusty, it is still in good condition it hadn’t lost much metal but if you are going to use it for cooking I wouldn’t imagine a galvanised one would be good for your health.
Just a thought Gippy.

Most cooking fires do not get hot enough to cause issues with the zinc in the galvanising (unlike welding), but the heat will not do the galvanising any good.

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Originally Posted by Gippslander

As a side note mine had been used for cooking and as such was burnt and rusty, it is still in good condition it hadn’t lost much metal but if you are going to use it for cooking I wouldn’t imagine a galvanised one would be good for your health.
Just a thought Gippy.

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Still have to be better than the plastic one on my 109..

Took a while but I have got a bit more done on the tray back, managed to repair the door tops with some locally fabricated component’s.. Cost $50 dollars and then I had to weld them together it wasn’t easy but time and effort saw the job finished. I then installed the windows with new runners etc, the door seals are off the shelf from Clark rubber with self adhesive backing. I removed the original components which were rotten I did not remove the original channels just the metal strips riveted to the vehicle. I have also installed sound deadening material to assist with driver comfort. Lastly I have had the seats uppolstered in black canvas, firstly for price and second ally for durability. The outlay was $250 to have all three seats covered whereas I was quoted by two different workshops $1600 and $1800 respectively to recover the original seats.
photos to follow having trouble loading them.

Hopefully I have sorted photosAttachment 185875Attachment 185876Attachment 185877Attachment 185878Attachment 185879Attachment 185880

The bottom section of the door tops was rusted but the rest of the frames were ok so I approached a local metal shop and asked if they could make the pieces. They came back with the components consisting of the large outer section and a smaller inner piece. I then cut them to length and welded them together I will attach photos of the sections I cut off showing their cross section. Note the larger piece is made with a slight angle at the bottoms as per the original to allow the window frame to match cab slope. It also has a folded top on one side and the outer side is lower to ensure water trapped in the gutter does not flow into cabin. The last picture is of the fabrication I needed to do to get the inner gutter piece to stay in place, I drilled a series of holes on both sides of the large piece at the level the inner piece sits and then tacked each piece together my mig welding is not the best but it will hold.
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Getting closer now booked for roadworthy on the 25th of next month it’s very hard to get in locally due to most garages not performing them anymore. The last few days I have managed to finish the floor coverings and changed the roof console by fitting radios above the console rather than below as I had them originally. I now have the woodwork to remove strip back and varnish as the final job before registering. The floor mats are 1/2” conveyor belt I have used boat carpet on the gearbox cover it is not permanently attach just sitting loose on top held down by the conveyor belt on either side.
All in all I am happy with the outcome it’s not clinically correct but changed to suit me as all old vehicles end up modified to suit there use.[biggrin]

Going in for roadworthy tomorrow and then hopefully registration all going well i have treated the tray woodwork with an oil based coating it is darker than i wanted but it will protect the wood so that's the important part. I have checked everything i can think of for the roadworthy so here's hoping.
Photos to follow.

Gippy