Originally Posted by
JimR
I recently did the line by line expense reconciliation (less labour) on a project S3 109. Reason being its a company service vehicle and I need the books to be small business tight. At the start of the project I conservatively coined 10k to get done, got stitched up closing the deal +/-500 as I thought it had a lt77 gearbox thrown in with the parts bin you inherit on a "needs work" truck. As it turned out the gearbox has water ingress and the cogs were pitted therefore uneconomical to repair.
Anyway cutting a long story short, the gearbox and custom prop shafts cost alone more than the whole vehicle. So once you start adding up all the bits, rustproofing, axel overhaul, brakes overhaul, sound proofing, specialist tooling, auto electrical looms, lights and bits, rubber etc etc then bring out another 5 and then another 5. Then it starts going through the 20k mark you start to think this better be good I can get a Defender for that. That's not even counting engineering and roadworthy, still not certain on all the curve balls yet figuring S%^t out. Its true that its actually a learning process and knowing the vehicle inside and out and being able to perform field repairs along with the satisfaction of building something yourself really can't put a price on.
Just don't listen to anyone who tells you they are just a big mechano set because that's bs it's more a big lot of dirty work and a mile long list of things to do:
I'd have to disagree with some of your comments.
If you can do most of the work yourself then it's a low cost proposition
If you are willing to wait, find secondhand parts, find alternative suppliers etc. it's an even lower cost proposition.
If you want it to look better than when it left Land Rover, can't wait and have to outsource a lot of the work then it's a bloody expensive proposition.
It is a big Meccano set. It's bolted together and you can take it apart and re-arrange the parts or replace parts without having to cut & weld panels. This means you can break the project down to bite size parts to work on.
Yes it's a lot of work but unless you cost in your hours most of the work can be done at reasonable cost.
The problem is you often find abandoned projects in a thousand pieces because people have lost momentum after taking everything apart.
Most of mine have been worked on one part at a time, takes longer but it's quick to re-assemble a few parts if you need to move it/sell it etc. I also have several projects on the go at one time so if I run out of $'s I can move onto something on another project that isn't expensive to do.
There are people who just want to make their Land Rover mechanically sound and not bother about the paintwork. I have vehicles that fit into that category because restoring them would reduce their value. So 'restoring' would be a bigger spend for ultimately less return (we are all only temporary keepers of these vehicles).
You can spend a small fortune on a 'restoration' or if you have the skills (or are willing to learn them) and are not in a hurry you can keep the costs to a reasonable level.
Each to their own but so far mine haven't had much spent on them because I have other priorities. Looking back, the bigger expenditure has been insurance & rego.
Colin
'56 Series 1 with homemade welder
'65 Series IIa Dormobile
'70 SIIa GS
'76 SIII 88" (Isuzu C240)
'81 SIII FFR
'95 Defender Tanami
'58 Series II (sold)
Motorcycles :-
Vincent Rapide, Panther M100, Norton BIG4, Electra & Navigator, Matchless G80C
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