what are the must have manuals

[judd5]

hi all, have my heart set on buying and restoring a 53 80 inch, i havent found 1 as yet,just wanted to know what are the must have manuals,and what are the main things to look 4 when buying,thanks

[Dinty]

Well, where to start. Not knowing anything about you or your level of skills (this is just an observation), I'm a Reg/nse and a Land Rover enthusiast, have been for 40 years, I'm currently playing with a 55 86" Series 1, I do 99.9999999% of the work myself, so if I can do it anyone can!!.
The 80" Series 1 is getting very hard to find in an unmolested state, and given your location, while the environment could be kinder to metal than over here on the coast, the majority of Series 1 & 2's etc were purchased for use on the land and most cocky farmers used them until they died, and then some.
If you were lucky enough to find one (and I hope you do, they are out there), I would be looking closely at the body panels and chassis, they seem to cop a fair bashing in the bush, chassis sections can be made by sheet metal worker and welded together etc etc, body panels are available from the UK for the Series 1 but at around $2,000AU+ GST & freight for the 2 front guards, and wait for more than 6-8 months for them.
Look for previous owners modifications commonly called "bodges", some are reversible some not, see if it still has the 1.6lt engine (or 2.0lt) sometimes they have been replaced by either holden 6 (some Red engines some Grey) in fact I saw many years ago a Vanguard 4cyl engine in a 80", it went well, but it wasn't original.
The wiring loom will have no doubt been hashed about over the years and would be a good idea to replace anyway, Vinwire in Oz or Autosparks in the UK do looms for early Land Rovers.
Quite a few places in the UK still have stocks of NOS parts for Series 1 etc, they are Dunsfold's & Blanchards, they stock mostly genuine parts, when buying parts be wary, if you go for cheapest price, well you know what they say "you get what you pay for".
Where to look, well you could start by looking at clearing sales on the net or buy 'The Land' newspaper, country town wrecking yards, drive out n around some of the properties, ask around you never know what you might uncover.
I have 2 books both reprints of original manuals and parts books both by Brooklands books, they are readily available on the net, anyway hoping that's been of some help to you, cheers and good luck, Dennis

[JDNSW]

Pretty much what Dennis said. Manuals you need are the factory workshop and parts manuals. There are a variety of books on restoration and history that are nice to have if you are doing this, but those are the must haves.

As Dennis says, 80" in anything close to original condition (i.e. without extensive modifications) are getting hard to find, and parts specific to the 80" are getting hard to find and/or expensive, but most are available.

John

[slug_burner]

judd5

Before you get the manuals make sure you can get a vehicle.


Landy Smurf on this forum has a 53 he was selling he is also wrecking some parts so it might be worth getting in touch. See this link

a few more links

this one has a different engine probably a 2.25 ltr

[chazza]

As Sluggie says get the car first and then buy the books.

If you buy an 80" you will need the original workshop manual called TP/138 it is titled "Land-Rover Workshop Manual". There is another workshop manual called "Land-Rover 1948-58 Series 1", which is a generic thing and isn't a great help when working on the earlier cars.

Be aware too, that both manuals have errors and omissions in them but by using both, I found it fairly straight-forward to rebuild my '51.

The parts book is very helpful when Googling part numbers to find suppliers,

Cheers Charlie

[incisor]

Dave's Interesting Things - 4858SERIES1CD

a very very handy cd.....

[judd5]

thanks guys for all the replys,ill be asking santa for work shop manual and the parts manual,i have seen that 1 that landy smurf has 4 sale,nice machine,but from what i can tell a lot of the work has already been done i was hoping to start from scratch,a project 4 my old man and i and as hes retired and im 5 on 5 off we have the time, after xmas ill put a wanted advert in the local rag ,you never no,though alot of the blokes i know who have stations in the area tell me that some time ago a scrap mob came through the area and bought everything in car grave yards on the propertys