Now that I'm pretty much back on my feet work has begun in earnest on swapping the rear door on the Defender.
First job was to dismantle the new door. Easy enough, and quite pleasing in that when the inner door card was removed, out dropped a 10mm nut, whose sole purpose appeared to be to rattle round in the bottom of the door thus maintaining a decades-old Land Rover tradition. Once bare of glass, interior trim and wheel bracket I took the door to a bead-blasting company in Farnborough. In keeping with their location's historical significance in the world of blokeishness, these were proper chaps who hide in a workshop, assaulting bits of old cars with a high pressure jet of fine grit to cleanse them of any surface contaminants such as paint and corrosion. People like these appreciate the finer points of cups of tea and can thus be relied upon to deliver.
£20 later and the door looked like it had never been painted. This process not only removes rust but also separates the men from the boys so far as cars are concerned. To a Land Rover, figure head of sturdy British engineering, bead blasting is like an exfoliating power shower; to lesser cars, those built with consumer values and production costs more in mind, it is a near-death experience and almost certain disintegration.
First job was to dismantle the new door. Easy enough, and quite pleasing in that when the inner door card was removed, out dropped a 10mm nut, whose sole purpose appeared to be to rattle round in the bottom of the door thus maintaining a decades-old Land Rover tradition. Once bare of glass, interior trim and wheel bracket I took the door to a bead-blasting company in Farnborough. In keeping with their location's historical significance in the world of blokeishness, these were proper chaps who hide in a workshop, assaulting bits of old cars with a high pressure jet of fine grit to cleanse them of any surface contaminants such as paint and corrosion. People like these appreciate the finer points of cups of tea and can thus be relied upon to deliver.
£20 later and the door looked like it had never been painted. This process not only removes rust but also separates the men from the boys so far as cars are concerned. To a Land Rover, figure head of sturdy British engineering, bead blasting is like an exfoliating power shower; to lesser cars, those built with consumer values and production costs more in mind, it is a near-death experience and almost certain disintegration.
The door now requires repainting to match the Blenheim Silver of the rest of the car.
The Seven has also seen it's fair share of TLC this week. The new roll bar is in place, but due to the geometry of the uprights, the tonneau needed tailoring slightly. I got this done as a favour through work by the chaps who normally repair life rafts and so have access to men's sewing machines.
In less than an hour the holes in the tonneau were suitably elongated, and better still, in order to avoid the awkwardness of cash changing hands in the working environment, the chap who did the work has requested payment in Cherry Bakewells.
