There's the possibility I may be doing some repair & restoration work on a series 1, mainly chassis repairs & mabye later mechanical stuff. I dont know that it's going to go that far but it may be a body-off job. It needs a bulkhead, the old one is out & the new one is in place but little more. A quick look around suggests the chassis is usable but will need a fair bit of work to out-riggers etc. It wont be anything like a full restoration for shows etc, but it's going to be put into decent working order rather than just patched up to keep it going.

I've worked on a fair few Landrovers, mainly working machines used by farmers & just running repairs & MOT prep etc. I've not worked on anything this old, a few series 3 when I first started working 15-20 years ago but nearly all the coil sprung Defender.

Where should I be looking for advise & insight into what may need doing, what's available? What books & forums are good & which not so helpful?
I know the good thing is with Land Rovers that so much is available due to the following they have & what is'nt easy to get can usually be made or adapted from something else as they're so simple.

It wOnt look any different under a s1 or s3.

Body removal will also be the same , Ie back tub, seat box, hard top.

All the chassis parts can as you suggest be made or purchased. I've replaced dumb irons ,out riggers, x members , door pillars and footwells.

Pretty sure I used a Haynes restorAtion book which covered it all well.

If you have worked on them before you will have no problems.


Post some pics, always fancied a series one.

Easier than a series III, the nuts and bolts will undo

Personally I would make the outriggers to the original profiles if craddocks etc do not supply, they are just smaller and nicer.

Yeah I've done one or two rear crossmembers & outriggers, but never anything as extensive as this. It all looked fairly familiar under there from what I remember of the series 3
Getting body mounting points all true & the body fitting back together, doors fitting properly etc is all that I'm concerned by really.* The making parts, welding etc is just my thing anyway so no problem there.
There's nothing going to happen for a little while yet but I'm just thinking a little research would'nt go amiss, some little bit of info on how something should or should'nt be, a technique for a particular task or a supplier for a part I though I'd have to make, that kind of thing.
I have to admit I do like Land Rovers, I'd have one if it suited what I need (& some day I may convice myself it does, like a LWB Hi-Cap pickup with a decent TD motor ). There's many folk that knock them for entirely correct reasons but mabye they just dont "get" them, just like many on here will have met someone who just cant understand building a car when they sell perfectly good ones at the dealer!


* It is though a Land Rover, they dont fit all that well brand new!

A friend of mine put a new galvanised chassis under his series IIA earlier this year and I rewired it for him with a new loom. He's putting a 200 Tdi engine in it now.