7 years later....

When my first daughter was born I thought I would have lots of time on my parental leave to fix my ex-British army  Series IIA 109 Landrover. Man was I delusional, mind you my wife wanted to cook Christmas dinner with a planned birth date of December 22 (My wise Mom said "Of course dear" and carried on planning the dinner, knowing that arguing logic to a woman on raging hormones was pointless, only took me another few years to learn this....)

Needless to say not much has happened to the old girl, but this summer finally a little progress, fenders are off and starting to WD-40 the manifold bolts and applying heat so they come off easy. the engine needs a rebuild, new starter is needed and new rad. the entire brake system will have to be replaced as well. debating what to do first, some job uncertainty makes me shy to spend to much on the engine right now. maybe fix the leaks in the steering box and arrest some of the rust starting to form. Still I feel better that I have done something finally!

My first Landrover still going strong

This was my first Landrover. It's a 1968 Series IIA 88 model. 88 refers to the wheelbase length. This truck was sold by Clark Simpson's motors to BC Hydro who used it for their line crews. You can tell BC Hydro trucks by the PTO winch on the front and the way the 2 piece tailgate had been fixed together and altered to a 1 piece door.
I bought it around 1977-78 from Wright marine supplies. I drove this truck hard, had lots adventures and some misadventures in it. I am still alive today because of the remarkable "Safe Working Angle" of these trucks, other trucks would have rolled on me. It was a good vehicle to learn on, cheap to fix and you can handcrank them, which was good as I was to broke to get a better battery.

in the summer I would take the top off and drive around with the windshield down. Driving on the highway like that I saw a dot ahead of me, seconds later the dot turned out to be a bumblebee that did a head on into my forehead, leaving a nice little bruise, the bumblebee did not fare as well.
Two features that I can spot on this truck is the shovel on the wing and two hooks for sandchannels on the side, both installed by myself. The fellow who owns it, installed a new frame and rebuilt the motor. However I notice that several temporary fixes I did are still in place, pretty funny to say the least. I sold this truck around 1988 to the current owners dad, who gave it to him. I replaced it with a 109 5 door, which I will chat about in another post.

A minion of the Prince of Darkness “Lucas”

Any owner of a British car can tell you horror stories of Lucas electrical. Some of the classic jokes are:
The Lucas Electric motto: "Get home before dark."
British car switches have 3 positions: Dim, flicker and smoke
Lucas refrigerators, the reason the British drink warm beer!
Lucas made vacuums, it was their only product that didn’t suck!

The odd thing is that once you get the British car bug, you are bitten for life. They get some things just right. Taking a MGB sports car onto the old highway to Squamish on a sunny day was exhilarating, the V8 whipping the little car around and the tight suspension holding you right to the road. Cast your eyes onto the lines of a classic jag and you know they got that right. The sound of the V12 was pure sex! In that Rolls Royce Merlin kind of way. Even the landrover (My favorite) had just the right amount of ugly to make it fit the image perfectly. For many third world people in the 1950-60's the Landrover was the only vehicle there was.
I got my start when my brother bought a short wheel base 88. Shortly after I got mine, I was so excited that when I paid for it, I didn’t even realize it had a winch! So far I have owned 3 Landrovers (and enough parts to build 2 more!) and 2 Rangerovers. Yes I have the bug bad. I will talk more about Landrovers at a later date.