More parts to support the frame and drive train swap, just doing some fit checking.

So what really started the underhood painting was the hood lock, it seems that the lock is frozen up. And besides that I had three different keys to open all the doors and start the vehicle so I ordered up a 4 lock set from Rovers North and have started changing out the locks. The lock was pretty corroded so I did a little cleanup on the latch and the attaching components and all is working well again.

One of the upcoming projects, a new galvanized frame as the original is pretty rusty.....this should pretty much last me forever!

As the project continues I did a little bit of clean up and paint on some under hood parts, not a show truck by any stretch but tired of looking at the rusty crusty parts. First was some of the radiator support part.

I cleaned up and lubed the hood latch and blasted and painted the radiator support braces which were pretty ugly. As I was finishing up that project I decided to troubleshoot the windshield washer pump now that I had all new switches in the steering column. Turns out to be a bad pump which is now on order. While I had it apart I took the windshield washer bottle bracket off and cleaned it up and painted it as well. Not a hue difference but none the less better, at the same time I replaced the bolts and nuts with new ones since the original were looking pretty bad.

Since I was on kind of a roll I decided to finally fill in the hole in the wing with a radio antenna, radio will come later. Nothing special just a collapsible one from Rovers North, and installation was easy.

The next project started out one way and then took a hard left and turned into a larger project. The switches in the steering column seemed to work only when you turned them on and then held the lever in a certain position. That was getting pretty old so I decided to order a couple new switches which turned into ordering all new switches and a bunch of screws to replace all the missing ones. What I found was that the main turn signal assemble collar, which has a pinch bolt was broken and made of plastic. That is where most of all the slop in the switch assemble was coming from. I bought all my switches from RN and they plugged up perfectly and work just as they should. Very nice to have all the switches feeling tight and working again! It was kind of painful $$ to buy all those little screws that were missing but everything went back together really well. The most painful part of the project so far was the removal of the steering wheel since sometime in the past someone stripped the threads which are used for the puller!

Since I was waiting for parts I decided to change out the Binnacle and mount as well which was a pretty easy swap and made a nice difference. At the same time I changed out most of the bulbs for LEDs.

If you notice in the cluster on the left I had reinstalled the light cluster upside down.....oops! It became obvious when I reinstalled it when the wiring wasn't lining back up. The next project was to make all my heat controls and fan controls work again, luckily for me it just took some cable lube and PB Blaster to get things freed up and moving again. While I was there I added some aluminum lever knobs since one of mine was already missing. They function as they should now and they don't look too bad either, still need to replace some more of the rusty screws!

And the final project for this episode is to replace the steering with something better looking and slightly smaller in diameter, which I am pretty happy with.

Old

New

Where to purchase the steering wheel - MUDUK
 

Just about the time I had given up on finding some "D" hole black wheels, a set show up on FB marketplace.....nice, $100.00 for four 16" x 8" Wheels!

I will probably blast the fronts and give a fresh coat of paint, I am pretty happy.....most likely going to put a set of Yokohama M/T tires on them in 285/75-16.

So the next project was too upgrade all the blinkers, fog light, license plate light to LED's which went relatively well other all the connectors were crap. I bought some waterproof ones and crimped some pins on and got them installed. I did experience the problem with voltage making the opposite side light up ever so slightly but I got that worked out. Hoping to upgrade the headlights to LED at some point.

So I wasn't very happy with the black steel wheels and the dry rotted tires so I started looking for something that would perk the looks up and not break the bank. Here is what I ended up with, still not happy with the wheels so I am sure that will change.

I will probably end up with black American Racing steel wheels with the D shaped hole but they don't seem to exist for a Land Rover.....I will keep looking though.

I have gone through many ideas of where I am going to take the mail truck but it will definitely not be a show truck so therefore it probably won't get any fresh paint, dent removal/body panel massage maybe. The first thing I did was do something to break up all the plain white real estate. I was pretty sure at the time I would be installing side windows due to it being such a large blind spot and being RHD, so I added a sticker. Mission completed.