It’s an open and shut case
It turns out there’s a correct way to build a Land Rover and it’s the exact opposite to the way most people tackle it. Once the bulkhead is in place, I think most owners are just too tempted by the chance to see their Landy looking half roadworthy again, so they fit the front wings and radiator surround, pop the bonnet into place and then stand back and admire their soon to be complete vehicle. Then, when they come to fit the doors, nothing lines up.
The secret is to work from the back of the vehicle. The fore and after position of the rear tub is pretty much fixed by the chassis (with some small adjustment for the height at which it sits) and the same is true of the bulkhead, although that can be nudged a tiny amount by using washers on the lower mounting bolts.
If you want the doors on a Land Rover to even come close to lining up, you need to get the gap between the front edge of the rear tub and the bulkhead square and even. And this mostly comes down to the final angle of the bulkhead, which is governed by the adjustment in the brackets between the footwells and the chassis rails.
I’d got as far as loosely bolting these supporting brackets into place. On the driver’s side, this forms part of the support for the master cylinders and pedals, but without the doors in place, it’s impossible to judge the final position of bulkhead.
The Landy’s original doors were tired – the tops were rotten, which is a common problem on Series Land Rovers, but the lower frames were also so far gone to be past repair. As I’d picked up a set of second-hand doors that had been put into my spares stash, I decided to fit these but had deluded myself regarding their true condition. Better than the originals, but not that good.
After checking the dimensions and reassuring myself that they were reasonably square, I took a screwdriver to the frames. Most
of the bottom rail on both doors quickly flaked away. Luckily, these are a simple design and I was able to make repair sections out of some decent weight 25mm box section. An hour with the welder and I was back in business.
There aren’t many steel components in a Land Rover’s body – just the bulkhead, front panel and the frames for the bonnet, doors and rear door/ tailgate. The outer skin of the bonnet and doors are alloy, which is great as they don’t rust but where they touch the steel frames, galvanic corrosion occurs. And it can be just as destructive as rust is to steel. The key is to keep the two metals isolated from each another, so in the case of the doors, where the outer skin folds over the frame, the steel need to be painted and using a good quality seam sealer is a must.
With this job done, both doors were stripped of any furniture and given a good going over with the DA sander. Some of the paint had actually flaked off leaving bare alloy, so a coat of etch primer was required. Undercoat and top- coats should be complete by the time you read this.
The whole point of lining up and securing the bulkhead was so I could start to fit some of body panels that have already been painted. The need to sort the doors has meant that I now have even more bulky fragile items littering the lockup floor. By next month, I’m hoping that the Land Rover will be a lot more complete, and I won’t be flinching every time I move!
Without the doors in place, it’s impossible to judge the final position for the Land Rover’s bulkhead