Rover 216 SLi
Theo’s new bonnet means that Glug can finally carry its own spare wheel
1968 LAND ROVER SERIES IIA
In all the years I’ve owned this Land Rover, I haven’t had any proper means of carrying a spare wheel. On long trips, I’ve resorted to ratchet-strapping it to the rear bulkhead, behind the seats, but that’s far from ideal. For shorter runs I just leave it behind, and frankly that’s just asking for trouble.
There are various ways in which a Series Land Rover can carry a spare. One is to have a rear door with an integrated carrier, but the extra weight knackers the hinges on rough terrain. A ‘swing-away’ rear carrier gets around this, but my favoured option (admittedly partly because it looks the business) has always been a bonnet-mounted wheel. Not all Land Rover bonnets come with the necessary dish and wheel mount, however, and most are horribly rusty, so it’s taken me forever to find a solid one at sensible price.
I bought mine down south, and it was in pretty decent condition – not perfect, but good enough. It’s from a Series III rather than a Series IIA, which you can tell by the hinges, but these were to be swapped anyway. After leaving it cluttering up the garage of fellow CCW contributor, Richard Gunn, for a few months (thanks Rich!), I finally brought it home to the Outer Hebrides in the back of a Range Rover P38 just before Christmas last year.
Getting it ready meant rubbing down the frame and halting the inevitable corrosion with black enamel paint, which occupied me for a quiet afternoon in the shed over the festive break. Then it was time to sand out the imperfections in the original Roan Brown paint, etch prime them, and roll it all over with Marine Blue. It was a bit of a shame seeing the Roan Brown disappear – it’s a lovely period colour, and the paint was in decent nick, too. Oh well…
The new bonnet’s SIII hinges had to be swapped for those from my SIIA, a simple job because the bolt pattern (three each side) is exactly the same. I was fairly confident of this beforehand, but not entirely certain, so it was a big relief to see the new bonnet finally mounted in place.
Into the dish went a spare wheel carrier that’s been staring at me for ages, and bolted onto that went the wheel that I’ve been hauling around since about 2010. Not anymore, though!