.Greetings from a Land Rover virgin

take some earplugs

AWEM

(who will never forget towing a BIG trailer from London to Liverpool and back in one day 25 years ago behind a series 2A, and the trailer jockey wheel coming down in the middle of Tower Bridge on the way back )

and waterproofs

Derek

Interesting choice for your first.

You have Recovery I hope ;-)

Luck? you don't need luck with any Landie - you need an understanding Bank Manager.

Enjoy all the same though, your life will never be the same again, it'll be far, far better :-)

On or around Sat, 25 Aug 2007 22:03:47 +0100, Stimpy enlightened us thusly:

sound chap, that's the way to do it.

OK, but a suitable toolkit would be a better bet :-)

Sounds like fun. If you have never driven one before, you will notice it is very different.

Unless it's been tarted up a bit, you will now have discovered how spartan an ex-military Land Rover can be. The big issues, shared with civilian Land Rovers, are the seats and pedals, and with under-seat fuel fillers, the seat options are limited.

By now, your legs will be aching, from the clutch and the accelerator pedal.

Just got in after 170 miles... Legs aching as predicted, ears ringing as predicted.

It didn't miss a beat all the way back - temperatures rock solid, gearbox stayed in gear.

Both tanks are still in place and working so the fuel consumption wasn't too much of an issue.

From what I'm told, it's a pretty original one. I'm quietly chuffed at the moment :-)

Well, I only ever wanted a lightweight and the Series 2a appealed because of the more spartan interior. To be honest, I'd have been happy with a Series

When I picked up my IIa I could still hear the engine and box two days later, Kind of drown out Mrs_D's objections... It does get better though as with time the deafness deadens the din :-)

Well done and good effort!

Lee D

Mrs Stimpy fell in love with the appearance of the Lightweight LR as soon as I showed her a picture, so I was onto a winner before I even bought it. The fact the Stimpettes (aged 11 and 12) also fell in love with it as soon as they saw it yesterday afternoon made it even easier.

BUT, I'm now under pressure from them all to get the canvas and door tops off whilst the weather is good.

Anything I need to know/consider before I start removing the canvas?

On a more serious note, Mrs Stimpy is making noises about maybe putting lap belts on the benches for the kids. What's the received opinion on here about doing such a thing?

I made broadly sympathetic noises about safety but felt it unwise to point out to her that the front seats each sit directly on top of 40 litres of petrol :-)

Thanks for the welcome to the group, I suspect you'll be getting plenty of dumb questions from me over the next few weeks.

__Stimpy__

Don't put lap belts on side-facing seats, I recently spoke to the DVLA and Department of Transport regarding my vehicle's bench seats (a Steyr-Puch Pinzgauer with seating for 12 on side-facing benches), they said that lap belts aren't fitted to side-facing seats because they are more harmful than no belts at all. This is because even in a relatively minor collision they cause the body to bend sideways and crush internal organs so it's considered safer for the person to take their chances with being thrown forwards. I don't know if it's actually illegal to fit them to side-facing seats though.

After quite lengthy talks with them, it's legal for children above the age of 3 to travel in the rear unrestrained in side-facing seats, as the seats never had belts due to the use of lap belts in such seats being regarded as unsafe.

There is however an overrider; a police officer can make a judgement that people are being carried in an unsafe manner and put you up before the beak where you will have to argue it out and risk a fine of up to £5,000 IIRC.

Note that all of the above was told to me in the context of *my* vehicle, there may have been other bits of law that weren't quoted to me because they didn't apply, they might apply in your case, best to check. For example I don't know what applies with side-facing seats and three-point belts.

What I'd currently suggest (if it all checks out as above) is that with your kids being relatively old, you put them on opposite benches up against the bulkhead ideally with some added padding to protect them, they won't go forward much. In my situation I was being asked by relatives to ferry 16 excited 10-year-old boys straight from a birthday party laserquest game through Bristol, I regarded that as too risky due to the number of kids so cited the chance of being arrested as an excuse (plus of course there being too many kids for the number of seats). I reckon in your situation you'd be OK as there's only two, you can probably control them OK and sit them in the best place to avoid them crushing each other or shooting down the length of the load bed and hitting bare metal.

Nothing major that I recall. but be careful about the webbing tape that holds the front down. If you were fitting a hard-top the fastening strip across the windscreen-top would need the rivets drilling out.

Door-tops: it's a big nut on the fixing bolts, and if there's a bit of corrosion in the wrong place, you can twist the bolt out of the door top. If they're solid, you might be better off leaving them in place for the moment.

Mmm... Been looking at them this afternoon, a couple of the nuts are rusted on so I'll free 'em up carefully