Restoring Old Range Rovers. Richard Hudson @ASPWthenextjourney

Restoring Old Range Rovers. Richard Hudson @ASPWthenextjourney

Welcome everybody to to the next Journey podcast you find us battling as usual with technology tell me where you are in the world right now right so I am uh just Northwest of London in the United Kingdom place called high Wickam High Wickam right and I’m of

Course in Western Australia those of you who don’t know Richard Richard helped me build my Range Rover would certainly prepare it for my trans Australia Crossing that was in 21 and then the counting stock route in 22 and what would you say your specialty is because of course your channel is

Church house Classics one of my favorite YouTube channels thank you dealing with my favorite car of all time yes yes that’s that’s fairly obvious tell me about what do you what are you what do you consider yourself to be good question um I’ve I’ve got no formal mechanical training in my background

However I’ve been tearing things apart for as long as I possibly remember my main industry throughout my working life has been in Computing in project management and I think it’s the combination of the disciplines of project management and my mechanical um uh knowledge that I’ve learned through

You know through the knocks of life through experience that I’ve been able to bring together um to create a fairly special business that I can run by myself uh that provides my customers with pretty much exactly what they want um so utilizing things like I don’t know fault diagnosis process and

Organizational skills um and communication skills as well um really just try and get the best out of the customer the project the you know and and my the way I deliver if that makes sense almost so then describe to me your ideal customer enthusiast absolute thr and through Enthusiast in what in

Cars cars generally cars generally yeah classic cars someone that’s got a real interest in um so for instance you and I have a passion in two-o Range Rovers absolutely love them they’re style icons um so someone comes to me um and yeah they have a twood door Range Rover and I

Could see they’re enthusiastic about it they want me to work on the car um and more important importantly it’s a keeper it’s not something they’re dressing up just to kind of flip on I’m less interested in that kind of work I’m more interested in dealing with the person

With the project and kind of the whole thing comes together as a package for me so you’re very much in touch with the client’s wishes and desires so you meet with them face to face and then you get to know what they’re really wanting out of the project and this is something

That I find a bit strange because I’m quite bad at that but but you’re obviously quite good at it because on your channel you keep churning out these masterpieces I like to call them masterpieces I mean it’s just a car but it’s still it’s it’s an sometimes an

Enormous amount of work to get them from to yes the the tricky thing is a car comes to me um and invariably they’re going to be 45 to 50 plus years old and they are built by British Leland uh which doesn’t help to start off with

And I’m not going to go into a big old kicking British Leland exercise here because it is what it is um however these these these cars they’ve been through Decades of bodges they’ve been right down into the doldrums they they’ve kind of like been worth less than the shirt on someone’s back but

They’ve just been nursed Through The Years so when I eventually get hold of a car that a customer wants me to to work on it’s it’s very difficult for me to provide a quote against what I’m not what I can’t see you know where I’m going to be and especially in the UK

Where we use salt on the roads in the winter it’s not uncommon to find you know three or four layers of Rusty steel U where there should be one and all badly welded together with bits of filler and all sorts so really all I can

Do is I can provide an estimate uh to the customer based on my experiences of what I’m likely to find um and I am surprised sometimes not very often but I am surprised that cars are in good condition or better condition than than I anticipated and if I find um nasties

Along the way then it’s a case of discussing the the impact of that with the customer I’m um in my business I’m not prepared to uh continue with the uh what we call theot Patch regime so just lobbing another piece of metal over a rusty hole so that it passes its annual

Test I’d rather cut it out return back to um what was left of you know what what’s left of the car from as it left the Factory and then rebuild it from that point and as you’ve seen from the channel there’re it’s not well it looks horrific um but for me it’s very

Organized it’s it’s very straightforward for me to see how the car should be where it is at the moment um and then the tricky bit I guess for for the viewer is to understand how I can logically move from one stage to the other uh sometimes it’s just entire

Panels get replacer things like the sils the bulkhead side panels and so forth but these panels are all available um I know which ones are good quality and fit well I know which ones are trickier to fit need a little bit more attention um

And I know how to how to how to do those so it’s it’s become because I’ve done many of these things now over the last four or five years that I’ve been running the business I’ve just built up a skill set inside me that understands I guess a bit more about the body

Structure and that’s just the body I mean that’s the worst generally the worst bit of any Range Rover um in this country is going to be the body body frame itself but it also extends into things like the interior you know the electrics the the running gear you see all kind of

Modifications absolutely no issue at all with modifications if the customer wants me to fit up rated Springs or lower the car or whatever it’s it’s their car it’s their wish and I work to that but I also will um try to make the customer aware of the impact of a modification whether

I feel that that’s a positive modification or whether it’s just something that’s shiny and it’s really about engaging with the customer really getting down to what it is that they need and even if they think they need it they don’t always need it and after discussions they may change their mind

They may not but I will continue to you know to work with the customer so your skill set includes basically looking at a veh a vehicle opening closing the doors looking inside the panels and being able to interpret the rust how deep is it how serious is

It is that panel available yes just replace the panel not difficult because you’ve got and you know what spares are available and you know what spares are not yes what I’m going to talk Range Rovers here okay what what just plane not available what is the one thing that

You just really struggle with with any big Range Rover restoration on the early cars four-speed gearbox components are um uh tricky to get hold of and where they are available they’re not necessarily of the right quality um and i’ I’ve come across this time and time

Again so I have to be quite creative when I find parts of gearboxes I’ve got about um six of those four-speed gearboxes in my workshop at the moment just all sitting there I own a lot of them I don’t know how it happened but I’m there anyway so I’ve taken one of

Them apart for bits um so I’ve salvaged used good quality used parts from those gearboxes which I then use in a customer’s car in order to get the gearbox back into into order some of the internal components of the gearball especially bearings and so forth I can get them from specialist bearing

Supplies but not through the Land Rover channels because I generally found them to be lower quality than those that are available in the marketplace so it’s challenges like that there isn’t anything specifically in Range Rover circles I guess the Bonnet and the roof are panels that are quite tricky to get

A hold of so I tend to um roof panels are very difficult to work with because they’re Burma Brite or aluminum um but once that gets dented it stretches very easily and then shrinking that aluminum back down to its normal shape is almost impossible so when I find a roof um uh

Panel that’s perhaps been off-roaded had some some tree branch damage or so forth it’s often easier to replace that panel outright than it is to try and straighten the one that’s on the car bonnets are a little bit easier because they’re Steel in construction um and

They don’t tend to rust as badly as the real rear tailgates so the the bonnets I’m able to I did a video recently where I stripped a bonnet down to its Bare Bones took every single component out so I ended up with the outer skin of the Bonnet which

I was able to repair and then the inner frame and then it’s all just riveted together um so I did a video on that um and the results of that came out very I wasn’t surprised but I was very pleased with the results and I’ve done similar

Things with um so my other passion is Triumph Stags and there were a number of panels that are not available for those again the boot LD is not available um and they do Rust and I’ve um taken two or three panels apart to salvage the best bits and then assemble one good

Bootl from all of those parts if it could be done in the factory then it can be done by an Enthusiast or someone with very sort of basic but logical skills these are not difficult things describe to me the the the worst car that you’ve ever had delivered to

You and say and and where the customer said rebuild it I don’t care I know it’s rotten mhm describe describe that to me did did you have you ever said mate you you can’t you know you’re polish you’re polishing a turd here sorry have you

Ever got to that situation yes I have um the there’s one car that I’ve had come back to me three times with three different owners uh which which was quite amusing first time it came to me um um it’s a Defender 90 and it’s a fairly early

Defender 90 it was late 1980s Defender 90 um and someone got in touch with me um with uh an email request saying just bought it at auction are you available just to put a few patches on the chassis for me uh now in the UK um Defender

Chassis they Rock From the Inside to the outside on the main rails yes probably the same in Australia same in South Africa same across the world once it’s wor worse in the UK because of theault yeah once the main rail’s gone that’s it you’ve lost the chassis um there are

Half and quter Chassis available but they’re a pain to put on and by the time you’ve taken the body apart to that extent you may as well have replaced the entire chassis in the UK we can do that I know in other countries in Europe and and certainly in the United States the

Car’s got to retain the majority of its original Freight but in the UK we have a good supply of brand new chassis that are either just be Ste or they’re galvanized so this car came in I went to theot U the the the kind of the the

Safety annual safety check history on my computer and looked it up and it was just it it it read like War and Peace on rust on the chassis so I got back to him and said no it needs a new chassis and he said oh but theot man said I’ll just

Weld a few patches over it so we’ll get theot man to weld a few patches over it so I let him go because he wasn’t prepared to do I’m I wasn’t prepared to continue patching that chassis it had to be done right I didn’t want my name

Against mot style patches on that on that on that particular car the rest of it looked okay but they always do they always look okay rolled on a couple of months and then someone else got in touch with me just bought this Defender um and I’m

Told it just needs a couple of patches welded on the chassis um so so I very very very politely and gently let him down um that I’d already seen the car it needs a new chassis and this is roughly the cost and with the Defenders it’s a little bit

Easier to do a shaty change than it is let’s say on the series um Land Rover cars because you can lift the entire body off as one big unit so it wasn’t a horrific cost in fact the biggest part of the cost was probably going to be the

Chassis itself and then he went away disappointed uh then it came back a third time with an email request again from a third third person so I rejected it a third time um so I don’t know where it is now that car but it the the other

Thing that I do get um and it’s happened on almost every project that’s coming to my workshop it will come in for a specific set of work the Lincoln Green to door that I did a very very long series on that car came in for me

To uh sort the axles that brakes uh get the engine running um and then hand it back to the customer who was going to take it into a body shop what had happened was it had been in another Workshop uh where the body frame had been taken off the chassis uh they they

The customer lost faith with that particular um uh uh Workshop I think just because the time it was taking so they just threw it back together again um and traded it down to me so by the time it gets to me it’s it’s just a rolling chassis of loose bolts and and

And you know Loosely assembled parts so I rebuilt the pair of axles they were fine um and by the time it came to running the brake lines through which run across the bulkhead on the Range Rover I said to the customer look there’s no point me doing this because

The bulkhead needs to come off because it’s that rotten so then it comes back he said well how much then to sort the bulkhead out and the project evolved from that point and it ended up with a complete rebuild of that car so I rebuilt everything from the window line

From the waistline downwards on that car but it it it kind of came through in steps now had that car come in right at the beginning and that customer very very good customer had said to me uh look I want this body frame restoring I would have said to him look it’s rotten

Absolutely rotten U and it’s full of filler um and there’s that many bad and dangerous repairs on it that really you’re better off starting with something that is more together and I’ve got what three a suffix Range Rovers sitting in my yard at the moment which I

Own um and they were all in better condition than that Lincoln Green Car although the chassis was galvanized and the engine was good but I could have lifted the engine out of that and put it into one of the AIX cars I’ve got it’s had the original engine replaced with a

Diesel so I could have Lo lobed that in there rebuilt the body frame at a fraction of the cost and then moved it on and it’s a shame that I wasn’t aware of the end goal of that project right at the beginning because I would have been able to better advise that

Customer um so now he’s got a D suffix Range Rover um I think yours is your latest one’s D isn’t it the one you did The Cutting stop R yes this is a d suffix Range Rover to which I have completely rebuilt the body frame and

It’s a very nice car now um it’s gone in for he did originally want the patina rat look um to the outer body panels he quite liked the scuffed up Lincoln Green pap work but it’s now changed his mind and he’s now having the whole thing

Painted in the paint shop so we’ll see that car on my channel again fairly soon he’s coming back just for final fit and finish I’m going to put the carpets in when when I contacted you about my Range Rover and I said to you that I was

Collecting it I was going to spend a couple of days working on and that I was going to this was of course long before canning was even thought of yes what did you then did you think I was uh bit bit crazy to just buy one almost blind mind

Because it was during Co so I couldn’t go and have a look at it I just looked at the photographs and looked at some you know did as much search as I could and gave them the money and took the risk what was your reaction to that when

You heard me doing that I think because it’s an Australian it’s been in Australia the majority of its life although it is a UK manufactured car it was shipped out fairly early in its life wasn’t it so it spent its entire it was sold new it was sold new here a fully it

Was a fully assembled vehicle in the UK and shipped shipped and sold new in New South Wales excellent right so because it’s been in a dry climate all his life there’s probably less risk involved in your purchase than let’s say someone doing that in the UK and then you see it

Boils down to price so um I don’t know what you pay for that car um we if someone in the UK bought a car because there is a great area in the values of these Range Rovers here in the UK so you can get a project for 2 or

3,000 um you can get a fully restored car and you see some crazy prices online at some of the dealers um but some of those cars have been beautifully rebuilt um and everything is better than it was when it left the factory um and then you

End up with this area in between in which U there is a risk a high risk that you’ll end up with a car that’s just been tarted up um and you know give given a wipe over or blow over with with you know with an oily rag U just to make it look

Good and so when you look at the pictures you think hey fantastic looking car and you pay over the odds for what’s effectively a project so here in the UK okay I would I would have been quite disappointed but I think your purchase when you first started talking about it

I thought oh this could be interesting and when you first saw it I thought that’s nice um it looked together it looked straight it sat Square um it did I I I I was aware of but again through photographs you can’t actually see if it’s but you can see

Where they might be rust in the bottom of the dorsals where where the the a pillar meets the floor no rust okay well that’s a good sign Etc you know so I took a chance I wish I’d had you there to at the time I would have said do you

Have a look at these pictures and yeah um I my um my father-in-law South African um and he I got I’ve got quite through my wife I got quite a big um family in South Africa and one of the guys out there is very much into rain Drovers and land Drovers and and

Sourcing out classic cars and I help him Michael give you a shout out and he is he’s currently he picked up an Austin A40 which he picked up I can’t remember when Rand it was equ equated to about 350 quid and this thing’s Immaculate he’s got to sort out the

Title he’s got to get it up and running he’s also picked up a series three Land Rover and he’s constantly looking for Range Rovers so he keeps finding them you know tucked away here and there and everywhere but he gets on all right with

That he’s he he he is okay and I help him over the you know I use WhatsApp and we we talk about projects um as as when he finds me you know what do I think about it Richard and I’ll give him honest honest opinions sometimes photographs can be very

Deceptive um and I think you if you’d been in the UK you’d have been very lucky with that car I think in Australia South Africa it’s a different case you don’t seem to struggle quite so much with the russ but you do struggle with the the tried out seals the the heat

Damage from the hard plastics um modifications the dashboard for example none of the photographs that he took showed the major breaks in the dashboard which was the worst part of the all of the entire car but it was cleverly photographed and was of course it was terribly terribly

Neatly done with the seat belts carefully and the seats were not not particularly good but all of these angles you couldn’t see that in fact the passenger seat was broken yes the the driver seat was broken but I could do a temporary repair for for my trip but it

Looked a lot better than turned out to be but again lots of close-up shots of that patina that seems to be so it’s nice but it wears off quickly if you know what I mean I know exactly what you mean yeah the the exterior panels on

Your car I liked I liked the level of uh almost just like where the paint have been worn and Polished away um yes but I think you are in a very limited market it’s a very personal um uh kind of requirement for someone that that wants

A car that looks ageew War there’s a big following for it here in the UK um I go to uh there’s a local uh living car show where the cars are seen driving around they do hill climbs and all sorts of things there’s amazing machines there

And you see uh 1910 1920 kind of cars that have never been painted and you’re looking at that car and you’re thinking that is amazing never ever ever ever paint that thing but I think when it comes to a 1970s Range Rover it’s different but then a Range Rover I think

Should look Range Rovers don’t wear their dents with pride serious Land Rovers do you’re right you’re absolutely right yes um when you when when you heard about us now okay you you kept in tou we kept in touch and the trans Australia Drive was very very successful

I had one minor problem with a noisy air box and uh I and the only major work we did in Victoria before I drove it out the things that actually you could see okay that is going to let us down was the fuel system which had been butchered

And we replaced all the fuel lines and put in a new fuel pump but there was no other mechanical work done then I announced that I was going to do the canning stock route which is at the time it was not my idea it was somebody

Else’s idea and I cursed the man and still I cursed the man until until the day we actually finished the trip I cursed him because the idea of taking a 47y old British Len product on an incredibly rough punishing track what did you think of the the idea

Did you honestly think it was gonna it was going to make it absolutely I had I had complete faith in that car being able to do that Journey the main reason being is the early Range Rovers I mean pretty much any of the classic Range Rovers you can fix with a hammer the

Majority things can be easily fixed um so long as the core components are in good order um and as long as as you already done your trans Australia routs you had given it you know one heck of a Shakedown really just by driving it right way across and back home again so

You were already would aware of things like uh you the bearings the hubs the axles the differentials the gearbox was in good order the engine was strong so then it’s just a case of carrying the smaller components of spare part I know your light switch failed but all you

Really needed was was a small jumper a small piece of water about that long which you just w wedge into the back of the light switch and the lights would have just stayed on permanently so when when I watched that episode where they failed I was thinking oh I could

Have fixed that in about a minute in about a minute yes yes and of course of course H really wanted to fix it because his highed letter let us down so often and I wouldn’t and I would not let him forget it none of us would let him

Forget it the moment it broke down everybody was pointing fingers at him because it was supposed to be the vehicle the most reliable of all and it was well it was a rotten shame it was a bit of a surprise actually I always knew that the Range Rover would do the job I

Didn’t realize that it would end up being quite the star it was because it was it started out as a been I don’t know what the viewers thought I genuinely thought that car would make it to the end but I imagine a lot of people would watch that and thought Oh you know

If you want to go into the desert take a Rain Rover if you want to get out take a a high lugs take a take so I I I I never had any doubts um and and the show just got more and more um into how not unbreakable because I’m

Bits did break on it but how competent that car was at getting where it did go to and it’s not the first time it’s done a long yeah Range Rovers have been doing long Journeys since since they were first created in 1970 yes but not 47

Year old ones no this is true no even worse they were brand new ones they hadn’t had 47 years worth of iring out all the little issues that’s that’s very true I mean I had a 72 model and I did some extremely rough trips in that car

And it um it did let me down a few times but we did we did the trips and we we I used to hammer that vehicle it was overloaded and I couldn’t get high high capacity Springs or anything it was so difficult getting parts to make it

Perform better and yet it survived yeah and the fact that this one on the canning survived so well is is why I would do these gratuitous pans from the broken down HX onto the Range Rover onto the Range Rover and then and then and then Rob who was driving the Range Rover

Kept on seeing me doing this so on one of them I remember I just kind of did it he was he’s a very good Storyteller as Rob yeah and because he was looking at me and he was thinking okay I need to so as I did the pen onto the Range Rover he

Just walked up to it and just kicked his to and went yeah I saw right you saw that and that was completely spontaneous CU he was now really into the fact that that that that his car was the hero of the show until of course it broke down

On the last day did you regret not driving that so I know you kind of handed over the the rains I had to make a film yeah I had to make the film and I needed the vehicle my vehicle had camera equipment sound recording equipment I had all my

Computers in there and and and also I’m I’ve gone soft with my with age I actually like convenience and and I would have been fine sleeping in a swag or something like that yeah but the point is that my vehicle was set up for making

A a TV show so and and I would just hand cameras to people and say point this at us point this at us because we didn’t obviously didn’t have a film crew so I did need that support to do the filming so I drove it about five times but do I

Regret not driving at the hallway no no no I don’t it was a it was a magical experience and of course when you’re outside it you’re looking at it you’re actually watching it it’s a good looking thing isn’t it a good looking car beautiful it’s a beautiful looking car

So when I eventually did go to that that thing about Rob not wanting to give me the keys that was part joke but it was part genuine because he kept on giving me a hard time about giving can I drive it can I drive it and he would just like

Ignore me and I starting to get pissed off with you’re getting you m car and then I thought make it part of the story it is part of the story he doesn’t want to relinquish the keys so make K part of the story now she said to him Rob we’re

Going to we’re going to do it properly so then when I did get into it and I I said to him okay you’re going to be like a petulant child okay and the RR is going to disappear and you’re going to be like a petulent child so put out the

Camera here okay Rob go for it so he does his thing and I’m in the Range Rover and I’ve got a camera pointing at me but it’s pointing through the rear Vision mirror so it’s behind me it’s pointing through the rear vision and you can see him throw himself onto the

Ground but he knew but he knew how far the camera was away from him and he knew he had to make this massive grandos totally over the top ridiculous grandos you know threw himself on the ground because he knew the camera was that far away and if you

Look very very closely you can see him in the rear Vision mirror throwing himself on the ground I think it’s fun of one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my entire life she killed the illusion now we all thought it was real

No but it was but it but it was real what that’s my point I’m making it actually was real it wasn’t rehearsed you know I just said to him you’re like a act like a petulant child and he went so over the top and then it continued for days and that became

Part very funny very funny it was funny yeah it was fantastic now I I I my my range of as you know is still for sale yes and I could sell it by dropping the price but at the same time the main reason why I want to sell it is that I

Don’t have any other plans and ideas for it because how do you top the canning stock rout I don’t actually know take it back to Africa I don’t know it’s it’s a tricky one you’ve already done all that though haven’t you I have I’ve already done

Africa in a Range Rover and again I’ve softed I’ve got I’m building a Troop Carrier which has got a nice shower system in it all the Creature Comforts of the 21st century I I I I’m 63 I’ve done that that I’ve slept on the ground I’ve slept in

Tiny little T I’ve done that I deserve to be a little bit comfortable also filming I need the support of a car that’s going to be able to back me up so that’s quite important too and if I’m going out for three weeks filming I need some comfort because I

Might want to say an extra week and if I’m comfortable then I can but if I’m uncomfortable and dirty and sweaty and then it’s then you know what I mean the motivation is eroded with the level of discomfort I’m with you you know what I

Mean I know exactly what I mean so what projects have you got uh in your in your Workshop right now uh right okay um so aside from all of my cars which just seem to be uh sitting there and waiting for year after year after year I’ve got

A very late uh Range Rover Classic in at the moment um so it’s a 1994 soft Dash it’s got the uh kind of the it’s the hybrid between the rain driver classic the end of the discovery 1 production and the start of Discovery 2 production

So they got got this big um soft Dash kind of Discovery 2 setup inside them it’s also got a 300 TDI diesel engine in it which um the customer really wanted me to go over and sort a few electrical issues out with um and sort the tailgates out so they didn’t pop open

And just have a look at that uh rust mount on the front inner Wing the uh theot the testing uh safety test chapia pointed out to him well as with all of these things it looks great underneath and he can’t take the carpets out because they’re all pinned down but when

You do it was just there was no flaws so three three weeks of welding on that car I’ve got it back into one piece we had to replace one of the inner wings at the front Pats the other I rebuilt both front foot Wells on that car so that all

That works done the customer was du to come and pick it up uh on Tuesday yesterday and we had a conversation over the phone and he said well cuz it’s a Vogue SE so it would would have originally come with air suspension and it’s it’s quite common in this country

For people to replace that with um with coil springs which is no real issue with that um the only problem is that the air suspension cars never came with the leveling strut at the back so because of that they have to put furor springs on the back end of the car which just

Destroys the comfort of of the Range Rover the legendary comfort so is the question was what do how much do I think needs to happen to reinstate the air suspension on it and all of the original components are on The Car Store apart from the

Airbags so I don’t know so I don’t know why it was decommissioned so this this is my next week’s work now is to recommission um air suspension on that car um and they are fairly straightforward you do need a computer to plug in and there’s some open- Source

Software you can use to diagnose what’s going on with the ECU on there but I should be able to get there um a lot of the components are shared with the the next generation of Range Rover the P38 so there’s that um and he’s hopefully

Coming next Tuesday now I had a I had a 95 soft Dash Vogue SE with the air suspension yeah and I didn’t keep it because the air suspension was so complicated and how it was so notorious for braking and for Rough Country use was a bit of a liability that I didn’t

Keep it but I loved that car it was unbelievably comfortable it just it it was the 3.9 a bit heavy on fuel but not that heavy but it had the uh cloth seats and the air level suspension system it had a rear traction control which didn’t

Work it made a lot of noise but nothing happened but driving it off-road I I drove it over some very difficult off-road terrain with the automatic box and uh it was remarkable that this car could do you know 120 K an hour in Sublime comfort and yet over these I did

A thing with the lot of logs and um I saw these Hues and things bouncing bouncing Bo Wheels coming off the ground and I’m going oh who’s walking up they they they are a step up from the standard Range Rover Classic the air suspension cars are beautiful things to

Try you can get um so the cork components that fail typically are the airbags uh they’ got a they got a life of about a decade um and we’re dealing with 30-y old cars now in fact the airbags I’ve taken off this car were last changed in 2003 and they’re all

Showing signs of Extreme Wear so I suspect the reason it was taken off the road was one of the airbags blew up and the owner thought oh you know I can’t be bothered to spend whatever it is per Corner put Springs on it it’s easier

Maybe it let him and his misses down on a a cold dark Motorway in the pouring rain or something his wife said I’m never getting it again I don’t know but I’ve not been able to find anything else wrong with it apart from the missing spring missing airbag so I’m rather

Hoping that when it all gets connected back together again it’s it’s okay but yes the ride Comfort on those air suspension cars is brilliant cuz because they because they’re lighter than the P38 that followed it on the Next Generation Range Rover and they’re less complicated uh because the P38 is just

Horrific when it comes to electronics the rainover quite straightforward you can buy little diagnostic boxes now which you plug into the ECU and it just resets all the codes for you and you just pick up and off you go again um okay so so you can pick those up for a

Few quid um and airbags now are being remade by Dunlop um so they’re much better quality airbags the only thing that is not really available at the moment is the original pump uh which was Dunlop originally and The Replacements that are being made just don’t seem to

Last um and So eventually they they they kind of pack up and the performance disappears on those things then it takes five minutes to make every change you need to make but there’s lots of Ingenuity out there for the air suspension cars there are people that have engineered little valve blocks with

Four little Trader valves um you know accessible under the Bonnet so you can pull into a petrol station gas station whatever and pump using the air pump pump up the airbags and they stay see can set the height as you want it so you don’t need the ECU to control it so they

Got all of these little kind of workarounds in case there is unreliability but a fully functional system with the ECU that when you get to a certain speed drops the car a little bit just to make it a little bit more aerodynamic hug the road a little bit

More less rock and roll it’s it’s a really good system when it works this is this is the second EAS system that I’ve played with and I’ve got another two waiting two other soft Dash cards with customers saying can you put e back on my car

Yes so now tell me this is this is a question that I’ve been having and and you are the guy to answer it for me so I I don’t have a project for my Range Rover and but I actually wanted a daily driver actually and I don’t I don’t

Commute but I just want something a little bit more comfortable than a troopy maybe a bit smaller and just kind of for running around and but I want something nice so you might say well I can use my rain R but my Range Rover it

Has no power steering mhm it has no air conditioning mhm uh you know what an early Range Rover how how rough they actually are I mean agult no yeah that’s the right word so I I couldn’t really use my Range Rover as a as a daily driver particularly if it got hot in

Summer here which wouldn’t be very pleasant the value of it is probably similar to the value of a late 90s soft Dash air suspension will maintained and even restored four-door mhm do you think it’s do you think I’m ridiculous in thinking about shpping my old one for something that had be more practical

Even though it isn’t as nice as the toor not at all um my my own car is it’s a a 1993 um Vogue 3.9 automatic I’ve had that car now for 14 years um when I bought it at 40,000 mil whatever that is in kilometers I don’t know um it’s now

Done 220,000 M um it’s let me down once when the starter motor seized up because it’s automatic I couldn’t do anything with it so that’s the only um ride of shame that that car has ever had I took it off the road of I took it off a road

Yeah ride of Shame the Stags only had one ride of Shame as well and I’ve had that 30 something years I took it off the road when I started the business cuz I wanted to restore it it properly I wanted to rather than when it’s your own

Car you kind of just patch it and then get it back on the road again because it’s your own car you could never sell it because it’s your own car in order to sell it it’s got to be rebuilt so I thought right I’m never going to sell it

I thought let me start rebuilding it so I’ve started at the back end um back end of the you the body frame and I’ve got about halfway up it and I just run out of time it’s just customers cars always come first so it’s just sitting there

However I’m desperate to get that thing back on the Road I love driving it it was effortless I could I could get in that car um from London drive down to the south of France which I did with my family on a number of occasions and get

Out of it as fresh as I got in it because it was so comfortable to drive the upright driving position the just the comfort of that car it’s thirsty but then you offset that cost against a new car then you’re driving an old 30-year-old luxury car okay it’s still a

Bit agricultural because it’s still got the basic underpinnings of the original but there’s more soundproofing in the in the later classic Range Rovers there is air conditioning which is very effective and they always needed it because the amount of glass you got on those things it just turns them into a greenhouse I

Was D driving back from Melbourne to to here it was middle of the winter and I had to actually have a jersey and I waged in the in the in the window above you know on my on my right I wedged in there because I was cooking in there

Because the vent wasn’t working properly the fan wasn’t working properly so I would crack the window but but if I cracked the window very much I would just get cooked so I’d have to wind the window all the way up put in a shirt or Jersey or something to stop the the Sun

From hitting me it’s like driving a greenhouse it is and so the air conditioning on the later cards um it’s very good uh and I my personal preference is I actually prefer the hard Dash cars I like the kind of the rugged looks of the early cars but it is very

Much my opinion there’s lots of people there’s a really big following for the last the run out soft Dash cars and they made those from I think the middle of 1994 and the very last versions were registered here in 1996 um so they made them for a

Relatively short period of time um there are a number of unique features on those cars that were only on the soft Dash Range Rovers um they were never used even on the discos the discoveries but they’re comfortable cars they’re nice they came either in um just a Range Rover format

The poverty model or they came in a Vogue they didn’t do the soft Dash Vogue so when you get the Vogue se you do end up with the air conditioning the cruise control you know the electric seats cloth seats oddly enough was an option on those things I’m fairly sure of that

I might be wrong mine had cloth seats I don’t like the leather seats I think cloth seats are nice no uh my my car my my daily had cloth seats when I bought it and I converted it leather biggest regret of my life I want to put to seats

Back in it CU there’s so much leather seats they’re hot hot and sticky in the summer and cold hard in the winter it’s ridiculous I don’t get leather seats in the cars no no yeah no they smell nice they smell nice for about seven months

After you buy a car and then yeah no point no point left I’ll probably put cloth sixs back in my car at some point I have got a set they just need to go back into it but yes I I would certainly go for a late classic Range Rover I

Think that they are they are very competent vehicles and I think with a little mechanical understanding of because all the late cars came with the EFI setup and the Hotwire EFI setup is is it’s fairly straightforwards they’re still running with a distributor it’s still the the venerable Rover V8 there’s nothing

Particularly complex about them here in the UK we’re very well supplied with with parts for those cars so it’s more than achievable I I I would happily run a late Classic on a daily basis um I think the early Classics you’re right the early Classics is just a bit too

Agricultural they’re they’re like driving around in a fast series Land Rover the co Springs on it yes because when I got my 110 V8 in 89 it was a lot more comfortable it was a county version lot more comfortable lot quieter a lot nicer to drive than my Range Rover and

It was a count it was a 110 so that’s how agricultural the the early two doors are and this thing that I drive I I like driving it around because I like throwing it around the roundabouts because it’s you know that boat feeling you got and anything anything else will

Fall over this thing just kind of leans keeps going you know until eventually you hear the tires saying hey I’m going to let go any second when you hear that noise you you got the fine line between backing off and not backing off absolutely very very fine line you you

Yes so it’s very much a dri’s car and when I say that I mean you drive the thing it does nothing for you so as a daily driver it’s not ideal no so that’s my that was my motivation is that that I don’t have any filming projects for it

But at the same time I keep looking at it and saying you can’t get rid of it but then again it’s just sitting there it’s not just sitting there doing nothing there are ways um so if you if you went back to 1990 Land Rover um they they built this

The Cs model which is effectively it was the the model yeah the model that follows 3.9 and and they put all of that running gear with the automatic gears the electric windows the extra sounding and so they put that into a two door um in the CKD that’s expens King memorial

That’s it the memorial version and I think they made 200 of them um they those got to be very very valuable though aren’t they well you say that but people seem to rate the early really early agricultural cars they rate them more than than the CSK cars um which which is

I quite like the CSK cars because they’ve got the level of comfort of the four-door but they’ve got the looks of the twoo um and there’s there’s a number of companies here in the UK that will take a twodo car and they they there’s a word

That’s turned at Resto mod and they will put later underpinnings onto a two door um one of my customers um Wanted uh particularly to do a Resto mod uh we we talked at Great length about it he bought a a complete car from um I think this one came from Portugal left-and

Drive um and we can register those cars convert them I’ve done a couple of conversions now on leftand drive to right hand drive um and re-register them in the UK because they were all built in the UK so registering them is actually not that much of a chore the uh

Licensing the company the government agency that does it they they do their best to stop you but there are ways around it preventer of vehicle registrations but one thing I did suggest to him was why don’t you get a similar aged four-door car from the UK which will

Probably be end of life as far as the body frames concerned but as far as the chassis and running gear is concerned it it’s probably still serviceable probably still get life in it and then drop the twood door body shell onto it and then you end up with all the

Money modern running gear you end up with the 3.9 or even the 4.2 if you want to get berserk running gear um and uh the automatic ZF gearbox which is okay agricultural by modern standards but for Range Rover Range Rover Classics it’s it’s a smooth as anything with the ball

Corner transfer box on it you got the bow self-leveling stru you could even have air suspension on it and abs so then you end up with a very high-end to Door similar to the CSK um and it’s it’s achievable it’s a it’s a wedge of work but it does bring

If if you can do that then you can take an original two door like you’ve got um what you would probably need to start off by doing would be to get it down to its bare body frame and cuz the later car from 1986 onwards all of the body frames were completely

Welded nothing was bolted together so the whole body frame was welding yeah from 86ers and that’s when they stopped sending out the uh the completely knocked down kits to the far reaches of of the planet that explains it I never knew why they sto doing that that

Explains it and then every single body shell was then made um in Sol Hole uh and assembled in Sol hole and the complete cars were then shipped out and I think it was because and he were saying about two doors uh from the late 60s when the prototypes were around and

I think it was the second or third prototype was pretty much there as far as looks and styling is concerned but they launched in June 1970 and up until the early 1980s very very very few changes virtually nothing was done to internal Comfort at all and it was when

A real CU cuz they they were Trend Setters they they they started their own Marketplace um nothing existed before I know in America they’ll say oh yeah well the Jeep wagon ear was here well yeah so was the series 3 station wagon and the series 2A station wagon and they were on

Cart Springs and they were seven seaters or whatever the Rain Rover for being a fast coil sprung off-roader was the granddaddy or grandmother um of all 4x4s all sports utility kind of vehicles that are out out there today it’s its fault I’m a free and everything’s become bloated since then

So I think that the Range Rover Classic is still usable you still need to go there um but you can update an early car you can change the running gear fairly easily because it’s pretty much drop and change stuff from a later car if you had a later donor you

Could I’ve got a parenti gearbox the 3.5 is smooth it runs very very very nicely it’s just the whole body shell is just kind of like as I said I think in 150 loose rivets flying in close formation that how that feels when it drives it’s

And you can put us I’ve got some soundproofing in there but honestly you’d have to put a ton and a half of it in there to actually make a difference you do you know so I’m thinking well maybe maybe just look out for a nice one

And then and then perhaps to a to a swap because I don’t I don’t want to get into the restoration business I’m not good at it and I’m not patient in enough it’s in terms of it’s very very I mean I love doing it and it’s a choice for me to to

Do it and there’s lots I I get good business from it because there are many many people like yourself out there they want the end product they want the journey but they don’t necessarily want to get their hands dirty they don’t want to be taking lumps out of their fingers

In in in in the process which is why I try and bring that special kind of service to my customers a late Range Rover would be absolutely ideal don’t go for the lse though I think the lsse for some reason they lost the looks on the

Long wheel base version the 108 in Range Rover I don’t know if you get those in Australia I don’t think they were sold here I remember I know exactly which one they’re long wheelbase basically that’s it they got more space in the rear for the rear passengers but everything else

Is exactly the same so you still the proportions are wrong yeah yeah the proportions are not right but that whole thing I when I bought my 110 I bought a new brand new 110 is because I I I remember saying to Gren I have just spent the last decade lying on my back

In my workshop with falling into my eyes fixing this thing and I’ve had it I’ve had enough and so I don’t want to go through that again I don’t have any desire to go through that again so I I am in terms of vehicles I like building overlanders but I build them on

Relatively new vehicles and then you know like the Africa vehicle got a half a million kilometers on it but um had all these other people coming in and saying what can we do what can we do and we’ll do it for you because they get some good business out of out of the

Publicity perfect but I can’t do that with with an old- range over it no you need patience yeah and I don’t have it yeah I me I must admit when I’m doing one of these bigger projects I get to the stage in my workshop on my own where and if

You do watch my videos and I apologize uh for the swearing I’m on my own in my workshop and I can’t edit all the swearing outs but part of the characters part of your character but you didn’t swear if you if you didn’t swear Richard I would think what’s the matter with the

Guy is he he stuck you know something wrong with him you know his dog died because you’re not swearing so so no keep keep going well but I don’t swear in company though that’s the weird thing I don’t not sure I sworn in this entire

No I don’t think I have yet me kep me me best behavior on but yes it’s one of those things in the workshop yeah I do swear so the videos do contain swearing um but I think that’s fairly normal when you’re working on the cast well the

Point I was going to make was that when I’m working on something where I’m not expecting it to become a welder Thon and it’s turned into a wer thonn and I think you know what I’ve had enough of this so sometimes you need to close that metaphorical garage door and go and do

Something else now on a big project that works really well so on the Lincoln green car and also the bobtail car that I am Bob tailed um uh which was a massive project that started during lockdown the there’s so many things to do and the organization that’s up here

Means that I can stop welding and move on to I don’t know refurbishing door glass rains or rebuild a loom or maybe strip an engine down and start cleaning it just do something completely different the trick with any of these projects uh whether you are in it for a

Business like I am or whether you’re an amate that’s out there is to not get bogged down with it don’t let the project become too big for you don’t don’t let it dominate you because when it starts doing that it’s no longer any fun you got to move you got to move away

From the thing that’s you’re not enjoying but then as a paradox when I go out and I help lots of customers in their own workshops um two or three at the moment where they keep the car themselves uh they do the majority of the work they call me up um to go out

And work on the car the bits they don’t want to do so I’m doing a Rover P6 there’s a Range Rover 19 uh F suffix Range Rover 1976 Range Rover and I’m doing a Triumph stag um via video conferencing so the Chap’s got the Stag

In his own garage and I I I I I act as a consultant for him because I understand the cars and he’s rebuilding that car from a bare body shell it is literally a 2,000 piece jigsaw so I do all of these things the key thing I say to customers

When I go out and visit visit them is when we’re doing a project which bit are you really not looking forward to doing while I’m here and they’ll tell me this is the thing I really am I’m anxious about doing this job so I’ll say great let’s do that right now because the

Longer that hangs around in a project the more it’s dwelling in the back of your head and the closer you get to it with each other job you do so the best thing to do is get it out of the way and especially while I’m there because if it

You know stumps the pair of us then it needs more thought but the best thing to do sometimes is take the thing you really really don’t want to do and do it and then you can enjoy the project when you get to the end of that and as I used

To with with project management working in it when you you get a great sense of satisfaction that surges through you when you achieve something that you really didn’t want to do I’ve done it yes and that’s one thing that I do try and push out there and they’re only

Machines let’s face it apart from automatic gear bosses of course they’re not machines they they were designed by aliens those things do not understand them but but anything else I can understand I can take it apart I can rebuild it I can you know logically work out how that thing

Functions even if I’ve never done it before logically work it out take it apart if it’s past um uh rebuilding then at least I know there’s no point just kind of chucking good money after bad just by ripping something listening to you now I can appreciate a little more

What you do because I watch your videos and I think man you have patience you know you show some pictures of of something that to me is just a mess forget it walk away type scene and you say no it’s actually not that difficult we going to start with this and then you

And then you know a month later I come back and look at some stuff and oh Cy you’ve done a lot you know I’ve been watching your soft dash one yeah and uh thinking yeah I ear that I had a soft Dash and I I I really like that car and

That was kind of what gave me the thought I I get one try and find a nice one you know that’s got a good service hit record and loved by an Enthusiast with a good record and uh value-wise not that different from my to door no they’re not

Um here in the UK we’re going through all of this um ultra low emission Zone um stuff at the moment where they are you can’t drive a polluting car into a city because you’re killing people unless you pay money sorry to go political there but this this is so a

Lot of people now that they are moving away from older cars and they’re buying newer cars so they can drive in and out the city well I don’t drive in and out cities that that that’s fixed that problem um but by driving the older car I don’t I don’t just honestly I

Don’t know if you get the problem in Australia I don’t know if you’ve got this this polluting um uh tax in Australia U or you’re your Perth aren’t you yes we don’t have emissions emissions charges it to drive into Perth no so so so more or less you you can get

A you know a V8 Range Rover um and you you will find they while in the UK they seem to rust more than any other car for the age of the car um I mean the early two doors they rotted with a passion they really did um but when you look at

A car that’s 45 years old and it’s rotted with a passion you think well okay well it’s 45 years old it was designed to last 10 years perhaps but when you start digging into things like that soft Dash and I’ve got another one another two soft dashes coming in

And they’re not as nice as this one they’ll require probably a little bit more work I think you went in Australia here in the UK uh because like like I said the prices are dropping on the soft dashes there was a stage where they were seen as the Pinnacle of the Land Rover

Development uh personally I think the cars from 1989 through to about 1993 were the Pinnacle I’m not a big fan of soft dashes but there are lots of people that are and that’s not meant you know as to to dissuade you from a soft Dash

But I like the hard Dash cars and 1989 cars seem to last better than 1993 cars by the time you get into the soft Dash cars um the 94 through 96 early 96 they just seem to rot a little bit more in more unusual places than the 90 98 cars

Oh sorry 89 cars so it’s it’s almost like as the as the car Drew towards the end of its production run and Bar mind it’s 25 years in production with very few changes it still running on the same chassis still on the same axles okay they they upgraded the axles to put

Anti-roll bars and um a disc Brak vented disc brakes on the front the whole thing from start to end uh pretty much was was the same yeah if if if personally if I was looking for a car it would be something 3.9 because while the 3.9 V8 is not as

Smooth as 3.5 it’s just got that little bit of extra power a little bit of extra torque I think that the manual gearbox on the 3 9 is utterly pointless um unless you are doing some serious off-roading you get you get the hill descent control using the manual gearbox

That you won’t get you used your automatic going downhill and it was quite scary wasn’t it I’m not you buying this for for for driving Offroad I’ve got but you went down when when you had your automatic it’s quite scary when you go downhill because the car does run

Away with you oh yeah you’re using it goes a lot quicker so so the automatic gearbox for General day-to-day use um and anything apart from serious off-roading is just so beautifully suited to those cars the interior Comfort cloth seats especially they they’re like sofas they are the best

Sofas that I’ve ever sat on ever um the amount of sound deadening on the on the later last runout models of the so pretty much from 1989 onwards they ran the sound deadening right up to the top of the bulkhead and it really did cut down on an incredible amount of noise

That came from the engine B the transmission the automatic transmission is well silent by comparison to the fourspeed gearbox that you’ve got um and such that the noisiest thing that I find on my 3.9 my 93 Vogue the noisiest thing at Motorway speeds is the noise around

The windscreen pillars so the top top corns of the windscreen where it goes to the door door frame that’s the noisiest part you can hear that and you can hear the exhaust as well okay can’t really hear the engine you can’t hear the transmission yeah so they become okay they’re still old

Cars but you can put up with a bit of wind noise rather you know a wind screen pillar you can get um there are these these vent things that you put over the top of the window that allow you to open the window and crack um uh and you know

Not not allow all the rain and everything to pour in wind wind noise will be um probably your biggest concern it’s not going to bother you it’s not going to bother you economy forget it it’s Smiles per gallon yeah and exactly well my 3.9 around town

And I ran my car for a very very very long time on LPG uh we were able to do that um so I did 150,000 miles on LPG and my average across that entire time on LPG was U 17 something 17.8 miles to the gallon and because it’s slightly cheaper uh petrol

It kind of equated to somewhere around the high 20s MPG and I I became a little bit like modern EV owners they get range anxiety I got range anxiety with the LPG and it started to bog me down a little bit because not everywhere sells it in more

Well the last few years I was driving that thing I actually started using on petrol more two things I noticed on a 200 mile Journey it would cost me5 pound more in petrol so a pint of beer than it would have done in LPG so on on a good

Run I was probably getting 23 24 miles to the gallon out of it now I I don’t drive like a idiot but nor do I drive ter that’s not terrible it’s not terrible no I I I’d be driving um around I mean the motorway Network here in the

UK is reasonbly good but it does get smiled up um quite a lot yeah and I was I was driving let’s say around the 70 mph Mark so I was lane two lane three where I needed to be um and certainly not in you know truck bothering

Territory so I wasn’t wasn’t driving 55 to 60 to achieve that and and getting you know getting towards mid-20s um MPG I think this this is ludicrous having this range anxiety for this alternative a very clean fuel LPG just run it on petrol uh for the

Mileage I’m doing on this thing on on that car now nothing but back then I was probably down to about four or 5,000 miles a year uh at the peak I was 12 to 15,000 mil a year um so it’s it’s certainly it’s and like I say it’s never

Let well let me down one stter Motel which I probably could have changed from the pouring rain at the roadside but I had the wife with me and uh Jackie wasn’t she wasn’t being very bloody car when are you going to get a new car they

Swore there a swear with um so around around town is it’s it’s not as bad as a V12 e type it’s are you going to be you’re going to be 13 or 14 miles to the gallon round town but on a run you should get me 20

Is but yeah I definitely going to think I just think about and they have your approval so so I’m definitely going to it was an idea I had while watching your soft Dash build and that was uh was your inspiration to so that’s why I thought

I’d bring you on oh fantastic you that question straight up um do you think this is a good idea and you approve of the idea so I’m certainly gonna c big thumbs up from me okay big thumbs up no absolutely all right yeah and with current trends and everything else like

That by by running that older car it’s it’s more or less seen as without using the word green um it’s it’s good to the environment because you’re not driving a new car you’re using a car Way Beyond its original life and you contining to use there’s something but there’s something about

Driving them there’s something about them there’s just you know just something about them that you unless you in love with them you can’t really understand it and apart from the fact that they’re they are old cars yeah for their time where they were very Advanced cars but they’re just pling beautiful

Things to look at you know and I like to look at my car when I’m on my way to get into it whether it’s from the from getting a pint of milk or or or on a trip I like looking at the car there is a sense of theater with a

Classic Range Rover I think there is it’s getting in it it’s the clunk of the door it’s getting the key to slide into the ignition but I’ll wrap it up like this there is a sense of theater but the trouble is with the two door it’s a sense of theater followed very quickly

By a sense of [Laughter] torture I don’t want the torture I just want the theater I can understand that I can relate to that completely I can would I rather drive a 93 Vogue or a 1972 to Door depends on the distance and depends on where you’re

Going because if you were going to a car meet you’d be in the 72 no question about it You’ be in Diane your your D dad’s vehicle yes but then if you actually doing a a job and you needed to get somewhere you would 93 all day long

Every day all day long Absolut absolutely absolutely and that’s where I’m at to Richard has been an absolute pleasure thank you thank you thank you very much thank you for your for your participation I really appreciate it it’s a pleasure thank you so much for listening to the next adventure podcast

With me Andrew senier White atth next journey. net join us each Sunday

#podcasts #adventuretravel #rangeroverclassic
Welcome to @ASPWthenextjourney.

RIchard Hudson YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuPaTTqVo_Tw0_4ypXxY0lQ

Support this work: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ASPW

Thanks for Watching.