
For the last 6 years I have been restoring this 1955 Series 1 107. I am so close to finishing but still have a few very important bits and pieces to finish like the restoration of Land Rover wiper motors and horn arm. All the bits and pieces have been diligently collected over the last few months.
I had restored the vent levers but one of them was missing a ¼” tubular rivet. I tried for ages to find some but had no luck. Emberton Imperial in the UK normally supplies them but they were out of stock. So in the end I made a plan by using a 6mm aluminum rivet.
Next up was finishing off the tailgate. I had modified this bottom bracket for the tailgate and so it had to be galvanized again. Then I could rivet it back on using the solid aircraft rivets and a pneumatic hammer.
The tailgate chains at the back also had to be refitted after having the brackets galvanized and chain electroplated. And that meant that the tailgate was now completely finished.
Somehow I had lost the original screw fitting for the spare wheel so I made another out of 10mm rod and fitted the spare wheel in the back.
There was one last thing to finish off on the back and that was painting the rear badge and fitting it on to the body. These little jobs that finally finish something off are hugely rewarding.

I had the air hammer out so I carried on fitting the two body panels to the door tops. It was very nerve wrecking doing this as I am no expert with this air hammer. Just a small mishap and you can easily bend and damage the body panel.
I did have a mishap or two but I guess that’s part of the process and I’ll probably be the only one who notices it anyway.
Series 1 Horn arm
The next job I had been looking forward to for ages. Since I changed the original Series 1 steering column with the hooter in the centre of the steering wheel I had to find another solution. The best option was to fit a Series 1 Hooter arm with a push-button horn. The push-button horn was easy enough to find from Holden UK. But the horn arm was another story because they are so scarce. Luckily a friend in Zimbabwe located one for me and sent it. So I just had to clean it up and repaint it.

Getting the rusted bolt off proved to be a problem and despite my carful efforts I still managed to break the captive bolt. But it wasn’t a crisis as it was easy enough to weld a new one into place. After a quick clean and paint strip, I had it painted again and looking as good as new. I fitted it and tested it and it was perfect, thanks Graeme.
Land Rover Wiper Motors
Another job I had been looking forward to was the restoration of the Land Rover wiper motors. I had found one in amongst our Series spares and had bought a partly repaired one online a few months ago.

Once again Graeme helped me out with some of the other missing bits and pieces for the incomplete motors. I also had bought the necessary remanufactured seals and electrical connections from Restotime in the UK.
Repairing these is fairly simple as these motors are very robust. There are two sections to it, one side is the motor and the otherside is the gearbox. The main problem is that the old grease goes hard and clogs up the gears. Then if you try and run the motor it gets burned out because the gears can’t turn. I soaked the gears in paraffin and then carefully worked them loose before removing and cleaning them properly.
I greased everything and reassembled it and it worked perfectly. The other motor that I had was already reconditioned but was still missing a few bits and pieces. But it was still working fine when I tested it.
I cleaned up the aluminium side of the body and had the steel gearbox covers electroplated to silver and then reassembled everything ready for fitting.
You can see the full video on YouTube