To fit the roof and cab on Land Rover Series 1 107 you first need to have the windscreen fitted. As part of my nut and bolt sorting plan I had already sorted out all the bolts and nuts that I needed.
Dry Fitting the Cab and Windscreen
Fitting the cab I noticed one of the cappings was put on skew. So I had to remove the solid rivets to reposition it and re-rivet it. This was the first time I used the pneumatic rivet hammer and it worked ok with a bit of fiddling.
Positioning the rear cab section was straight forward. I just fitted it loosely because it all needed to be adjusted once the windscreen and roof were on.
Initially I was going to go ahead and put the glass into the windscreen but luckily I didn’t. Instead I thought let me just do a dry fit first to check that everything on the windscreen is fine before I put the glass in. Well just as well that I did that.
This is a good example of not sorting stuff out before getting it galvanized. I just had the stuff galvanized and didn’t sort out the bolts. There are captive nuts inside the window frame that I should have checked before galvanising. These are some of the lessons you learn doing restorations.
To solve the problem I carefully drilled out the existing captive nuts and re-tapped them to 6mm thread and put new bolts in.
The windscreen also needed a bit of persuasion to fit onto the firewall, but it was nothing that a file and a hammer couldn’t sort out.
How to Fit a Series 1 Roof
Then we could put the roof on and that is when the confusion started. We just couldn’t work out how it all connected together. Looking in the manual and parts book revealed that we were missing a bracket.
I took the roof off probably 5 years ago and I didn’t pay a lot of attention when I took it off. It was missing at least two brackets on the inside. I don’t know what happened to them because I’m sure this whole thing was fitted before I disassembled it.
It was just a bent angle so wasn’t too difficult to remanufacture. The other thing that I forgot to check was the seal that goes in the in the top of the winsdcreen. It’s a special seal because this roof’s got an overhang on the front and it goes on the inside of the roof to seal against the windscreen. I had to order this part 304211 – Rubber Seal For Canopy from the Series 1 Club in the UK. You can find more details on this in this later post.
I went to go and have a look to find a little piece of metal that I can bend to make that angle that I was missing. And guess what I found? It was another important piece that was missing.
I found the strengthening piece 304212 – Stiffening Strip For Canopy Seal that goes under the roof and on the windscreen. Luckily I had it all this time and didn’t throw it away, despite not realising how important it was. I thought I was going to have to make it, but with a stroke of luck avoided that.
Putting the Glass in the Windscreen
Once I was happy with the fitting of the roof and that the windscreen was all sorted out I could finally put the glass in. I had made a window glass template that I used to get the correct size of laminated glass made up. I fitted 6mm laminated glass.
Doing a restoration is fun and rewarding, especially the assembly part. But actually most of the time you spend just cleaning stuff. Restoring parts really means cleaning and fixing the existing parts. For instance to reassemble the windscreen I needed to clean the aluminium strips that hold the window. I had to scrape the old paint off and clean up the aluminium so that it looks good again. Even now at the end when I am assembling I still come across items that were never cleaned after disassembly so it needs to be done now.
After checking everything and cleaning the angle strips I put the glass in.
I used some grey butyl tape lapseal that’s normally used for waterproofing on roofs. It looked like it would serve the purpose of sealing the window and holding it in place without leaching out. Fitting the windows went well and everything fitted fine.
I fitted the correct window frame to bulkhead rubber 307421 – Windscreen Seal 86/88. Apparently, it doesn’t seal very well. But I already had it so thought I may as well fit it anyway
For a full video on how to fit roof and cab on a Land Rover Series 1 have a look at the video on YouTube
