Well, it turns out getting the tub off isn't a quick job...
1) My Defender is ex-electric board and has these cool side lockers...
2) ...which are held on with two bolts down through the sill (not the two you can see in the outrigger)...
3) ...two bolts to a bracket on the outrigger...
4) ...and two bolts to a bracket off the chassis, at the back of the locker - grinding them all out was noisy, as I had to do it from inside the lockers...
5) I'd decided by this point to separate the sills from the tub, but there's a bolt behind this large bracket (that held the seat-box) that's impossible to get at or undo "conventionally"...
6) This bracket is held to the sill at two points - this is one of them...
7) ...and, if you have them, by the foot-step stay, which is bolted into the chassis.
8 ) The seat-box bracket comes away fairly easily with the foot-steps...
9) ...and you can get at the last bolt holding the sill to the tub.
10) Next, are the seatbelt brackets...
11) ...which bolt through the tub to a stay securing them to the chassis. Only the outer of these two bolts needs to be ground away, as the inner bolts secure the brackets to the tub only.
12) I was a bit mystified by the sills not having dropped off, but discovered a row of rivets behind a seal, holding the bottom edge of the lockers to the sill....
13) ...oh, and there was a bolt through the wheel-arch into the sill, but this sort of popped off through the plastic arch, of its own accord, shortly after this photo was taken
14) So there we go - I've chased the bodywork back as far as the tub, now.
15) Now for the really filthy cr@p just forward of the rear cross-member, starting with the mud-flap brackets, which are bolted to the chassis.
16) There are two stays (one either side) that fix to the bodywork with recessed bolts - I ground one side out and realised that a) it was stainless and would have undone and b) grinding it out knackers the bodywork, as the bolt-heads are recessed.
17) I found the fuel-filler pipe was easiest to disconnect at this point - I then stuffed it full of paper towel to stop any of the large quantity of countryside still stuck to the inside of the bodywork going down the hole.
18 ) There's also a breather-pipe to remove from the filler neck - it undid and pulled of quite easily.
19) Next was the wiring to the rear lights - there was a connector here, but it doesn't seem to serve any logical purpose, as it just connects part of the loom to itself, so is no help in separating the lights from the loom.
20) Instead, I had to delve under the light-covers in the back of the tub...
21) ...disconnect everything and feed the wiring back down into the wheel-well - actually, only one of these sets of wires (per side) needs passing back down into the wheel-well...
22) ...but you have to disconnect all the lights to do it.
...at this point, I was feeling pretty pleased with how things were going - I couldn't start trying to lift the tub because I couldn't get at the chain-winch, which was because...
23) ...the farmer had left one of his tractors in the way and I didn't fancy moving it without him around (a bit of blatant tractor porn for you here - an unrestored and still used Massey Ferguson 35!)...
...so, I decided to have a bit of a fiddle with the front bumper, just to see how difficult it was going to be to get it off - this did not go well...
24) The bumper is held on with four enormous long bolts that go in from the top...
25) ...and, in case you're wondering how I'm keeping track of all the bolts, here's freezer-bag number 72, with a post-it note inside it telling me what it contains - I have a whole 32 litre crate of these, now!
26) As I undid the bolts, though, it suddenly became obvious that the bumper and winch were falling off - they weigh, I reckon, about 100kg together, so there was no way I was going to either hold it in place or put it back, so I quickly rolled the chassis* forward and tied it to the chain-winch, as there was enough room to do that, just!
27) Now I was committed to getting the bumper off, as I couldn't leave it chained to the roof(!), but it wouldn't lift over the front bash-plate, as it hooks over it and the chassis stops it lifting far enough - also, the winch was fixed in place on one side by the prop-shaft that drives it.
...I had a bit of decision to make here, as I had to disconnect the winch from the prop-shaft somehow. I'd spent about an hour grinding off the bolts that held the bash-plate on and, despite a lot of investigation, I couldn't see a way of separating the prop-shaft from either the PTO or the winch. By this point, the sun had long since gone down and I kept losing tools in the dark - I could either cut through the prop-shaft to free the winch...
28) ...or I could undo these four bolts and, hopefully, withdraw the drive mechanism from the winch with the prop-shaft intact.
29) Guess which choice I went for...
30) That was definitely the wrong choice - I should definitely just have cut the prop-shaft...bl00dy oil went everywhere as the drive mechanism came out of the winch and, the more I tried to catch it in bowls and with paper towels, the more it rose to the challenge and covered everything, like some sort of evil, oily emulsion-creature. Oil was everywhere, on me, on my tools, all over the floor, everywhere...bugger
Still, at least the bumper's off, although what I'm going to do with it next is anybody's guess - it's exceptionally heavy and unwieldy - the front tyres must think I've taken the engine out! After that debacle, I'm not going down there tonight, though...I think we need some time apart, Land Rover...it's not you, it's me...I'll call you on the weekend, honest...
Cheerio
*When does a Land Rover go from being a vehicle to being just a chassis? When the last bodywork's been taken off? Am I changing the chassis and bulkhead of my Land Rover or am I building a new Land Rover from bits of the old one? If I have to change the dashboard and the seat-box too, I think this is all going to go a bit "Ship of Theseus"...
