Rebuilding Duffy

This is a website I'm putting together to document the rebuild of my 1960 Series 2 109" Land Rover, named Duffy. I have a few goals for this website: 

1. Document my work for posterity.

2. Help keep myself accountable.

3. Maybe help someone else who, like me, is new to all of this. 

A little information:

The truck was purchased in August of 2013 and looked roughly as you see below. I suppose as is typical for most old Land Rovers, this one was (of course) in a field, rotting. It had been previously owned by a family member, who acquired the truck originally from a cherry farm in Kelowna. It was meant to be a project for him to tinker on and keep him busy. 

Unfortunately, he had a limited budget, so the truck was repaired and registered (there were no papers, of course, from the previous owner) and when I came to it had been sitting for approximately a decade. 

I never got it running. In retrospect this was a mistake: I'd have learnt a lot about its condition had I done so! Instead I just started pulling it apart, confident I could rebuild the whole thing inside a short period of time.  

This was... perhaps the worst aspects of my hubris coming home to roost in this project. I tend to believe all problems can be resolved. And they can, given time and resources! But I'm learning how to balance those things and how to leverage my ability to just keep working on something after long breaks due to some random disappointment. 

I guess that's what old car projects really are about. 

True to most farm trucks, Duffy had a handmade box in the back with an aluminum tank for some kind of spraying apparatus. I binned that, not having any clue what was in it previously. It also had the usual wasp and mouse nests from over the years. 

I managed to disassemble the truck, over several years, down to its frame; a state where it remained for some time, having moved and had a child and all the usual other excuses and so on. 

The rebuild properly has started in late 2020. I've acquired a few things here and there, built up a workshop and some tools, learnt a few things, and now I suppose I'm in a position where I can finally start putting time to the project. 

Read on and enjoy!