Readers may remember the first article detailing the need to re-build this old 1998 Defender 300tdi 110.
It was gifted to me by my father when he was no longer able to drive and has served me well, as it did him. It has been in the family now for over twenty years and the rotten chassis and bulkhead demanded radical surgery if the old girl was to continue in service as the Vintagegunsmobile.
The proverbial bullet was bitten and the galvanised chassis and bulkhead arrived from Richards Engineering and, with the Defender, they headed to Tanc Barratt in Ludlow to undergo a full strip and re-build.
The chassis was etch-primed and painted black, the bulkhead treated likewise and painted with the chosen new body colour of Light Bronze Green.
The old chassis was stripped of parts and the resultant pile of rusty bits subjected to scrutiny to see what could be salvaged and what had to be replaced.
This was never intended to be a vehicle that would win a beauty pagent or compare with the likes of Nene Overland, Squire Editions, or Twisted. They all offer fantastic Land Rover upgrades and resto-mods but way beyond my modest budget.
My plan was simply to get the old bus back on the road and good for another thirty years, which I will be lucky if I have myself! If it does go to plan, I’ll be ninety and probably no longer in need of a vehicle of this sort by then.
So, where it made sense to clean and re-fit parts that had a good bit of life in them, we did that, even if cosmetically they were a bit grubby.. Where parts were worn past their useful life, we replaced them, and where we could patch and repair we did so.
The doors, as usual, were rusted through the bottoms and sagging on their hinges, so new doors and hinges were in order. It also made sense to replace the door handles and locks, so Exmoor Trim aluminium units were ordered. I carry guns, so a good level of security is paramount.
We stripped-out all the old seals and hoses and rubber mounts and bushes and replaced them with quality new ones, as to do so was relatively inexpensive and a good long-term reliability upgrade.
Rob, my handyman, had put a fence post through the windscreen just before we got started, so we upgraded that to a heated one. It gets very boring driving on a shootday morning beset with freezing fog and watching the moisture freeze on the screen in front of your eyes, making visibility zero pretty quickly.
The seats were sagging and torn and generally horrible. A kit from Exmoor Trim and a Sunday afternoon put that right. New foam , new covers and a bit of elbow grease and they are back to looking and feeling excellent. Since it has only front seats, the job was half what it would otherwise have cost and came in at under £500.
With the vehicle in bits, Tanc’s team had to re-build the seat box and battery box, as well as reinforce the edges of all the body panels and the tub. All the interior carpets and lining got ripped out in the process. Two new rear body panels were fitted to replace the old ones, which had been mangled by a trailer during inept reversing episodes, and the bent rear step with towing hook was bashed back to shape and painted black.
The galvanised strips that sit between the lower body and the upper body sections were replaced entirely, as they were horribly degraded and scabby.
New side steps followed, and the roof and sides were removed for paint preparation.
Underneath, it was apparent that the brakes were pretty well worn out, as was the rear drive unit. A reconditioned rear axle, with hubs, brakes etc all included, came in at £3,000 and proved quicker and cheaper as an option than doing the work in bits here.
The suspension and clutch were done a couple of years ago, so were still looking decent. The bodywork, however, was rank. The Defender lives outside and is pressure washed a couple of times a year if it is lucky. It drives over muddy fields laden with grain for feeding during the season, as well as acting as transport on shoot days.
It did, however, seem a shame to spend so much time on the mechanicals and structure and not make some attempt at improving the outside of the vehicle. Still, budget constraints did not allow for a professional job.
So, I spent a chilly week in the car park with a rotary sander and did the preparation myself, moving down the grit sizes until a tolerable surface was achieved. It then went to the professionals for priming and spraying in the satin Light Bronze Green you see here. It is nothing like the sample I used to choose it but I have grown like it despite Tanc’s initial horror when he saw the bulkhead in its freshly-painted state.
The satin black roof, I think, works well with the black hinges, bumpers, chassis , handles etc.
Back from the spraying booth, it looks to me like the £2,000 including VAT it cost me to get the job done by a professional was well-spent. Despite a few dented and scratched panels, it looks a lot better than it did and certainly good enough for my ambitions for the end result.
By the first week in May 2026, I was ready to have a go at the interior, applying sound-deadening panels to doors, roof and floor, and fitting head-lining: an Exmoor Trim sound deadening mat kit in the front and foam-backed, black Alcantara on the roof.
I have yet to decide what to do with the back, but it will mostly be invisible, as a false floor and dog bed will be going back in.
Well, for now, that is where we are. I hope to return with an update before the end of the summer, with the vehicle back on the road and 95% completed. Watch this space!
One day I will add up the total cost but that is a job I have been carefully avoiding for some time now! It is certainly multiples of the laughable £4,000 I had convinced myself a simple chassis swap would be.
Diggory Hadoke
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