A Better View (and drier feet?)

The trip to the AO Show revealed a few shortcomings in the "watertight department"...

Wet feet are OK if you've been paddling on the beach or otherwise looking for trouble, but not really acceptable in one's driving seat. Unless you drive a Landrover, that is. Then it's considered Par for the Course and all part of the Defender's natural charm and character.

Not in my Defender, it ain't. I'd prefer to keep the outside outside, thank you. If I want to let it in it'll be under my rules. Now, the Defender has its quirks, I'll admit. Lotsa people moan about how cramped the driving position is and how they don't like being hard up against the door, having to stick your right arm and elbow out of an open window to get comfortable. But, I wonder, how many of these folk actually go anywhere that requires them to see where their wheels are going to the last millimetre? To do that you have to stick your head out of the hole in the door provided for the purpose and the Defender seating position is ideal for that. It's a design feature and I'm happy with it. I'm not so happy with the build tolerances that allow water in at every panel join, so it's time to sort it out.

I trawled the 'net, as you do, for clues and found this site. An excellent source of useful tips and if you search about the long list of vids you'll find lots on the subject of keeping water where it belongs. I take no credit for the fixes I put in this weekend, then, other than the 2 hours of dedicated effort it took to find the site amongst the piles of useless stuff that Google throws up.

Let's start with the rain gutter at the back of the bonnet. A great idea, but it stops short of the wing top and so where will all that water go?

Not only that, but there's a gap at the back of the wing top skin that isn't sealed. When I saw the video I thought "that's probably not as bad as it looks". Well, I put a torch up inside the wing and peered down the gap, nearly blinding myself in the process...the gap is about 1.5mm on this side and about the same on the driver's side.

You can see that the dry area under the bonnet edge is dirty, but the bit at the back is shiny and clean...wonder why?
This might explain why, when it's raining heavily, water runs out from under the dash - it's being caught by all the little channels and pockets on the bulkhead and runs around all over the place until finding its way onto the floor. Via my feet, in some cases.

In the video, Mike uses some stuff called DumDum to seal these gaps neatly from the inside. This stuff isn't available any more so I tried some "No More Nails" adhesive that I let dry a bit so it was more of a putty. It wouldn't stick. As a temporary measure, then, I used the hot glue gun...

If it works, I'll tidy it up or use something neater next time. To sort out the gutter I used pieces of flashing tape left over from the soundproofing work:

The paint can is just for scale

Formed and trimmed it does the job and is invisible when the bonnet's closed. A simple fix, once you know what the problem might be. Thank you, Britannica!

I'd already used a tiny boroscope camera to look behind the instrument binnacle and seen some glistening wet bits but it's difficult pinpointing exactly what you're looking at. However, it was clear that water was on the lip behind the vent flaps (poor seals?) and immediately behind the seal that joins the windscreen frame (not the glass) to the top of the bulkhead. On inspection it seemed that the seal - the spongy foam strip - wasn't in the best condition and had gone a bit hard, at least on the surface. It would've been better to replace this when the roof was being done and I did consider it, but it would have added some more difficulty and time to the job so I decided not to have Larry do it. Instead, I've cut the sponge back to a level where it's more flexible and then filled it back up, flush to the bulkhead, with TigerSeal. The new seals for the vent flaps are in the post, together with some other bits to finish the ...

..Heated Rear Window. The old one wasn't. This was because when we first got Elly she had some kind of plastic film on the glass that was coming off in bits. Really tatty, so Sue removed it. With a Scotchbrite pan scourer. This didn't do the heating element any good at all and last winter it was a real nuisance not being able to see through the rear view mirror until I'd been on the road for half an hour. It needed to be fixed, so I bought another glass from eBay. I'd have used the Usual Suspect as a supplier but they refused to accept responsibility for any damage in transit and I'd order at my own risk. Given that this placed no obligation on them to package it properly they didn't get my business. The eBay supplier had a bit more sense and the glass arrived intact and at a very good price, hence the link. He deserves a bit of praise for not being an idiot, like the competition.

The glass had been replaced at some time during the vehicle's past, but not very well sealed, which would explain what you see in the picture - half a kilo of Sahara sand - and a fair bit of rust inside the door behind the skin. As usual, then, most of the job involved tidying up the mess left by the previous owner(s) before replacing the defective bits.

Also as usual, it was blowing a hooligan and from a direction that had everything in the workshop getting blown over, about or down.  With the old glass out, I wanted to spray the inside of the door but the paint was gonna go everywhere except where I wanted it, so I had to build a temporary windbreak from a sheet of 8x4 ply.

Note the high quality masking material!

If there's one tool I've really got my money's worth out of, it's the air compressor I bought at Aldi about 10 years ago. Although I'm not going to say I have any great skill in the paint spraying department, it's allowed me to paint two Defender's now, both out on the driveway and with pretty good results with cheap guns but decent paint.

Cellulose is easy to apply and given the conditions on Saturday I didn't need a mask! Once the retaining strips were cleaned up it all went back together easily, with nice new self-tappers and some more TigerSeal to hold it all in place properly.

I need to work out a way to remove the security grille more easily so I can keep this shiny new glass clean (without the use of abrasives!!). I did a bit of experimenting on this subject and the solid, stiff and expensive grilles on the 4x4 market, like we have in the small rear windows, actually work against the objective, I think. If the grille is flexible and ductile then it "gives" when attacked, where the heavier expensive ones don't. This means that the stiffness in them acts as a lever against whatever is holding them in place making them easier to force. The flexible grille material absorbs the energy that would otherwise break through it. That's my theory, anyway.

The next job here is to re-install the rear wash/wipe system. The parts are on order to do this and I've found the wiring in place behind the panel in the rear corner. The only difficulties might be in finding the correct electrical connectors and positioning the washer jet - the AluCab roof seems a bit solid at the place I'd like to use and I may not be able to run the water pipe in there. We'll see.

The OEM wash/wipe switch is silly money, too, so we'll have to get a bit creative there as well.

The Wallas hob arrives soon, so that'll be the cue to start pulling the kitchen apart. With that in mind I've spent quite a lot of time sitting in the back with a mug of tea, going through the various scenarios to work out what will fit back in and where. It occurred to me that a weak point in the design is the water storage. We've sort-of accepted the position of the water tank as a "fait accompli" as it was there when we bought the truck, is very expensive and seemed to be a well thought out accessory. If you live somewhere warm. A lot of these "overlander toys" originate from South Africa where the climate is a little different to ours and they don't have to cope with the same conditions.

OK, I know I cheated here, but it really could be Scotland in July....

An example: drying out a roof tent. If these get wet - and, let's face it, they are going to with our weather - you can't just take it into the greenhouse/garage/bathroom and hang it up to dry like your average Vango, and if the temperature outside is at the usual Baltic level, drying ain't going to happen fast, is it? By the time it's got somewhere near, it's probably raining again anyway.

So, the water tank and pipework is exposed to the elements in a way that is almost guaranteed to give us a problem. Now that we'll have a heater we can "winterize" the rest of Elly and extend our travelling season a bit. The only thing that doesn't have an insulation plan is the water supply, and it's the reason it gets drained down in the colder months and doesn't get used if we do a weekend picnic trip. The answer is to move it all inside, of course, but this will mean dispensing with all that neat, expensive, Gucci kit under the wheel arch. We think it's the way to go, though, and we might get some of the money back through Gumtree when we try to sell the old bits on. Something like this would work,




although the filler pipe might not be in the right place. Lots to think about, and it all needs to be decided before we start the re-fit, or we'll be doing it twice.

Like before.