New Series 1 owners

[simonppowell]

Hello we have just bought our first LR. Took the plunge and bought a 1955 S1   Chassis number is 57103514   Engine Number reported as 151024959   - looks like it was first registered in July 1980 - plan is to sympathetically restore and get her ready for family work in the UK countryside - such as school runs and runs to the pub. If anyone has any history that would be great - plus clearly not a matching engine number - does anyone know when the engine would have been made?    - plus would it have come with a hard top when new?

[Geoff and Vanessa]

 1510 prefix engines are from the Series 2 era, 2.25 Litre and fitted to both 88 and 109 models yours would date from early 1960.

Cannot advise on hard top sorry.

[simonppowell]

Many thanks - that information ties with the V5 which shows 2.25 L petrol
we have a list of stuff that needs doing so will start work on it and get the car back to a reasonable standard without over- restoring it

[Dpaz]

Join the Club it is well worth it for the help and advice.

[vardjewell]

Not to mention the club shop for some of the hard to get parts that are now being remanufactured and advertised in the club magazine ‘Legend’
       Vardon

[simonppowell]

Joined.   Will let you know how the restoration goes


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[B.S.F.]

Unless you already know how to operate a non-synchro gearbox, learn  how to do it now,  before  you start a restoration. I know of a few people who's freshly rebuilt Land Rover turned into an ornament because they didn't want to learn to double declutch on a newly rebuilt gearbox.
..W..

[Landie Les]

There would be no means of telling if the hard top was original, unless you had the original invoice perhaps. Even the dispatch books at Gayden won't have that info.

[davel]

Would the fact the windscreen frame has the “teeth” for attaching a hood suggest that the hardtop and windscreen frame didn’t start life together?

[joetwist]

It is sometimes possible to confirm that a vehicle left the factory without a soft top.
The rear corner upper cappings of the tub have a hole for the hood stick clamp to bolt through, if a soft top has not been fitted, this hole may not have been drilled through the aluminium panel below. With the hardtop in place the hole is obscured by the rubber seal, however if you know where the hole should be you should becable to feel from below if the panel has been drilled.


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[joetwist]

Should of course note that this only shows if a hood was fitted, doesnt confirm a hard top was fitted.
I believe the teeth are common to all 86/88 screens, but not certain.

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[simonppowell]

The British Motor Museum archive - just came back with the name of the first dealer the vehicle was delivered to   

"The recorded dealer for Land Rover Series I 5-710-3514 is Grosvenor Motor Company Limited, Rhye"

[craggle]

I know of three station wagons that have the teeth along the screen for the soft top so assume all screens were the same.

My station wagon does have the screen supports inside for when the screen is folded down but on another station wagon, they have been left off. (Or removed)

Craig.

[autorover1]

My 55 SW hasn't the screen supports on the inside & I am fairly sure the previous owner wasn't the type   to change it .

[scimart]

The British Motor Museum archive - just came back with the name of the first dealer the vehicle was delivered to   

"The recorded dealer for Land Rover Series I 5-710-3514 is Grosvenor Motor Company Limited, Rhye"

There's a Grosvenor Motor Company Limited in Reading but I've never heard of a place called Rhye - and nothing shows under that name on a Google Map search.

My own experience with the BMHT archive was that the record for mine was very badly handwritten/partially undecipherable and when I queried the response, they were good enough to supply me with a photo of the record from which I did manage, with the benefit of some idea of its first owner, to identify where it was dispatched to.

The fact that further digging revealed that it was diverted to another site was a whole new story!
A polite query on their interpretation of the location might pay dividends.

[Landie Les]

Would the fact the windscreen frame has the “teeth” for attaching a hood suggest that the hardtop and windscreen frame didn’t start life together?

I would take a stab in the dark and say it is likely that unless placed as a special order a lot of the short wheel bases went down the line all the same until it came to putting the tops on, so it is possible that they all got sharks teeth frames, or perhaps they ran out of blank ones from time to time, of perhaps the fitter just forgot. On the other hand most long wheel base trucks and station wagons don't seem to have them.

[scimart]

That seems likely. I have reasonably good evidence from records attributed to the Ministry of Supply that my '55 86" was supplied as a hard top and that has the attachment teeth (and support brackets).

[joetwist]

Presumably the long wheelbase were either truck cab or SW, no soft top option so save some money by leaving out the teeth on lwb models.

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[tankman]

There was a 107" truck cab deluxe at our local Landrover Garage  without sharks teeth.

[Willerby]

It’s Rhyl not Rhye ...

https://www.lrsoc.com/forum/index.php?action=articles;sa=view;article=40



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[simonppowell]

Rhyl makes a great deal of sense as the reg as LFF xxx  that it was given in 1980 by the DVLA suggests the regional theme was Wales ( "FF" was Merionethshire until 1974)

[Old Hywel]

Rhyl makes a great deal of sense as the reg as LFF xxx  that it was given in 1980 by the DVLA suggests the regional theme was Wales ( "FF" was Merionethshire until 1974)

No. As Dollar Bill stated in your other thread, Merioneth only got to HFF by 1964.
Undoubtedly a more recent issue, probably after number sold off.

[simonppowell]

So do you think that this vehicle could have had a different registration from 1956 that was sold and then reregistered in 1980 as LFF Xxx?    DVLA say first registration is July 1980

[fifty seven]

There is a date if you can search for it, on which the UK use of "trade plates" by commercial organizations was tightened up considerably. A number of bigger country estates, mining companies and garages had vehicles which seldom appeared on the public highway. These could be kept exempt from road tax .But when they did need to travel on the road system  it was common for the estate to have trade plates for the short trip it might make. A vehicle originally issued by Government to be used by consular staff on some commonwealth Island territories might have no UK number until it returned . Some Islands did have a registration  system, but the number applied to any vehicle was issued annually. Or as in Switzerland the plate number for any vehicle is issued to the owner not specifically to the vehicle. Any number of reasons a Land-Rover  might never have been registered here.

[simonppowell]

So the list of jobs that need doing is now in
1) Replace engine and gearbox mounts
2) Front prop shaft universal joints
3) Bump stops all round
4) Full coolant hose replacements
5) 4 new tyres and a new battery
6) NSF brake cylinder
7) Recondition master brake cylinder
8) Handbreak shoes
9) Refirb and then put back the series 1 dash
10) Full wiring loom replace
11) New ignition system - leads , rotor arm , cap etc
12) wax oil the Chassis
13) Replace hard top with new softtop
14) 3 new front seats