...before we turned up! We're the brave idiots people who bought the Ex-Humphrey Edwards 109 at the Pugh sale recently. Plenty of Land Rovers here but a Series 1 is new territory for us.
We spoke to a very kindly and knowledgable Father and Son (715GC on here from the auction thread, at a guess??) who outlined various interesting points, PTO, hand throttle, double water pump pulley for governor, oil cooler etc. I believe it was mentioned the engine is a 2l petrol but of crossover period into SII era?
As far as I can see, there isn't a great deal missing, other than carb, air cleaner, battery tray, fuel filler and seat bases. I can carry the remains of the chassis and bulkhead, and the rear propshaft has dissolved, as has one wheel rim. The front axle casing has thinned out beyond repair sadly, but the internals appear to be sound. A small amount of water has found its way into the sump, so the engine will be dismantled for inspection very soon in the hope there has not been too much damage. The sump has rotted from the outside in, and finally gave way during unloading, thankfully it lasted the trip home.
Under the pale blue paint and yellow cab roof is what appears to be lovely dark RAF blue grey, and we are hopeful we can reveal and conserve this original colour, the panels apart form one front wing are remarkably straight. It is not ex-RAF though, it came to Humphrey from the local farm it was delivered to from new. We felt a bit guilty taking it out of Wales for the first time since it was sold new!
The documentation and backlash in the diffs suggest the 19,000 or so on the clock may well be correct but no doubt it has done a fair bit of stationary work. I wonder if the governor and even the rear PTO/pulley unit at the sale came off this Land Rover, sad if so, not that we could have afforded either.
No more photos at the moment sadly as the computer is refusing to read the camera, I will start a restoration thread, with photos, soon! But it is not at the top of the list of priorities at the moment so it will be 'as and when'.
Due to some near misses with forklifts loading other lots, and the scrapman due to arrive the next morning to remove the large heap of (largely still useful) material next to the Land Rover, we dismantled it that evening, managing to remove and load all body panels ourselves without damage (never go anywhere without 6 point Whitworth sockets!), only needing the forklift for the sturdier components. Getting the load home took another 32 hours however, and although a good story, I shan't repeat it here!
We also bought several stationary engines at the sale, sadly dismantled and scattered between lots, we bought various lots to unite as much as possible but are still missing various components- if anyone here bought or knows of someone who unwittingly bought such parts amongst lots of Land Rover goodies, please let me know! It was a very hot and mayhemic day for us, trying to round up all the parts of various century-old machines before they got split up forever, and guarding lots we had already purchased from the inevitable pilfering.
We have an organic smallholding and are ultimately looking to run a very small scale farm using old machinery- we have a complete set of mid-late Victorian to WWII era farming kit gradually being readied to be used in anger. The good lady broke our pre-WWII habit and bought a late 50s Massey bagger combine a few weeks back, so the 109 will be a perfect era matched partner to load the grain sacks into.
Due to a careless choice of hobbies, we simply can't afford to buy a new chassis and bulkhead, but are looking to make our own (full fabrication and machining set up here), hopefully we can borrow or temporarily buy a reasonably complete 109 chassis to use as a template to make a jig from, or if one does not come our way in time, does anybody know if drawings are available? I stupidly sold my series 1 factory workshop manual a couple of years ago, thinking I had missed the boat regards S1s, and can't remember if it had dimensioned drawings.
Anyway, so it begins! It will be a slow process, as we will be doing as much 'in house' as possible, and saving as much original material as possible. We are so very glad we got it though, for many of the Land Rovers at the sale it was not a happy ending, with several going straight in the scrap bin, and undoubtedly many more broken for spares. We shall do justice to this one however, despite the complete lack of steel remaining, it is incredibly complete and original.