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andy2111



Member Since: 17 Oct 2021
Location: Kent
Posts: 365

United Kingdom 2002 Defender 110 Td5 HT Bonatti Grey
From white TD5 hardtop to Puma inspired poptop
Here's my truck Jeff, a.k.a."The Jeffender"

I'm about 4 years in to my rebuild and I keep meaning to start a thread to post all the pics I have, but the longer I leave it the bigger the job it is to catch up. Well, I finally got round to it!

I'll try to catch up with everything over the next few weeks and then it will be much easier to post as I go along.

Here's a little teaser pic from before we got started



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and a more recent one from earlier this year when I collected Jeff after the poptop conversion



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Now, I have to remember how all this began.....


Last edited by andy2111 on 21st Jan 2023 9:25am. Edited 1 time in total
Post #969438 30th Oct 2022 4:19pm
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andy2111



Member Since: 17 Oct 2021
Location: Kent
Posts: 365

United Kingdom 2002 Defender 110 Td5 HT Bonatti Grey
Jeff is a MY 2002 TD5 hard top, he was registered in 2001 so that makes him one of the very first of the facelifted TD5s with the 15P engine and updated dash etc.

I bought him from a chap on the south coast who runs an independent Land Rover garage - the truck had belonged to a customer and he had serviced it for years before eventually buying it for his son.

It had a comprehensive service history going back years (adding up to a shocking amount of money) and I knew it had been looked after and that the seller was genuine. Jeff had done approx 112,000 miles when I got him.

I think I paid about 7K for Jeff and was planning to smarten him up a bit and have a bit of fun green laning and going to shows. The more I started looking into things the more the crazy notion of really trying to modernize Jeff took hold.

My wife had a very nice Puma 90 XS a few years before and I got it in my head that I could bring Jeff up to the same standard in terms of equipment and comfort. This really was the beginning of my downfall, and a 4 year (thus far) obsession was born in modernising Jeff and spending so much money in the process that I could have bought at least 2 late model 110 XS Pumas and still had money to spare!

I have to say that I have done almost none of the work myself, I like to think of myself as the designer Laughing and to be fair, I spent countless hours researching what I wanted to do and finding someone that I wanted to work with on the project. Over the years I've had help from a great team of people at different times for different jobs and I thank them all for their unending patience as I throw them yet another problem as I try to bend and shape an old truck into something it was never meant to be.

So let's get started with a few more pics of Jeff as I found him...



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Post #969447 30th Oct 2022 4:40pm
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andy2111



Member Since: 17 Oct 2021
Location: Kent
Posts: 365

United Kingdom 2002 Defender 110 Td5 HT Bonatti Grey
I'm sitting here looking at the invoice to remember what we did in the first stage of the upgrade and I'm having heart failure already remembering the list (and the expense). The invoice is 5 pages of itemised parts and 187 hours of labour!!

My wife made the inspired choice on colour for the respray - Carpathian Grey and Santorini Black, which I think looks fantastic.

Here's a summary of the rest of the job - remember I have "Puma XS" in my head when dreaming up the to-do list...

New front and rear doors and door cards
Electric windows inc tinted glass
Heated front windscreen
Heated seats
Central locking
Rear bulkhead removal
LED headlights
NAS style indicators and brake lights
Security bonnet hinges
Billet door handles
Windscreeen jet wash upgrade
Dual battery and management box
NAS rear step
New front bumper
Rock sliders
Chequer plate
Steering guard
Snorkel
Wide wheel arches
2" Terrafirma lift kit
Terrafirma wheels
Polybushes all round
Alcantara headliner
Dynamat and carpeting in the rear
Full Exmoor trim carpet set
New cubby box with CB radio build in
New front grille
New steering box
New front propshaft
Etc etc etc etc.....

And here are the pics from the first big upgrade, starting with the stripdown..



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Last edited by andy2111 on 30th Oct 2022 5:35pm. Edited 2 times in total
Post #969455 30th Oct 2022 5:22pm
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andy2111



Member Since: 17 Oct 2021
Location: Kent
Posts: 365

United Kingdom 2002 Defender 110 Td5 HT Bonatti Grey
And then some pics of it all being put back together again..



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Post #969457 30th Oct 2022 5:27pm
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andy2111



Member Since: 17 Oct 2021
Location: Kent
Posts: 365

United Kingdom 2002 Defender 110 Td5 HT Bonatti Grey
And here's Jeff as I collected him, with me foolishly thinking that I was just about done with all my upgrades and modifications Rolling with laughter



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At this stage we still have the standard TD5 dash and interior and I started to think that I should update the cab to match the nice external refurb....
Post #969460 30th Oct 2022 5:30pm
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Co1



Member Since: 19 Aug 2018
Location: North Yorkshire
Posts: 3605

United Kingdom 2013 Defender 90 Puma 2.2 HT Loire Blue
It’s a risky business wading through all those invoices!
Post #969463 30th Oct 2022 6:04pm
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andy2111



Member Since: 17 Oct 2021
Location: Kent
Posts: 365

United Kingdom 2002 Defender 110 Td5 HT Bonatti Grey
So having done the largely exterior refurb, the interior of Jeff was looking very much the poor relation and I'd been mulling over for some time what to do about it.

I really should have just refurbished the standard TD5 interior and added a few extra comforts, but I decided that I could try to upgrade it to "Puma XS" spec and so the madness began. I have always had a love of making old things new/better and whilst I can't claim to have done all work, I think I play the role of "evil designer genius" in this particular tale!

So, step 1 - go fit an aftermarket Puma replica dash. Here are some pics of the job once finished - I don't have any pics of the work being done.



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Last edited by andy2111 on 26th Dec 2022 11:47am. Edited 2 times in total
Post #974088 9th Dec 2022 6:15pm
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andy2111



Member Since: 17 Oct 2021
Location: Kent
Posts: 365

United Kingdom 2002 Defender 110 Td5 HT Bonatti Grey
The beauty of this kit is that it's specifically designed to upgrade an older car to the Puma dash. It reuses your instruments/clocks and so is just plug and play. There are custom controls for the heating/AC as well because the standard TD5 vent flaps are now hidden behind the dash.

I had my flaps motorized with some actuators linked to a switch on the dash, it looked really cool to see them going up and down, but you had to remember to close them if it rained as the water went straight in behind the dash!

I also had an aftermarket AC (HVAC) unit fitted because I intended to travel and wanted aircon. The problem is neither the standard TD5 or Puma AC units fit because of the non-standard pairing of dash and bulkhead, so I got a unit specifically designed for the job.

It was all going so well for a while and then I started to have some elecrical problems and needed a few things looked at. I had found a new local mechanic to service and maintain the truck and he'd not done any of the conversion work. When he started investigating my various issues he called me to declare the wiring a fire hazard and said he would not work on it because it was such a mess and he couldn't provide any guarantees on any work and he'd also be liable for any faults thereafter. Perfectly reasonable!

I think the wiring woes built up over many many years, all compounded by different people doing different things at different times and I'm certainly not going to blame anyone for what happened - but it was quite a mess.

I found a great auto electrician who knew Defenders really well and he looked at it.... and said the same thing! He didn't want to touch it for fear of being on the hook for every subsequent problem.

I literally begged him to help, and eventually wore him down. Here are some of the pics he took of the rewiring job....



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Post #974089 9th Dec 2022 6:33pm
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andy2111



Member Since: 17 Oct 2021
Location: Kent
Posts: 365

United Kingdom 2002 Defender 110 Td5 HT Bonatti Grey
We ended up with bags of old wire, clips and terminal blocks...



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Which were all replaced by three beautiful new custom looms



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Post #974090 9th Dec 2022 6:38pm
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LandRoverAnorak



Member Since: 17 Jul 2011
Location: Surrey
Posts: 11240

United Kingdom 2013 Defender 110 Puma 2.2 USW Orkney Grey
I feel your pain. I'm going through a similar exercise with a camping trailer that I bought last year:


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 Darren

110 USW BUILD THREAD - EXPEDITION TRAILER - 200tdi 90 BUILD THREAD - SANKEY TRAILER - IG@landroveranorak

"You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!" - Princess Leia
Post #974137 10th Dec 2022 11:15am
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andy2111



Member Since: 17 Oct 2021
Location: Kent
Posts: 365

United Kingdom 2002 Defender 110 Td5 HT Bonatti Grey
Maybe your trailer and my truck had the same owner somewhere in the distant past!
Post #974139 10th Dec 2022 11:20am
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Procta



Member Since: 03 Dec 2016
Location: Sunderland
Posts: 4908

United Kingdom 
looking great, i did look at the puma upgrade dash my self, as it brings it more up to date. i am sure i read you could even upgrade the clocks to puma units too if i am right. Thumbs Up Defender TD5 90 ---/--- Peugeot 306 HDI hatch back

Success is 90% Inspiration and 4 minutes Preparation # you can make it!
Post #974319 12th Dec 2022 3:02am
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andy2111



Member Since: 17 Oct 2021
Location: Kent
Posts: 365

United Kingdom 2002 Defender 110 Td5 HT Bonatti Grey
Hi, yes you can... and I did! Will upload those pics next...
Post #974328 12th Dec 2022 8:21am
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andy2111



Member Since: 17 Oct 2021
Location: Kent
Posts: 365

United Kingdom 2002 Defender 110 Td5 HT Bonatti Grey
So we are around September 2020 at this point and the next upgrade to Jeff is to upgrade the instrument cluster.

At this point I am still using the aftermarket/replica Puma dashboard where reusing the TD5 clocks is a great time and cost saver, but I really wanted to have the truck looking as genuine Puma as possible, and so I bought a used instrument cluster from eBay and the Futuranet guages adapter (from our very own Martin who provides this amazing forum). I also bought a new perspex screen for the cluster which made the unit look brand new.



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I removed the old TD5 cluster



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And fitted the new



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I used a mileage correction service to update the odometer which initially showed 235K miles and got it to match exactly the 114K miles from the original odometer.



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All very strightforward and simple enough that I could do it myself!




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I'm really pleased with how it all looks and everything works perfectly including all the relevant warning lights. The all important termperature guage reads just like the original too.

Visually the whole dashboard is "a lot more Puma" now, except for the centre console, and of course the TD5 gearstick which is dog legged under the dash. Both of these will feature in a future update! TD5 hardtop to Puma inspired Poptop - my build thread

2002 110 TD5 Hardtop ¦ Full Puma interior ¦ Carpathian grey / Santorini black ¦ X-Vision-X poptop
Post #974435 12th Dec 2022 4:36pm
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Procta



Member Since: 03 Dec 2016
Location: Sunderland
Posts: 4908

United Kingdom 
something a little extra for the clocks?

https://www.alivetuning.com/product/alive-classic-instrument-set/ Defender TD5 90 ---/--- Peugeot 306 HDI hatch back

Success is 90% Inspiration and 4 minutes Preparation # you can make it!
Post #974484 12th Dec 2022 11:55pm
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