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1997 Defender 90 5.2 V8 Soft Top
Damage repairs
This 1997 D90 soft top from Maryland is one that we know well here at ECR. It has been here for upgrades and repairs a number of times before. Go here and here and here, for those pages to see what we have done before. This time, sadly, the 90 has suffered some off road damage at the hands of some uncaring folks who borrowed the car. The damage isn't major, but it is all over the truck here and there. The RH tub side has a large dent, the jump seats are wrecked, the AC fascia is broken, the steering wheel bent, the tire carrier pushed in and more. That is the bad news. The good news is that we can fix the 90 up and get it back into shape. In the image above you can see we have already removed the damaged tire carrier and such. We will repair these items and then send them out for zinc and powder coating to make them as good as new one the fabricataion repairs are done.
The rear jump seats took some serious abuse. The lower trims are shot and a few of the wooden seat frames are broken. To fix this we will remove the seats and install new wooden frames where required and then top them off with ECR exclusive upgrades.
Here you can see that we have started working the metal to get rid of the dent on the RH side. Instead of just slapping the dent full of bondo like most body shops we take the time to work the metal with old school metal working techniques to get the dent out of the tub, without the need for any body fillers. As you can see above the metal work is almost done and there is no bondo in the repair at all. Once the repair is done we will just need a coat of primer in order to sand everything out flat. Doing it this way keeps the body filler out of the truck and retains all the factory spot weld locations and makes for an invisible repair.
This images show the interior put back together. The AC vents have been repaired and all the other damage has been made right. The interior now looks great and you'd never suspect it suffered the damage that it did. In this images you can also see the new BA speakers that we have installed to replace the ones that were wrecked from the off road adventure. Once we installed the speakers and tested the system with our audio test CDs, we found that the stereo shop that did the install previously installed the amplifier wiring all wrong. They had the rear speakers on the subwoofer channel and a number of other mistakes. We corrected all the wiring and installed all new heavy duty speaker wiring and installed the speaker crossovers correctly. The original stereo shop install had the crossovers in the doors and it made it so the they were rusting badly and the door panel would not sit flush on the door. It always amazes us that people will pay for that type of install, but regardless the sound system is back up to snuff and working as it should.
Here you can see the repaired jump seats with our powder coated alloy bases. These are stronger and much longer lasting than the cardboard that the original seats came with. We hope the damage doesn't happen again, but if it does the seats will have a much better shot at taking the abuse instead of breaking, and we think they look better too.
This images shows the rear of the 90 back together. The tire carrier parts are now all back on and working correctly and everything opens and closes as it should, unlike when the tire carrier was damaged. Badger Coachworks also fixed the ripped rear window for us and we replaced the damage lower rear window bar that holds the bottom of the rear window in place.
The tub-side repair is also now complete and it would be hard for anyone to tell that the damage ever happened. We feel that is the point to damage repairs on a Rover... to make it look like it never happened.
To help keep the 90 safe from engine bay fires we have added a set of ROX oil cooler lines. These stainless steel performance lines are not only routed better to stay away from the hot exhaust manifold for the "cooler", they are made from superior racing technology products that will last a good long time, unlike the factory rubber lines.
While the 90 was here getting the damage fixed and a general service done, we also added a few upgrades. We added a battery cut off switch like a NAS Defender 110 has, so that the customer can save the battery before it goes dead when the 90 is stored for extended periods. The battery connection is easy to access and means no more messing about under the seat.
The customer also had us take care of the odometer display. The display was doing the normal thing that these do when they get older, it only worked at certain times, sometimes flashed and sometimes displayed what looks like a language from another planet. As you can see from the image above we have replaced the digital display and retained the original miles so that the odometer is not only correct, the number are clear and easy to read.
In the off road damage the steering wheel was even bent, so the customer sourced a new Defender Td5 style leather wrapped unit that we have installed into the 90. The steering wheel looks great, actually better than the picture as the flash was playing up the color. To the naked eye the color looks correct and the wheel feels great.
Here you can see the 90 completed and ready to head back to Maryland. In this trucks case we will meet the customer at the airport and he will head home in the 90 for a summer of fun in his, now returned to normal, 1997 NAS Defender 90 soft top with the ECR 5.2 power-plant. We hope to see this 90 back again for upgrades and service, but next time we hope not to have to repair damage that never needed to happen in the first place, but if it does we are here to take care of any needs any Defender owner has, from a large project to damage repair like this.
If you have dreams for your Defender, contact ECR. We'll be happy to make your Defender what you want it to be.
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