Back in May 2019 we took over a bulkhead and door replacement on a Defender 90 which had been half completed by another garage (not local to us). It had been with the bodyshop for a very long time so it was long out of MOT and had been stood for a while. The customer was very keen to have his Defender 90 back on the road and had already spent a fair bit up to the point when it came over to us. It arrived on the back of a recovery wagon looking very sorry for itself, everything that had been unbolted from it (the whole dash included!) was now inside it, coated in bodyshop dust, and a strap was wrapped around it’s middle (bottom to roof) to keep it all from bursting out, bending up the sill panel covers.
Needless to say, she was a Land Rover in need! When we looked at the bulkhead that had been supplied and half fitted it was clear that we were going to have a lot of trouble getting it in and lined up. We tried to straighten it out (albeit in a bit of a caveman fashion using straps) but it was just no use. It was a “refurbished” and galvanised bulkhead but the quality of the repairs were of a very poor standard and we really wouldn’t have been doing right by the customer or the Defender herself if we’d have carried on and fitted it. Not only that, it had been painted and was in a poor state (no prep had been carried out so the paint was peeling off in sheets).
