New Member: 1982 Land Rover Lightweight

telwyn

Adventurer
Hey guys, new member and thought I'd introduce my Rover. It's a 1982 Land Rover Lightweight. From what I gather it was in the British Army from 1982 to 1999. Still sports the original 1990 Desert Storm paint and Allied marking on the doors, although the war ended before the truck left the UK. You can also see a blueish type paint underneath that I believe means it also did UN duty at some point.

Upgrades have been modest thus far:

OME Steering Damper
OME Shocks
Converted front brakes from drum to disc
Removed oil bath filter and added K&N Air Filter
Optima Red Top Battery
Replaced one rear bench with a pair of jump seats
Hella Vision headlamps
Defender Side Mirrors
Fairey Overdrive
Kenlowe Fan
Jackall jack
Magnecor High Performance Ignition Wires

I intend to continue to upgrade it over time and welcome any feedback or suggestions. Thanks for checking it out.

p.s. I'm dying to get a Sankey trailer to go with it if anyone can source one. Thx.
 
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telwyn

Adventurer
Thx. It's a 2.25L gas engine, 4 cyl. I use Gunk Lead Substitute in it as it needs leaded fuel. Also a Right Hand Drive.

I'd been searching for a Lightweight for a few years on various websites, but primarily on www.landroverexchange.com. The few I found were either 24v or too rusty for my taste (I can handle a little rust). Got lucky while I was living in Chattanooga, TN for a few years when I found this on LandRoverExchange and the seller turned out to be only 2 hours away in Rome, GA. He was the CFO of Pirelli North America (headquartered in Rome of all places) and had driven these on the weekends when he was in the British Army Reserves. When it was decommissioned in 1999, a police officer in England owned it for a few years and then the Pirelli guy bought it in 2003 and imported it here. I've owned it since 2005.
 

Martyn

Supporting Sponsor, Overland Certified OC0018
Welcome. I was thinking about importing Sankeys from the UK at one point so I created a Sankey folder. Here are the links from it;

http://www.safari.org.uk/html/101.htm
http://www.anchorsupplies.com/trailers.htm
http://www.ramco.co.uk/ProdCategoryList.php?catID=34
http://www.ekmpowershop5.com/ekmps/shops/greenmachines/index.asp
http://www.witham-sv.com/infopage.php?ID=36&Overide=0
http://www.skytoprover.com/sankey.htm

Skytop Rover is out of Philadelphia, they may have one hanging around.

Witham has them all the time. The cost is around £250.00 but then you have shipping, import duty, and import regulations to deal with. Plus of course the US$ is worth £0.50 these days.

If you can't find one fabricating a replica wouldn't be too difficult.
 

SuperSoniC_110

Observer
UK is damn expensive for Sankey's.

I bought mine for 180€ locally.

Can you imagine that at a certain stage when British forces pulled back out of Belgium and Germany in the late 90's no one was interested in these damn heavy trailers.
In the auctions you you got them for free when buying a Defender.
Most of these buyers sold them to the metal recyclers for the price of old metal.

Good friend of mine imported about 900Defenders in Belgium these days,most of them ex Army ones who where ones stationed in Germany and all LHD.

He had at one stage about 200 sankeys on his yard which were at that time not wanted.Same for the nato jaw towing hooks.
 

telwyn

Adventurer
Scored a free brush bar from a buddy who pulled it off of his old Defender and decided not to install on his new one.

Haven't installed it yet, but set it on there last night and I think it looks at home and should give some good protection to my front end. I'll need to remove the two lifting rings and also relocate the Hella Black Magic lights to the bar.

Extends out about 2 inches on either side of the Rover because Lightweights are a few inches narrower than other Rovers so they could fit a pair of them side by side in the planes back in the 60s.

What do you think?
 

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Michele

Observer
How cool is a Lightweight?!?

I think I spotted your truck on the D90BB when it was on sale.

Congrats :smiley_drive:

Re:brush bar
I wouldn't put it on a LWT...personally I like the simple and unadorned look...
 

czenkov

Adventurer
If you like it then go for it! Do any off road miles? The only thing that might worry me is it snagging something.
 

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