RatsNest

1969 LandRover "Late" Series IIA Hard Top

Now rat's nest is special.  It is a green Late Series IIA 69 88 hardtop with the California blue liscence plate “ROVER”.  It was an original owner car that belonged to a friend of my son's father.  After they graduated from high school, the car was inherited by my son's friend.  Orginally, it was in perfect condition.  The kind of rover that you dream about finding.  Over the next few years we watched it deteriorate as the young owner's resources, parking spaces, and free time diminished. My son on occasion would take pity on the situation and help him fix it . A long time went by and then one day we got a call.
 
 

“Will you store it for me, I need to go back to Princeton and do not have the money to pay for storage agin this year.”  Rover powers unite so after my sons adequate and proper warnings about mouse damage etc., I said bring it over.  It came in the driveway so forlorn.  Its clutch had broken half way out out and he had limped it out.  It looked OK, but time had not smiled upon the car.  Things had deterioated, but didn't really run without its clutch slave.  He parked it and for a while we would start it evey now and then and drive it around the yard in low first.  Winter set in and one day the car wouldn't start (this was likely due to the fact that he had lost the gas cap and rains had contaminated the tank.  It sat for two years.
 
 

After a point, we could not stand to see it deteriorate any more so one day my son called him and told him that he had four choices:  take it away, fix it and sell it for profit, sell it, or sell it to us.  He selected the last choice since he was not returning from the east coast any time soon.
 
 

 

Once ours, we smilled upon the car and towed it out of the forest.  Doors were opened, branches and leaves removed and the bonet flipped up.  There was a wood rat's nest and it had eaten a lot of the wiring and heater hoses.  The accelerator assembly was frozen, the clutch master and slave were toast,  and subsequently the entire hydraulics system was questionable.  Damn DOT 3 at local gas stations!
 
 

But it still looked beautiful.  It took us a couple of mornings to start it and it purred. Its tranny was a little noisey and the steering awful but it is the looker in our fleet. From a distance it looks like a yuppie restoration or a found original car.  In some ways it is but it took more work to get running than we expected.  Now it carries Kayaks,  is driven daily, and if left alone no matter where we park it in the yard the rats and mice continue to reek havok.   The mouse in the door in another good story.
 

Next Rover:  RustBucket

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