Connecting the components

AFTER our Td5 Defender’s body has been safely landed on the newly built-up rolling chassis, it would seem logical to have a set plan on how to go about bolting the body to the chassis, connecting up all of the electrics and reinstating the fluid systems, such as fuel and brakes.

However, in practice I have found that there tends to be a fair bit of jumping around. For example, one might have decided to concentrate on fitting out the engine bay as a particular set of tasks for that morning’s work. But here is the speedometer cable tucked out of the way at the bulkhead – it needs to be fed down over the bell housing and on to the transfer gearbox. So the Defender is raised on the ramp to finish routing the speedo cable and connect it up. Then I notice that, while I am under here, I could refit the clutch slave cylinder. Before you know it, the whole underside is being concentrated on – and the engine bay forgotten.

There is nothing wrong with this happening – the crucial thing is that by the end of the job, everything is sorted, nothing forgotten