Dang Jon. That's one pretty RRC interior. Mine has a long ways to go.
1 project at a time
1 project at a time
1 project at a time
Eventually I'll get there.
Thanks for the compliment! You should have seen the entire car before, especially the interior. I bought the whole Rover for $550 and drove it 180 miles home. It was a basket case, engine needed immediate rebuilding, interior was completely thrashed (he had been using it as a pick-up truck), paint was not so good, and pretty much the only electronics that worked was the drivers side rear window and I used the term "worked" very loosely.
The interior had that purple eighties tint with dog claw scratches in every single window, half the headliner falling down and the rest sagging down on my head, the seats and console were completely neglected and torn up, radio broken, dashboard lights not working as well as the gauges not functioning (only fuel and speedometer worked), cruise control not working (fairly annoying on a 180 mile drive home), the wood trim was worn out to say the least, etc. Basically the car was a complete basket case, but now everything with the whole car is working beautifully, thanks to A LOT of elbow grease, a little bit of money, the land rover manuals, and all of the VERY VERY helpful land rover forums.
To fix the interior only cost me about $400-450. New (to me) front seats, refinished wood, complete trunk set up, headliner, shifter panel (a non torn up one) for the console, etc.
The really nice thing about a Land Rover is that most anything that "breaks" isn't actually broken it just needs a little TLC.
Like benlittle was saying for instance...the seat switches rarely break, the points just get dirty or a little corroded. Take the switches apart clean them and put them back together again. It is amazing how many months of suffering can be fixed in a few hours work. Here is a link to a page that gives a detailed description of how to take the switches apart and clean them.
http://www.rangerovers.net/repairdetails/seatcontrols.htm
Another good example is windows not working or more specifically the switches. I had all of my windows working within about five minutes, I just played musical chairs with all the switches; unhook one and place it where another switch is. I have tried that trick in probably 3-4 different RRC's now and it has worked every time even with the sunroof.
Another is the cruise control not working which is sometimes just a split in the end of a little hose, in mine and my brothers RRC's that was the problem and it only took a few mins to fix. Because it is a vacuum operated system, they don't deal with leaks well, so just cut the end off and stick it back on or if there isn't slack replace the hose it only costs a few dollars.
Craig, you are right though, "1 project at a time" but some won't take as long as you might think they will to fix and most of the time it will be the very simple fix that actually fixes it.
Just remember everyone, the parts for RRC's are not all that expensive if you really research where the good buys are, calling around, google, and the LR forums are your best friends. However the RRC's are labor intensive and are fairly inexpensive to keep maintained as long as you do the maintenance yourself. If you want to own a RRC but hate putting in the labor to maintain it, be prepared for them to live up to all the stories of the costs stacking up quickly at the Rover garage because its not the parts that will cost you, it is the labor that will get you in the end. After all, why do we see Land Rover technicians driving Land Rovers? Because we pay them enough to afford them and they know enough to make sure fixing them doesn't clean out their bank outs. haha
I've read that if the motor is burned up you can remove the drive cables from the motor and use a drill to spin them and adjust the seats. I've never tried this myself, so hopefully it helps.
I can vouch for doing that, when I was replacing my front seats, one of them had something in the track and wouldn't move by using the motor. I unhooked the drive cables and put each one of them in the chuck of my handy cordless drill until I found the two that I was looking for, then backed up the seat, cleared the track, zoomed it forward, and finished taking the seat out. I will say that it works, but since you can only adjust one side of the seat at a time you have to be sure that the seat is aligned straight and level when you hook everything back up or there will be issues. Oh and bring paper towels, because the tubes are lubed with grease and your hands will be covered in no time and you wouldn't want to then touch yours seats or anywhere else in the interior.