Refender – Bespoke Defender

Your bespoke defender, built your way. Whatever you imagine your vehicle to be, we have the experience to create it for you. We build bespoke vehicles that look great and work better than new!

Whether you have a donor vehicle in need of restoration, want us to source a donor vehicle for you or want to buy one of our ground up rebuilds….. get in touch and find out how we can help?

Land Rover Modification

If you have lived with a totally standard, aging vehicle, you will I hope understand why we set out to create REFENDER? It was due entirely to necessity and the need to make a more useable and reliable trucks.

My partner already owned a 1996 TDi when I met her. It was used for towing a horse box… when it worked, which wasn’t very often!

It had a standard factory issue earth wiring fault meaning that 24 hours after using it, the battery was flat and it needed jump starting. This irritated me hugely, and led to it being used as less and less.

I am 6′ 2″ which was my second big issue with a standard 90 legroom. The evolution of man during the last 70 years or so, in the western world at least has resulted in our average height increasing from around 5′ 6″ to 5′ 11″.

This is a massive increase in a short period of time, and for other car manufacturers has never been an issue as their model ranges only exist for 6 – 8 years on average.

When a car stays in production using the same core components for 70 years however, changes in the average size of occupants becomes much more noticeable.

Thankfully I’m not broad, but still, sitting in comfort was not possible with the standard leg room available.

The original plan was to create useability and function, while tidying her up in the process.

Building Bespoke

However, we soon learnt that as soon as you fix whatever it is that irritates you the most, you soon become focused on the next irritant and want to fix that too…. soon creating your own bespoke 90 or 110!

We were keen to customise our Land Rover so that it not only worked, but looked great too. I am not a fan of a lot of the aftermarket accessories that are available, especially the huge range of checkerplate that is so often used to hide body rot & panel damage.

I first toyed with the idea of a galvanised chassis, but as ours is rust free, I instead directed our budget at useability, and function, rather than rebuilding from the ground up just for the sake of it.

Battery Drain – Earth Faults

Identifying an earth leak is a lifetimes work and let’s face it, life is too short to to replace the loom and every electrical component on the truck.

Instead, we opted to accept her shortcomings and fitted a battery isolator switch.

Ever since she has started first time on the key without a problem, even after standing for a month or two unused. Problem solved.

See Electrics issues information here

Legroom

My next big irritant was the lack of legroom. Back in the 1940’s Britons were much smaller than we are now. Average heights have shot up and the driving seat of a Defender is the best place to illustrate this.

Driving any distance was quite uncomfortable, so I set about looking for solutions.

Removing the bulkhead so the front seats are free to move back further is the only practical solution.

See more about bulkhead removal and bulkhead replacement bars

Lighting

On any aging vehicle, one of the first areas to suffer the ravages of time is the wiring. Terminals tend to corrode and as a result, lights stop working and before long you will grow tired of tapping them or stripping them down to clean up the contact points.

LED replacement lighting solves all these issues as well as providing lighting that is powerful enough to let you see where you are going!

Lights have always been a weak point on laging Land Rovers, but it doesn’t have to remain so.

There is a reason why you will often see older vehicles adorned with more lights than a Christmas tree….. it’s normally in the hope that at any point in time, some of them will be working!

See more about LED lighting upgrades

Suspension

Over time, LandRover suspension becomes tired and lazy. Thankfully there is a huge range of upgrade options available to choose from, whether you want to retain standard suspension or upgrade with heavy duty, raiser kits, enhanced performance etc.

See Suspension info here

Steering

Standard steering has long been a source of humour. The relationship between the steering wheel and the front wheels is often not much more than a nodding acquaintance.

Excessive play in steering is almost a factory fitted setting, but it doesn’t have to be like that!

We have a variety of steering upgrades and solutions

Bodywork

Aluminium doesn’t rust…. hurrah! But….. it does corrode over time which is another word for “rust”. The consequences are the same, regardless of the chemical process that takes place.

Bubbled paint work, blown paint on the bottom of doors and commonly around the lower part of body panels.

The low cost solution is to bolt checker plate over the top and you can even buy complete kits for just this purpose, but it looks cheap and is a short term bodge.

Replacement panels are actually quite cheap (although prices are rising) and fitting new panels isn’t as difficult as it is on most other vehicles.

Clean, corrosion free paintwork will makes vehicles look a million dollars.

See more about bodywork

Bespoke Defenders