Land Rover Discovery 1 body work repairs getting donor parts

Taking panels from a donor 300TDI

After I tidied up Larry I needed to find replacement panels to fit the car.  Quite a few google searches later I realised the Slam Panel was not made any longer and the wing top re-enforcing panel (the wing bolts to this) was rare and expensive (minimum £50 delivered).

So I could not get all new panels and the ones I would get would be around £300+delivered.  So, as I said in my last post I started looking for a donor vehicle.

I put the word out on forums and a couple of scrap yards for what I was after and about three weeks later a donor vehicle came up six miles from where I lived which seemed to meet the bill.  I went to have a look at it, although it was the wrong colour it definitely had what I needed.

Then I went away on business, so with that and the weather another three weeks went by.  Then I got the chance to get the panels off the donor car.

So armed with a spot rivet drill and an angle grinder off I went.  It took three hours to strip the car down and cut the panels off, I did not use the spot weld drill (I'll talk about that later).

Getting the old panels off the Donor car

So the 1st thing to do was to remove the bonnet, bumper, all front panels light etc, I took some of the small items off for my repair like the light adjuster vacuum pump etc.  This was very easy and quick to do, although the body mounts needed a breaker bar.  The wings also have to come off and washer bottle etc.

What I ended up with was this;

Discovery 1 front end strip part complete

Then striped to this after I cut out the panels I needed;

Panels cut  out

They key parts I was after was, the ight box and the wing re-enforcer;

Discovery 1 headlight box

Wing top bar and reinforcing plate

The panels were cut off with an angle grinder I was going to drill it out but that would have taken forever so it was done with a cut through the inner wing, the near side  body and the off side front inner wing.

The donor car was pretty rusty but the parts I needed are  rust free, I think this Land Rover also has a accident at some time and needed some new front parts.  You can see on the picture above the rust below the battery box

Anyway next steps reusing the old panels.

As for the cost £50 for the parts I wanted.