How To Repair A Land Rover Defender Mudguard Bracket
Written by Phil Brown, Badger Bushcraft Blog Thursday, 24 January 2013 08:56
In this article on the Badger Bushcraft Blog we will show you how we have recently repaired a broken bracket on our 110 Land Rover Defender County. As the repair has worked exceptionally well we've put this in the "Kit - Tried and Tested" section - hopefull we will not need to add a "Land Rover Reapirs We Have Had To Make"!
Everyone that knows me understands my love of the Land Rover Defender. Over the years we have had many four wheel drive vehicles that have included the Jeep Cherokee, Diahatsu Foutrak, Land Rover Discovery3, Mitsubishi Shogun, Range Rover, Land Rover Freelander, Toyota Hilux, et al. Needing a 4x4 to do work that is was designed for which in our case at Badger Bushcraft includes towing and driving in all conditions both on road and in the woods the best vehicle for the job is our Land Rover Defender 110 County. It’s a great vehicle, goes where we need it to, has plenty of space for transporting kit and we think it looks pretty cool too. Despite the fact that We love our 110 it does have a couple of issues that niggle and in this blog article we will look at how we recently repaired the mudguard bracket.
It was quite a surprise to find the mudguard dangling down one morning with the bracket that connects to the bodywork behind the rear offside wheel. I somewhat perplexed as there were no signs of damage to the mudguard or to the Defender.
On closer inspection the nut and bolt fixing had pulled off a small piece of the bodywork that is was attached to. The bodywork as can be clearly seen in this picture shows no sign of damage, twisting or warping – it appears that it has just sheared off! As can be seen in the two pictures below.
After scratching my head with mug of tea in hand and inspecting the unexplained damage it was obvious that some form of new mounting plate or bracket needed to be fashioned. I settled on the idea of purchasing a length of flat aluminium bar with some suitable aluminium nuts and bolts and affecting the repair myself.
Within five or so minutes of searching eBay I had the parts ordered and paid for; these included:-
- Aluminium Flat Bar 25mm x 5mm 500mm
- Aluminium Crop Head Greenhouse Nuts and Bolts 6mm x 12mm
The total cost for the parts including postage and packaging came to under £12.00, I had deliberately purchased more flat bar and nuts and bolts than I needed should I need to repair the nearside mudguard bracket.
Once the materials arrived a few days later and on one of the few dry mornings we have seen of late I gathered the tools I needed to get the job done. These included:-
- Cordless Battery Drill
- 6mm HSS Drill Bit
- Pair Of Clamps
- Socket Set
- Hacksaw
- Pencil
First off I made a thorough job of cleaning any dirt and debris from the upper lip of the Land Rovers bodywork, as any Defender owner will appreciate these areas can be caked in literally inches of mud.
The first job was to cut the flat aluminium bar to length, I found that approximately 200mm would allow easy installation and a sufficient amount of fixings. I offered this into position and clamped it tight with a pair of clamps.
I then proceeded to drill four 6mm holes with the battery drill and then bolted the flat bar into position with the socket set and the 12mm long 6mm aluminium bolts.
I used the broken piece of the original bodywork as a packing piece to ensure that the bracket fixed to the flat bar tightly and would not vibrate and fixed the bracket back into position with the original Land Rover fixings.
The time to make this repair was only a matter of a few minutes and the cost under £12.00 and having to make the repair I guess that it is just one of those things you come to expect as a Land Rover Defender owner which can, to a certain extent, be a bit of a love/hate relationship.
However I still don’t think that there is a vehicle that fits our needs better than our 110 and I hope to get many more years of service from it.
Had to repair you Land Rover Defender mudguard bracket? Let us know how you got on with it by posting below or if you found a better solution to ours.
All the best,
Phil.