In the latest installment in our Range Rover restoration project, we finally got that rear crossmember in place, at least temporarily. The body mounts we were waiting on showed up just in time to make the cut for this episode, but just barely. There is still more work to do before we can weld it back in place, including making some repair pieces around the outer floor panels.For now we tabbed up some test pieces, which are pretty close to the mark.
While we were waiting for the mounts to arrive, we switched our focus to the hood. We already knew this panel had been painted but weren’t sure what we would find beneath the surface. This happens to be one of the few steel panels on the exterior, which means rust is a constant threat. In fact, we’ve seen some fairly rotten ones over the years, usually rusting from the inside out.
To quickly remove the old paint and get down to clean metal, we grabbed the Countour SCT and put on a fresh 40-grit stripping drum. In a matter of a couple hours, we had the outside of the hood all the way to down to bare steel. To our surprise, the original metal was in surprisingly great shape, showing only localized filler work and just one spot where the metal itself looked to be work with tools.
Watch the episode below to see the SCT in action and to check out our initial patch panel pieces.