Spanish Señorita's

Not a trip for Katy a she would have needed more than one seat on the plane, but we recently headed off to Teneife to do some Lava Tube exploration with the Wessex Cave Club of which there are pictures on my photo website if you want a break from Land Rovers

But back to the main topic, whilst heading up Mount Teide we spotted a couple of Santana Land Rovers, the first of which was this very smart 2.8 turbo diesel military vehicle. It was was a mostly pristine later model being driven by the Army who were out on what looked like a training exercise. Luckily the men with guns were in a god mood and did not mind me taking a few pictures.

This one was of course fully fitted out with radio and other kit inside so no pictures of that I was told, but the outside looked very nice, and if you look carefully you can see the leaf springs showing at the bottom. Santana never changed over to coil springs.   

These later models have a large number of developments made by Santana which many people think very highly of, however there are quite a few coments on the internet about issues with spares and parts in the UK and an eventual ending of the Santana / Land Rover relationship so I don't think I'll be buying one unless I move to Spain

Next we headed up tthe Mount Teide cablecar and I spotted a very tired old badge on the back of what looked like an old Series Land Rover, and it was of course another Santana.

This time one of venerable age which  has clearly had a hard life as you can tell from the state of the badge, but as it't been living in a pretty dry climate (it's often above the clouds here) it's not looking too bad on the outside  

 What was looking bad was the inside of this poor "Landy"... It was being used as a rubbish truck and all tho oil and mess from liquid rubbish was leakin gout of the back door.Still it's acheived a great age and is still being useful so it's not a bad advert for the Santana's

And Half a Seat Onwards

Following some useful advice on Land Rover Owner Rhian fixed the drivers seat for me.

It turned out that the strip at the back was actually a clip on the cover which when undone allowed the cover to be rolled up the seat (there were a few clips that needed to be op4ened with pliers and closed up again later.

The foam had split up the the frame so it was then able to be pushed aside so she pulled everything back into place and applied plenty of duck tape. If that's not successful at least we know how to do it and we can replace the foam.

So today I fitted the other new seat and now we have 2 fully functional (slide and backrest adjustable) and tidy looking seats.

One thing I forgot to mention was that the carpet behind the seats was shocking pink originally

I'm sort of glad it faded

One and a half new seats

Katy's passenger sear wasn't very nice as it was welded solid in one position which meant that it was not possible to fit a headrest.which I wanted to do as a safety and comfort feature.

So when one of the guys in the South Wales Land Rover Club said that he had replaced his Defender seats because the Drivers seat was broken I popped him a quick message asking whether he had plans for the rest of the kit.

About 30 minutes later I was the proud owner of some replacement seats (thanks Peter).

That night I swapped the seat bases because we were heading off for Scarborough and left it at that.

Tonight was the start of the rest so here is a quick run thought of how easy it is to upgrade Land Rover Seats.

1.st you can see the broken seat with no back release handle and with the new seat base in place as I left it before tonight.

Quickly remove the bases for better access and remove the 4 bolts at each corner (you can see 2 here at the far left and right).

Then I hit a snag - I was not able to get the rear bolt near the centre because of the broken seat back so I removed the seat from the bars by removing the 6 bolts at that point (I left the others in place to stop everything moving whilst I was doing that which is why they are visible in this picture). 

Got the last bolt and out came the seat.

Then putting the new one in place I hit another snag. The different design meant it was not possible to get a socket in from above (you would need really slimline ones) so I improvised this arrangement of spanners to finish tightening them up. 

And here it is looking much  nicer and a lot safer as it has a proper headrest.

Including snags it took about an hour. If things had been easier I could probably have done it in half that time

Now the good news is that Rhian reckons she can unpick the seam on the drivers seat and repair the foam that's moved out of place. So I should be able to fit the matching pair of seats in due course

The new springs and suspension bushes have arrived

The new springs and suspension bushes have arrived and look impressively yellow/gold.

The springs are the special ones for the 130 camper http://www.flatdoguk.com/azalai-130-camper~629

Now I need to get them fitted which could be trouble because I've just been ill for 3 days and am about to go on holiday so there are so many competing priorities that I should be dealing with instead of what I'd like to be doing

Katy will no doubt like her new bling... The trouble is the wife has commented on how she would like someething nice in gold too.