OCTOBER 2025 – FEBRUARY 2026
Before anything new could be added, the Defender first had to come apart.
Work began in October of 2025 with the disassembly of the donor truck. Panels were removed, drivetrain components extracted, and every usable part inspected, labeled, catalogued, and distributed to specialists near the workshop of LR Defender SA, the team behind our project.
This stage of the project is visually deceptive. To most people, the truck appears to be getting worse, not better.
But this is where the rebuild truly begins.
The Starting Point
It all began with our donor truck, a white 2002 Defender 110 TD5. Much like remodeling a house, it helps to start with good bones.
Taking It Apart
The first step was stripping out the middle and rear interior so that measurements could be taken by Overland Bros, the team responsible for manufacturing our custom interior.
Less than a week later, on October 28, 2025, the donor was towed to Overland Bros.
By mid-January, after measurements had been completed and most of the equipment — aside from components being manufactured locally — had been ordered, the truck was returned to LR Defender SA to begin disassembly.
Everything was methodically removed and marked with our internal project number: body panels, the 18P TD5 engine, R380 gearbox, LT230 transfer case, and axles.
Smaller components — brackets, trim pieces and interior parts — were inspected, catalogued, marked, and stored for the next stage of the rebuild.
Everything was methodically removed and marked with our internal project number: body panels, the 18P TD5 engine, R380 gearbox, LT230 transfer case, and axles. Smaller components — brackets, trim pieces and interior parts — were inspected, catalogued, marked, and stored for the next stage of the rebuild.
The remainder of the teardown process took a few weeks. When I first saw photos from this stage of the build, the truck looked less like a vehicle and more like a pile of parts. Hard to imagine that this would eventually become our truck again.
What They Found
As the Defender came apart, some components proved too heavily corroded to save.
All five doors, along with the bulkhead/firewall, were ultimately deemed beyond repair and replaced with new units. It was one of several reminders that rebuilding an older Defender means uncovering problems only visible once everything has been stripped back to its foundations.
Distributed Across South Africa
Once the Defender had been fully dismantled, its components began moving outward to a network of specialists. The axles were stripped down for sandblasting and powder coating, the drivetrain components were sent to LRXtreme to be overhauled, and the engine was stripped of all the ancillary components and delivered to engineering for inspection and rebuild. Meanwhile, the aluminum body panels moved into the body shop for repair and preparation.
With the teardown complete and the various systems now in the hands of specialists, the Defender had effectively been reduced to its foundations. The next phase of the build would focus on restoring and rebuilding those components piece by piece.
NEXT BUILD JOURNAL
All images courtesy of LR Defender SA