LR Santana Cazorla Rebuild

[dvoight]

Good evening,

I am excited to introduce my first land rover project...It is a Land Rover Santana Cazorla. As a small introduction, i am a father of 4 boys with the oldest being 12 years old. I purchased this LR as a project to work on with the boys. I thoughts it would be a great way for me to teach them about cars, learn together and spend time together. So far it has been a really fun experience and my oldest (12) Karl is very engaged in helping and working on this for hours a day.

Personally, i have always loved cars and worked on them, but i have never done a project close to this before. I am really looking forward to learning from everyone on this forum as i got through this project.

We got the truck three weeks ago. I have been learning a lot about the Santana since i have bought it. It is certainly a unique truck which is great, but will also present some challenges.

I am most everyone on this forum knows more about these than i do, but just in case, here is what i have learned so far. Land Rover and Santana Motors began their relationship in the late 1950's through the early 1980's. LR shipped them parts and Santana build and sold the trucks under the Land Rover/Santana Brands. Over the years, Santana made changes different than land rover. Thus the truck i have has some land rover pieces and some Santana Pieces.

My model is a Cazorla which was Santana's version right after the Series 3. They had a four cylinder version called the Series 3A Super. The 6 cylinder got the name Cazorla. It is still a series 3, but Santana made quite a few changes to it. The major stock differences include

• 6 Cylinder Diesel - Santana basically tacked on 2 more cylinders to the landy engine
• Overdrive
• Power Steering
• Power Brakes
• Anti-Sway Bar
• 1 piece windshield with 3 windshield wipers and no front vents
• Center Console
• Double the corner Skylights
• Pushed the front end out to accomodate the extra cylinders

We have officially started the project which initially is figuring out all of the mechanics. I started on the steering and suspension. The PO didnt maintain the truck well and it had no gear oil in places it should, the engine oil is black as possible and the radiator water challenges the oil in darkness.

Our current list is long, but we are going to start with pulling the engine and components and cleaning everything up. The engine runs well, but has some leaks on the valve cover and a few other spots. The biggest issue so far is the power steering that has been leaking for years and has build up everyone.

Well...This is already a long intro so I will cut it off here. I have attached a couple of pictures including the 6 cylinder diesel. I will update along the way if people are interested. I would certainly appreciate any advice as a go along.

Thanks much,

David

[Manny]

Wow Congratulations! I purchased a 73' Series III SWB in 2011 and one of my favorite joys is taking my two children for drives in it. My eight yr old daughter says she is my copilot and is always by my side whenever I work on the Warthog (as my children named it). Welcome to the wonderful crazy world of Series Land Rovers, and you will soon learn that this forum is just full of members that are always willing to give advice. I would also recommend Guns and Rovers, for that forum also is a wealth of knowledge. Not everyone is cut out to be Series owner and it takes a special person to put up with their quirky problems, but the joy one gets when they are running perfectly is like the one we had as kids riding a bicycle downhill with your hands off the bars. Exhilarating!

Best of luck and patients.

Manny

[o2batsea]

Uhm, even week-old diesel engine oil is black.
A Santana looks like a land Rover, but it isn't really. It shares some parts, and some are unique. If you had to choose from the most difficult vehicles to find parts for in the USA, this would certainly be among the top contenders.
On the plus side, it looks pretty clean without much rust.
Certainly swap all the fluids...don't forget the gearbox...and see if you can get new rubber like the hoses and belts. Other than that hope that nothing bad happens to the drivetrain.

[I Leak Oil]

Nice truck and welcome to the board! Looking forward to hearing more about it as you go.

[artpeck]

I am curious if you care to share where you found it and how it made its way to the US.

[dvoight]

I purchased it from a guy that brought it over from Spain. He has a friend over there that owned it for the last 10+ years and used it for hunting trips. He bought it and imported to Miami. The PO had it for a little while and decided to sell. He recently had it painted and had the interior seats covered. I found it on Ebay and had it shipped to Minnesota.

The outside looks better than the mechanicals. It runs well, but is leaking oil and power steering fluid everywhere. It also hasn't been maintained super well.

The body is in really good shape. I do have some new sheet metal to put in around the footwells and bottom of the rear doors. The largest concern area is the windshield frame which has quite a few extra air holes that i discovered with screwdriver

I am planning on re-painting after fixing the mechanicals and metal patches. I like the color, but it is pretty thick in quite a few areas and will probably not look quite as good after i take the roof off, etc.

[AzBaobab]

Hi!
Hate to dig up an old post, but I haven't been able to find answers anywhere else, and (miracle-of-miracles) you seem to have a similar model as mine!

I've got an '84 Santana (Series 3, rather than Defender-type front end), that has the same no-vent bulkhead as yours. Question... On the sides of the dash... Do you have the standard LR release bolts to fold the windscreen forward?
Mine doesn't, and I'm scratching my head wondering if (when!) I take the hard-top off, what's holding the windscreen up?

Also, if you've had the top off of yours... What do you do with the windshield wipers? As there no way there's enough flex/give with the way the hinges are placed, and it looks like they'd be busted off if the windscreen was folded forward.

Any tips would be hugely appreciated!

[roverp480]

I remember we had one of those 6 cylinder engines at work to strip and review when I worked for what was then British Leyland Austin Morris Div. at Longbridge in the mid 1970's . Tom Barton who was Chief Engineer for Land Rover at Solihull came over with others to have a look at it stripped down. I also purchased in about 1980 an ex company Land Rover S3 88" Station Wagon direct from LR, with about 8000 miles on the clock. I found out later that the engine and gearbox had been taken out when new and replaced with Santana built units and run for 6000 miles then taken out for stripping and checking. . Brand new LR units were then fitted for vehicle sale. This was great for me as I had virtually a new vehicle for about half price and it was one of the best I have ever had.