I planned to spray her myself so I needed to get her in my normal height garage.  She was fitted with roof bars, so these had to be removed to lower her as much as possible.

To remove the roof bars you have to strip out the interior roof lining.  The nuts holding the bars can then be accessed.

 Once removed all you are left with are 4 holes.

Due to it's length I also removed the winch bumper to maximise the space in the garage. 

 Next stop was the rear wheel.

This is when I discovered the entire eco system I had been carrying around from all the greenlane trips 

 By lowering the tyre pressures right down and putting some heavy weight in the boot I was just able to get her in......JUST!

Belinda stood on a chair to guide me in.  As you can see it was a tight fit. 

If I was going to respray it I wanted to do it well.  Most of the rubber window seals had cracked so I stripped them all out.  Thats when I discovered the rotten edges around the alpine lights. 

You can see from the space here why I removed the rear wheel carrier........

.......and the rear door. 

This allowed unrestricted access to repair the boot floor. 

My original plan was to use Plasticote aerosol paint.  Here is a test spray of metallic grey.  You can also see where I sanded down some of the rough spots and removed the 'ES spec' side trim.  There were many test sprays in many colours.

I was pleasantly surprised when I removed the plastic sill trims to find that the sills were in good condition with minimal surface rust. 

I wanted to blast and paint the snorkel and rearrange my twin battery installation so the snorkel and front wings were removed. 

I removed the rear lights as I wanted to fit the 200 Tdi versions with the indicator and tail light in.  Also it was another item that didn't need masking off.

Here you can see my really poor attempts at trying to weld the edges of the alpine lights.

This was eventually done professionally when the car was resprayed by the body shop. 

I wanted to maximise the space beneath the roofrack so I decided not to refit the roofbars.  The holes were fillered using isopon. 

All the 'bubbling' caused by the oxidisation on the bodywork was sanded down, treated with acid and then given a coat of etch primer.  It won't stop it completely but it should last a little while. 

After much deliberation I finally decided to get the car professionally sprayed.  I got a very reasonable quote of £900 which included fixing the alpine light. 

We hired a trailer and Alan helped tow the car to the shop.

This is how she left....... 

...and a week later, this is how she returned.  I had 3 colours in mind; Cream, Desert Sand or Tangiers Orange 

 I went to the shop with 3 colour codes and only made the choice right at the last minute.

I'm happy with the choice as it does stand out well. 

Then came the long, slow rebuild over several weeks including the Christmas period.  First came the snorkel install. 

Then the Famous Four jackable rock sliders.  These were expensive but I chose them because they followed the original lines almost exactly and bolt directly to the chassis, not the sills.  Unfortunately they don't make these any more as far as I know. 

Headlight surround and grill and....... 

....rear door fitted. 

 200 Tdi lights fitted.  These required a bit of additional wiring to pick up the indicators and tail lights but this was quite straight forward with all the trim removed because of the easy access.

The tailgate window and side windows were fitted by autoglass with seals bought from Rimmer Brothers.  I didn't want to risk it myself and it only cost £50 for the 3 windows.  I also replaced all the door window edges.  Once again these came from Rimmer Brothers. 

Next came the winch bumper and progressively more and more over a 2 1/2 months period 

The roofrack was modified, wheels sanded and sprayed with plasticote, sand ladders mounted, interior fitted and she was looking good.