THIS left-hand drive 2001 130 Double Cab HCPU (High Capacity Pick Up) was initially booked in for a new chassis and bulkhead. The Defender had originally been in the Netherlands and was imported to County Galway, Ireland in 2006, where it has since been working hard towing trailers and horse-boxes.
After I purchased the new galvanised chassis and galvanised bulkhead from Richards Chassis Ltd, the owner asked me about converting his Land Rover to right-hand drive during the rebuild. There is certainly no better time to carry out this conversion, when both the chassis and bulkhead are being stripped. New coil-spring chassis are manufactured to suit either left- or right-hand drive configurations, as per the original Land Rover chassis. However, the new bulkhead was manufactured for an LHD Defender, so I had to order another for RHD; the original bulkheads on later models are made specifically for each steering position.
With the correct chassis and bulkhead ready for this fairly major job, I now had to look at what other parts would need to be changed to correctly and safely convert it to RHD, and consider any possible unforeseen challenges.
In the UK and Ireland markets there are always going to be better availability of used right-hand drive
