Our services

We have an industrial parts washer at our workshop that can wash up to a ton of car parts at a time. To give you an idea of its capacity, it can wash an assembled or disassembled Series engine plus a Series gearbox and transfer case, in a single load.

The load rotates slowly, exposing everything to 600 psi jets of an 80 degrees C detergent solution that removes oil and grime very effectively yet doesn’t harm aluminium alloys, such as gearbox casings. The high pressure jets remove loose paint.

The detergent has an anti-corrosive agent that prevents flash rusting.

Parts or assemblies must be free of bulk mud, dirt and grease on delivery to our workshop. Other than that, they can be as grubby as you like. Dropping off a load of dirty parts must be booked in: please don’t turn up if it’s not by prior arrangement.

Contact us for bookings, pricing and other service details.

The Series market if full of pitfalls for the unwary. Unlike most Series buyers and sellers, we know the difference between a properly-restored Series and a tarted-up farm wreck. We know how a well-sorted Series looks, starts, stops, runs and drives.

If you're thinking of buying a Series, we can do a pre-purchase inspection for you, ideally on a hoist in our workshop. A less comprehensive inspection on location may also be an option.

An independent appraisal by people who work exclusively on Series every day may save you thousands, or tens of thousands, of dollars and bitter buyer’s remorse. Or it may confirm that you really have struck Series gold.

Contact us to arrange a pre-purchase inspection.

If your Series needs work done on it to get it roadworthy, and you’d like to know the likely scope and cost of that work, we offer stand-alone Victorian roadworthy certification baseline inspections in our workshop.

We also identify any maintenance, reliability and drivability issues, so our inspections are more detailed than roadworthy certfication inspections and typically take a whole day.

We document our findings and email you an illustrated inspection report, together with a line-item estimates document.

With your approval, we can then do the required work, submit the vehicle for an independent roadworthy assessment by a local certifier who is familiar with Series and their roadworthy requirements—and who is fair-minded, but not dodgy.

We can then hand you back your Series with a Victorian roadworthy certificate.

Contact us to arrange a roadworthy baseline inspection.

If you’re thinking about asking us to restore a Series for you or to complete an unfinished restoration project, the starting point is a stand-alone inspection in our workshop, which typically takes about a day to complete. 

Please read the Restorations section of this page to understand what kinds of Series restorations we do and don’t offer.

Contact us to arrange a baseline inspection.

Compared with modern vehicles, Series are relatively high-maintenance.

Age aside, they are utilitarian vehicles designed and built with mechanically literate tinkerers in mind, such as farmers who maintained other farm machinery.

Series are not inherently unsafe and unreliable machines, but decades of deterioration and maintenance neglect means that unless they’re completely and competently overhauled, whether they start, stop, and get you home can be a dice roll.

If you’re not handy with a spanner and familiar with the workings of a Series, getting us to do a periodic vehicle safety and maintenance inspection is a good idea, especially if your Series is a patchwork of things that have been sorted and things that haven’t.

We might catch things before they become safety issues, leave you stranded by the roadside or require expensive repairs.

Contact us to arrange a safety & maintenance inspection.

We do minor and major services on Series, ideally at regular intervals.

Minor services include things like fluid checks, top-ups and changes, and brakes adjustment.

Major services are more involved, and include things like adjusting the valve (tappet) clearances.

Servicing can be combined with safety & maintenance inspections.  

We also offer a ninety minute session with you and your Series in our workshop, where we show you how to do basic checks and maintenance yourself, and how to drive it with mechanical sympathy (e.g. changing gears).

Contact us to book in a service.

We do major and minor structural, mechanical and electrical repairs to Series in our workshop, and on components and assemblies that can be posted to us, freighted to us or dropped off by arrangement. If you can get it to us, we can fix it—unless it’s beyond repair.

We can repair minor panel damage and replace badly damaged panels, and we can colour-match acccordingly, but we’re not panel or paint specialists, so we don’t offer showroom finishes on Series panels.

Contact us to arrange repairs of your Series Land Rover.

Brakes, steering, suspension and electrics are the four safety-critical systems on your Series.

Series brakes don’t have to feel ‘spongy’ and unresponsive: brakes like that are faulty, not a quirk of 1970s British engineering. The steering on a Series can and should be tight, not wandering all over the road. New or reset leaf springs of the original type can be surprisingly smooth, and top-shelf polyurethane suspension bushes are superior to the available conventional ones.

Land Rover should have added headlight relays rather than running a high current through a little switch, which can burn out and set fire to the wiring behind the instrument cluster. We can install relays for you for brighter, safer and more reliable Series headlights.

We offer system-level brake, suspension and steering overhauls and upgrades.

We set an uncompromisingly high workshop standard for our work on these safety-critical systems, drawing on our ongoing R&D and our efforts to procure the best parts we can source.

Contact us to arrange brake, suspension or steering overhauls and upgrades.

Series engines are simple, robust and were built to last.

They often stagger on when they’re long overdue for a comprehensive rebuild. Land Rover designed them that way, opting for ruggedness and field repairability over power and torque. Slow, but unstoppable.

Most Series engines today are notoriously gutless and temperamental, but that’s not how they left the factory.

The difference between a tired old Series engine in poor tune and a properly rebuilt one in good tune, is striking.

Sometimes a major overhaul isn’t required to get them running acceptably: it’s just a matter of fixing or tuning the carburettor and ignition system, or the diesel injector pump, or adjusting the valve clearances. Sometimes they really do need a complete rebuild.

We rebuild the 1.6, 2.0 and 2.25 litre petrol and diesel four cylinder Series engines, and the 2.6 litre six cylinder Series engine.

Rebuild options include performance tuning, patina preservation, and concours or custom detailing to suit your project.

We can either rebuild a customer-supplied engine or supply and rebuild an engine to order. 

We don’t currently offer Series 3 Stage 1 Rover 3.5 V8 or Isuzu 4BD1 diesel (an Australian option) engine rebuilds. 

Contact us to arrange your engine rebuild.

Series ‘gearboxes’ are actually a geabox bolted to a transfer case, which allows you to select high-range two wheel drive, high-range four wheel drive or low-range four wheel drive. The transfer case is robust, the gearbox less so. As they age, they develop quirks that can be anything from endearing (e.g. the red lever rattles) to irritating (e.g. popping out of third gear frequently).

Series Magic started out with one of us rebuilding Series gearboxes and transfer cases in a tin shed in suburban Melbourne. We now repair and rebuild every variant of the standard Series gearbox and transfer case (fitted to all Series models except the late Series 3 Stage 1).

Series gearboxes are the trickiest things to get right on a Series. All our gearbox and transfer case rebuilds incorporate Series Magic tweaks to address certain design limitations (e.g. the tendency to pop out of third gear on prolonged descents).

Options include internal upgrades to later Series specifications, patina-preservation detailing and custom detailing (such as wet blasting and clear coating the alloy housings).

With a few modifications, we can install an all-synchromesh Series 3 gearbox into a Series 1 or Series 2, which were factory-fitted with gearboxes that that require double-clutching and rev matching skills for certain gear changes to avoid ‘crunching’ the gears.

We can either rebuild a customer-supplied gearbox and/or transfer case, or supply and rebuild them to order. We usually have a few rebuilt spare gearboxes and transfer cases on our shelves as well, ready to install or send to anywhere in Australia.

We don’t currently work on LT95 gearboxes and transfer cases (fitted to the late Series 3 Stage 1 variant).

Contact us to arrange a Series gearbox and transfer case rebuild.

We rebuild Series differentials, steering boxes, steering relays, carburettors, fuel pumps, oil pumps and water pumps. We outsource distributor and diesel injector pump rebuilds to trusted local specialists. 

We can also rebuild, or supply to order, entire mechanical subassemblies (e.g. differentials, axle, wheel hub and swivel hub assemblies from hub cap to hub cap) and freight them anywhere in Australia.

Contact us to arrange rebuilds for your Series.

We do most Series electrical repair work, including replacement of wiring looms and repairs to electrical devices such as Lucas wiper motors. We outsource distributor, generator and starter motor rebuilds to trusted local specialists.

We offer several electrical upgrades and modifications, such as installing headlight relays and high-torque geared starter motors; replacing generators with alternators; converting positive earth electrical systems to negative earth electrical systems; and replacing ignition points distributors with rebuilt Genuine distributors with eletronic ignition modules.

We use quality electrical connectors throughout, and we solder and heatshrink every termination for long-term reliability, rather than relying solely on crimped terminations, which can oxidise or come loose over time.

Contact us to arrange electrical repairs, upgrades or modifications for your Series Land Rover.

We offer ‘patina restorations’, the aim of which is to restore structural, mechanical and electrical function while preserving the history, charm and character embodied in faded and mottled paintwork, minor panel imperfections and light surface rust that won’t compromise structural integrity if treated to prevent further corrosion.

We don’t offer glossy or concours restorations, where the goal is factory-perfect originality or showroom perfection.

Patina restorations are in keeping with the Series Magic ethos of preservation. Patina restorations aren’t cheap, but they’re more achievable given aftermarket panel quality and fitment issues, and the difficulty of restoring alloy panels to factory condition without resorting to the overuse of body filler compounds.

Contact us for restoration of your Series Land Rover.