Here is the much promised post about lessons learned and costs when replacing the glass/doors, based on our mistakes.
Short and sweet:
1) When you find a windscreen at the scrappy, take the frame as well. The glass is easy to get out of the frame of the donor vehicle, but it is a pain to put back in yours. And new windscreens are dear. As we know to our cost.
2) Don’t be in so much of a rush when you buy doors that you forget the striker plates. They do vary. Again .. as we know ….
3) With the rear sliding windows, make sure you line up the aluminium box sections correctly. At least we got that one right this time around.
4) Washing-up liquid helps to make working with the rubber seals easier.
5) Don’t rush. Sit down and think about what you need to do. We started off by pricing new glass from UK suppliers and the price was horrific. Don’t rush at the scrappies either. If you are reading this from Spain, the system is different – normally you have to wait for them to take off bits, but if you take your tools they will usually let you do it yourself. Use forums and ask for help. It doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t cost, and you may get some useful info. We did.
Costs:
The first lot of glass we got was from El Inglés at the Poligono Industrial in Málaga. The cost was €25 for each piece of glass regardless, ie the back door, windscreen, two front doors and two pieces each for the two rear ones. Eight, if anyone is counting.
And at San Miguel in Arcos de la Frontera, €40 for each middle door.
So far so good, €280. Until the windscreen went and it was another €300+ to get it done professionally in La Linea. More than the cost of all the others put together.
Just Land Rovers 
Wow, I’m envious, very beautiful countryside. 🙂 Are the roads always that empty?
BTW am I going mad or are these posts coming through with odd dates on them? or are you just adding some old posts back onto the site. I know you mentioned a while ago that you were trying to re-organise it.
The route going back was sort of cross country ish rather than the main roads we took on the way there, but once I had figured out how to generally go in the right direction, it was probably a similar timing and distance. So a) quiet country roads and b) it was lunch/siesta time, anyone with half a brain was either eating or sleeping 😀
Coming through with the original dates. Despite contacting WP happiness engineers or whatever they are called, my blogger one refused to import, so I’m doing the manual process a few posts at a time. Apparently sometimes ‘it just happens.’ Wouldn’t want them working on my Landies!
I want to get all the old stuff sorted before I post new ones, which is a nuisance. It will be a while before I’ve tidied it up so thanks for coming back and sorry I’ve not had chance to really look at your recent posts. Have you found any more decent Landy blogs??
No, I haven’t found many Land Rover blogs, well not decent Series blogs anyway. There are loads of blogs about modern Defenders, Range Rovers etc but they don’t really interest me. I enjoy the old vehicles but also I enjoy reading about the people that drive the older Series trucks who seem seem to be more interesting and also lead more interesting or diverse lives. Take you for example. My wife and I often dream of upping sticks and moving to say rural France which we see as being more family orientated and less capitalist/Americanised than the UK. Reading blogs like your own we get to experience a wide range of topics from the Land Rovers themselves, to the Spanish driving habits to the trips into the countryside. Very refreshing and enjoyable. 🙂
While we are fortunate at the moment to live in a small rural village in the North of England with an excellent primary school for our two youngest girls (just 59 pupils in total in the whole school) we dread the day when the girls have to move up to secondary school as that school would be in a local town were the majority of kids are townies from less strict family backgrounds. Our eldest daughter who has now left home (21) went to the same secondary and we had years of troubles with her. Too much peer pressure here to stay out all hours, bunk of school, get drunk, take drugs, get pregnant, have mobile phones, have the latest fashions etc, etc. Not the sort of thing I want for my daughters. I have worked in Europe before for many years and I always got the impression that family values and quality family time came before gadgets, booze and money.
Maybe after your experience of actually living out there you will probably tell me that it is just as bad as the UK?!
Anyway, apologies for rambling on. Good luck with your blog updates.
Actually no. Certainly the family who live next door to me are totally family orientated. The oldies, their daughter and son-in-law and two grandsons all live on the same plot, might as well be the same house actually, and the other daughter lives next door but one and comes down two or three times a day to spend time with her parents. I’ll see if I have any relevant posts about it on my other blog.
Oddly we just met someone today who has come back to gib/spain after seven months in the UK. Apart from not being able to get on his bike (no time, poor weather) which was a major drag for him, apparently everything else about the UK was not a good experience at all! Sad really that we become so disillusioned with our own country that we are prepared to move somewhere else. Although there was a bit of the lure of adventure involved too.
We did consider France (and Portugal and Greece vaguely, oh and Italy at one point) – but do love Spain. I’ve learned a lot over the last ten years, and not just Spanish. The real issue though is having enough money to sustain the move. We’ve been extremely lucky that my partner has found work in Gib (unlike me) so we’ve had to adapt back to the working life after a few years of the idle life.
Lots of Series in France of course. There are some down here, but of course there are so many old Santanas which is good. Unlike France and the UK though, there is less of the DIY mechanic mentality which is a shame.
May get round to a few more post importations today. And thanks.
Oh BTW I didn’t actually leave my comment on this post, it was on the one with the pictures so was a bit surprised when I came to leave my reply to you to find it had ‘moved’ – very odd, wordpress must have a few niggles! 🙂
I figured you were talking about the photo post, just thought you had moved down to this one for some reason 😀