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1994 Defender 90 Port of Entry Wagon #1464
Service and Upgrades in 2005
"Port of what?" you say. At the end of the 1994 model run LRNA realized that the US market wanted a hardtop90 (wagon) and that the fiberglass tops put on the soft tops were not cutting it. So they made a handful of hard tops, from soft tops, about 65 were made. These were basically a standard 1994 90 soft top that had the roll cage removed and some hard top parts installed. They were not fully trimmed on the inside like the 1995 Wagons, nor was the roll cage attached to anything, it just bolted to the roof. There was no interior roll bar to connect it to the chassis. It had standard soft top split doors and a tailgate lift gate set up, not a rear door. For more information on the Port of Entry Wagons go to the D90 information section on this web site.
This POE Wagon has come to us from NJ for some upgrades and mechanical work. The first step is to go over the 90 from top to bottom during our evaluation and then let the customer know what does and does not need doing, from there he will choose what to accomplish with his Defender.
One of the big things the owner wanted was air conditioning (AC). In the image above you can see we have installed a new AC unit for him and mated it to the existing dash. These units are the same ones used in Land Rover production today, so parts are readily available and they work very well.
Controls for the new AC system are within easy reach of the driver and the system installs without issue, even on this POE Wagon.
Another repair that needed doing on this Wagon was to redo the rear windows. These windows were rattling badly, so we have removed them in order to install all new felt tracks so that the glass will no longer rattle against the metal frame.
Once the new tracks are installed the window assembly is put back in place and the 90 will now be rattle free when going down the road. The rivet trim seal is still to go one to complete this repair. We also replaced the window seals on the alpine windows to cure some leaks the 90 had.
Another upgrade the customer wanted was a sunroof. Here you can see that we have used our templates to cut the hole in the sunroof in the correct location, in the correct size. The beauty of working on Defenders every day is that we have templates for just about everything, over the last decade plus we have done just about anything you can imagine to Defenders, and we keep track of it all. This extensive knowledge of Defenders allows us to do this kind of job correctly, and much faster than your local shop that would be taking a guess on where to install your sunroof.
Once the sunroof itself is installed we installed new headliners and the correct factory trims. The addition of the sunroof looks factory and unless you really know your POE Wagons, you'd never know it didn't come with it from the factory.
Along with a new front headliner we also installed a new rear headliner. We also added area interior light, that the POE Wagons did not have. This will make it easier to see at night in the cargo area and give rear passengers some much needed light.
The stock POE Wagon usually had no seating in the rear, but the owner of this 90 wanted to be able to carry some more passengers. To make that happen we have installed a forward facing bench seat with all the correct brackets and mounts into the cargo area of the 90. We also replaced the old ripped rear load mat to give the rear area a nice finished look.
There are no such thing as D90 Wagon forward facing bench seat parts from Land Rover these days. The rear bench seat was usually only offered in the soft tops with the full safari cage, but c'mon, this is ECR. We can do anything. To make the set up work correctly in a Wagon we custom fabricated some corner brackets that allow us to mount the upper section of the rear should seat belts in the correct location. Normally these would bolt to the back of the safari cage, but a Wagon has no cage. We then powder coated the brackets and installed them with the correct seat belts. This gives the Wagon 4 passenger capabilities with all 4 passengers protected by shoulder inertia seat belts.
To add some secure storage in the back of the 90 we also installed a set of wheel well Tuffy boxes with new Boston Acoustic speakers. These also double as a great arm rest for the passengers in the rear seat.
To trim off the area between the back of the Tuffy boxes and the rear of the 90 we fabricated some alloy panels and painted them in Coniston Green. These not only stop things from falling behind the boxes, they give a nice finished look to the back corners of the Defender. Now that all the custom work and numerous repairs are done the 90 will be cleaned up and made ready for the customer to take delivery.
Here you can see the POE Defender 90 Wagon is complete and ready to head back to New Jersey. It has been fully serviced and had a number of needed repairs completed and some large upgrades like the addition of air conditioning. We also added a number of custom touches to make the 90 unique. These upgrades and repairs will help this higher mileage Defender keep going for the long haul and look great doing it.
If you have Defender needs large or small, contact ECR. We are your Defender source.
ECR