
November 24:Â Jonathon checking some of the putty prep work with Bernard, Manager at Kolours. Note the Ghanaian flag flying next door.

....all signs of EPA are gone forever from the door. That little Land Rover tdi emblem on the lower fender is also going to get sanded down to nothing.
They are doing the putty and sanding work both to the outside of the vehicle and the inside, which is completely stripped except for the old drivers seat. That does make for a rather large area to cover and adds to the time.  They are now getting quite close to actually applying paint. I insisted they not paint around all the various appurtenances on the body (ie. lights) and was there to see them remove them.

November 28: Rear lights coming off. Note the roof rack has also been removed for painting separately. The rack footing marks on the gutter that were so visible have now been puttied and sanded away

December 1: Front lights, grill, vents and panels are all off. Can no longer see the tdi emblem on the fender.Â
Kolours have now invested well over two weeks in careful pre-paint prep work. I can’t quite figure out the pricing, Ghana is not that inexpensive.  They seem very professional and thorough, although my close monitoring has yielded some benefits. In the picture to the left you can see they have just masked the rear license plate and left it on. However, I will have to change that plate and I think the new one is going to be a different size than the old one. I had asked Benard to remove it but they must have forgotten. Fortunately I went by and caught this and they have now taken it off. Which is not an easy thing to do – the plate is actually riveted to the vehicle. I also see they had not taken off the tdi decals from one of the front fenders, which would have either been painted around or over, either one of which would have looked messy.
We have now actually passed the ‘getting ready to paint’ stage, the roof has been painted, and the next time we see the Defender it will be sporting the new NATO Lightstone caramel colour. The wheels, roof rack ladder, and underside also have yet to be done, but once they start spraying it will happen fast.