Thanks for all your comments, all comments and advice are welcome.
Spent the last couple of evenings removing the rubber wheel arch extenders and all the checker plating to see what lies beneath, removing all the mud from the body and chassis and lifting the carpets inside.
The chassis is very solid with little rust, but it is full of dried mud which I would like to remove, but could be a challenge due to the limited access holes.
The bottoms of the doors and sills are a bit dented, but nothing too major. Is it worth trying to pull the dent out or just leave them? (It doesn't have to look perfect, just decent for the roadworthy).
There are a couple of holes in the rear wheel arches that have been patched up previously, but nothing too major. The worst hole is to the rear of the drivers side sill where the wheel arch joins. Looks like the spot welds have rusted out (see photo). Does this need re-welding, or would a quick patch up do? Not sure if it's classed as structural.
The sound proofing in the rear was smelly and damp, couldn't see a leak anywhere dispite the heavy rain this morning, so cleaned it out back to the metal, no rust fortunately. The front foot wells were also muddy, smelly and damp, so I lifted the carpet and removed the damp sound proofing. Found a trickle of water entering where the steering shaft goes through the bulk head, so will need to seal that up. No rust again fortunately. The sills are full of mud, which has probably entered through the large drain holes underneath. I'll flush this out and maybe put rubber bungs in them for offroading in the future.
The aircon works and is actually cold, which amazes me! None of the instruments on the cluster work. Hoped it was just a fuse, but can't see any blown so will have to pull it out. The indicators also don't work plus there's plentyof dodgy wiring under the bonnet due to being on it's 3rd engine, so will get that all sorted.
The front 6 body mount bolts all have nuts on, so hopefully shoundn't be too much of a problem. The bolt head can all be accessed. The rear 2 are captive nuts with no direct access to the nuts, but there are some small holes nearby which I've been spraying WD40 through ready for taking them off, along with any other bolts I might be undoing, suspension, shocks etc.
I don't have any rubber body mounts and don't fancy paying $300+ for 8 bits of rubber. Any advice on where I can get something cheaper?
I think I've worked out why it's pulling to the left under power. The rear detroit locker locks up under acceleration and although the rear tyres are the same printed size, they are different makes and the right tyre is notably larger, 74cm vs 72.5cm for the left, which means it travels 5cm further for every rotation. With a locked diff, this would mean it would pull to the left. Hopefully this is the reason, I wil try identical tyres on the rear as some point in the future.
Also need to make up a rear bar.
I also started the engine from cold (it's always been warm the last couple of times), fired up no problem, not too much smoke.
Does anyone know if your allowed to just have one seat in the car? I was thinking about removing the passenger seat, it would make a nice spot for the eski!
Here's a few progress pics....
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