Disco 1 project

Here is my Disco 1 restoration project. Not much done so far, but planning to make some progress in the coming weeks / months.
It's got plenty of rot in all the usual places and includes the optional rain roof.



the interior is in need of a little TLC also





first job is to strip out the interior (as it stinks) and see how bad the rot is under the carpet.

Looks straight ! Flash band the sun roofs to seal them ! roof lining out strip all the material off rub the foam off & stone chip it let it dry & put back in !

Everyone loves a resto/rebuild thread lots of pics please

interior strip in full swig, will update with pics later!

that's enough of that for today. its fair to say it's about as crusty as it could be! yes, that's daylight shining through the floor!

What are the bottoms of your B pillars like, and your front footwells?

Cheers

front foot wells have a lot of surface rust but i've not found any holes yet. bottom of the B pillars look fairly well gone! along with the sills!

All the usual places then,

Are you using premade steel pieces or fabbing your own from steel sheet?

Cheers

dunno yet. i think i'll replace the sills with box section and get some sheet for patches here and there. i'm tempted to buy boot floor and rear wheel arch panels though...

seat belts and a few bits of trim washed. the old material came off the headliner really easily, the foam backing had turned into crumble.

the mat out of the boot has had a good scrub but still looks really faded and stained. Any recommendations for a product to restore the colour? i was thinking back to black or something similar?

Looks like it will take alittle work but once it's finished it will be a cracking vehicle. I used camper van carpet from eBay to re do my roof liner and it came out really good.

Sill covers off and a bit of wire brush treatment... a few more holes!

hit upon a problem trying to get the rear bumper off, managed to round off the head on passenger side as it was completely seized. the driver side just sheered off. Not sure how i'm going to resolve this yet!?



Also noticed that the bonnet doesn't sit flush with the wings. Apparently the bonnet had flown up on the motorway years ago, so probably some bent bracketry to straighten out...

Looks like you've got some work on your hands!

How many repair panels are available for the D1?

Ocsid said:

dunno yet. i think i'll replace the sills with box section and get some sheet for patches here and there.

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Easier and stronger in my book - ( provided you don't want a full factory type resto ). IMHO, cut every single bit of rot you can find out of the vehicle....

Ocsid said:

i'm tempted to buy boot floor and rear wheel arch panels though...

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Gets my vote - again easier, stronger and quieter than just using flat sheet - and the parts will fit "out of the box"

rob_bell said:

How many repair panels are available for the D1?

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More or less everything in my experience - even original RRC footwells are available on ebay - which should fit with a bit of work... YRM and Easy On are good sources for most things...

You can pick up rear bumpers pretty cheap on eBay so if all else fails just take an angle grinder to it

Ocsid said:

hit upon a problem trying to get the rear bumper off, managed to round off the head on passenger side as it was completely seized. the driver side just sheered off. Not sure how i'm going to resolve this yet!?

Click to expand...

Meant to answer this before, but just tighten the bolt till it snaps off - easiest way is with an impact driver.... and then drill and re tap the hole, or as Marmaduke says, bumpers are cheap enough on the bay....

Good shout, I'll give it a try. After all, the other side snapped off easy enough - just undoing it!

Success!


Rear bumper is finally off!



Rear body mounts seem in good shape



Next job is to remove the rear step... surprise surprise the nut ans bolt are completely seized and snap off!



I eventually got the thing off with a bit of persuasion



the shank of the bolt is still wedged in though, can't shift it!

Nice!

I recently replaced the boot floor and can confirm it's much easier to just buy the panel. Bought mine from Island-4x4 for 50 quid.

Check out my project thread if you like it's got a bit of detail in how I changed the floor but a lot of people have done it. I've also rebuild the drivers rear arch area as mine was as rotten if not more than yours around the seatbelt mount. Again, you can buy that repair panel from Island 4x4 for like 16 quid!

Nice to see someone else saving a good old disco! It's a challenge but it's good fun!