My Discovery 1 Commercial

With a long weekend apon us I took the chance to do a couple more bits to the disco.

Bought this Discovery front mount intercooler ages ago and decided I would finally dig it out and put it to good use.



Little bit bigger than standard



Bit of a squeeze but you can get it in without removing the rad and coolant hoses.



Much better



Then decided I would put the straight through system back on again.
So stainless mid pipe and custom stainless side exit to go with the stainless de-cat downpipe.



Mate measured up the centre on the exhaust and I made a big hole



Added the tailpipe trim:



And boom! One side exit stainless system



Got a bit of movement on the rear exhaust section so a temporary fix.
Going to adjust the end exhaust mount which should hold it in place better.
If it's still tight then the ARB bracket will be disappearing.




Sounds pretty awesome going down the road but actually surprisingly quiet if you are light with the throttle.

Fed up of seeing my big wheels stacked up in the garden but before I fit them I need new rims for them.

I have two sets, one for pay and play and the other for green laning and road use.

First up are my 35x10.5x16 simex's. Extreme mud tyres.
These are currently on Wolf wheels and they catch on the bodywork and radius arms very easily so need to push them out a bit.
Not a fan of spacers so thinking a set of these would work:



Or these:



Am I right in thinking 8" wide is right for that size tyre?
Like the idea of adding bead locks in the future, would they fit?

Then the "daily" tyres are 33x12.5x15 Kuhmo's.
And for them I'm thinking these:



With all of these sets I'm looking at the -32/35 et as I want to push the wheels out as far away from the chassis as I can to aid with clearance.
Will be adding 75mm extended arches to help cover the wheels but just looking for a second opinion that the above rims will be a good choice for what I'm trying to achieve.

My disco is a commercial so fortunately got a lot of room at the back to tub the arches if needs be

Cheers Chris

Seeing as the truck has been running well and I haven't been off the beaten track for years I decided to do a spot of green landing.
Nothing to serious as only the one truck so stick to the light stuff



Did bring a mate so I had someone to talk to




Pulled over to have a drink and get a bit of flex



Nothing taxing but was nice to get out and about in north Essex for the afternoon.
Need to some arches sorted and my 33/35's on now.

Well as being on nights these past couple of weeks and bored during the day as not sleeping much thought I'd take a look under the factory mud shields on the front arches



Oh dear, looks like I'm gonna have to try to lean to weld this year
Sills aren't looking too hot either, one has let go most the way along it and the other is scabby.
I'd like to replace them with stronger box section that I can eventually add rock sliders too but for now I have no idea where to begin on replacing the sills so that might have to wait

Merry Christmas all.

Up coming laning day on the 13th of next month so made myself a little list of jobs I want to get done before then.

Mate kindly let me have use of his ramp so off I went round to his garage




Started with a quick oil and filter change then moved on to adding all the extended breathers









Both axle breathers plus gearbox, transfer box, crankcase breather and fuel tank breather extended.


Next to deal with the leaking snorkel







Tried some Ali pipe I had



But unfortunately it wouldn’t play ball with the lip on the air box intake so for the short term the air box has been taken out of the equation and replaced with part of the Escort RS turbo downpipe and some silicone pipe to act as spacers.



In the future I may go down the lines of a 200tdi canister and filter.

Then to finish off added a set of locking wheel nuts and new standard nuts all round.

With cups of tea and general gassing that was all that’s done but it’s progress so still happy.

Jobs I want done before the laning day are:

Figure out why the rear door won’t open
Fit cb radio and aerial
Fix central locking
Replace rocker cover gasket

Hoping I can sort these while a have a few days off work over Christmas.

Nice thread, and truck

Thanks very much, still pretty basic stuff but hoping if I can get the welding sorted then can look to making the old girl a bit tougher next year.

Liking your Disco very much!

Cheers mate appreciate it.

Was gonna carry on with fixing the rear door and starting on cb radio install but being back on the drive I proper wussed out because of the snow.

But I was duly punished for this by having to take the missus to Lakeside instead.

Will attempt to man up and get out their tomorrow or Saturday and get those jobs done.

Don't blame you mate, I try to do all the jobs like that during the summer but it can't always be avoided.

blueovalcraig said:

Don't blame you mate, I try to do all the jobs like that during the summer but it can't always be avoided.

Click to expand...

Did venture out yesterday, but nippy!

Laning day not far off now so need to crack on. Wanted to sort the cb aerial.



And in my usual fashion I started drilling holes and then realised I couldn’t get to the inside where the mount was gonna go
Stupid inner skin. Tried to get at it with the death wheel but that didn’t work so had to seal up the holes and try somewhere else.



Ended up going off the side of the truck behind the alpine glass. Not idea but will do the job.



Wired up and cable routed through the truck



Retrimming the roof lining has now been added to the job list for the summer.



Keeping things simple I just used self tappers to attach the cb mount to the dash.
Eventually I’ll be fitting a mud pod to the dash and putting the cb in that but this will do for now.



So aerial is fitted, cable run and cb fitted. But not wired in yet as I seem to have lost all my crimp connectors.
New set ordered so should have it up and running next weekend with any luck.

Chris

That's where I put the CB aerial on my D2 and I bent it a bit above the spring so that it was more straight

That’s a very good idea, think I’ll give that a whirl as mine is a little wonky

Slow day at work again yesterday so nipped our and grabbed this to chuck over the engine.



Before:





And after:






Seems to have got rid of a fare amount of crap on the engine though the power steering is groaning a bit now.

Then nicked a couple of connectors off the mechanic and got the cb wired in.
Ran the cables through the dash into the radio plug and taped the fuse under the cb.
Not fancy but functional.





Also bent the aerial so it points up straight (thanks again to blueovalCraig for that suggestion).

So that’s another job ticked off the list.

Seem to be losing a little bit of coolant here and there plus the heaters are garbage.
Windscreen has steamed up once. Preying I don’t have a leaking heater matrix.
If I have time this weekend will run it up to temperature and see if I can spot any obvious leaks.

Laning day has been put back till tomorrow so used the free time to try and tick a few extra jobs off the list.

Wanted to get the fuel tank guard fitted, got the tools out:



After stripping the bumper off to check all was well I had a go at the first bolt where the tank guard mounts to.......



And that put a stop to that, even the sledge hammer couldn’t shift that w@nker!
Reckon gonna have to cut the chassis open to get it out and weld a new sleeve in place. But that’s for another day.


So found a couple of other things to do.
Topped up low power steering fluid and checked the snorkel was sealed.

Then dug out the battery I had bought for our old grand Cherokee to see if it would fit:



And fits!
Had to remove the rad mount to get it in but it’s there now and pretty snug.
Extra 270CCA should help on the cold mornings.

And finally wanted to get some tension in the winch cable as I had read somewhere it is better for them.

So made use of the skip at the farm, hand brake on a couple of clicks and wound her up





And that’s about it, topped up the coolant and should be good to go for tomorrow.
Heading off to Thetford for some lanes for the day so shall report back with pictures tomorrow night

Chris

Double post

Your mounting bolt on the chassis was very familiar, I quickly ran a slitting disc across mine, opened it up with the cold chisel and one free'd off and removed I stuffed a copper earthing rod through the hole and welded it all back up with an extra brace over it as I was fitting jate rings on the back as well as the HD tank guard.

Out of interest, are they early pre-facelift D2 headlights?

Yes cutting it open seems to be the only way forward to solve this problem.
Gonna try and get the death wheel across it to cut it open then weld in a new sleeve.

Annoyingly means I have no rear tow points at the minute so going to wrap a strop round the chassis and tie it to the spare wheel for tomorrow.

Yes the headlights are from a pre-facelift Discovery 2. One of the best mods I’ve done to any Disco 1. Infact the van is the third Disco I’ve transferred those lights to!

I was looking at some on ebay, I'm still running the old LHD 200Tdi head lights and although since fitting relays they've been much better, the front still needs a bit of an update and I quite like the look of those.