Project Big Blue

Cheers for all the advice guys, just a matter of waiting for the compressor and hoping for some better weather now.

Better weather bah!

I can remember the FiL mentioning painting a car during the winter, it was picking to snow and he was doing by headlight beam!

Oh yeah - if you knew my FiL you'd understand the idea of last minute finishing on a vehicle - I think they were due on a ferry or at the airport a few hours later, and it was a few hours drive to the 'port!

Update,

A few items came in the post the other day. Firstly the new paint i will be giving the landy a lick of.





Also i received a fairly decent second hand radiator off a fellow LZ member so i have spent today swapping out the old shagged one for this one. I relied on the trusty old Haynes manual to help me with the removal. The only hard part was trying not cover the entire of the drive in coolant when taking off the bottom pipe. Unless you have a massive drip tray or a plant nappy i think your pretty much guaranteed to get everywhere... like i did :violent:
After that it was pretty straight forward undoing the rest of the pipes. I had previously gone half on viscous fan spanner a few months ago so getting the fan off was simple as. It could have been a bit of a set back if not however...

A few piccies to show the difference between the one i had and the one thats in now.

Old one,



new one



washed out, dried and ready to be installed



Just a pic to show the vast amount of space the fan, rad and crowl take up



Once installed i was a matter of connecting all the pipes back up, cleaning as i went and filling her back up with coolant and water. Job Done. Went for a quick spin to get up to temperature will wait till the engines cooled, check the levels again and top up if necessary.

Cheers Ben

A bit more of an update from the weekend,

The Landy is booked in for a straight through side exit exhaust on Friday so i decided to tweak the fuel delivery as most people have done. Found this thread very helpful http://www.landyzone.co.uk/lz/f8/sluggish-disco-not-any-more-146991.html Tells you all you need to know with some very handy pics to helped me out, literally took half an hour. The difference is quite remarkable however i can't comment on the what effects it's had on my mpg as of yet.

I forgot to mention that i had also extented all the breather pipes including the fuel line breather when the boot floor was out, also added a timing case breather. After reading a few threads i decided just to extend the fuel line breather (instead of replace it from the union on the tank) with some of the left over 6mm pipe i had spare and ran it up the offside c pillar to the roof line.

If everything goes to plan i will be picking up the compressor on Sunday so i'll be starting the respray in the next the couple of weekends hopefully

Got the new side exit made up and put on today. Not trying to spam but need to give Phil from Unique Exhausts in Stafford a shout out, such a top bloke and a decent price tag! 2 and a half inch turbo back stainless system with a mini box in the middle made and welded up in 4hours. Chuffed to bits with it.

Few pics,







Next thing in store will be to paint the thing. Hopefully picking up the compressor Sunday. However from now untill Sunday, lots of beer will be consumed. I LOVE it when i'm not working bank holidays

Cheers Ben

Stafford!!!!!

Where you from, he fixed the exhaust on my fourtrak years ago...

stutab said:

Stafford!!!!!

Where you from, he fixed the exhaust on my fourtrak years ago...

Click to expand...

He is the man to go to mate. Cant go wrong with his prices and workmanship even if it did cost me a little more in fuel!

that paint from trade paints is good quality stuff.ive got some and used it on 3 ov my cars now.i used a roller to put it on nd never had any come off of any of my cars even when ive used a steam cleaner and tfr on it

adam300tdi said:

that paint from trade paints is good quality stuff.ive got some and used it on 3 ov my cars now.i used a roller to put it on nd never had any come off of any of my cars even when ive used a steam cleaner and tfr on it

Click to expand...

Thanks for the heads up mate, good to know its decent stuff

So then, quite a productive weekend on the landy front.

Got he compressor dropped off. Didn't realise how feckin big it was!!



Started stripping and sanding down the landy.

Before



After



A quick rough sanding with the orbital.



Next weekend i need to get in all the nooks and crannies and finish off sanding the roof, the clear coat is completely shot on it so i want to get it all off before i put the new paint on.

I have also had some bumpers kindly made up by a fellow LZ member (300tdistu) which will be going on after the respray.







Cheers Ben

Coming along nicely, you will have a Disco to be proud of when it's done.

So then, bit of an update.

After a couple of weeks away i've managed to find the time to upload a few photos of how the landy look now.

In the end i had to go with the roller and brush method. Really quite annoying as i had spent money and time getting the compressor up and running. Decided to roller it after i had spent a sunday masking everything off only to find the masking tape had lifted the next day because of the warm weather we had

After a quick search on here i found http://www.landyzone.co.uk/lz/f16/how-hand-paint-landy-pictures-152225.html which helped me out a treat.

After the first coat had dried overnight i flatted it back and gave it another wash.



Second coat was applied then and left until the next weekend. Everything was then put back on including the new bumpers on now it looks like this.











And thats how it is staying for the time being. Come the end of the summer i am thinking about taking it off the road so i can do the sills then get it set up for a few expeditions. Having spent a week in Finland i would love to drive back there when the snow is there.

Cheers Ben

Got an update?
Looks tops!
Keep it up!