- Joined
- Aug 23, 2022
- Messages
- 324
- Location
- Belgium, north of Antwerp
- Car(s)
- Escort MK4 project car + Ford S-Max 2.0 SCTi
I first ended up here months ago after google searching for something relating my current Land Rover Discovery 200tdi and finding the answer in Matt2000's Discovery Bobtail thread. Been so long ago I can't even remember what it was that I was searching for , but ever since I've been regularly checking in on most "Post Your Car" threads (and scrolling through the other parts of the forum). Now I've finally took the time to register an account, so it seems fair to share my project car which led me here in the first place.
For the last 10+ years I've pretty much always had at least one Land Rover (driving, work in progress, broken down or parts car) sitting on my driveway or in a garage. With a driveway looking something like this being no exception:
With the best part not even being owning/having having up to 4 Land Rovers at the same time, but having a wife who doesn't mind .
At the beginning of the pandemic I got tired of the Range Rover Classic I had been working on and decided to go back to the car I know best: a Discovery 1. Not wanting to pay a ridiculous amount of taxes but also wanting to be able to take my 4 kids with me, it needed to be 30years or older.
So in the middle of lockdown season I bought one 300+km away from here, based of some vague pictures. Drove it back home (I don't understand how I got it home safely after al the problems I found later on) and started with some "small" jobs including converting it from what was basically a van to a 7-seater and what was thought to be some minor rust repair with the sills and boot floor already being replaced by the previous owner.
First started with with removing the closed panels for normal windows.
The little rust repair ended up with a couple of m² of new sheet metal for replacing the drivers side footwell and floor halfway up to the B-post, on the passenger side I "only" had to replace 50% of the floor and footwell and also pretty much everything around the brand new boot floor. I also replaced the inner sills, 2 completely rotten body mounts and installed 2 new front inner fenders (partly because I still had them from a previous project).
I've owned enough Discovery's to know the weak spots and 90% had been "repaired" by the previous owner. Except for the part that repairing to him apparently meant welding new metal over rust without removing it and even glueing sheet metal onto rust or putting paint or body sealer over rust.
Because I had to do it al outside, after work hours and combine it with family life, it took more than a year to finish all the welding. I've welded up some many Disco's that I no longer even bother to take pictures of the process.
I'll just give you these two to give you an idea of what "at first glance there are only a couple of small holes" ended up all over the car. The cut-out in the first picture eventually ended up halfway up the firewall.
As you can spot on the last picture, during different stages of rust repair I also fitted another bumper to house the Warrior 12000lbs winch I had lying around from a previous car. Which in fact was another kind of rust repair since it came from a burned wreck. The bumper itself was in good condition, but pretty much all the paint had melted off leaving it covered in surface rust by the time I bought it. But hey, it was cheap . Since I had to paint it anyway I shortened the sides by 10cm (copying the original curved line) to make sure they wouldn't hit on bigger tyres and removed the top part of the front plate meant for installing a 8274 style winch.
After finishing all the rust repair I replaced all the worn suspension bushings, the front wheel bearings, pretty much all brake lines both hard lines and rubber ones (replaced the latter with steel braided, but with a matt black finish so it still looks original), some hoses, all new oil and filters and got it to the Belgian "MOT" to get my license plates and papers. Passed without any serious remarks, so after that I could start with the more fun kind of work.
Exterior modifications included installing a 2" suspension lift, mounting 235-85-R16 Mud-Terrain tyres on black 8-spoke wheels, installing a Detroit locker in the back, installing a steel rear bumper and removing the complete tow hitch assembly. I also painted the bottom half of the car and top half of the bonnet with black raptor liner since I had to replace one of the front doors. I couldn't find a colour matching one, hated the mismatched looking door but liked the green to much to completely cover it in boring black.
Interior-wise I made a custom centre console (since one of the PO's made a mess of it), modified a RRC gear knob to fit the look of it and installed a switch panel in the middle of the roof console with winch controls and switches for some extra lighting. I also spent some time fixing the butchers work the PO's had done to the wiring and installed an auxiliary fuse box to power all the current and future extras. The aux fuse box is ignition switch powered through a big relay so forgetting to turn light off doesn't drain my battery.
TLDR list of modifications:
- 2" suspension lift
- 235-85-R16 Mud Terrain tyres
- Detroit locker in the back axle
- steel bumpers front and rear
- 12000lbs Warrior winch with synthetic rope
- HD steering and track rod
- front skid plate
- two tone raptor liner paint
- custom centre console
- switches + winch control in the roof console.
For the last 10+ years I've pretty much always had at least one Land Rover (driving, work in progress, broken down or parts car) sitting on my driveway or in a garage. With a driveway looking something like this being no exception:
With the best part not even being owning/having having up to 4 Land Rovers at the same time, but having a wife who doesn't mind .
At the beginning of the pandemic I got tired of the Range Rover Classic I had been working on and decided to go back to the car I know best: a Discovery 1. Not wanting to pay a ridiculous amount of taxes but also wanting to be able to take my 4 kids with me, it needed to be 30years or older.
So in the middle of lockdown season I bought one 300+km away from here, based of some vague pictures. Drove it back home (I don't understand how I got it home safely after al the problems I found later on) and started with some "small" jobs including converting it from what was basically a van to a 7-seater and what was thought to be some minor rust repair with the sills and boot floor already being replaced by the previous owner.
First started with with removing the closed panels for normal windows.
The little rust repair ended up with a couple of m² of new sheet metal for replacing the drivers side footwell and floor halfway up to the B-post, on the passenger side I "only" had to replace 50% of the floor and footwell and also pretty much everything around the brand new boot floor. I also replaced the inner sills, 2 completely rotten body mounts and installed 2 new front inner fenders (partly because I still had them from a previous project).
I've owned enough Discovery's to know the weak spots and 90% had been "repaired" by the previous owner. Except for the part that repairing to him apparently meant welding new metal over rust without removing it and even glueing sheet metal onto rust or putting paint or body sealer over rust.
Because I had to do it al outside, after work hours and combine it with family life, it took more than a year to finish all the welding. I've welded up some many Disco's that I no longer even bother to take pictures of the process.
I'll just give you these two to give you an idea of what "at first glance there are only a couple of small holes" ended up all over the car. The cut-out in the first picture eventually ended up halfway up the firewall.
As you can spot on the last picture, during different stages of rust repair I also fitted another bumper to house the Warrior 12000lbs winch I had lying around from a previous car. Which in fact was another kind of rust repair since it came from a burned wreck. The bumper itself was in good condition, but pretty much all the paint had melted off leaving it covered in surface rust by the time I bought it. But hey, it was cheap . Since I had to paint it anyway I shortened the sides by 10cm (copying the original curved line) to make sure they wouldn't hit on bigger tyres and removed the top part of the front plate meant for installing a 8274 style winch.
After finishing all the rust repair I replaced all the worn suspension bushings, the front wheel bearings, pretty much all brake lines both hard lines and rubber ones (replaced the latter with steel braided, but with a matt black finish so it still looks original), some hoses, all new oil and filters and got it to the Belgian "MOT" to get my license plates and papers. Passed without any serious remarks, so after that I could start with the more fun kind of work.
Exterior modifications included installing a 2" suspension lift, mounting 235-85-R16 Mud-Terrain tyres on black 8-spoke wheels, installing a Detroit locker in the back, installing a steel rear bumper and removing the complete tow hitch assembly. I also painted the bottom half of the car and top half of the bonnet with black raptor liner since I had to replace one of the front doors. I couldn't find a colour matching one, hated the mismatched looking door but liked the green to much to completely cover it in boring black.
Interior-wise I made a custom centre console (since one of the PO's made a mess of it), modified a RRC gear knob to fit the look of it and installed a switch panel in the middle of the roof console with winch controls and switches for some extra lighting. I also spent some time fixing the butchers work the PO's had done to the wiring and installed an auxiliary fuse box to power all the current and future extras. The aux fuse box is ignition switch powered through a big relay so forgetting to turn light off doesn't drain my battery.
TLDR list of modifications:
- 2" suspension lift
- 235-85-R16 Mud Terrain tyres
- Detroit locker in the back axle
- steel bumpers front and rear
- 12000lbs Warrior winch with synthetic rope
- HD steering and track rod
- front skid plate
- two tone raptor liner paint
- custom centre console
- switches + winch control in the roof console.
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