Orange

Or the Detling showground on the A249 between Maidstone and Sittingbourne.... That would be most handy!! The Hop farm would come a close second from a convenience point of view!!

Here's what we had to do on mine... Floor and Cross member I hope it helps and doesn't put you off doing it. Bear in mind that before doing this job (and the sills), my experience of in-situ repairs was absolutely zip. I would tackle the same thing again, with the right people helping, of course, so it's beneficial to do it yourself...

Mike, Insa do the same pattern. IIRC it's called the Dakar, but I honestly couldn't tell you whether they do them in your size. As far as the quality goes, I don't think that the Insa's are better. My Turbos have seemed to get cuts/scrapes pretty easily wheras the Machos I had on the old Range Rover seemed to go on forever. Ask Dan (Mr Bertha)..... he sold them to me!!! In fact, they will be coming out of retirement today!! HTH Adrian

I must have selected some particularly rubbish sets to check, then. I couldn't even find a decent set when I went back to buy a drill!!! Might have to have a bit more of a rummage in the crate when I'm close by on Monday....

[Mrs Doyle voice on] Ah - go on, go on, go on!!! [Mrs Doyle voice off]

On a sunny day in the summer of 2007, I enlisted the help of Mark to replace the floor and rear body cross-member in my 92 Range Rover Classic. The full size pictures are in one of my LR4x4 albums if you want to view full size ones!! We started with this: Went through this: And approximately 2 weeks later (4 solid days and a load of tarting up) ended up with this: There’s more to it than that though!!!!! I’ve got a load of pictures of the whole process (pm me if you want anything specific) but I thought a brief description of the work was best, so here goes… Firstly, the rear of the car was stripped of it’s carpets, lights, seats, tailgates and sundries (anything flammable, basically!!) so we started with room to move and room to investigate. Then the fun really starts… Let’s see how far the rust actually goes: You get the idea!!! First thing to do is the remove the rear crossmember. There are loads of spotwelds to drill out, so best to get at least one spotweld drill bit. There are some that are hidden and will involve bending various bits of metal to get a cold chisel to!! When you get close to the point of complete detachment, best to prop the sides up with something adjustable. This will make it easier to wiggle the replacement one in! It will be easier if you are just using box section and fabricating body mounts, but an original one piece crossmember requires quite a bit of jiggling! Old one out: The replacement crossmember from (I think) an ’83 model given a good wire brush and a coat of weldable primer: Then cut the rest of the floor out: And wiggle the replacement crossmember in and clamp it in place: Then do up the new body mounts (tight, but not silly tight) and tack it in place. After it’s all lined up, it’s time to get the Welding Bitch to do his thing… Including re-fitting the rubber seal mounting flange: You can probably see from the last picture that there was nothing left or the floor supports at each side. Now is the time to enlist the help of your favourite local blacksmiths to get them to fold some flat sheet steel to create a new lip (cheers Messers RogueVogue and Wightman) using their uber-good press and gilloutine equipment. We could only manage to fold one section, when we actually needed a double fold to create the new step and overlap the existing metal. This meant welding a flat strip of steel to the folded section. I haven’t explained it very well, but this next picture gives you the general idea of what was needed/achieved: Add in the new floor supports (same as Disco 1 ones) and you end up with what Land Rover intended to hold the floor up. During the process of attaching the new floor support sections, we blew several holes in the wheelarch, so ended up making running repairs: Once that was all done, it was time to turn attentions to repairing the offside wheelarch and door pillar. After a good grind and wire brush the looked like this: Bear in mind you can see the floor through the wheelarch!! After several plates were cut and shaped, we ended up with repair that looked like this: The extent of the primer gives away how much was repaired!!! The primer has been applied after a good layer of seam sealer was worked into all of the welds/overlaps. A quick slap of silver paint: Then we come to putting the new floor in. This was recovered, along with unperished rubber sealing strips, from a pre 1986 model in a scrapyard. I think it cost £20 in total – Mark will correct me if I am wrong!! (As usual!!) Tell you what – if you are doing this and don’t have an air rivet gun, go out and buy one!!!!!!!!!! The floor was put in with a liberal application of sealant to all joins, even along the rubber strips. With all that done it was a case of rebuilding the rear end with it’s wings, tailgates and lights and away we go!! All in, the cutting, fabbing and welding took about 4 days. The strip down and prep/painting and rebuild after took a further week of evenings. A bit long winded, but it’s now more solid that it was when it left the factory!!! As I said above, there’s loads of piccies if you want any specific areas in detail!! I'm sure Mark will be along in a little while to explain more of the tech side of things. AFAIK his welder is a Butters MIG 175, but that's about it...

I decided that the ratchet spanners were a little disappointing! They seemed to need an awful lot of turn (like over 1/8) before the ratchet clicked to the next step, if you know what I mean. That means they are next to useless in most situations that a ratchet spanner is particularly useful, i.e. where there is very little room to turn a normal spanner. Just my 2p I did pick up some WD40 and some organisers. Was very tempted by the pillar/bench drill, but didn't buy one. I'll probably regret it!!

I am the brother that Mark speaks of!! Believe me - I thought that there was only a little bit of rust, but once you start cutting out, you'll have to go quite a way before you find solid metal that you are able to weld to!! I am not really that into fabrication and I can't weld (medical reasons) and it only got done because I bullied Mark into it!! He loves it really I keep meaning to upload all the pictures of the job on mine, but time keeps eluding me!! Maybe I'll get to doing it now that someone else needs to see what happens!! It is one helluvva job to do and I wouldn't have taken it on without having someone that knows vaguely what they are doing... Best of luck.........

I was waiting for the comments about the chinese food, but I honestly thought better of you Mr Stumpy!!!

This Thursday's offers on the Aldi website Anyone need a cheap electric hoist?? Could be useful for hauling your rolling chassis into/out of the garage... They also have what look like a set of disposable ratchet spanners....at that price, they can't be much else! Not going to matter too much if they get covered in mud etc... Mods: Wasn't sure where to put this.... Please feel free to move it to T&F or Class. if necessary!

Disco 2s aren't as good on the comfort side for someone that's had back problems.......trust me!!! As for what to buy - try and find the best condition one that you can in your price bracket. It may mean waiting and travelling to look at some, but it will pay off in the end! Make sure you look at the boot floor, sills, footwells, inner wings (front and back), tailgates, A-pillars, B-pillars, C pillars, D-pillars...... They will cause no end of maintenance/MoT issues if they aren't sound. There are good ones out there!! A 300 TDi Softdash would be best! The air suspension is only a problem if it goes wrong. Otherwise, it's luvverly!! Find one with good amount of service history and there's a good chance that it's been cared for.

Bit of a trek for you, isn't it, Walfy??!! Surely there is one closer than Maidstone

There's plenty of those on here, should you ever find the urge too great to ignore!!!

Only needs to be days old for me to forget But for those that were wondering, Bearmach was open and trading in Maidstone on Saturday 19th and Delgragh is as far as I know.

If Mark ever says that the particular section you are attempting "requires some enthusiasm" do not believe him!!!

Ahhh... I thought he meant the post smileys that come up on the forum topic boards!! D'oh!!

When you start a new topic there are a row of smileys just above the Post New Topic/Preview Topic buttons... HTH Adrian

Confirmed that it's a one day event on Sunday 9th March. It's a team event again.... Details are now up on the HBRO site: HERE Entry forms, etc. too...

Works for me... Try a direct link

To throw a spanner in the works... Are you considering the use of stabilisers and how they might work?? Wouldn't want you to get all excited about getting the crane working only to have the MOG fall over the first time you use it!! I know the MOG is a big vehicle, but..... The sort of system that street light repair vans/cherry pickers use might be a good way of doing it!! They fold up fairly small, too....

If you got off of the back it would be level.......

Drop Mark a pm - he broke a Disco 1 recently and had the complete unit going spare. He might have sold it, but it's worth an ask... Don't tell him I sent you, though - he'll put the price up to cover my commission!!!!

Depends how pretty you want to keep it. I know Mark has just pop-riveted another piece of Ali behind a tear on his front wing, but it's a 'working' truck and he's not too worried about keeping it in showroom condition. Can you just re-shape the bottom of the panel in the name of 'improved ground clearance'?? I'm looking at doing that on my RR - firstly cos I've got a bent/corroded bit and secondly cos I do actually need to remove it to improve ground clearance (full length, you see!!) IMHO chequer plate just covers it up so you can't see how fast/far it's spreading. And....... it doesn't really look that good on a Disco!!

I haven't knackered the corners yet and it's definitely taken some abuse! There are a couple of bumpers about that mimic the standard one, even down to having metal formed/welded into the shape of the standard plastic end caps. They don't go round the corner, though, and to be honest, if you're wrecking corners completely, they won't offer much protection to anything other than the 3 inches of bodywork that they hide! Bish's bumper looks ideal to me - stronger in side 'impacts' and offers more strength when the rear end is landed on something. If you ask hime really nicely, he might even give you some directions...

It's not just the size you'll need, but the length as well. Better to wait till you can take the old ones with you and slap them on the desk. Any extra length will be a PITA to lose without kinking the hoses. My RR ones were made 'about' the same length as the standard metal/flexi ones, but we still had some spare to lose... You'll also need to make sure you get all the right fittings at the right angles, so better to take a long hard look and think, then take the old ones along. Have a look HERE to see the ones that I had made. Quite over spec'd, but good for a long while...