Mark

Yes please! before christmas or after, I am not worried - camping out in the months soon after christmas can be kinda chilly, but still do-able. I like the camp saturday, hunt on sunday idea. Possibly a suggestion, but how about using a scout hall or the like as the HQ. Everyone can sleep in the relative warmth, and they don't cost loads to hire. Porbably cheaper than a B&B and its nearly camping... Mark

I have them front and rear on my disco, but they don't give a level ride like this. I have had to add 2" spacers at the rear to bring the vehicle level. Which means I have no real idea of just how much lift they give (sory). Paul Wightman is running them on Piggy (which is a reange rover underneath) and I belive rogu vogue is runnig the same. Both these vehicles have much less body weight than a standard rangie though... Cheers Mark

'fraid mine is in a similar state. Gonna have to do it at some point, and I'm not looking forward to it. I belive there is a reasonably clos standard size box section that gives a decent fit, and is obvioulsy heavier than the standard folded item, so I will probably go down that route. Bobtailed discos are cool. I am very tempted to do mine at some point - when I don't need the space! I think the 3 door works better than the 4 door bobbed though. Mark

Jez, you could move into the GigaHorse realm with the simple addition of a couple of neons...

Finally Chris, you and I are the same age! next year I will ne two years older than you though... Happy Birthday Mr Watts... Mark

I found these: which I thought were rather nice. There are some other ones on the same site: Premier Wiring Mark

I noticed on my brothers Rangie, that the original position for the stereo (ie under the dash on the righthand side of the steering wheel) is occupied by a pocket. Removing the pocket would give you a DIN sized hole, which you could then mount the CB in... Not having a rangie, I couldn't try it, but it's worth a thought... Mark

Yeah that was one of the reasons I went for the HD one... Although I managed to achieve that driving out of my carport! Mark

Those wheels and tyres are very matchbox toy though arn't they?!? My dads TD4 Floda has just ticked over 200k miles, I wonder if he will look at the new ones?

Fridge, I am pretty sure they are only rated for ~1A. I think nige is looking for something for the big power that the fans need... Those ones are certainly still available, cos I ordered some last week! Incidentally, they are cheaper here: Zackfords Mark

That Looks like the kitchen, not the lounge.... Are you sure they are not multi-room pants?

Since I had the camera out, I thought I would add a few photos of some of the changes I have made to my Disco at the back of the car... The most obvious change I made was to change the rear bumper for a Discoparts Heavy Duty one There were several reasons for this, but my main one was to give me a decent rear recovery point. The Bumper is drilled for the NATO hitch and there is a reinforcement plate that attaches both the hitch and the bumper through to the chassis. I went for the 300 series version, with the light holes so that I could add another set of stop/tails and indicators. Having seen how easily the lamp units break though, I might just leave them empty for now... Opening the back door, we get to the next mod: an improved rear door card: Lots of companies sell chequer plate ones of these, but I didn't really want chequer plate. I also wanted to keep the pockets and the handle from the orginal, but needed somewhere to store my spade. The panel was cut out of a sheet of 3mm Aluminium, using the original door card as a template. All the trim fixing holes got reused, but with M6 Rivnuts in. The new panel then screws to the rivnuts using M6 button headed bolts, mainly cos thats what I had. The piece of aluminium came from a local scrap yard and the quick fists holding the spade were via the group buy on here. This isn't very bling, but is very practical, and cost less than half of the cost of a pre-cut one (even taking into account the broken jigsaw blade...). In the back of the car, I have added some Cargo strip to give a deccent tie down point anywhere in the bed of the truck: [not the greatest photo but you get the idea] The cargo strip runs all the way to the front of the floor, so it can still be used with the seats up. The little loop fittings fit anywhere along the length of the strip. It is held down by 12 countersunk M6 botls on each side with big penny washers on the back, so the load is well spread throughout the floor. This is really only worth doing if you know the floor is good - mine is almost all new metal, so I am pretty confident of it. This means that when I go laning, I load up the back like this: left to right is: socket set, toolbox, Recovery gear box, spares and vehicle fluids box. This is held down by a ratchet strap between two of the moveable eyes in the floor strip. The waffles sit on top of the boxes and are held in place by some bungees from the rear seatbelt mounts up over the waffles, and back down to the same points the ratchet strap is hooked into. They are pretty quick and easy to get out from there. The boxes are 35L 'Really Useful Boxes' and I have to admit that they do live up to their name - they are prett good and strong, and have good strong lid too. Next in is the Jerry can (strapped to the dickie seat - not wonderful, but if anyone has any suggesitons let me know...) and the battery rattle gun (with the door closed it is captive under the waffle board, so dosen't move): And best of all, it all fits under the load cover, nice and hidden from prying eyes: So, the disco is then all packed for a days laning... Anyway, sorry for the long, slighly random thread, but this stuff never gets discussed with regard to discoverys, so I am attempting to redress the balance. Cheers Mark

Nige, Looks very neat as ever. I had a kenlowe on the lightweight, and it did shift some volume! I have the number plate on the leading edge of the bonnet too, but to be as compliant as I could, I added a proper one to the light bar: Would there be any mileage in you adding a numberplate to your roll cage cross bar above the windscreen? Cheers Mark

I asked a question a while ago about relocating the steering damper on my Disco: Steering Damper relocation Thread I wanted to move it as I had managed to squash my existing damper coming down lane in wales. In the end this is how I did it: At Billing this year, I aquired a set of sumo bars from QT, which are an ecellent product. They also sold me thier relocation kit, which I have to admit I was a little less than impressed with. There are two parts to the kit, the end which clamps onto the drag link, and has a mounting for a defender style Damper. This is essentially a lump of steel with a hole drilled in it and a slot cut in with a grinder. IMHS less than elegant. The other item is a piece of box section cut at an angle, with a single hole in it - this is meant to be welded to the chassis. Again, not elegent, but certainly functional. Since I already had a procomp steering damper for a disco (ie pins on both ends, rather than an eye and a pin) so I didn't want to go down the defender damper route, so needed to modify the drag link bracket to take a pin rather than an eye: The top pices is the bit I added on and is angled in two planes such that when the vehicle is travelling straight and on level ground the face of the bracket is at right angles to the damper to reduce the waer on the rubbers. The Chassis end looks like this: Again, I modified the bracket to be angled similarly to the other end. Then it got welded to the chassis in a suitable position. From the fron it all looks like this: It seems to work well, and keeps the damper out of harms way. I was a little disappointed with the relocation kit, as I had to do pretty much as much fabrication as if I were to make my own. I ended up using the kit, as I had it. Overall though a good modification. I did this along with changing the steering bars for sumo bars, putting new TRE's in, and replacing the drop arm. Cheers Mark

Here are the pictures of the finished job. I think it came out OK, even though it does look a bit ameteurish in places. The non matching paint dosn't help, but it will all be mud brown before too long.... The overall effect is that it went from this: to this: which is a vast imporvement! My theroy of using genuine parts as all the holes would line up didn't work out in the end, as I suspect these parts were for a later car. I still had to drill several of the holes I needed. The Footwell/bulkhead end came out reasonabely tidy: and this is the back of the lightbox. This was welded on both sides, overlapped, and a failed butweld along the top edge... You can just see the edge of the patch to the front body mount that is underneath the repair panel. There is also evidence of the penetration along the top edge. Although most of this was held together with spot welds originally, I tended to overlap and seam weld along both edges as much as I could. Puddle welding is a better sunstitute for spot welds, but it is a bit hit and miss for me. The underside of the Wheel arch now looks like this: Front: Top: and Footwell: It needs another coat of underseal. The Plastic inner is held on in several places now (!) but not all of the holes as I felt it unnecessary. I used Stainless Button Headed bolts as I figured they would stand up best to all the rubbish that was likely to come thier way. The bolts have large panny washers on both sides, so should hold well.... As I said earlier, all the welded seams have been smothered in seam sealer on both sides so should be water tight. Plenty of paint has been thrown around (!) so hopefully this should keep it rust free for a while. Most of my summing up thoughts were in my earlier post, so I won't repeat them here. Cheers Mark

Did the head gasket today. Didn't bother taking the turbo off, but found there was about enough room to get the maniforld off the head by wiggling it. still thats a post for another day....

I had a similar issue getting some tyres I bout off here fitted. Most of the places I asked wern't interested unless I had bought the tyres from them.

That sounds like a bit of a coup Mo. Does this mean Land Rover are finally going to recognise the grassroots level support that seems prop up the brand? Mark

I'll be there, most likley buying stuff....

OK, I'll take some pics at the wkend. Cheers Mark

Thought I had better update this thread, to bring it to a close. No pictures though I'm afraid, as they basically look like the one above where I was trial fitting the repair section. Spent a day in the weekend before last welding/bolting/riviting in the repair section, and cleaning and painting it. Mostly it got primeres, and all the joints coverd in copious amounts of brushable seam sealer. Then it got painted in White smoothrite, and the underneath painted with underseal. Spent last saturday re doing the wiring that got burnt, bleeding the brakes, cleaning/sealing/painting inside the footwell, and generally putting it all back together. Having estimated two or three days to do this, ended up spending about 8 or 9 days in total. If I had been working in doors, I could probably have halved that, but dodging the rain, and only working during daylight kinda slows things down. Anyway, I will put up some pix if people want, but I am now going to focus on changing the Head gasket this weekend... ah, the joy of land rover ownership Cheers Mark

What engine do you have? I fitted an o/drive to my 2.25 diesel IIa and it works well, and was well worth the money. Adittedly I paid less than £250 but that seems to be about the going rate for them. The new roverdrive units seem to be big money... Spares are an issue with the fairey/superwinch overdrives - particulalrly the main sleeve bearing. If you buy a second hand one, make sure this bearing is included. Hope that helps Mark

Barnket (sp) in Gravesend are much closer to you, and are generally a very good nut and bolt shop. Mark

Not to mention an MoT fail - ask me how I know.... sorry, can't be any more help with the doors... Mark

Andy, I think Nic is describing his fitment of a central 3 point belt, rather than the existing/factory arrangement. Nic, it sounds promising, I would be interested to see the photos... Cheers Mark