Mark

I bought some a while ago to keep in the car for measureing stuff when out and about, and I can't fault them.

Not to mention your Caps Lock....

I have been ignoring the disco for the last couple of days in favour of visiting various interesting scrapyards, and playing with a mate's motorbike. I thought I had best get on with some for a while today though, so here is the latest update: Got the footwell all patched up: and modified the replacement panel, and did a trial fit: All seems to work OK, although I am starting to regret leaving the top piece in place, as it is a real pain to get the inner wing piece in and out. Dosn't look like I did much today, but it seemed to take absolutely ages to get this far! Just have to wait till next weekend before I can make any more progress though. Cheers Mark

Al, got mine today too. Mucho appreciated. Ta Mark

alternatly, why not use plastic washers under the heads of the bolts? nylon or ptfe washers are pretty readily available from the right places. That should isolate the bolt from the ally panel... Mark

Not much progress at all today... However, Trev here are some pictures just for you - don't worry, I won't attack your motor. This seems to be what happenes when I do jobs which have a tendancy to escalate - why do you think it took me 4 years to rebuild my IIa... New Inner wing Section, genuine land rover, and really quite spendy... and the part number for anyone interested (although I am informed thay are now obsolete...) I also got a new top section, as this is what turns it from a rangie inner wing, to a disco one. In the end, my existing top section was fine, and meant I kept some kind of alignment while fixing stuff. and the part no: I aquired this stuff through eBay, and I had to buy both inner wings and both top pieces, as the seller wouldn't split them. I will probably keep them, in case, but the inner wing on the other side is nowhere near as bad. I went for the gen parts as I figured they were more likley to be exactly right. Given the amount of metal I am having to replace, I am glad I went down that route. Cheers Mark

Had quitre a frustrating day today - kinda one step forwards, and two steps back... To set the scene, this is where I am working (in between the rain showers) yes, it is my front drive... The forward step came fairly early on in the day - I got the lightbox pretty much reparied using the sections I made yesterday, and modified today: [NB: I know my welding isn't that great...] 2 patches in place: finished!: With that success behind me I decided to taclke the edge of the footwell that I was struggleing with yesterday. First thing to do was to remove all the rust and flaky carp, which leaves this: Next was to start attempting to make a patch for it. I found some folded sheet left over from fixing the rear floor which seemed ideal. Unfortunatly this meant butt welding the patch into the outer edge of the footwell. I am not that good a welder, but buoyed with the eariler success I thought I would give it ago: What I ended up with was no the prettiest weld, in faxct it is downright ugly, but it should hold for this job. In the process of doing this I found there was less and less metal to weld to in the front faces of the footwell. I really shouldn't have investigated these, but I did. This lead to a step back, as I ended up with even less footwell! I also discoverd under what appeared to be seam selaent, but turned out to be car body filler, another big rust hole: All this was reasonably quickly removed with the help of mr grinder: however it leaves me with a big hole at the top: and a big hole at the bottom: bugger! so now I have to make some more oddly shaped patches to fill these gaping voids... In preparation for doing this, I started to add some more metalwork further up. This involved welding on a new peice of metal to the top(ish) face of the footwell. So far I ah managed to set alight the odd bit of seam sealent, but after this bit of welding there were rather more flames than I was happy with. Turned out I had set alight some sound proofing attached to the inside of the bulkhead. This didn't want to go out as easily as other minor flames, so having attempted to smother it i ran to the IIa and grabbed the halon extinguisher, which did a brilliant job. However, not before the flames had turned my aux wiring loom (light bar, winch controls 12V feed for CB, etc) into this: you can see the charred mass as the loom comes through the bulkhead. pain in the ar*e. Not a major job, and not any vehicle related wiring, but still I am really miffed about it - not least cos I have had to use some of my halon extinguisher which I cannot get refilled My own stupid fault for being careless, but hey... Hopefully a more productive day tomorrow. So much for my estimate of a couple of days with an extra day for painting... later Mark [damned steel bodied cars...]

The 'vector' is an armoured pinzgauer is it not?

Chris, I know adrian is having the same mud ingress problem on his rangie running machos on white 8 spokes. I am running 255/75 BFG M/T's on disco steels and don't seem to have a problem - I know you are goung to say that I don't actually drive it offroad, but I do, honest Not sure it is much help, but It would lead me to look at the rim rather than the tyre perhaps. I have a set of disco steels here if you want to try them out? Cheers Mark

Well, it dosen't feel like I made that much progress today, mostly cutting and cleaning with the odd bit of fabricating and rain dodging. Here are some pictures of where I got to... Removing the inner wing metalwork: it gets worse before it gets better: Finally looks like some progress has been made (albeit in removal of metal!): Attention turned to the newly spotted rusty area around the body support: Suppose I had better remove some more metal Went and made up some new sections for the body mount, and the bottom and side of the lightbox. By the end of the day I was starting to fit these up ready for welding: My attention then seemed to turn to the side of the footwell, which so far had been out of scope for this particular project: However on deiciding that I really could do with some metal to weld to, I thought I would start cleaning this up... As you can see, I am now left with another piece of precision swiss cheese engineering, that I am not entirely sure the bast way to patch is. Any suggestions would be most welcome... Sorry for the pixplosion... Mark

That looks to have come out alright. As DD has said, it could probably do with some recovery points, but for a non-winch bumper it certainly looks the part - and buch better than a bit of tube! Cheers Mark

This week I am mostly attempting to replace some kind of structural integrity to the offside inner wing on the disco. My discovery seems to have had the 'rust pack' specce'd as when I got the car (about october 2005) there were several corrosion related jobs that needed attending - the Sills and the Rear floor were done before it's first trip out (wales feb 06) and I feel I now should do the inner wing. Only managed to spend a couple of hours on it today, but here are a few photos to show the extent of the problems: Front wing came off pretty easily - the plastic inner just fell out : With the battery and gubbins in place, it is not looking great, but there really shouldn't be daylight through there: The true horror can be seen from underneath: and and with the battery removed, you can see that a lot of it was being held together by gaffer tape!: I have aquired a genuine parts repair panel which means I can basically cut everything from the footwell all the way to the back of the light box out in its entirety. I will need to put some patches on the light box, as it has no real bottom to it, but that is to be expected. I have started to release the spotwelds that hold the wing section to the other bits of car. Will update with progress tomorrow.... TBC Mark

Sorry to see that rob! It must be heart breaking. Make sure your pursue the insurance though! MArk

Nige, Not sure how relavent, but feel free to use anything from my 8074 thread. Mark

Dave, try a boot fair, they seem to turn up all the time for very little £££ Mark

I think you will find the performance utterly underwhelming but it is fairly easy to tweak the 200's fuel pump to get slighlty more acceleration. They are not the commones combination in the world, but people round here seem to like them. Cheers Mark

I have to confess that I have the bits to build a steam engine (although I havn't actually started yet) and the project before my 2a was a Perkins P3 engined Fergusson TE20 with a front loader.... However, I wouldn't consider myself a tractor or steam enthusiast, more of an engineering enthusiast.... Mark

I used a bit of wood and a tape measure, but string would have worked too.... I don't know what the gunson trackrite is, but if it is of the type where you drive over it for a set length, it is described in the haynes book of lies. I was quite surpised to find that a disco needs to toe out, rather than toe in. Cheers Mark

Well Nick (roguevogue) had a X-eng X carved into his hair....

Tools and Fab? all are welcome!! But this is probably a better place to ask anyway... I am afraid I can't help much on the questions, but I will check with a mate, who might know more. I am sure however, that someone with more constructive input will be along soon! Cheers Mark

Your window motor itself maybe on the way out. Mine died with the window halfway up, and it wouldn't budge either way after that. Another motor is easy enough to get hold of, and not a difficult job to change. Cheers Mark

But Jez, "Bring out the Moglite" just dosn't have the same ring to it though.....

careful lads...

You would be better off drying it out properly, and applying a good coat of waxoil. Mark

We have also used http://www.spareboxes.com/ who are very helpful. Mark