Discovery 1, and the problems with rust

It is a known fact that Land rover Discovery 1's suffer from rust, or tin worm as it is better known.  

When I was looking for a Discovery I decided the route to go was for a Japanese import, apparently in Japan they do not use salt on their roads, also the weather is a little better than here, or at least kinder to their cars.

Typically any car coming over form Japan will have less corrosion for its age than one form the UK, I say less because as soon as it is used here the rust starts.  So when I bought Larry, I did some poking about to check for rust, and after several check ups by the local car doctors (or garages as most people call them) Larry got a reasonably clean bill of health.  After the car was checked out I Larrys underside Waxoyl'd.

However, there is one specific area on all Discovery 1's where rust is a real issue is the boot floor, most Land Rovers of Larrys age are either very rusty there or have already had the boot floor replaced.  

So even though from the outside all things looked good, from the inside out I wanted to check Larry's boot (or Trunk if your an American and you feel your car is an Elephant).

Anyway this really is a simple thing to check, all you do is;

• Put the rear seats up
• Empty the boot
• Take up the metal carpet trim at the rear of the door by unscrewing 8 screws
• Lift out the carpet and acoustic protection

Now what you should see is this

You can see some nice rust coloured patches around the boot, on Larry this is not too bad, he only has a little ginger in him (oh er).

If you see this then you have a problem

Now if the rust is as bad as in the image above your going to have to do some major surgery on the car and replace the boot panel.  Fortunately Land Rover Discovery 1's are about as green a car as they come, by this I mean you can pretty much patch them up for ever.  I have put this link to show one hell of a re-build on a Land Rover Discovery; some people love these cars, as I do, and will do anything to keep them on the road.

Larry, is actually in good nick, so all I needed to do was to rub off the surface rust, like this

I then applied some Krust to kill of any remaining rust, and then primed it with Zink primer.  This took about 2 hours.  Leaving the boot looking like this.

Ok its not green but I'll sort this out in the summer when I'll take out the rest of the carpets for a spring clean.  The remaining rust is on the fuel tank cover, I'll deal with that later with a quick re-paint.

I did check under the carpets along the wings and under the seats and all is good there as well.

So top tip, keep on top of the rust.

Discovery 1 front bumper mod

Trimming a bumper on a Land Rover Discovery 1

This is a short explanation of why you should and how to modify a Discovery 1 front bumper (fender).

The front bumper on a Discovery 1 is very low.  When you’re off roading, or even just bumping up grass curbs, the bumper can catch.  This is quite annoying and can damage the bumper itself. There’s an easy ad I'd say essential mod to do to the font of the car, and its free.  The mod itself involves trimming the plastic on the bumper, this improves the approach angle.

Why improve an approach angle?

What is an approach angle?  In the graphic below (I know its horrible) I have tried to explain what the approach angle is and why the bumper gets in the way.

In the top part of the image below the bumper (the black box) sits in front of the wheel (black circle) and the angle (red lines) between the bumper and centre of the bottom of the wheel is quite low, the second part of the image shows the improved angle when the bumper is cut.

If you think in terms of the angle being a hill you can see the improved angle will allow you to tackle steeper hills without catching the bumper when approaching it, hence approach angle.

Approach angles diagram

This is a standard Discovery 1 bumper before trimming it, you can see the plastic is quite low.

Standard Discovery 1 bumper before trimming

To improve the approach angle you need to cut the bumper. I used an angle grinder I like playing with power tools :-), also if you want to do the job properly a 13mm spanner.

Now you just need to cut the bumper end’s along the lower line on the plastic, put some tape on it 1st just to keep a tidy line.  You can use a basic saw, the angle grinder went through it really easily.  You will remove probably 6-8" off the bumper.

Then you undo the six 13mm bolts at the back of the middle part of the bumper this removes the remaining plastic and it’s done.  This mod start to finish will not take more than an hour to do and when completed you end up with something like this (spot the steering guard you could not see it before).

Discovery 1 bumper trimmed showing the steering guard

You can see from the side view the approach angle is much better now.

Better approach angle

The lazy way to trim a bumper (Land Rover Discovery 1 300tdi).

Cut the plastic end with said saw, or angle grinder (wonder if you could use a chainsaw?).

Grab the rest of the plastic bumper and give it a really good pull and wiggle it, the plastic the 13mm nuts clamp down on will break, then all you need to do is cut the middle parts.  This is really quick, took me 22 minutes including getting the tool out, trying to undo one of the nuts giving up and then just yanking the thing off.

Simple and cheap mod for a Discovery 1

Other mods you can do to improve angles on a Discovery 1

Using this principle of the approach angle you can improve the angles by fitting larger tyres, suspension lift and also a body lift.  It's unlikely I will do these mods because I'm modifying my car for overland travel and not extreme off road fun.

However, there is an issue I may need to address which is the tow hook, known as a plough on a Discovery 1.  I do tow a tent therefore I need one, but it wrecks the departure angle on the car.  I'll think about this later.

300TDI as standard and my list of overland modifications

Larry the Land Rover

This is a picture of Larry (my 300TDI) pretty much as he arrived; however we did some cosmetic work bonnet and roof re-sprayed just to make him look a little tidier. Also I picked up a roof rack cheaply on ebay for £65.

Standard Discovery 1 300TDI

Discovery 1 overland kit list

So I have a list of things which I’m going to do to tidy Larry up a bit and make suitable for over landing, this includes;

   Steering guard done £50!

   Diff guard done £24 the pair!

   Rock sliders done £229!
   Snorkel done £284!

   Dual battery set-up done £24

   3rd fuse box for the additional kit

   CB Radio done £100!

   Axel breathers extended

   1 ” spring lift heavy duty with new gas shocks. done £244 shocks, £122 springs, £45 fitting

   Bumper cut done £free!  Note, new bumpers now needed :)

   Driving lights done with the bull bars for £51
   Bull bars

   3^rd internal leisure battery and solar panel

   Possibly better tyres, but we will see  got some 2nd hand Grabber AT2 for £250

   Internal Thermometer, always want to see how warm it is Done £3

I don’t want to go nuts with the car 3" lift, massive tyres and winches etc  because I will not be doing and extreme off roading, but I will need to work a little on the suspension just to ensure I can carry the fuel and water needed for any longer trip I do.

As for the interior, it's going to be pretty standard inside but prepared for travel, I will not change it a lot other than a dog guard so I can load up the boot. A roof rack will take a lot of stuff.

From a camping set-up we will be using a ground tent and a tarp from Larry to the ground for shelter.  Also all the water extra fuel etc. needed will be in containers, that way we can put Larry back to being the "Dog Mobile" as and when needed. 

I’m not going to remove the EGR or decat the exhaust yes, well not until it needs to be done.

I’ll be posting the mods soon.

I have now removed the EGR and put a de-cat exhaust on Larry, and the latter has made quite a difference to the performance and MPG.

Update January 2013

As at the beginning of 2013, this is what Larry now looks like, he has rock sliders, diff guards and a bumper trim.

Bumper trim, steering guard and rock sliders

Update by April 2013

After a rather hectic month Larry now has a snorkel, he has a de-cat exhaust and also the EGR has come off.  The exhaust was changed because I knocked the old one off when I was green laning :-( The EGR had to go because it was a water cooled one and got in the way of the air box when it was moved to fit the snorkel.  this is what Larry looks like now.

Snorkel fitted

Update June 2013

Ok I'm nearly there now I just have the suspension to sort and also the electrics but most of the add ons are now done.  This is what Larry looks like now.

Lights and bull bars fitted.

The 1st service

Well, anyway, I come from the school of thought that when you buy a second hand car never trust who you have bought it from.

For example I once bought a Cortina MK2 for £50 with a new battery from a dealer in Stanford no Hope in Essex, which looked good.  A steal at the price and under the nice blue paint it was completely rusty to the point where the suspension failed, as in popped out the top of the strut location under the bonnet.  

Mind you, I did get a year out of it, sold the battery when the car was scrapped and only had it stolen twice from an ASDA car park in Tilbury.  I got it back both times though, I believe it was too shitty for even a thief to keep, oh the 80’s there were such high standards then.  So yes, it was duff, and yes today I think I got a year’s cheap motoring out of it.  However at the time I was upset, I had been ripped off, boy! is it easy to steal a MK2 Cortina or what! not however as easy as a 2CV though, but no one steals them right?  Wrong.

However, when you’re parting with the best bit of four grand for a car had better be OK right.

So, onto Larry’s 1^st service, I found a local 4x4 specialist Gumtree 4x4, within a few miles of my house and promptly booked Larry in for a full service, including replacing the cam belt, always replace a cam belt on any car you buy.  I figured that if I was going to keep this car for probably 4-5 years I best get it thoroughly services by an expert, this way I had a point of reference form where to start home maintenance in future.  I gave the garage instructions to really give the car a good going over and call me if they find anything odd.

Ring-ring, ring-ring.  Yes you know where this is going.  I can’t recall the exact conversation, but I do remember thinking “oh crap this is where I find out Larry is a rust bucket”.  Anyway, the long and the short of it was this;

Larry needed under my instruction a complete 48k service, everything on that list needed to be done.

This is what I expected, full service, all fluids, auto gearbox filter, full check of everything (they missed the air con), cam belt, ancillary belt, brake fluid, coolant, basically the car had an oil change some time back but not a lot else as far as I was aware.  Having said that the previous MOT history had shown limited mileage since the car was in the UK and the previous owner had said he had left is standing some time.

This is what I did not expect, new front disks, pads all round, new brake lines, the old ones were rusty, lift pump pissing diesel everywhere in the engine bay (probably why there is little to no rust there, I did not find the comment "bet your MPG is bad" very funny) various bit of rubber underneath.  

I could not remember the exact list, but when he started on things like, they would like to replace small bushes because I quote “very little play in them”, I thought shit this needs to stop, so I kept to the broken things and full service with all original parts.

Anyway, needless to say I got the work done at about £1.5k including the 20% to the government.  There's a ying and yang story here, we got a TAX refund for the same cost within £20 of the initial service, so yes it hurt, but it felt like a Christmas club where we had saved up for it in advance.

Now there is one last thing I wanted to get done was to check the rust.  When I went there with my girlfriend Rachel, I asked the question “Is Larry rusty?”.  The guy looked at me oddly (probably took some time for Larry to register), then took me to another Discovery 1, in the workshop.  This one was right out of the Flintstones, big holes all over the front floor wells and rust absolutely everywhere.  He said “if this was your car you would have been ripped off, you’re ok, there is a little rust at the front of the rear wheel arches but nothing has gone through.  The Lady who owns this car bought it a year ago for more than you with an MOT which I doubt it’s validity”.   

I wanted to ask if her car was also called Larry, but I know Rachel's eyes would have rolled in her head and they guy probably would have thought I was not being serious.  There can't be two Larry the Land Rover's out there after all, also mine is Japanese so you pronounce it "Wawwy" anyway.

I did not believe at all the comment about Larry and rust, I was paranoid that Larry must be rusty everywhere, but to cut a long story short I took him to two other garages to get him check out and both concurred, he was pretty much rust free, not bad for a 14 year old car.

Anyway, whilst parting with some money with the guys at Gumtree Rachel cunningly negotiated us a free rear wheel cover, which is great, after all its free advertising for them, nice touch considering we parted with £1.5k.  Would I recommend them as a garage, I think so, providing you have a fair bit of cash and you really want everything done on your car.

At that point we drove home, I immediately noticed absolutely no difference what so ever in how the car ran or it's general performance.  However, I did know a point in time where the car had been serviced and what had been done, this was to drive the future service schedule.  So the plan moving forward was for me and my son to do all the routine maintenance and only take it to a garage when something requiring a bigger hammer than I have is needed.

Since then we have serviced Larry ourselves, it’s really easy to service Land Rover Discoveries and I guess defenders.  They have so much room around them changing things like the oil and minor replacement parts on the whole is really easy providing you have some tools, or a son to do it for you.

There will be more about servicing and overland parts here later, but for now that’s the 1^st service out of the way and Larry is now in frequent use.

A footnote my £8.5k for an overland car is not looking good, were about £5.5 into it now, can I get it prepped for £3k more?

Which Land Rover for overland travel?

Choosing a Land Rover

I started thinking of over land travel in a car in 2010 after years of doing solo long distance motorcycling, which is not a smart idea the last trip I did on my R1100RT was right up in some of the more remote high alp passes and I nearly came a cropper a couple of times so I thought a car might be better soon. But selecting the car was always going to be an issue, I have always been a Land Rover fan and always fancied a 110 forward control.

However when I was looking for a Land Rover it had to meet several criteria;

• Be fixable in the field, or at least easy to service
• Parts needed to be available and cheap (they are not on a Nissan) in the UK and abroad 
• Be reasonably priced, I have a budget of £8k for a fully prepared car
• Be a diesel, and capable of running on emergency fuel
• Be green, long story
• Be easy to park

Anyway, needless to say what I really wanted was a Defender 110.  I went out to look for one within my £4k base car budget.  All the 110's I looked at either needed a massive amount of work, were very high mileage (although if maintained this is not an issue Land Rover diesels are usually good for 250k miles) or ones which were not green.   I do not have a covered workshop, so I decided to stay away from cheaper defenders because I would not be able to complete strip the car down without parts being all over my driveway.

For what I wanted to spend I just could not get a good base 110, so I started looking at alternatives.  After a bit of research a Discovery 1 Diesel seemed to be the car to go for, although they have a terrible reputation for rotting.  So I decided to try and find the best Discovery 1 I could.

So I went from one of these

Defender 110 TD5

To one of these

Discovery 1

Also it's worth noting now that the general feeling between the Defender v's Discovery argument is quite simple.

1. A Defender is better off road than a Discovery, but with minimal modifications a Disco is as good as a Defender.  However for overland travel you do not need to change the suspension hight unless your intending to do some extreme off roading, possibly with the exception that is of heavy duty suspension for carrying all the extra kit
2. A Discovery is a much easier to live with, for example if I sit in a Defender my right shoulder is against the drivers door, Defenders are not spacious for the driver
3. A Defender 110 has more internal storage than a Discovery 1, but after a motorbike both hold loads of stuff
4. You can get an auto Discovery, I like auto's off road
5. Both cars are considered as great overland vehicles
6. Both cars have cheap second hand part available from ebay and breakers, I'm intending to get most of my parts second hand if possible

Which Engine 200tdi, 300tdi or TD5

Anyway, then there was which engine to go for.  When I read about the 200tdi I seemed to really easy to maintain, possibly one of the last real fully non electronically controlled diesels out there, whereas the 300tdi seemed to be more refined but with some electronics, especially on automatics and I wanted an auto.  But again both the 200 and 300 tdi's seemed to be great and again easy to maintain.  I had discounted a Discovery 2 TD5, they are within budget but just have too much to go wrong on them.

The 200tdi is also more economical than the 300tdi, with 34+ being reported for manual 200tdi's on the motorway which considering the size of these cars is not bad at all.  Also, both the 200 & 300 units will run on vegetable oil and if absolutely needed, I have heard of people using a mix of engine oil and petrol if really needed.

So I made some calls to local and not so local Land Rover specialist and what kept coming back was “get a 300tdi, you can fix anything on them” so I did.  But only after looking for a month for one in good mechanical nick.  I guess at the back of my mind was just how old the 200tdi was getting now.

It's worth doing a google search on Discovery 300TDI overland to get ideas what to do with them, there are many now roaming around the wilds quite happily carrying their occupants all over the place.

My Discovery 1 300TDI

So after a month I parted with about £3.5k for a Discovery 1 Japanese import (more on the Japanese bit later) with 43k miles on the clock, with crap paintwork and also a headlining hanging so low it was like wearing a cloth hat whilst driving.  The front disks looked special as in warped and also the engine bay looks like it had been sprayed with diesel, it had.

I was not worried about the cosmetic stuff and things like breaks which can be replaced easily, its rust that kills there cars.  As if to prove a point we look at a 300tdi in a dealers on the A23 near Handcross and I got into the boot and heard a crunch and nearly fell through the floor, this as I now understand is a common problem for Discovery's but a a price of £3.8k we walked away, there are a lot of Discovery 1's out there. 

 

Check for rust!

 

My idea of checking for rust before buying Larry was to lie under the car with a hammer (well ratchet) whacking everything in sight.  I whacked the sills, boot floor, wheel arches, below the driver’s feet, everywhere.  One thing I did not do, which a chap who bought my Nissan Patrol did to Patsy, was to wet my finger by sticking it in the radiator and taste the coolant.  I still to this date have no idea why he did this; I can only assume he had a taste for cheap Spanish wine?

To be honest after parting with my cash I then spent the next two weeks with loose bowel movements before I got it checked over for rust etc.  I FORGOT TO CHECK PREVIOUS MOT FOR ADVISORIES doh!  

I kept saying to my girlfriend “I might have made a mess of this one”.  She nodded and smiled after all her Smart Car just got sold for this, oh crap!

And the name "Larry", why not, Larry the Land Rover seems to have a ring about it, like a nice woolly sheep climbing up a hill.

Now, what’s next, oh yes the initial service and getting it right, that continues later!

Update, the girlfriend now has a new Smart car so I'm safe!