And Here We Go Again: A Discovery 2 Story

Delivery!

Ahh, nice 1 hello Baz

So here’s the truck:

This was taken when I bought it back in 2018. The reason this project thread is so titled is that it’s been on and off since the end of 2020 and as you’ll see from the above, I’m about to put it on a new chassis. I’ll catch you up on the last few years and then try and keep you all updated on the chassis swap and other works.

So December 2020 saw me take it for an MOT to a different test station than I had been using and I’m not saying any more than that.
The latest test basically showed up a rotten back end and some unsatisfactory chassis repairs:

Yep, that’s cardboard.

With the fuel tank out, the inside of the chassis rails showed the worst of the corrosion:


So I got one of these:


And some new toys:


Cutting the old back end out, cleaning up, prepping and welding in was fairly straightforward. I used the rear body mounts to locate the new back end, but I’d also measured the distance between the cross member forward of the fuel tank, back to the original rearmost cross member, so I could use that as a reference too. I also refitted up the rear bumper, prior to welding, so check alignment with the bodywork. And after some minor adjustment, welding commenced.
I also patched the chassis in a couple of places, inside mid frame, making good the previous “repairs” and the end result was she passed the MOT with an advisory for chassis corrosion and heavy underseal. I was certainly happy enough as I knew it was definitely a lot more solid that it had been. But also, that I’d now be needing to check and repair as needed going forward.

Morning. So fast forward back to present day.

Up, up and away!


At this point, most of the interior is stripped, so a load of weight is out. All mount bolts are out. I wish I’d known earlier the two inner ones at the front of the boot sparse had captive nuts on the chassis!

Just lifted bit by bit with bottle jack under the sills (now that there is a RHS sill!! - story for later) and blocked on the body mounts as I went

Breeze blocks: cheap, cheerful, very effective (nod to whoever on here I got the idea off - sorry forgotten who)

Just enough…


Temporary support while I pull the chassis out and move the blocks. Two 4x2 screwed together on edge.

And done.

All in all, I found it quite straightforward, just steady away. I think it took me longer to get all the bolts out that it did to lift the body.

Smiles at the memories....has to go a lot higher than you think.

Beneagles said:

Smiles at the memories....has to go a lot higher than you think.

Click to expand...

Yep.

And I had a look; it was your posts I was reading that gave me the idea. Thanks mate!

And a shout out to Tango91 who I also picked a load of tips up from.

Also, the craic about “low indicator fluid” had me in stitches

Massive respect for your determination, skills and patience.

Chassis painted!

So back to the old chassis. Slackened off all the radius arm bolts. I’m going to fully rebush the arms but you can bet that if I took the axles off first, I’d have a right job slackening the bolts when hold the arm to the axle. As luck would have it, plenty of WD40 and a breaker bar and they all came loose fairly easily. I just worked the nuts up and back a bit by hand (no ugga dugga’s) rather than forced the nuts over the somewhat corroded threads.

Getting the prop shaft and exhaust out of the way first obviously helped.





I’m just going to cut the anti roll bar links. They’ve seen better days and I’ll just replace rather than try to fight them off.

Front radius arms to chassis bolts were a bit more of a fight, especially on the LHS. Had to remove the exhaust, but once disconnected from the turbo, I found it was impossible to remove without the cross members coming off. So, I set about that, but quickly discovered that you cannot get a regular 13mm spanner in to hold the nut and of course, too rusty to hold with pliers!



Angle grinder sorted it.

Next out will be the fuel tank, then onto the front axle panhard rod and steering link.