Discovering the Discovery... Basic Rebuild...

Good work as usual, I think some guy was selling some suitable box in the for sale section.

DiscoPol said:

700 I used 140x60 box and left the ends open, i sprayed as much stuff as i could in there and now simply wash it out on a regular basis after each off road day, mine doesnt do so much road work and gets washed regularly after playing so thought that way would be easier and tbh the sills are going to outlast the rest of the motor even if i didnt look after them.

by the way that box sounds pricey, get yourself down to your local steel stockist they have to be cheaper than that, mine was equivalent to 30 quid for 3.5 meters each side only needs to be 1400-1450 long depending how its going to sit

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Cool I will def have a look local see what they can do, the 70 - 80 quid was for 3 m so yours was half the price. When you used 140 does it drop it down considerably from the inner sills? Also did you weld through from behind on the inner sill? I was just going to weld from the top and leave a lip along the side welding along that round both pillars? :scratching_chin:

discomark10 said:

Good work as usual, I think some guy was selling some suitable box in the for sale section.

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ooo I will have a look cheers mate :5bcheers2:

700Quid said:

Cool I will def have a look local see what they can do, the 70 - 80 quid was for 3 m so yours was half the price. When you used 140 does it drop it down considerably from the inner sills? Also did you weld through from behind on the inner sill? I was just going to weld from the top and leave a lip along the side welding along that round both pillars? :scratching_chin:

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here ya go matey have a look at what i did the pics as usual tell a 1000 words and all that jazz linky to my slider thread

Amazing work mate big job - I have two old discos and thinking about making a pickup to get rid of all the rust spots but thats a great effort well done.

700Quid said:

As James said all steel, so once cleaned up welded fine. I also welded two new plates where the springs attach and patched up the shock mount. My welding isn't great thats why i didn't want to weld a whole new pan on. I did wonder about tapping bolt holes and putting a new one on with a liquid gasket. effectively it would be the same as the other side where the diff is attached and would make it easy to replace in the future? After all there is no pressure involved. I have seen videos of some guys in america using polycarbonate... looks pretty cool as you see the diff working....

As for the sills they are not awful but I am going to shove some 120 x 60 box up in there. I will weld up the front end and then be making some bolt on tabs for the rear end. Once they are welded in position I will then fill the inside with waxoyl and paint the outside in cold galv. I saw a guy recently who just put rubber flaps on the front and end of his so that he could spray them through with a jet wash. The box section is about 70 - 80 quid off ebay but I might see if I can source some locally. The box should last pretty well....

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I used 100 x 60 x 3.5 mm on my RRC, got 7.5m of a steel stockholder, got enough left to build sliders and a new rear bumper, got 7.5m of 40mm tube and 6.3m of 120x6mm flat delivered with vat for less than £120.

welded the 6mm in the ends, fookin strong now can jack the whole rangy up on them, real easy to fit, but if you are putting body mounts on it's easier to weld them on the box before welding it into the car, look on my build thread there's pics.

stutab said:

fookin strong now can jack the whole rangy up on them

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just remember the body is held on by a few bolts!

discomark10 said:

just remember the body is held on by a few bolts!

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Ye, I know that but if needs must it's better than the originals

DiscoPol said:

here ya go matey have a look at what i did the pics as usual tell a 1000 words and all that jazz linky to my slider thread

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Mate they are monster!! Proper jazzed up with all jazzy bits on.... very nice. My body mounts are ok so im not intending cutting out the inner sill. Just cold galving the box and sliding it to the top between the inner sill and the pillars. Thanks for the link though always inspiring.

since1875 said:

Amazing work mate big job - I have two old discos and thinking about making a pickup to get rid of all the rust spots but thats a great effort well done.

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Cheers mate... Enjoying every bit just wish I had more time as I want to green lane again .... Getting there though pickup sounds cool...

stutab said:

I used 100 x 60 x 3.5 mm on my RRC, got 7.5m of a steel stockholder, got enough left to build sliders and a new rear bumper, got 7.5m of 40mm tube and 6.3m of 120x6mm flat delivered with vat for less than £120.

welded the 6mm in the ends, fookin strong now can jack the whole rangy up on them, real easy to fit, but if you are putting body mounts on it's easier to weld them on the box before welding it into the car, look on my build thread there's pics.

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Will do cheers mate..... (minutes later) just tried at work but they block pictures so will have to look at home...

Just read thread from start to finish, brilliant read with lots of pics too, keep it going your doing a great job,

mostin58 said:

Just read thread from start to finish, brilliant read with lots of pics too, keep it going your doing a great job,

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Thanks mate.... Plenty more to come its not been quite the basic resto that I planned to do. I'm putting more new parts on than I wanted to originally, however I has usually been because of time restraints or the fact the parts are to far gone to bother with. Check back over the next couple of weeks and hopefully you'll see a big change ...... hopefully

700Quid said:

Mate they are monster!! Proper jazzed up with all jazzy bits on.... very nice. My body mounts are ok so im not intending cutting out the inner sill. Just cold galving the box and sliding it to the top between the inner sill and the pillars. Thanks for the link though always inspiring.

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Cheers man, i like em. They are a bit, how shall we say, industrial but they do the job nicely, had the disco balancing on them at some silly angles and they havent got a bend or dent in them anywhere- no bloody paint on em most of the time, but no deformation at all.

DiscoPol said:

Cheers man, i like em. They are a bit, how shall we say, industrial but they do the job nicely, had the disco balancing on them at some silly angles and they havent got a bend or dent in them anywhere- no bloody paint on em most of the time, but no deformation at all.

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those sliders are the dogs DP.

700Quid said:

Thanks mate.... Plenty more to come its not been quite the basic resto that I planned to do. I'm putting more new parts on than I wanted to originally, however I has usually been because of time restraints or the fact the parts are to far gone to bother with. Check back over the next couple of weeks and hopefully you'll see a big change ...... hopefully

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great refurb thread bud,well done and keep the pics coming.

Well done and thanks I got an old disco V8 from ebay and its sat for over a year done bits and bobs. Was going to turn it into a pickup and cut away all the rot got alot of negative feedback on the idea but after seeing your effort mine is in not too bad a state so going to do a rebuild over the winter. So thanks for the motivation! Plus got another old disco that is beyond repair so might make a pickup for the farm out of that.
What did you use for your brake lines it doesn't look like copper is it stainless?

gemsdad said:

great refurb thread bud,well done and keep the pics coming.

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Thanks mate... Will do and I've got some holiday coming up so intend to get the rear half finished then...

since1875 said:

Well done and thanks I got an old disco V8 from ebay and its sat for over a year done bits and bobs. Was going to turn it into a pickup and cut away all the rot got alot of negative feedback on the idea but after seeing your effort mine is in not too bad a state so going to do a rebuild over the winter. So thanks for the motivation! Plus got another old disco that is beyond repair so might make a pickup for the farm out of that.
What did you use for your brake lines it doesn't look like copper is it stainless?

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Cheers man..... :5bcheers2:

I used to have a V8 and I kind of wish this was but for the money I can't complain... I have to be honest, I've put some polls up here and asked for advice a lot, but in the end its your money and your car so you do whatever you fancy mate.

Um... in regards to brake lines the old one which was on there was steel so dead I will be replacing with copper.... Um I'm not sure which pic you are referring to but at the min there are no brake lines on the back at all. Any things which could look like that are fuel lines. Mind you stainless would be pretty awesome but copper will do just fine brought a kit off ebay was dead cheap so doesn't produce a great finish but hopefully good enought o seal. Cheers for your comments look out for more pics coming soon....

So here we are another weekend looking at rust and bits falling off... Well actually not as I'm now close to putting everything back on. The axle has just been sprayed today in black but I did it with the cold galv and red oxide first...



Notice the novel use of rear seats!!



Hopefully while on holiday I will be able to get most of the rear end back together.


The main reason for my genuine excitement tonight is that over the last two weeks I've picked up the best two bargains of the rebuild so far. The first was a set of original steel wheels... YEEEAAAHHHHH!!!!



This now means I have a full set of 5 as my spare was original....Got them off ebay for ..... drum roll please... :drum: yes you guessed it £10 and 50 pence.... Well chuffed with that.
If any of you read the Poll thread I started about steel or alloy you will know I really wanted the modular black ones but having looked around and having a hard think I remembered that I'm not here to spend the earth and put every fancy trinket on this thing so I decided to head for ebay. Well it paid off... they are thick tough steel and I will repaint them black. Very pleased.

So with the deal pounds ringing in my head I decided to look around locally for some box section for the sills. There is a lot of advice on here about this but I decided to just wing it and see what I could find. On ebay 3m of 120 x 60 3 mm box costs 80 quid, some have said locally they have picked it up for 50 quid. Well instead of going with a local dealer I rang the scrappy.... He said pop over and have a look... so I did... This is what we came up with....



Now some people will say it looks like second hand s%$t however the rust is very light its just surface. It is 120 x 60 4mm box section and I picked up my 3m for .... you guessed it £10. Blokes at the yard were diamond helping me to search, they have got so much stuff there it was awesome, I could have spent most of the day just digging through the piles of sheet, angle and box and found enough to rebuild chassis and body 10 times over. So I will be cleaning these up and cold galving them don't think they will rust through in a hurry...

I have to hold my hands up and say when it comes to phoning local companies and local firms to see what you can get I really don't like doing it. I will spend the extra just not to feel like I'm hassling people. However having seen how much you can save for the cost of a few beers and a couple of tenners its so worth it. If your thinking of doing a rebuild do be afraid to ask it could save you a packet.

So thats it for this weekend as I said earlier, I'm on holiday soon, all of which is dedicated to getting the rear end water tight and suspension back together might even get round to the sills so looking forward to that.... More pics to as I know us landy lot find pictures easier...