Flat Bed Disco 2 Project

I've started adding stuff that I want now, starting with a roof rack. This rack was actually on the Disco when I bought it but it was put on my daily as that didn't have one. The PO hacked it about a bit to put a roof tent on it so the tubular side rail was short on one side where it had been cut off. I cut the other side to match before I put it on my daily. Now it's going on the flat bed it's too short and I want it all on one level so a lot more butchery was done.

I started by cutting it into two sections and shortening the feet on the rear section so I could bolt it directly to the frame. It was exactly the right width fortunately. Then I placed the front section into position and clamped it to the rear section with some pieces of 40x40 box to see how much I needed to add to the front feet. I then extended the front feet using a couple of the pieces cut from the other feet. This meant that the hole for the gutter clamp was in the right place. The holes on both sides needed drilling and tapping so the front clamps are bolted on with M10s instead of M8s.

Once the two sections were level and where I wanted them I cut some side pieces from 5mm chequer plate and bolted the two sections together with them. It's now a functional roof rack but it needs a little more work to strengthen and fill the gap between the sections. Then it will all come off again for some minor repairs, cleaning, prepping and painting. Then I'm in two minds as to whether to use buffalo board or chequer plate to make it a flat platform. And while it's off I'll also make a bracket for the number plate to fix to on the front of the rack because I'll be fitting a winch in the near future.

Oh, and it only just fits under the garage door now. Makes the overall height about 2.2m.

Baptism of fire today. First time off road. Performed really well.

That's not me on the back. One of the club members fancied a ride.

Good on you, looking very good out in action

Some small updates:

The fuel gauge started working randomly but it's very erratic and never reads more than half full. It still sometimes doesn't work at all.

Had a wild camping weekend with the Shetland Land Rover Club last weekend and slept on the back of the Disco. Just threw a big tarp over the whole car and put an inflatable mattress on the back with a duvet and a couple of pillows. Me and the missus slept really well, it was pretty cosy. Had to hitch up a trailer though as we had a lot of gear to take with us.

Had the Disco weighed today while at the council tip. Taking away the weight of me, fuel and a bag of tools, it came in at 2.2 tonnes. I was just curious to know how much difference there was from standard. Not much it seems.

Fitted a Fourby multi-function clock with USB ports.

Heavier than standard? Thats very interesting!
I suppose the aluminium body vs steel tray isnt the only difference. Bumpers, big tyres, roof rack etc

DefenderPilot said:

Baptism of fire today. First time off road. Performed really well.

That's not me on the back. One of the club members fancied a ride.

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It looks superb luv it.

Rock sliders now fitted.

These were were fitted to my other disco and I've modified them to fit Project Disco. I needed to cut approx 4" off each end to make them the right length then make new end plates and weld them on. Once that was done I took them to a local blasting company and got them blasted and painted. I'm pleased with how they've turned out and I think it makes the Disco look more complete now.

A few pictures of what I get up to with Project Disco for fun. Shetland Land Rover Club fun day yesterday.

Just a quick update: finally got my V5 back with all the changes logged!!

It's only taken three and a half months. Seems like much longer.

I may start a thread in the Disco section detailing my legal journey if anyone's interested.

Some much needed maintenance on the steering has been done. The steering box started leaking from the pitman arm seal shortly after I got PD on the road and the steering has been getting incrementally more woolly since. It was getting too bad to put off any longer so I took the steering box out of my old Disco, which is in really good nick and fitted that to PD. While I was working on the steering I also found that the track rod end on the steering bar was loose so I rectified that too. The result is that the steering is pin sharp now.

While working under the front I also modified my front tow bar so that I could fit the steering guard back on. It's been off for ages as the tow bar fouled the front edge of the guard. More fettling will be required when I finally get around to fitting the winch but for now it'll do. Once the winch is fitted and the tow bar mounting finalised it will be prepared and painted.

I'm also preparing for a mini road trip down to the mainland as my wife's car is very poorly and, being a Jeep with some serious electronic/power issues, no-one in Shetland will touch it. I've done as much as I can to try and diagnose the problem but modern vehicle electronics are way out of my comfort zone. Therefore I'm going to have to get it to Aberdeen and leave it with someone who can hopefully fix it. The rear tow bar is a bit high for a car trailer so I've taken off the whole tow bar assembly and am planning on putting the tow bar off my old Disco on there with part of the other tow bar modified to be a drop plate. This is still a work in progress, mainly just waiting for paint to dry, as I've cleaned and primed all the steel. I have also relocated the towing socket to the back bumper because the bracket it was mounted on kept getting bent when off roading. I drilled and tapped the bumper to fix it directly. If it gets damaged up there I'll be in real trouble.

As we're planning on bringing a load of stuff back with us from Aberdeen I've also rigged up a temporary roof rack as the one I intend to fit is also still a work in progress. Looks a bit gash but will do the job.

The tow bar is done now. Turned out to be a bit more of a mission than expected. When I offered up the old Disco tow bar it fouled on the underside of the bumper. So I had to take it off and cut about an inch off each side of the cut-out in the bumper to clear it. While I had the bumper off I also had a go at repairing some off road damage it suffered last time out. I managed to straighten it a little but I really need to get some proper leverage on it with the bumper well secured. It'll do for now though. It'll probably need refurbishing in a couple or three years anyway so I'll do it then. Tow ball is about 5 or 6 inches lower now.

My wife's car has some serious issues that I'm not able to sort out myself and no-one in Shetland will touch it so Project Disco was pressed into service for it's first proper towing job. At the weekend we took the car on the ferry down to Aberdeen to leave at a dealer until it's sorted. PD wasn't built to be a shopping trolley but we had a day to kill while waiting for the ferry back so we called into B&Q and bought a couple of large heavy duty plastic containers so that we could bring a load of shopping back with us. It's always worth doing a shop when we head back to the mainland to get stuff we can't get here and save a bit on shipping costs. These containers will come in very handy for other stuff too I'm sure. PD attracted a LOT of attention driving around Aberdeen and a few admiring comments from ferry staff. Always nice to have your work appreciated.

Shetland has had quite a bit of snow in the last couple of days so I've been out playing in it.

Fun
Cant argue with that.

J

This wasn't quite as much fun. Needed a tractor to get me out. I was giving my local doctor a lift home. Shetland NHS have initiated a "resilience plan" and have enlisted the help of the Land Rover Club members to transport medical staff to and from work where required in remote areas.

Opppps.

Had you at least managed to drop Doc home to save the embarrassment?

J

marjon said:

Had you at least managed to drop Doc home to save the embarrassment?

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That's his house a few yards down the road. Almost made it...

Was the reason for the face mask to disguise the laughter/face grin of your mistake?

could be worse, you could be repairing the fence as well..

nice though to help out on the island and be part of the community which most people never seem to understand

I haven't been to the doc for a few years. They still seem to have a mask policy in place at my local health centre. He kept it on all the way from there to his house. I guess some people like wearing them.

So while I'm waiting for a core plug to arrive in the post I thought I'd do a small job I've been meaning to do since Project Disco went back on the road. All the aircon stuff under the bonnet was binned long ago by a previous owner, leaving only the compressor to act as an idler pulley. Today I removed that and fitted a proper idler pulley that I happened to have in my spares stash, as well as the correct belt. The pulley was quite rusty but the bearing was fine so I gave it a clean up and a splash of Kurust to make it look better. This will have the added benefit of improved access to the exhaust manifold, which is next on my hit list. It's warped and three studs have snapped off in the head. Not a job I'm looking forward to, if I'm honest.