ArticFox
New Member
- Posts
- 309
- Location
- South Yorkshire
I thought it was about time that I started to document the work I've been doing on my '98 300Tdi Safari. Nothing as dramatic as some threads on here, but I hope some of it is interesting anyway.
The background - I bought this truck from the family of a local club member who had sadly passed away last Christmastime. They wanted the truck to stay in the club, and as I'd been thinking about getting a 300Tdi for a while, I bought it. It was in reasonable condition, but it had a lot of faults - the front bumper had had a knock and bent the armature, splitting the plastic end caps and valance. The wing had been dented by this also, and one of the front fogs had been swapped for a RRC one as the mounting had been broken. There were a few urgent jobs required too - the sunroofs were leaking, and it'd been stood for the best part of a year, so the interior stank and the soundproofing foam was just holding gallons of water
When I pulled them out, they literally poured water onto the drive like emptying a bucket... very bad news! The steering box was leaking badly - the worst I've ever seen, so the PAS pump had been run dry, knackering that as well
Anyway, fortunately, the boot floor wasn't half as bad as I'd expected - I reckon another few months and it would have started to rot, but...
... the seams had started to rust a bit, but it was all savable.
The previous owner liked to tinker, and not all the mods were to my liking - there were various gauges all over the place, some wired up, some not. Various holes appeared when trim was lifted... all good fun! I decided to bin the console in the end
There was loads of non standard wiring, again some connected, some not. It was obviously going to be a fire hazard as there were many cable ends that were bare but live So I ripped all that out - I filled a crisp box with cable that I'd removed...
There was a lot of good news though, which is why I'd bought it. It had only covered 106k miles, the cambelt had been changed at 100k and it runs sweet as anything. Hooked up a fresh battery and she fired up at the first attempt. It had a replacement gearbox and clutch fitted at 90k, and the rear arches had already been replaced
Not very well unfortunately! There is rust breaking through already, and looking at the underside, I'd say the panels were just welded over the top of the rusty ones... great job eh?! So they'll have to come off and be redone at some point.
As expected, there is a lot of surface rust starting - its a D1 afterall!!! This is typical of the inner wings -
Again, nothing a bit of attention with a wire brush and some kurust can't sort out. The floorwells gave me a bit of a shock though At first I found this -
... which wasn't too bad. But, after poking about a bit...
That definitely needs patching! Its the same on the other side unfortunately. The rear footwells were very nice though -
Just a few spots to pay attention to, all already sorted out.
The fuel sender cover was beyond saving (see second pic) but luckily I found one at the Peterbog show for £1.50 Gave that a quick coat of hammerite and replaced it - lovely! The boot floor seams that I mentioned earlier were also given the wire wheel and kurust treatment. Hopefully that'll keep the rust under control for another year or two...
Now me being me, I wanted to change the seats. I've oly sat in a D1 a few times but I was never happy with the seats - they weren't comfy and didn't give much support. So I investigated replacement seats - the obvious ones being from a Range Rover Classic which shares so many components with the D1. The general consensus wasthat you needed to make up an adaptor plate for the front seats, whle the rears just bolt in. With that in mind I bought some soft dash RRC seats and set off on a 250 mile return trip to get them!
I'm delighted to say that you DON'T need an adaptor if you're fitting soft-dash seats into a late D1 The seat rails are the same distance apart, and amazingly, there are already mounting holes in the rails allowing them to be bolted straight into the late D1
The left hand rail is the D1 rail, while the right hand one is the softdash RRC rail. You can't swap the slides over unfortunately, but the front holes are the same, and the rear of the rail has two holes... now initially I was going to try and move that angled bracket over to the RRC seats, but those are seriously tough rivets and its difficult getting at them without damaging the bracket. So I looked at the mount in the D1 floorpan, and it has two holes which match the two holes in the RRC seat rails
So I used some of the high tensile bolts that were used on the original D1 seat along with some thick washers, and viola, they dropped right in!
I'll add a pic later, as I've just realised I haven't got any pics of them in situ. But, I'm really happy with them. They're SUPER comfortable, more supportive and look smart. The only downside is that if you're tall, you may not fit into the D1 after fitting these The seat bases are perhaps 2 inches taller than D1. No problem for me, being a short arse, but if you're a 6 footer...
More to follow later. Hope you've enjoyed it so far.
The background - I bought this truck from the family of a local club member who had sadly passed away last Christmastime. They wanted the truck to stay in the club, and as I'd been thinking about getting a 300Tdi for a while, I bought it. It was in reasonable condition, but it had a lot of faults - the front bumper had had a knock and bent the armature, splitting the plastic end caps and valance. The wing had been dented by this also, and one of the front fogs had been swapped for a RRC one as the mounting had been broken. There were a few urgent jobs required too - the sunroofs were leaking, and it'd been stood for the best part of a year, so the interior stank and the soundproofing foam was just holding gallons of water
When I pulled them out, they literally poured water onto the drive like emptying a bucket... very bad news! The steering box was leaking badly - the worst I've ever seen, so the PAS pump had been run dry, knackering that as well Anyway, fortunately, the boot floor wasn't half as bad as I'd expected - I reckon another few months and it would have started to rot, but...
... the seams had started to rust a bit, but it was all savable.
The previous owner liked to tinker, and not all the mods were to my liking - there were various gauges all over the place, some wired up, some not. Various holes appeared when trim was lifted... all good fun! I decided to bin the console in the end
There was loads of non standard wiring, again some connected, some not. It was obviously going to be a fire hazard as there were many cable ends that were bare but live
So I ripped all that out - I filled a crisp box with cable that I'd removed...There was a lot of good news though, which is why I'd bought it. It had only covered 106k miles, the cambelt had been changed at 100k and it runs sweet as anything. Hooked up a fresh battery and she fired up at the first attempt. It had a replacement gearbox and clutch fitted at 90k, and the rear arches had already been replaced
Not very well unfortunately! There is rust breaking through already, and looking at the underside, I'd say the panels were just welded over the top of the rusty ones... great job eh?! So they'll have to come off and be redone at some point.
As expected, there is a lot of surface rust starting - its a D1 afterall!!! This is typical of the inner wings -
Again, nothing a bit of attention with a wire brush and some kurust can't sort out. The floorwells gave me a bit of a shock though
At first I found this -
... which wasn't too bad. But, after poking about a bit...
That definitely needs patching! Its the same on the other side unfortunately. The rear footwells were very nice though -
Just a few spots to pay attention to, all already sorted out.
The fuel sender cover was beyond saving (see second pic) but luckily I found one at the Peterbog show for £1.50
Gave that a quick coat of hammerite and replaced it - lovely! The boot floor seams that I mentioned earlier were also given the wire wheel and kurust treatment. Hopefully that'll keep the rust under control for another year or two...
Now me being me, I wanted to change the seats. I've oly sat in a D1 a few times but I was never happy with the seats - they weren't comfy and didn't give much support. So I investigated replacement seats - the obvious ones being from a Range Rover Classic which shares so many components with the D1. The general consensus wasthat you needed to make up an adaptor plate for the front seats, whle the rears just bolt in. With that in mind I bought some soft dash RRC seats and set off on a 250 mile return trip to get them!
I'm delighted to say that you DON'T need an adaptor if you're fitting soft-dash seats into a late D1
The seat rails are the same distance apart, and amazingly, there are already mounting holes in the rails allowing them to be bolted straight into the late D1
The left hand rail is the D1 rail, while the right hand one is the softdash RRC rail. You can't swap the slides over unfortunately, but the front holes are the same, and the rear of the rail has two holes... now initially I was going to try and move that angled bracket over to the RRC seats, but those are seriously tough rivets and its difficult getting at them without damaging the bracket. So I looked at the mount in the D1 floorpan, and it has two holes which match the two holes in the RRC seat rails
So I used some of the high tensile bolts that were used on the original D1 seat along with some thick washers, and viola, they dropped right in!
I'll add a pic later, as I've just realised I haven't got any pics of them in situ. But, I'm really happy with them. They're SUPER comfortable, more supportive and look smart. The only downside is that if you're tall, you may not fit into the D1 after fitting these
The seat bases are perhaps 2 inches taller than D1. No problem for me, being a short arse, but if you're a 6 footer...More to follow later. Hope you've enjoyed it so far.
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