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.

An update already! Just won this on ebay



So thats the bumper sorted out - I've pulled the armature straight(er) by using a strop hooked up to the back of the D2

I also got these the other day as the existing alloys were scabby. They're RRC LSE wheels



I've always loved this design and they came up a tthe right price... Just need to fit the Pirelli Scorpions that I've saved onto them and that'll be another job done.

Here are the RRC seats as promised -







Very plush I didn't want leather this time (my D2 has leather) as its cold in the winter and hot in the summer, whereas the velour upholstery is simply warm all year round. I'll have to fit seat covers when greenlaning obviously, but I'm OK with that.

Oh yes, you might have noticed that the seats are grey but the interior is beige? Not ideal but I couldn't find a decent set of beige RRC seats, so I'll be swapping out the entire interior, dash included. Its not something I particularly wanted to do, but I've done it before on the D2 - from grey trim and grey cloth...





to black with cream leather



Buts it a real ball ache to do so I'm not looking forward to it

Nice work.

Great job. I want rrc seats in mine. But have to be beige, I just love the beige!!!

Good work - keep us posted

Very Nice

DiscoNickY said:

Great job. I want rrc seats in mine. But have to be beige, I just love the beige!!!

Click to expand...

Must admit I do too. Never had a beige interior before - it always looks so warm and inviting! The only beige RRC seats I could find though were early ones - and the seller wanted £300 for the set, no negotiation So I got the greys for £100 and they're mint (off a 40k miles vehicle so barely used).

Received the bumper valance last night - wow, what a great buy A bargain at £25 posted! The alloys are going off to be refurbed at the weekend. I thought I'd get away without doing that, but after washing them I've found that the brake dust has etched itself deeply into the surface. Really nasty. This set is going to be the tidy on-road set, hence the Pirelli Scorpions which are good road bias tyres but are still pretty reasonable in moderate offroad conditions. I'll be getting some offroad tyres for playing in But that'll have to wait until its on the road and reliable.

Its been a while, but I've finally got the alloys sorted and boy am I happy with them !

Before:



And after:



Stunning! I'll get the tyres fitted next weekend, been a bit busy sorting out a problem with the D2 this weekend

I do like those RRC seats, nice work

Well its been a while since I posted any updates - so long that the pics have gone lol. I'll try and dig them out and re-post them later

Anyway, the D2 went over a year ago, you might see it at Parkwood (Tong) - its the kinversand bronze one being used by Rebbecca up there. I probably shouldn't have sold it as it was a peach, fully sorted and 100% reliable. Oh well.

The D1 hasn't been used much as its been more of a mobile shower since buying it - the sunroofs don't just leak, they create a lovely internal waterfall feature ! I tried taping them up but while that reduced the flow to a steady dripping, its been unpleasant to drive so has been laid up pending a repair... which I finally started last weekend. So the headlining is out, and the leak seems to be due to the sunroof seal - there is a slightly low spot allowing water to come inside the seal, trickle onto the moulded metal of the sunroof cassette and then run down the sunroof handle. I haven't fixed it yet as I've been swapping out the dash.



There is now a nice clean grey one in place, instead of a mouldy sticky beige one. I don't think I've fully explained the history of this old truck - to cut a long story short, someone was stabbed many times in the front seat of the truck (news report here - http://www.nottinghampost.com/Trio-...tinghamshire/story-21048160-detail/story.html ) and there was 'evidence' on all the interior, hence my swapping out everything - and I mean everything - seats, console, plastic trim, doorcards, carpet, soundproofing etc and now the entire dashboard. It now looks and smells much better

So, with the headlining out, I'll be running some extra cable to the rear of the truck to a secondary fusebox feeding internal lighting, supplies for the fridge, work lights, small compressor etc. I'm also mulling over where to mount the CB. It was originally mounted on the dash in my D2, then it was moved to the overhead map pocket, but I've also seen them in a custom console on the dash which might be another good solution.

I bought a winch bumper at Peterbog to replace the OEM one that I'd refurbished (sigh), and also got a pair of white front indicators. I was also given some Tdi headlights, so those replaced the Td5 ones that were fitted - I like the look of the Tdi front end and think the silver edged lights give the front a brighter face.

I've fitted the Patriot roof rack (now re-powdercoated) and roof tent ready for the camping/show season, and have just bought some new boots for the old girl - Cooper Discoverer ST-Maxx 245/75x16s. These have had some great reviews and look the part, and as I found them for just £102 each (delivered) I bought a set. I plumped for 245/75s as they'll fit without a suspension lift, without any serious body mods, and will fill the arches nicely. I'd considered 265s but they would def need a 2in lift plus I'd have to get new wheels, and I really didn't want that as I've only recently had the RRC LSE wheels refurbed recently and they still look like new.

So thats pretty much it, not much done in the last year, but its going to be moving on a lot more quickly now that I'm starting to like the old truck once again - strange how that happens once you remove all the sticky mouldy nasty smelly stuff

I'll post some more pics at the weekend, but its quite a transformation!

Managed to get a few pics when I got home last night. Excuse the quality, it was darker than it seems...

Nice clean dashboard...



And a quick shot of the headliner free roof



and another shot of those Rangie Classic seats



Still no carpet, but that won't go in until I sort out the sunroof leaks, which I'm hoping to do this weekend.

Well I finally had a free day which coincided with some decent weather, so I managed to get the sunroof out, cleaned up, resealed and refitted. It took the best part of a full day as I meticulously cleaned it all with white spirit and then used copious amounts of sikaflex to seal it all with. The drain channels were unblocked so it was definitely a leak in the sealant that was causing the problem. I spent an hour drilling out some of the screws - the brass splined nut that they locate into have a habit of spinning so you can't remove them I used a drill to deliberately spin them to heat up the plastic that they are set into, then used some spring loaded pliers to clamp the plastic over the splines so that I could use a stud removal tool to extract the remaining bit of the screws It really slowed the job down, but it did the trick... eventually. I've tested it with a hose and it seems to be leak free ! hurray!!! I didn't take any pics sorry as I just wanted to crack on with the job. All I can say is that sikaflex is unbelievably messy and sticks to your hands. The only thing that could remove the excess on the truck was white spirit.

I've also fitted an old Blaupunkt radio as the one fitted didn't work.It took me a while to get it working as the display insistently stated 'navigation/phone' - but I haven't got a navigation or phone unit connected to it. It turned out that the LandRover radio loom has two extra wires which are used by the Blaupunkt radio for the data input - despite the wiring supposedly being DIN standard. Oh well, all sorted now and I have a working radio again The tailgate speaker box isn't working, but I'm not worried about that as it'll be removed soon when I fit a new tailgate door card with a cooker shelf etc.

On the downside, my brakes failed when I returned from the tyre fitters, so I'm waiting on a new vacuum pump. The old one had previously been repaired with silicon, so I reckon its better to get a new one than try and repair it again, so I've ordered an Allmakes one. Just hope the weather stays nice for that job!

Finally, I've bought a secondhand grey carpet off a member on here, so I'll give that a clean and fit that. The old girl is slowly but surely taking shape

My partner drives a Safari i managed to ge it for £500 about a yr ago, only 80,000 miles in very nice condition, no rust anywhere, we also have the leaking sunroof problem, and the clutch fork wore through but ive fitted a reinforced one, they are quite a rare Disco only 1200 were built in an effort to boost sales, nice to see another one being saved lol

Amazingly we have four Safaris in my local landy club!

One is being broken though sadly - the usual rust issues. Its very strange that in the same production run we have some vehicles that have minimal rust, and one that is terminal...

It'd be interesting to see how many Safaris are left on the road.

The vacuum pump came last night, but it didn't include the gasket so I've had to order that separately today - guess what I'll be doing next weekend?!!! Plus I now have some 2in lift blocks which I'll fit some time in the summer - I want to clean up the underside when I fit them. I'm also planning on fitting Defender 110 brakes, so I might end up doing that lot at the same time.

Ive got a safari

Do you know the guy breaking one?

I don't think there is anything left now flatline - he's using the oily bits to get his other D1 300Tdi back on the road, plus a couple of us in the club have scavenged most of the other bits off it lol.

What are you after - I can ask him if he still has those bits...

I need a safari badge from the drivers side front wing

lol, I know they're not for sale cos I tried to bag them myself

I need a load cover for ours do you know if thats available ?