welllll..... its about time I did something to the old girl and as of the 10th of march she's been off the road because insurance expired and I didn't bother renewing it.

I had a rather horrendous whirring noise coming from the engine bay which was my main concern, the manifold was blowing like a cheap whore and the syncro's are going on the g'box so I made a trip upto dr. evil to buy his 77k g'box which has now set itself a home in the shed for now.

The whirring noise stopped and got replaced with an indescribable noise and burning rubber smell...

Upon inspection 2 days ago I found the whirring noise was the pulley on the air-con unit, not the smooth tensioner but the other one. Process of elimination was easy, I took the fan belt off and turned it over, no real difference, knocked it off and removed the air con belt, replaced fan belt and hey presto, found it before i even turned the engine over... the pulled was slapping around - bearings well and truely shot! Started it up and it sounds like a new engine! :lol: I've ordered a new pulley and left the belt off for now.

Today I've dropped the manifold off and replaced the gasket as well as dropping the whole exhaust system off to replace the lot - not required but I thought I may as well do the de-cat and middle pipe at the same time!

so pics:

Taking the old gasket off:






I think its fooked :lol:




so i cleaned the manifold and head off so it was nice n smooth again and got the new bits out...



new studs, nuts and gasket all with decent sealant and loctite:




and it all back together, with a new intercooler pipe which enables me to sack off the EGR valve altogether (it was already blanked off) not really necessary but looks a lot tider



Then I dropped the down pipe out the engine bay along with the rest of the exhaust system. I'm waiting for the middle pipe and new "sports" back box to arrive tomorrow as I missed it today :doh:

Out with the old in with the new :lol:




shall update with the rest of the exhaust tomorrow - although its easy basic stuff, i'll get a quick video too for newbies reference

I'll be insuring the old girl again tomorrow and giving her a good run!

Who's been a busy boy? Hope it's all good when it goes back together.

all sorted now rob

didn't get any pictures cos i was soppin wet, will get a quick vid on a nicer day!

just on the phone to the insurance company and i'll take it for a quick spin

22nd of march was my last post.... I have been slacking! :jaw:


I have been a very busy boy though!

Firstly... the de-cat and middle box replacement pipe, effectively making a straight through to the back box made a nice subtle difference to noise and a very pleasing improvement to the drivability of the old girl!

First thing to do was to strip down my old axle that got removed a few weeks (ok ok months) ago as it needed rebuilding so I ripped that apart keeping the half shafts, CV joints, diff and other bits n pieces as spares:



This resulted in the old man having a minor hissy fit about the one shot grease and a minority of the axle oil being spilt all over the concrete outside his shed

:lol: whoops! :lol:

then the diff got stored in the trailer as its the only dry place I had spare, along with a spare set of axles and a noo g'box (the only I purchased from Dr Evil)




I then happened on a nice day so I dug out the window tinting kit I purchased on eBay and got cracking.

It was a few days after this point that I became fed up with working on crappy surfaces and constantly having to drag the trailer's over rough ground to put them out of the way so project land rover workspace began, which meant putting me car trailer in storage for a few weeks:

Then it was over to the local steel place to pick up a bracket I'd had made up for my 18t nato hitch to be attached to my 2" receiver me detatchable tow bar and then on to me mates who I'd done a deal with that involved an old caravan that cost me next to nothing and a CB radio I had won on eBay for someone else who then decided they didn't want it in return for this:




Finally own myself a Sankey - chuffed to bits with that little deal!

So naturally I put it straight to work making a hard standing for the trailers and a general larger work area as pushing that car trailer back off the concrete standing we had and back across the grass was impossible.

So the mornings work, clear one side of the garden, afternoon and next day dig the trenches for the shuttering. end of play at the second day of wheeling, dealing, putting stuff into storage, digging and tidying:




Someone decided removing old posts is over-rated and cutting them off at ground level is a much better idea, I decided digging said fence post out sounded way over-rated!






This is all in between working 12hr shifts and squeezing a second job into that so sometimes working days and half the night on the doors so I'm pretty tired at the moment BUT we cracked out the concreting yesterday. 4 hours to knock up and lay 6 tonne of cement for 3 blokes who only do it once in a blue moon ain't to shabby I don't think!

I'll get a pic when I'm next home as at work again now and forgot to get a finished picture!

I took an evening to start fitting my arches that I ordered too as I'm desperate to get my m/t's on but I didn't make quite as much progress as I'd wanted to due to being a bit of a wimp when it came to cutting huge amounts of body work out...

I started by marking out where I needed to cut with a marker pen using the arch as a template and cut a good inch short of that so I could re-align and re-check as many times as I needed too...








When I was happy I lined the arch up, drilled the first couple of pilot holes for the self-tappers and drew the line I wanted the top of the arch to line up with so that I could get the arch on the door and the rear quarter nice and level



And ended up with this:



Unwound the screw on the arch on the rear quarter a touch which brought them into line nicely.

Unfortunately ran out of time but couldn't resist chucking a wheel on quickly to see what it was gonna look like:






Thats without wheel spacers. Whipped the wheel off and put the standard one back on so I didn't blow anything with odd sized wheels and thats how she's sitting as of today - next day off thursday, I have a tip run to do with the last of the rubbish/empty bags etc from the concreting then I'll be aiming to do the other 3 arches and putting the 35's on all 4 corners!

MORE MORE MORE! Loving this thread and even though
I'm not going to be doing any of the offroad mods anytime
soon you have highlighted some more rust spots to check,
especially the turrets

LordWolf said:

MORE MORE MORE! Loving this thread and even though
I'm not going to be doing any of the offroad mods anytime
soon you have highlighted some more rust spots to check,
especially the turrets

Click to expand...

Thanks LordWolf.

Yea there's always rust spots to check! Luckily I'm reasonably rust free at the moment, pulled the sill covers off and checked them - no holes although I think I will be aiming to replace them using heavy duty box section to double them up as rock/tree sliders, apart from that the rear arches need tidying up and thats about it!

Hurry up and fit the box

Pffft its not a daily drive any more so the crunch down from 4-3 and 3-2 doesn't bother me AS much at the moment. Its more waiting for a weekend I'm not busy that i can ask mynold man to reserve a bay in the workshop at his work so we can do it at ease rather than rolling round on the floor with it!

Haha yeah better than my way on a driveway

you mean the g'box in your way I take it? lol Yea I'll get round to doing it, its in the forefront of my mind as that ****part clutch has a bloody orrible sounding release bearing already (not even a year old!)

Lets get the arches finished first so it doesn't look stoopid! :lol:

I used a Borg and beck clutch kit for mine

Did you got for the 130 kit in the end? There's a new borg and beck kit for a 130 for 120 quid on ebay i think (dont quote me on that price yet though!

Nah just a standard kit on mine given that the series is fairly light

Should it break then it'll be a 130 kit I replace with

I went and picked some 30mm wheel spacers up the other day and spend a couple of hours in teh evening and sunday afternoon cutting more bodywork out of the disco - the first arch took me about 3 hours, start to finish - that the following:

Marking out,
Cutting,
Lining the arch up
Cutting any more thats required out,
Lining the arch up again
smoothing off and sharp bits on the cut.
Painting any fresh metal.
Running a rubber strip round the fresh cuts once the paint dries
Drilling holes for screws
Fixing Wheel arches
Fitting spacers
Fitting wheels.

The front two took me about an hour and a half and the second back corner took about an hour and a half with some faffing.

Anyway the important bit - pictures!

Went to pick up a scrambler for my mate tonight to find the wheels need balancing desperately :lol:

Looking brilliant mate, well done.

cheers Rob, really pleased with the way it looks - the wheels need to go satin black next!

I think I'll look at getting some rubbing strips to replace the ones i've taken off as I don't like the holes they leave too.

Looking good mate - I've been a tad busy doing D.I.Y (Should stand for Don't Involve Yourself) around the house whilst buying lots of goodies for my Disco.... I'm looking forward to playing with my Disco again especially now its warming up nothing worse than working in the rain and cold

tell me about it - there should be some pictures of bodged shelters with tarps and bungee's to keep work on the disco going through the winter somewhere in this thread.

Far from fun - unlike collecting parts to fit to the disco! I still have bits in the shed to fit!