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[ironcrx]

Time to update you ladies with my current project and hopefully inject some more action into this lovely forum of ours.

So I moved back to Iceland almost 4 years ago.  I had no project cars to work on until beginning of last year but even then I couldn't do anything because I hardly had any tools here while all my shit is still back in the states. Since the start of this recent winter I have acquired the minimum of tools I need to do work!  Plus as it turns out I needed to get a whole new set of bits anyways since my current project uses lots of 8 point bolts.

Project car:  1998 Land Rover Discovery I.  300TDi (2.5L) Turbo Diesel
What it came with:
4'' body lift
2-4'' suspension lift
38'' tires (38x15.5r15)
converted to manual with Defender manual trans and geared for larger tires (38'')

What it needs(ed) fixed:
missing most interior in rear
both rear windows don't roll down (need to replace the moving lever arm things)
Needs homemade cover around shifter
Exhaust leaks

What I've done to it:
All new rotors, pads, new exhaust, replacement rear seats, new clutch (heavy duty), new tires, all new wheel bearings

What I plan to do next with it:
Lots




Next post will be soon which will be a big write up of the work I've been doing on it thus far. 

[Ntrain2k]

Fucking like!

[Tim]

Looks like a beast

[ironcrx]

Looks like a beast

It's in the lower middle class scale of beastly vehicles in Iceland.  Huge tires and sick offroad setups is the main car culture of Iceland 

[ironcrx]

 Coming from the rhmt background that I have, this is my biggest project yet (literally and figuratively) and most complicated for many reasons.  Iceland is EXPENSIVE as fuck.  Ask me how much something costs and I can tell you it's price and you'll go blind.  Example:  My tires cost more than $1000 EACH when purchased in Iceland.  I got mine for $300 each.  Bought them in China (where they are made) and had them put into the shipping container of other stuff I was importing from China.  Also included a few set of Pirellis for my Range Rover cause fuck buying tires here.  So I have to shop smart, deal with shipping, and I am still without all my tools.  When I visit the states again I will pack my stuff up onto some pallets and get it shipped.

So when I saw the Discovery come up for sale I jumped on it for a few reasons besides the fact I was in the market for a decent 4x4 vehicle.  It had a properly done body lift and body modification for larger tires which would have been very costly for me to get done.  It was worth it for all the things wrong with it.

The guy I bought it from was your typical city garage home mechanic who did some ghetto things to the car.  I bought it from him in the capital but I live out in the country. 
There was some wack shit done to the Disco by the previous owner:
pvc plumping for the intake
pvp pipe on turbo cold side (partly melted due to heat) which I promptly replaced
suspension lift consists of blocks and welded shock extensions
All wire work that was ever touched is poorly done (finger crimped, loosely taped, etc)
All the openings caused by the body lift haven't been covered

Anyways, I have big plans on upgrades:
Full suspension replacement with upgrades
Replace all bushings
New panhard rod and ends
Replace Intercooler setup
Replace turbo or service current one
Fix up the interior like getting the shifter hole covered (Loud as FUUUUCK)
Do some serious motor maintenance.  Serious ticking and might be missing several valve end caps. 

I ended up replacing the clutch during the winter because the one that was in it was stock and it burned up.  Didn't hold up so well with suspension/tire upgrade.  Was a tough job but thankfully I got a friend down the road with his own lift and useful tools.

Here is the views of the body and suspension lift











The Obliterated clutch disk







Sexy new rotor with new pads and the red sealant is fresh from the wheel bearing replacements I put in


Old rotors were shift and the inner seals obviously were not doing shit


Oh yeah the U joints were shot.  Replaced them all.  One was impossible to move by hand



Transmission and transfer case


I'll probably need a trans rebuild  sooner or later



Sexy clutch replacement with HD clutch set from Synchro Clutch.  Also got an all metal throw out bearing with lifetime warranty and took the liberty of cleaning the transmission of the left over dead friction disk







Luckily for me the added height makes working from underneath quite easy.  Also the body lift grands me 4'' of extra work room between the trans and body which was sooooooo helpful in replacing the clutch.


I can't take it offroading as hard I want to because it still needs a real suspension and on top of that still needs front and rear lockers.  I could get a full kit that will run about $2000 shipped.  Hopefully I can make it less than that by cleverly mixing and matching parts.  We will see.

[ironcrx]

Figured I should throw out some action shots


Here I am with a few buddies waiting for the air to leave the tires.  Another upgrade I need to do is get quick air valves put into the rims plus put an air pump and hose under the hood.  Good plenty of space in the bay for it    It was as far as we could go before needing take air out of our tires to grip better and prevent sinking in the snow. 
The friend with me has a 90-something patrol on 46''      Also notice the road:  It's solid ice.


As it turned out I didn't need to take much air out of my tires.  The snow conditions were amazing for driving.  Barely and sinking because it was so solid and compact from a recent heat wave that came through before the flurries of winter came again a week later.
The yellow thing is the top of a road marker that 2 meters tall 


It was a damn beautiful day and fun for testing my Disco's limits.  It will do a lot more next winter with new upgrades







Thats it for now.  Hopefully I'll be able to get to wrench turning on it in the next week or so.  All things in the engine bay need my attention next.

[ohisofly]

Looking baller  keep at it

[Eggylshatch]

Shit's real in Iceland. Keep at it!

[rawr]

Driving around in those mountains looks fun as fuck

[ironcrx]

Ordered a bunch of parts about two weeks ago but there is continued delay on it being shipped due to back order on some items.  Ordered some gaskets, intercooler hoses, coolant hoses, bolts, belts, and other small odd ends.  Needs to hurry up and get shipped already because it takes over a week to reach me.

Unfortunately I have to add some steering parts to the list of replacement parts.  The steering went a few days ago.  Hadn't taken it apart yet but by the looks of it the lower steering ujoint is stripped and with any luck the piece on the steering both that it holds onto isn't stripped.  Land Rover steering boxes are expensive as hell (worse so when adding on import taxes).

I've been cleaning out a large space in my warehouse to park the Disco for major front end disassembly hence my delay in getting to it.  Haven't had a designated car work area due to so much accumulated junk in the way.  Building in question has something like 70 years of old stuff cluttered up in it.  Couldn't clear it up during winter because fuck that.

[brine04]

That might be the most hood body lift I've ever seen but hey tire clearance is tire clearance. Snow wheeling is fun, you should buy a sled to run those glaciers too.

[ironcrx]

Been too long since updating.  Did some work a few weeks ago. Winter hasn't really set in which is fucked up this time of year.  Hasn't snowed in weeks.  What we had has been melting away.  It's like spring here.

Finally got the motor pulled out and found the source of the exhaust leak.  Turns out the the exhaust header didn't have all the bolts holding it on along with a deteriorated gasket.  I'm sure this is a source of my power loss also.  I also noticed the wastegate wouldn't move for shit until I beat and pried the hell out of it.  Could it literally have stayed stuck in closed position this whole time?

With the motor out I am taking my time with cleaning off the motor and replacing several fuel lines and various rotted rubber lines.  New gaskets are in the mail.  I'll replace the studs for the header with straight up bolts probably.

Turbo is actually in much better shape than I thought.  Cold side internals are dirty as hell.  I feel like it's because it's been inhaling lots of shitty air from the engine bay from the leak in the header. I'm also sure the intake line had many leaks along its whole length.  That I will also replace with something better than the pvc drain pipe that it came with.

Lucky I got my buddy down the street from me with a lift.  Wheels off obviously so I wouldn't need a damn ladder



That leak dirtied shit up and burned away a decent amount of sound deadening. yay



I don't have my own engine lift but I do have a tractor which I used the lift the motor out and take back home to my garage



Here we see the obvious lack of a tight fit of the header to block and where the exhaust has been shooting out from for so long



Wrecked gasket



Not a fan of the header being part of the turbo.  Oh well.  Plan is to block the EGR.  It's rusted on so ill be doing some cutting on it if I cant break the bolts off



There is no play in any way with the turbine so nothing to do with it.  I can see though that the fins have been a little beat up by junk getting sucked into it.  Notice the soot on the fins. lol



Good, bad?  I dunno.  Looks alright.



The radiator is fucked.  The fins are rotted.  Few sections missing.  Rest flake off with little effort.  This probably has a role in the over heating I get when struggling up long distance inclines.



Intercooler is going the same rout as the radiator in rotting away.  Only slightly better.  Fins are all there but holding on just.



How it sits patiently while I take my time on the motor then eventually the engine bay clean up too.



I still got lots of things to deal with work wise and to-do wise so real work on the car is slow going until winter makes it's actual appearance.

[ironcrx]

Still more delays on making progress.  However I do see things currently as more good than bad. 

I had noticed a split in the headgasket in the front and rear of the motor.  Very strange but no leaks of any kind were occurring and after taking the head off the block everything looked fine.  Head gasket was made of some composite whatever, no metal at all except for rings of pistons.  New gasket is all metal

I saw evidence of something having been done in the head case.  Mismatched nuts holding down the rocker rod plus over tightened nuts told the story.  I became of a victim of previous owners over tightening: going through the loosening sequence for the rocker rod mounts, one of the rocker pedestals cracked.  I was quite annoyed by this but not surprised.  Upon further inspection I saw the rocker arms were toast.  2 of the 4 rocker springs were also worn out.  Other note of things being messed with was the valve springs and end caps seemed brand new so they are staying in.  Push rods were fine too.

I've technically been lucky in coming across these issues as who knows when they'd have ended up causing serious failure in the future.

I ordered a whole new rocker assembly which wasn't much at all. Probably because it's so basic







So nothing else to do except wait some more.

This motor will feel like new when I finally get it back together.

[rawr]

that thing looks cool as shit

[ironcrx]

Well after much waiting and various hangups along the way I have gotten the green beast back together and driving.  It runs sooooo nice now.  Doesn't sound loud like a tractor anymore after I fixed the last of the exhaust leaks which happened to be a huge one.  No more clattering noises from the head and the power has noticeably increased.  Doesn't feel like the same vehicle which is awesome haha.

Majority of the head is brand new.  Only things not replaced were the valves and springs.  New valve caps though as there were none to begin with.  I had a stupid head scratching struggle getting the valves set and adjusted.  I knew the rule of 9 but I had starting issues.  It was dumb but I got through it.

other stuff replaced: coolants lines, intercooler lines/hoses, water pump, timing belt, alt belt, filters, head gasket, various seals,  and even an assortment of new bolts.  There is something great feeling about putting in brand new head studs and nuts.  No more of those rusted/stuck together studs that come out.

Also replaced the clutch.  I put a brand new HD clutch last year so I was annoyed by the failure of it like this.  Luckily I had another one in my possession (I bought 2 different HD clutches last year) so this one going on comes from Valeo.  I still need to call the Syncro Clutch guys about a replacement disk for the one that failed.  Hopefully get a new free one.

Failed clutch disk


New clutch on (with new pressure plate)  I kept the disks and plates paired as they originally are.  Don't know if one pressure plate is better than the other.


Inside of the timing cover was nice and clean aside from fine belt shavings.  Doing the timing was stupid easy too


I barely managed to get the motor in with most of the air out of the tires and the engine lift maxed


Due the height and overall size, I used a ladder for the constant up and down into the engine day.  There are obvious good and bad to such height


Since it was a beautiful day when I got everything in and running, I did the final adjustments outside.


Finally accomplished a lot so I can take it out for some fun off roading before more replacements: Up next will be the steering

[Ntrain2k]

I dig it.

Were you the one with the red 200sx a while back?

[ironcrx]

I dig it.

Were you the one with the red 200sx a while back?

Yep, that was me.  I miss that beautiful car.

[Ntrain2k]

I dig it.

Were you the one with the red 200sx a while back?

Yep, that was me.  I miss that beautiful car.

What did you do with it?

[ironcrx]

I dig it.

Were you the one with the red 200sx a while back?

Yep, that was me.  I miss that beautiful car.

What did you do with it?

I ended up selling it.  Had to since bringing it to Iceland with me just wasn't worth it.  The shipping on it would be a big cost, then when registered here I would have to pay a higher road/emissions tax on it because of the size of the motor (taxed like a truck).  Then on top of all that there are no such thing as 200s, 240s, or even Pathfinders for part sourcing in this country.

I would love having it here though.  Perfect for summer cruising around the country.  Instead I have the beast

[crxvtec91]

I dig it.

Were you the one with the red 200sx a while back?

Yep, that was me.  I miss that beautiful car.

What did you do with it?

I ended up selling it.  Had to since bringing it to Iceland with me just wasn't worth it.  The shipping on it would be a big cost, then when registered here I would have to pay a higher road/emissions tax on it because of the size of the motor (taxed like a truck).  Then on top of all that there are no such thing as 200s, 240s, or even Pathfinders for part sourcing in this country.

I would love having it here though.  Perfect for summer cruising around the country.  Instead I have the beast

Damn I havent seen you since the last rhmt meet. Still making homemade moonshine?

[ohisofly]

Interesting seeing that turbo manifold being part of the turbo, don't think I've ever seen that before.

Looking good, keep at it 

[ironcrx]

I dig it.

Were you the one with the red 200sx a while back?

Yep, that was me.  I miss that beautiful car.

What did you do with it?

I ended up selling it.  Had to since bringing it to Iceland with me just wasn't worth it.  The shipping on it would be a big cost, then when registered here I would have to pay a higher road/emissions tax on it because of the size of the motor (taxed like a truck).  Then on top of all that there are no such thing as 200s, 240s, or even Pathfinders for part sourcing in this country.

I would love having it here though.  Perfect for summer cruising around the country.  Instead I have the beast

Damn I havent seen you since the last rhmt meet. Still making homemade moonshine?

Still do here and there.  Been more refined at it since moonshining is a common thing in the countryside of Iceland. 

Interesting seeing that turbo manifold being part of the turbo, don't think I've ever seen that before.

Looking good, keep at it 

It's the very first I have ever seen or heard of also.

I should have kept up with my welding practice so that I could at least make an attempt at a new header if I want to do any changes to the turbo setup.  But since it is diesel I don't really have much to change or worry about like with gasoline.  This motor is all about the low end power and torque since that is where most of the stress and work is done for this sort of vehicle.  Don't even know what family of Garrett turbø's it falls into but seems a lot like the t2/t25's.
When the time comes for a turbo upgrade or replacement, I'll go with a VGT/hybrid turbo upgrade that is available for my specific motor.  Even comes with the same wacky header and turbo fused design as it is with stock.

Also a first hands on encounter for me is the intake and exhaust on the head.  They are all lined up together and in a patter:
ex in in ex ex in in ex

Interesting new stuff with this motor.  I like it.  Not to mention it was Land Rovers last good all around motor and it shows

[ironcrx]

Recently I was out on a cruise on the highway during a beautiful day to get a feel for my car again as its performance and feel was a day and night difference since fixing a bunch of performance issues (serious leaks, seized wastegate, valve/rocker adjustments) Everything I worked on was perfect.  So something decided to go wrong at the drive train this time.

Cruising at speed limit and astounded how well it drives.  Much better pwoer response on all levels, much better going up inclines with far fewer down shifts, and shit happens.  Sudden loud pop and quick grind followed by a clunk.  That would be the sounds of my rear drive shaft coming apart.






My Disco has 4" suspension lift(spring blocks and extensions welded on the shocks)  Got it that way from the guy I bought it from.  I've had this thing for almost 2 years now with no drive shaft issues.  However the fact that the drive shafts are stock has always been a slight concern for me.  I think the joints failed in spectacular style as they did now right after the performance increase in the motor because power being put down was more constant.  No struggles with slowing down going up hill or bogging down feeling like before. 
 The performance restoration was enough to put the u-joints over the edge.  I couldn't find where the sliding input half of the drive shaft went but I was able to recover the tube part; it was 100 meters back and 20 meters off the road in the grass.

Managed to drive back by locking the diff and drove it like a front wheel drive car.

I'm ordering me some wide angle shafts soon.

[crxvtec91]

Time to upgrade, and add more power

[ironcrx]

Hadn't done anything in a while due to work and being cash poor.  Got to finally order the wide angle drive shaft last week and installed it yesterday right when it arrived. 

Of course with my luck installation wasn't as easy as it should be.  One of the bolts and nuts holding the drive shaft flange on (the remains of the drive shaft) ended being fused together and wouldn't come off.  So I had to cut the bolt.  Thankfully the new drive shaft came with a set of new nuts and bolts for both ends.  Unfortunately to replace them I had to pull out the transfer case input flange or whatever it's called in order to replace the bolts.  Little messy but not bad.

New wide angle drive shaft vs old stock.  At least what is left of the stock one.  Happy with the difference.  Not the huge difference in u-joint size and clearance.


Old bolts including cut one.  In the trash they went


Yay for parts coming with full nuts and bolts!



Next up is replacing various bushings, panhard rod, and steering/suspension rods and end links.  I got all the parts just have not been able to have a full day or two to remove most of the suspension to do it all plus redo the alignment.

Also just ordered a new wheel bearing kit.  I replaced them all plus seals little over a year ago but one is leaking grease and I know why.  It's the front passenger side and I remember I had a struggle with getting it together and fucked up one of the seals.  So Gotta do it again.  Can't pass inspection without it since theres shit tons of grease in the inside of the brake disk.  Plus the bearing is probably drying out so better to do a full replacement.

[rawr]

Do a big wheelie now