Practically Classics Forum

Nice ride, but how would you carry a wardrobe, a double mattress, a small nest of tables and a stove in the back of that?

I reckon that's what the one leaning is asking the one sitting.

When you have got the money for a Doozy you've got the money for the butler to bring all your personal effects along including the horses. Update on The Sprinter. Oh dear, or maybe, very dear, it's what you call comeupance for taking the hiss out of Ivecos. When I broke down, it was on a small traffic island, the van was left blocking the exit. I tried to push it, but the hip replacement immediately objected. So, an old trick that I knew, engage the flywheel with the starter motor worm gear and if there's enough umph in the battery, turn the ignition key and it will move the van very slowly, but far enough to be at a point of safety.

Clever old me, NOT. In jumping the van on the starter motor, I've f***ed the lift pump in the fuel tank. So what was just a chaffed rubber hose replacement has become a catastrophe. The fuel tank needs draining and being a plastic tank it has no drain tap. It also has a 'S' shape insert hose, a bit like a 'U' bend, along with an anti theft gauze cover to prevent siphoning. The fuel tank is over three quarters full. Happy days.

I finally found a Discovery without any chassis scale, holes or suspicious looking patches of roofing pitch. Better yet; it's a 1999 T plate example, so if I pay the VED (probably won't as the Toyota would be cheaper, but had to buy the Land Rover six months of duty to make it road legal while I move the Mini to next door's drive), then it's "taxed" at the old pre-2001 rate, so as it's larger than 1549cc in capacity, that's only £255 for a full year, rather than the £500+ for a post-March '01 4x4 with a similar engine.
And even better again; because the one I settled on is a Japanese one, my key policy covers it on a parallel NCB basis as it does for any imported cars I add, whereas the UK equivalent would have cost an extra £180 per year, as I'd have to have it insured with a different underwriter who wouldn't offer the mirroring facility.

Jobs it needs in order from dearest to cheapest: Pay a local and well respected independent LR specialist to give it a thorough service. The oil in the sump is black but then it's an ancient Diesel engine so that's not altogether unheard of, the ATF is actually acceptably pink, feels smooth and tastes fine, so that's good, but the coolant is only just above the minimum gravity that I'd consider acceptable for the winter months. It's just had a new PAS pump, the air con works fine and the alternator is charging correctly, but the belts for these ancillaries are all looking a little secondhand, so will be replaced foir peace of mind. The timing belt, a right pain in this OHV engine as it's hidden between inner and outer covers and nothing like as accessible as the belt on a typical OHC would be, has - according to the receipts that I found in the glove hole - been changed and it's had the newer pulleys fitted for better location and less likelihood of snapping, which would be annoying as the 300TDi usually bends its pushrods in best Russian fashion when a timing belt fails. Valve damage is rare, but pushrods are a whopping £3 each so I'd rather not take that risk. The one advisory that it picked up at the test (back in May) has been addressed (a rear damper had a slightly worn bush, now it hasn't) but the cheapest, though the most time consuming task that I must do is give that pristine chassis a coating of Ensis, brushed onto the chassis' external surfaces and scooshed into the box sections under pressure.

OK, so for those of you who are now saying "but it's a 19 year old Discovery, there has to be some rust, so where is it? Yes, there are some bits on the body but these extend only as far as a tiny scabby bit at the very bottom of the inner rear wheel arch on the passenger side and the tow bar bracket, which is thick and in no danger of falling off any time this century, but would look better wire brushed, etch primed and finished in some satin black to match the rear bumper.

I had a good long test drive today and it's lovely on the road, has way more room - than the 2nd generation example that disappointed me last Thursday - in spite of the 1st generation cars' shorter body, so there's more space for my leg under the column, more foot room once I'm aboard, more room for anyone who wants to sit in the back behind the driver's seat and only slightly shorter in the boot. Result!
I even managed to get the seller to agree to deliver it to my place at no extra cost, so it'll be arriving on Wednesday and if it's still daylight when the thing tips up, I'll get some phone pics posted up then. If it's dark by then (so around three o' clock if it's a bright day) then I'll post up piccies later in the week or not, depending upon when we can get it into the workshop and have the basic stuff dealt with.

For the first time in four years, I've bought some breakdown cover! No, seriously, I have.



@GHT: If your van has to be scrapped, please may I buy the Diesel that's left in the tank? I have a decent cordless drill and a large bucket that I could bring.

ght, you have my sympathy.. my mates renault master van 90,000km gearbox went pop & €3054.47 later he wont be buying renault again.. & while my truck had a funny 5 minutes last week, a guy in a sprinter came to offer assistance i said its normal its a renault he replied "it could be worse it could be mercedes"
john, pics of the new toy please!!!. my nephew has a 300 tdi auto he will be breaking soon if you need bits, just don't bank on using the body its poorly
oh the fb link was for an mx5, reg no r620lvk.. it looks tidy but up close the guy has patched the sills & in a 12 month new sills & arches will be needed trouble is my nephew is desperate for me to buy it

Rich, as I wrote earlier, I'll get piccies if it's light enough, otherwise this may wait 'til it's been for its service. Meanwhile, to prevent your salivating at the thought of such a fine specimen of British engineering with only a mental image to go on, have some piccies from the forecourt of the trader's premises where I found it..















And yes, it runs as well as it looks, if not better. Although it's been further than the average London taxi - and looks sufficiently like one from the front - the mechanics, structure and interior condition are all suggestive of a much loved vehicle that's been maintained well and never abused too badly. Even the tyres are good, with virtually new (around 8mm of tread, but they are A/T ones, so would have had more to start with) rubber on the front and very slightly more used BF Goodrich rears, fitted to undamaged, o/e alloy wheels.

The vendor was a really good bloke to deal with and I was given plenty of time to shine a torch at it from below the hoist, poke, prod and bang away at its potentially bad areas but the fact is that I've seen examples less than half its age in far, far worse condition. And it really does feel pleasant to drive, being eerily smooth, not even slightly rattly and having a tight feel usually absent in mega milers.

Watch this space..

Looks to be fine specimen. Hope it behaves for you

Cheers Paul. I'm sure that it will be fine, as long as that pristine chassis and the vulnerable body mount areas are kept clean and treated regularly.
And if if something breaks or falls off on the maiden voyage? Well I've looked at the prices being realised on specialist sites for parts and by my reckoning, it's worth at least an extra couple of hundred in parts compared to the pittance I paid for it as a going concern with lots of life left.

Don't worry, Discovery lovers, I've never broken a viable form of transport yet and I'm not about to have vultures hovering over this solid old truck as long as it continues to trundle along the way it did yesterday. It's a most satisfying experience to sit at a steady 50-60 mph and watch as the modern cars come belting by in their effort to reach the next traffic jam before each other, it's incredibly liberating to just stroll along, transmission not raising so much as a whisper as it changes as smoothly as the 40,000 mile 'box in the Pajero Mini does, diffs all equally quiet and barely breaking a sweat at such a relaxed pace, I could grow to love this thing!

But realistically; it's a Land Rover product approaching its 20th birthday (1st of June next year, there will be streamers and balloons) ergo, something will fall off so if anyone wants to open a book on what will fail first and how far I'll be from home when it does, bets (in matchsticks only please) will be taken.

JPB wrote: Tue Dec 11, 2018 11:46 amBut realistically; it's a Land Rover product approaching its 20th birthday (1st of June next year, there will be streamers and balloons) ergo, something will fall off so if anyone wants to open a book on what will fail first and how far I'll be from home when it does, bets (in matchsticks only please) will be taken.

Old cars break down mainly through neglect. So given your experience, you should be able to diagnose suspicious noises, rough performance or wayward handling, as you get to know the car. My missus' Golf has gone past twenty years old, it's still going strong. She had The Scirocco much longer although that was mothballed except for fine weather. But the Golf will be 21 years old at the end of January and the only thing that's wrong, is she's bored with it. The coil spring snapping was unfortunate, Pot holes you can avoid, but you can't see them when they are filled with rain water. That Sherman Tank that you've bought should shrug off pot holes, and if it's any good in years to come you might achieve the nine and a half grand that our former neighbours sold their's for. It wasn't this one, but one like it, and you have to admit, it's far more appealing than the vehicle that carries the Discovery badge today.

I have, perhaps unsurprisingly, to agree about the newer versions of the car that carries the Discovery badge. When I was searching through endless leads for possible purchases, I saw some new ones being advertised by dealers and they cost up to seventy thousand-ish pounds for the top spec ones, which seems crazy compared to the £few hundred that this cost me.
The second generation car, ostensibly similar in shape to the one that'll be coming into the drive later today, apparently has a marginally less rust prone body shell, but is known for its chassis' habit of falling apart in even otherwise pristine, well cared for examples, where, from what I can gather, later first generation cars such as mine tend to be more prone to body rot, but not as terrifying in the chassis, which to my mind speaks of a downturn in the quality of the steel where it's thickest!
Looking at the MOT history of mine, it's been in the UK since 2006, has only ever had the word "corrosion" used in the context of a few bits of brake pipe and has, somewhat satisfyingly, never failed its test! I kid you not, T265AGR's record is unblemished and none of the text on the MOT check site is red. That's unusual enough in low mileage, well maintained Toyotas but in an older LR product? Amazing. And every test it had under its previous UK keeper was carried out at a local authority test centre (down in Durham, where UK keeper number 1 lived) that's utterly objective as they don't do repairs to private vehicles.

When I went to try mine on for size and generally subject it to a lengthy examination, it was sharing forecourt space with a much newer LR product that carries the Range Rover badge, that was priced up at a five figure sum starting with a 2 but all I could think as I saw the pair standing side by side was that the older is the more distinctive looking vehicle and - with its live axles at both ends, a pushrod engine (albeit one with a timing belt, strangely enough) and a shape that's more about the practical then the purely aesthetic - I wondered for a moment why only now, according to one of the LR monthly magazines, these early Discos are finding their way into the hands of those of us who want to preserve and add value to the cars. OK, so with the latest devastating news regarding climate change, my "old school" Diesel is certainly lacking in political correctness even in the context of my preserving an existing car rather than buying any more new ones, but by owning three working cars, I'm actually ensuring that only one is in use at any point in time, so preventing rather than adding to the pollution caused by all of even the cleanest IC engined motor vehicles. Well that's how I justify my habit!

it looks rather nice john, even if its a dicsovery!!