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Project Gunbus

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#1 · (Edited)
Project Gunbus-Land Rover Discovery

Hi all,

I have been using the forums for some time to improve my detailing skills but have been wanting a project vehicle for a while. My wife took up clay and game shooting about two years ago and eventually I have got fed up of cleaning the mud out of our Audi A4. You can see it here in this thread:

http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=132893

So, the search was on for a 4x4 to take her shooting. As a serving member of the RAF for me it had to be a Land Rover, but with a limited budget of £2000 it wasn't going to be that easy. The Freelander and Range Rover were quickly discounted which left me with a Series/Defender or a Discovery. After checking around to see what £2000 would buy me we settled on trying to find a Discovery.

Along came several Ebay auctions and Auto Trader ads but they were either spares and repair, too expensive or sold out of auction etc. Then a nice looking 1995 Discovery TDi came along on Ebay. Sight unseen, purely on the strength of the auction listing we bid. £1500 purchased us this:



It's a 1995 Discovery TDi fitted with a 2.5 diesel engine. Done 129k but only 1930 miles between the last two mot's. Owned by the same family for the last 4 years. It has 5 new tyres, new exhaust, boot floor replaced, new door locks, no leaks and very very little rust!

A few more pictures:











However, it's not all rosy, as you would expect with a 15 year old car. As the pictues show above the car had been vandalised with a key. Not to deep but I'm confident that they will be sorted using techniques that i have learnt on here. The paint is already ordered to do this(from paint supplier not Halfords). The car is also retro fitted with a Clifford alarm. It's not working correctly and auto arms every time the door is opened and closed so will be ripped out this week due to £120 worth of parts being needed to fix.

The weather has stopped me making a very good inspection but my list of jobs so far is (in no particular order):

Remove Alarm
Mini-service
Replace missing rear mudflap
Clean and detail inside and out
Grease sunroofs
Buy and fit side steps (my wife is short!)
Sort out paint scratches
Replace the broken coin tray
Replace gearstick and handbrake gaiters
Fit clear indicators
Heat bumper end caps to make them black again
GB number plates
De-rust and paint tow bar
Grease radio aerial
Remove all the old stickers on the glass
NSR door pull up sticking
Fit waterproof seat covers
Front and rear light guards
Replace spare wheel cover.

For the MOT in June i will address some advisories from the last MOT, brake discs on rear, front shocks and a couple of brake pipes.

So, so far so good, hope you stick around and watch as I get it all sorted. Wish us luck.
 
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#5 ·
i started looking (out of interest of course) at old landies over the winter and was shocked by how these things hold their price... or that you cant really find one for less then £2K.

You've struck on a nice example there with nothing more than straight forward repairs needed to make it a very nice example indeed !

:thumb:
 
#6 · (Edited)
It took me about 3 months to find a Discovery with little or no rust. An equivalent year Series/Defender will generally go for twice as much as a Discovery. Parts aren't expensive, new set of rear discs and pads are only £39 but rust is a real killer.

The Discovery is currently having the alarm ripped out by a Land Rover specialist at work. Once removed I can detail it and look at doing some more jobs without the fear of the alarm going off every ten minutes.

Anybody know a good underseal product that i can apply to the wheel arches once rubbed back, I want something that will take body colour over the top?
 
#9 · (Edited)
Well,

First update. After 6 hours of solid work the alarm is now out.



I can now open the doors, bonnet etc without fear of it going off every two minutes! It still has the original Land Rover alarm and a dead mans switch under the bonnet, should be safe enough.

Also a few parts have been arriving. Ebay is great for picking up parts at good and cheap prices.

New genuine rear mudflaps as one is missing



Paint kit to start doing the bodywork scratches.



Paint kit comes with 100ml matched paint and I also ordered extra paper and applicators as I have a lot of scratches to fill.

Also have rear discs, pads and rear bearings on the way. Fitted new wipers front and rear and replaced a rear bulb. Need to get inside tonight to check the dashboard lighting as I think i have some that have failed.

Ordered the new seals for the rear quarter windows as they are split. Previous owner smeared some silicone on but new seals are only £20 and will look much much better.

Over the weekend plan to give it a really good wash and detail and start cleaning up the interior. More pics to come.
 
#10 · (Edited)
Well,

It's been a frustrating weekend due to the weather but I have managed to get a few things done. Sadly not many pictures as yet, again due to the weather but things are progressing.

I managed to get the whole vehicle washed, foamed and then 2BM with lots of APC and detail brush work. Lots of dirt and grime removed to leave me with clean door shuts etc. My god it's a big thing to wash!

Started cleaning up the scratches and then filling with base colour. Got the whole near side done with one coat in each scratch. It's going to take a long time!

Did some more work on the interior, replaced the old scruffy tax disc holder...



With a nice magnetic Halfords one, sprayed grey to match the dash....


Also removed all the odd stickers on the windscreen, rear door and side windows.

Removed the old mudflap and the remains of the one that had come off and fitted the new LandRover set. Looks a lot nicer now.

Mini service on thursday to include Oil, Air and fuel filters. Noticed I have a couple of oil leaks, rocker cover and sump maybe but will address them in the future.

Weather has stopped play at the moment but will get some pictures done soon.
 
#11 · (Edited)
So,

Been working on the Discovery on and off this week. It went in for a mini service on Thursday. Had a complete fluid change, filters etc and a once over for obvious faults. Mechanic only picked up the advisories from the last MOT and I'm slowly dealing with them. Front shocks, rear discs and a few brake pipes. All of these are on order.

As the sun is out today I decided to tackle the rear boot carpet. 20 mins and it was out:



First i gave it a jetwash, then used a combination of Autosmart Brisk and AG Interior Foam. Then dried in the sun.

Now looks like this:



Another thing that is niggling me was the rusty towbar:



Incidentally, the picture above shows the new mudflaps.

I wire brushed down the metalwork, used a rust treater to chemically treat the surface, then two coats of Hammerite Grey rust primer. Will be topcoated with some chassis black paint after 24hrs. Just need a new socket and plate as the one fitted is slightly damaged. Tow bar now looks like this in primer:



More to come soon. Comments more than welcome.
 
#13 · (Edited)
Hi all,

Whilst waiting for the remains of the suspension and brake parts I have been getting on with some of the odd jobs. Noticed that the rear speaker box built into the rear door wasn't working properly. Once the casing was removed this is what I found:



That will be why then! On the look out now for a new speaker box as this one is past it's best!

The last two bits of the alarm that needed to be removed to be sorted were the alarm led and valet switch. The new blanks came today so before:



and after:



thats much better.

I have also managed to get another coat of paint in all the scratches. I am reckoning on about 5 coats in all but there are a lot to do. Once filled I will take some pics of my attempts to sort them.

The towbar is now done, all painted, new socket, socket plate and breakaway bracket. The socket bracket was so rusty it disintegrated as i took it off. So before:



and after



I got hold of a set of JVC radio removal tools and removed the radio to check the wiring. Not a fan of the scotchblocks etc so wanted to make sure it was ok. It was fine so fitted a new surround. Also picked up a new JVC remote from Ebay. Allows me to change volume etc a bit easier when driving.

Cleaned and fitted a bootliner that again came from Ebay. Cost me £20 and is worth £187 at Land Rover.

More to come soon.

Adam
 
#15 · (Edited)
Been a slow week due to work but I now have lots of new parts in the boot ready for fitting next week.

Removed the under dash panels to see if I could clean them up. They are thick cardboard with foam backing and were showing a lot of scuffs. Using a scalpel i trimmed the edges and then cleaned, primed and sprayed them.

Went from this:



To this:



Not bad at all. Still trying to find some rear speakers and a cointray.
 
#16 · (Edited)
Hi,

Been a busy and eventful week but managed to finally get some of the mechanical work done on the Discovery.

First up was the rear discs and pads. Quite obviously needed doing and wasn't going to pass an MOT in June.



So, taken apart and new discs, hub bearings (as they were off) and pads put on.





Whilst doing the work the pistons in the calipers had to be unstuck. Took a while but will work until I get some new calipers fitted in the coming weeks.

Next on the agenda was the front shocks. The last MOT advisory had "slight misting" on it. On inspection, they were right!



So I got hold of new shocks, turrets, base plates, bolts and turret rings. The only old parts are the springs. Started work...



and after a few hours we had the new shocks done.



Also fitted a new steering damper which you can see on the picture above. As parts are really cheap it seemed crazy not to.

More updates to come this weekend, but getting there.
 
#17 · (Edited)
So,

Friday night I thought I would tackle the rear window seals. The last owner had covered them in silicone as they had split but at £20 per seal it was a cheap job on paper. The Land Rover service manual said just pop them out, swap the seals over, push the glass in from the outside while using cord or wire on the inside to fold the rubber over the lip. So this is them before:



Corners all cracked with old silicone smeared on. The windows popped out easily



but then the fun started. The rubber was so stiff they just wouldn't go in. They eventually took 3 people on the outside and a professional window fitter on the inside. I'm really glad i didn't try them at home. They do however now look great.





After all that last night I wanted some easy jobs today. Pedal rubbers were swapped for new ones.

Before



and after



Much better, also changed the pollen filters at the back of the bonnet as the old ones were so brittle the foam just crumbled. Started swapping blown bulbs on the dash for new ones.

More to come soon.:)
 
#20 · (Edited)
Sadly after spending ten minutes at a petrol station trying to turn the alarm off with a remote that didn't work properly the alarm had to go. The sounder back up battery had also failed and the bonnet switch was broken.

Too many parts to replace to make it worth bothering with. Also to clean the car correctly or make any changes you needed to enter a code using the valet switch on the dash listening to the chirps from the sounder. As the sounder was broken i couldn't turn off things like auto arm etc as didn't know where I was in the menu.
 
#22 ·
The mechanical work for the MOT is nearly done however there are lots that I would like to get done cosmetically both on the bodywork and the chassis. The hardest thing with this age of Discovery is the rust or should I say making sure you get the best one you can find. Still lots to do over the year and hoping to cover it all here.

Adam
 
#24 ·
Don't get me wrong the rust left to do is purely cosmetic now. There is an issue with Discovery 1's with rust but finding a good one doesn't take that long.

I have things like a couple of window frames, rear door bottom, wheel arch to do. All easily done and doesn't need to be matched to a surrounding panel.

In short, don't let the rust put you off too much, just look at a few before you buy.

Adam
 
#25 · (Edited)
Managed to get the rear door speakers sorted today.

So this is what they looked like before,



Having removed the old Land Rover speakers from the unit I glued in the new Pioneer speakers. The wiring was then extended so the amplifier could sit inside the rear door (the old Land Rover speakers had holes in the back to screw the amplifier to).

The speakers then looked like this,



Sprayed up the mesh with some matt black paint and attached it to the door. Much much better.



I have some new rear calipers and a complete set of brake pipes to sort out over the coming week so more pictures to come.
 
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