Thread: Disco ute

I've been meaning to start this thread for a while now, but here it is at last.
A few years ago I was in the market for a 4wd. I wasn't really all that impressed by what was on the market, I wanted live axles, coil suspention, turbo diesel that didn't drink 12-15lts/100 and a few creature comforts (air con, abs, airbags).

On a filght home from working up in Bundaberg I was reading a copy of Overlander. In it featured an article on a custom disco tray back (a fellow aulro member), the article got me thinking.

So in late 2007 I bought a 2003 2a discovery.



It is a Td5 manual. 44000km on the clock. When i bought it, it had a broken passanger side mirror (I think because the disco was laying on it )
I believe the disco came from up near brisbane somewhere. Does anyone on here now this vehcile in its past life.

Once I got it home I stripped the back had the body striaghtend out. That my father in the background.


After the body was back inline I preped the two chassis. I bought a second chassi so that there was only one join (one was cut forward and the other cut back) Unfortuantly the disco now has a new chassi number (they are stamped on the back rhs, just below the inlet to the fuel tank for those that dont know)



I then made a cut the chassis (see picture for cut profile) and joined them together.



The driveline was lengthened buy using a center bearing. I could of lenghtened it by making a one piece tailshaft, however I did not want the tailshaft hanging down at an angle.
Fuel lines were lenghtened buy using truck air brake line (8mm).
I had to make new brake lines from the abs module to the rear.
I was lucky with the wiring to the back (including abs sensors). Originaly they ran along the rhs chassi rail, across the 3" pipe above the diff, along the lhs chassi rail, then back across to the other side. I simply ran them all the way along the rhs chassi rail and only cross over once. This means that the plug for the lhs abs sensor is now the rhs and vise versa.



When I started I didn't want the back of the cab to look like a piece of sheet metal had been traced to the profile of the cab and welded on, mainly because I think that this is what makes a converted wagon look like a converted wagon. I want the disco to look like it is a factory job. After going around local car yards with a cardboard cut out of the profile, I got a back pannel from an 02 ford courrier. It had to be widened 116mm in the middle. The side profiles are close enough to work with.


The last month or so i have been working on basicaly from the top of the rear window up.







I was busy making these pannels on the weekend. I made the verticle curve in them by running the tig over it every 20mm and quenching the heated area. It follows the curve of the B pillar perfectly.





I'll continue to post pics as the work progresses. I'm out to the shed now to do some more.

Tim

disco ute84 and roversmith,
how much in length did you add to your wheel base's?

cheers phil