Thread: D1 mid life overhaul, what would you do?

My primary car and DD is a 1997 D1 that I have had for seven years now. It's up to 350,000+ km and with an imposed 5 month period of annual leave coming up I'm figuring it might be a good time to pull the Disco apart and give it some love.

Its a 300Tdi automatic fitted out with all the usual, bar, winch, snorkel, lift, flares etc. I want to hold onto it for a while yet. Its got a 2256VNT but apart from that standard powertrain.

I'm thinking of totally removing the interior from the rear forward to get down to the bare body shell, deep cleaning, fitting dynamat, putting an Exmoor re-trim kit through, new sound system with proper amp/subs, re trimming the crappy non-airbag wheel.

Exterior wise it'll need a good degrease and cut and polish but no panel damage or paint falling off (bonnet and roof have been refinished).

Mechanically there is very little wrong. The entire cooling system is brand new from top to bottom, but it needs a new coolant header tank and timing belt. Both batteries are U/S and the dual battery system needs a rewire. It also needs a bigger intercooler to handle the current state of tune with the VNT.

Mechanically or otherwise is there anything I should be looking at at this mileage?

When you strip the body trim out, it would be a good time to weld some strengthening plate around the area where the front rubber body mounts attach to the chassis.
I have seen a lot of cracks develop around those mounts, especially if the Discovery has had upgraded springs and shockers, the extra stiffness causes the chassis flex to work those points more.

At 300,000 Klms on 'Fred', I have just replaced both of the power steering hydraulic lines that are fastened behind the front cross member, the two clamps that hold the metal potion of those pipes, wear into the wall of the pipe and in my case had wore completely through, letting the power steering fluid spray over the exhaust causing lots of smoke when going up hill pulling hard ( more rev's = more pressure inside the pipe ).

The head lining can be salvaged with the loose foam being rubbed off with a block of foam ( the type you use for washing the car with ). With all the old material cleaned away, then you can use a pressure pack spray contact adhesive to glue the cloth lining back to the head lining board.
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