I love the progress, your sentiments about disco life mirror mine perfectly. When the thing works, life is bliss, when it takes a crap I just want to throw it away.... but then I remember the good times hahah.

 

I’ve been stupid busy and really not done much other than drive it. The Boss’ L320 was down for quite a while and the Alveston has served her well as a backup machine. We just got that back today and now are back to full operations on all the machines.

But here is a possible mild bummer (well it is for me, but with a silver lining) for those that have enjoyed watching me struggle, have fun, learn, and generally feed my addiction to the D2: we are going to move back to Europe for a few years. We’ve thought about it for quite some time, and decided if fate would allow us the opportunity while the kids were at a certain age, we’d do it. Well, the chance came up, and we think it will be a great experience for the kids, and hopefully will get my career back on line.

Fear not, though, as neither Disco will be sold. The barn should be finished within the month and I’ll be storing them (and a couple more cars) here while we are gone, and I’ll of course pick up where we left off. The Giverny will start in earnest upon our return and we’ll go from there.

Here is the cool part: while we are there, the Td5 will be 25 years old and can be imported. I have a personal goal (probably unrealistic) to get an air cooled 911 to bring back, and boss kinda wants a Defender 110, but we’ll see. We brought back her G Wagen during our last tour there, so we’re not sure, but a Td5 D2 would certainly be pretty nifty as well.

We’re not heading out for a couple more months- the boss’ job starts first and I’ll follow with the kids- and the logistics of an international move are always a lot of work, but this most likely means I won’t even get to putting the new dash in the Alveston, but we’ll see how much we’ll get done. This is pretty exciting for us and will be fun to maybe pick a new toy or so while there.

 

oooh yes a td5 anything would be quite perfect here in CO...

 

Thanks for taking us along on your journey. You've done a great job.

 

Thanks! But the journey is not over, just on pause. Actually, might have a cool new chapter if I can find a Td5 to get while there. Seems it might make for a really cool new twist if I can make that happen.

We aren’t selling the property and the Discos will be put in storage. I’ll still be around and will pick up where we left off.

I’m really going to miss the Disco, but it just doesn’t make sense to try and take it as there would be a bunch of stuff I’d need to do to get leaks shored up, and I wouldn’t be able to drive it in the city centers or the like anyway. All that, not to mention it won’t keep up on the autobahn in the speed frei zones- or much of anywhere else for that matter. This is why the only cars we are taking are the S4 and the boss’ hotrod. Maybe I’ll get lucky and the market will soften a bit for 911s…

 

Well, I’m going to get one last hurrah before leaving and do a Death Valley trip this week. This will be a little bike focused trip, but I’ll be taking the Alveston for the trip. This will be the second Disco I’ll have taken to DV and it will be interesting to see how this one does. I’ll be using the trailer this time as I’ll be coming back with a couple more bikes (the kids’ first gas bikes) so it will be interesting to see how it does on the climbs in and out of the park.

I was thinking as I mounted the tent this time how much I missed the chicken coop flooring to mount stuff, and the rock rails as steps to set things up. It just goes to show how well I had the blue one set up. It’s also funny how much I’m mirroring the blue one as well…









The same steel box I used in the blue one and that goes in the Jeep of course fits really well. However, the space difference with not having the 7 seats is dramatic. Pics on that after I finish loading up tomorrow.

Oh yeah, in driving around, I noticed DRAMATICALLY not having ACE this time. HUGE difference and is once again why I love that system.

 

What's amazing to me is how different your house looks without all that white crap lying around. Looking at the first picture, I thought, "No way that's Sally's house, the garage is waaaay too clean."

 

You can’t see the other side…. The 500 is there along with a massive pile of junk to be loaded in the Disco for the trip. I also still need to get your core drive shaft shipped out. Yes, things are nuts for us right now- and sadly there won’t be much let up after I get back from DV as that will be the start of packing the house to be put in storage and getting the cars ready to ship.

For fun the other evening I did a quick search for Td5s on Autoscout.de and they were all a bit clapped out and poorly optioned, but I’ll be keeping my eyes open. Of course the 911 market is just as stupid as it is here, so that is probably a pipe dream.

And regarding winter…. I am done and I mean DONE with this winter!!!!!!!!! FFS this is ridiculous. It was pretty and sunny and in the mid 40s, but it’s been close to single digits at night still. This only happens every few years in CO, but it is a bit annoying.

I’ll get some pics up with all the gear loaded for the trip and maybe a few of the trip itself.

 

Well you certainly can’t say Disco is dead. A little over 2k miles in 6 days to Death Valley and back. I POUNDED the poor Disco, and it did really well. The temp never got over 195, even with protracted climbs in 2nd gear at over 3k RPMs.

About the only negative (aside from being painfully slow) was the economy. I have never experienced economy so bad before…

The office for a couple days.



Familiar site on this trip.



Drove through some pretty gnarly weather. This is Eagle Canyon in UT I think.



Lots of views like this.



And I think this was my worst tank. This is just plain embarrassing and bordering irresponsible. I actually only saw double digits for a couple tanks. Ridiculous.



Quick stop at Rhyolite on the way in.



Camp.



Good riding as always.



And even rode into a mine jus at a bit and explored. Kinda cool. Not quite as cool as Reward Mine where I rode in a mile or so, but still really neat. Obviously this is crazy remote and a 4x4 couldn’t get back to this one.



Overlooking Mengel Pass where we watched the silly 4x4s struggle as we cruised on through.



After Goler Wash and some fun high speed irresponsibility.



I stayed with an old friend who has a pretty remote place in UT for the last night on the way home, which was nice.



And a quick lunch stop somewhere in UT.



Sorry, not a huge amount of Disco specific content, but the Alveston has now proven itself quite well and truly deserves to be part of this thread and journey. I still have a little ways to go, but it did great.

I blew a fork seal and the bike is now leaking oil too (probably too much cow bell or spending too much time close to the Disco). I only added oil once to the Disco for the whole trip. The Disco turned over 180k miles officially and still runs like a top. The weather was so bad, you can’t even tell what color it is right now, but the HVAC, and heated seats worked perfectly. I had no additional codes other than the now perpetual P0501, but that won’t get resolved before we leave for Europe.

If I get time I’ll still do some stuff to the Alveston as I’ll still be here for a couple more months at least and I’ll certainly do pics with stuff.

 

What a nice send-off. Well done!