I goofed off this evening and drove around the property in 4 low just kinda testing everything. It all works: low range, CDL, HDC, the winch, etc. No pics as I couldn’t find anything of consequence to mess around on, but it does pretty well.

I adjusted the steering box a bit more and think I have it now, but I have to say, the castor is off with the radius arms in there as the steering is a bit lazy. This will come in time as I decide on probably a very slightly more moderate suspension setup. It apparently has small lifting springs and some spacers in there, which I’m not a fan of, but it sure rides nice- better than any of my other D2s ever did. I also adjusted the street tire pressures and it definitely is driving a good bit nicer. Ironically I still very much prefer how the Alveston drives, but the ride is significantly more Cush in the silver one.

Of course the temps bordering too low at times…

As all systems are working great, now I can get down to brass tacks for the rally and what prep will entail. I’m thinking I’ll do a transmission service and certainly oil as well at a minimum, and might see about just swapping out power steering fluid too.

The tick is still there as it gets up to temp, but seems less pronounced as it’s running I suspect 30+ degrees cooler now. I’ve driven it a bit hard just to test (certainly harder than I normally drive my Discos) and it’s just fine. The oil change will a good baseline for stuff and go from there.

Where this is going to really be fun as it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, is start to work on the engine on the stand. With how few miles I’m putting on, I suspect this engine will last until I get the other one built, so I’m looking forward to it.

This weekend we’ll head out and do a mild trail run with a few little bits and see how it does in the wild and then I’ll really have a baseline for what I want to do. In terms of modifications there is very minimal I’m looking at as xrad really did a great job with this thing and there is very little more it could possibly need. I’ll probably go back to silly little things like a snorkel, change out the rack lights, and I guess a hood blackout. Beyond that, there is very little I could even think of wanting unless I decided to get it to the level of the Jeep.

A couple good Rover days are always good for the soul.

 

They are definitely all different haha can attest to that. We took the classic on it's first full family outing this weekend in almost 6 years of ownership as both discos are sidelined...it is just so comfy and the perfect cruiser when you can avoid 60+mph (have solution for that but you know time and well time haha). OEM is great if you can get a good t-stat but over time that has proven time and time again to be more difficult than it should be. What tires/size are on it? Spring spacers on these are not that bad. I have a set of small ones to level out my white disco and the classic has some huge 2" blocks on massive lift springs and they all perform just fine. I found that tire width has quite a bit to say on wandering on these cars more than lift, maybe that's just me but have had various sizes and lift amounts between my 2 discos.

 

The tires on there right now are 265 60 18. If I can find the time, I’d like to swap the ones from the Alveston (265 65 18) and see what those feel like. I’ve traditionally not been a fan of the BFGs (as we’ve talked about) but they are way better in the particular application.of the Alveston for whatever reason. Based on the very slightly smaller sidewall on the ones on the silver one now, I was expecting it to handle a bit better than it is. They are kinda no name brand, but so new I don’t want to ditch them until I’ve driven them a while longer. But I do want to see what the BFGs feel like.

I ran an errand today and I’ve got the steering box dialed really well, but again a bit lazy and can only think that is due to castor. I will say, the Alveston has tracked the best of any of my D2s, so the bar is pretty high there. But the plush nature of the spring/shock setup in the silver one is definitely a benchmark, it just doesn’t handle as well as I’d like. I took it on a dirt road at decent speeds (call it 50-60 mph) and with the roll as well as lazy steering, it wasn’t real confidence inspiring. Nothing is wrong at all, it’s just not as precise as I’d like. No bump steer or anything, just slower to react than I’d like.

But back on the T stat, the whole thing really revolves around simplicity. I don’t think the in line setup breaks or harms anything, and based on that simplicity and the obvious bleeding and quality of parts issue with the OEM T stat design, it makes the whole thing fun and I no longer have to dread cooling system service.

 

Does it have a front sway bar on it? that kind of sounds like it's been removed. K02s are yeah...haha but I'd still take them over an offbrand offering everytime. I don't notice too much wandering on my 3" lift and almost zero on 2" on the green one, I have some steering box adjusting to do on the white one with the 3" that should cut the wandering down some more, it's also loaded very heavy with RTT, bumpers, armor, and various tools and what not that live in the vehicle.

 

Yeah the front is connected and really doesn’t flex any better than the Alveston. I’ll get disconnects at some point for the front.

It doesn’t wander in as much as it just isn’t as precise as the Alveston- hard to explain. On center might be the issue, but not sure. I also think the steering wheel might be one spline off, but again, I’m still in the honeymoon phase and learning the machine.

 

Along the lines of the above, I took it out last night and played for a few minutes on the top of a mountain by the house I head up to for some testing. I’m slowly doling out conditions to test the health of everything. The traction control is the best in this one of any of my D2s. Wheel stands and everything.





Now this one is interesting. I was impressed as it climbed- despite the bumper digging in pretty good.





I was solo so I had to prop my phone in a tree, and it doesn’t show how steep or tall some of the wheel stands were, but I was pretty impressed.

 

Oh wow, I got the video to upload. That’s kinda cool.

Anyway, that was the good news. The bad news is the temp started to climb a bit. Now to be fair, it held at 194F at 60F ambient and I was in a sustained climb (in 4 high) for 10+ miles at 5-10 mph. This is a dirt “road” heading to that little play spot. On the way down I did it in 4 low and the temp went right back down.

I needed to drive to the office today to get some stuff done and it was 80-90F ambient and of course.I blared the AC the whole time. Heading down from the house, zero worries. However, on the climb back up it even got to 204F a couple times.

When I got home I finally cleaned up the hoses. You guys think this little kink is OK?



I took it out for a drive down the hill and then back up to the house and sure enough on the climb up it hit 204F again, also with the AC blaring and it was still 80+F.

This is a Britpart water pump (brand new). I think the fan clutch just couldn’t keep up. Condenser fan is working as it is supposed to. So I’ve ordered the severe duty Hayden clutch and more aggressive Dorman blades and we’ll see what happens.

 

Sigh. So one of the hose clamps on the in line housing wanted to start to leak this evening on a short drive. I got home no muss no fuss (well I left a little coolant in the street where we got ice cream) and horked on the clamp pretty good and it wasn’t leaking by the time I got home. I parked it on an incline again to give bubbles an opportunity to escape, so we’ll see.

The clutch and fan should be here this week, so hopefully I can get those in and go from there.

If I were to have 2 quick complaints on the in line solution:
- the slight kink in the upper hose I posted a pic of
- getting the hoses connected to the housing and sealed up well

I got the silicone gasket as I knew I’d be changing the thermostat a decent bit, but getting the hoses to seat properly and clear everything isn’t quite as plug and play as I was anticipating. Meh, I’m still having fun.

 

Cut a little more off that hose and it should straighten out some. It's not helping your problem but also not going to be causing it. The thread about bypassing the heater is very intriguing as I'm having some temp creep issues and I think in CO could be very beneficial with how long some of the highway climbs get to be esp at elevation (up to the tunnel or god forbid you think you're avoiding 70 and do Monarch pass instead....that going either way is RV8 hell haha).

 

Well, I’m pretty sure something got proven today. The fan clutch came in the other day and last night I was able to get it installed. It was kinda fun and cathartic as I’ve had a stress riddled few weeks at work and playing for a few minutes reminded me of how this is a fun hobby, and frankly a good exercise in troubleshooting 101.

Anyway, I took it for a drive tonight to run an errand and it was a little over 80F and of course ran the AC. The fan only made things nominally better. What I have discovered is with ANY appreciable load for more than 30 seconds and the temp JUMPS up. I mean like 20 degrees within a minute or 2. Remove the load or have the load even and it goes right back down. And it will idle with the AC on for a good bit and stick in the 180s. This is with a 170F t stat in the in line housing.

So this proves a couple things as near as I can tell:
- The OEM style (Britpart in this case) water pump it seems can’t keep up
- The in line thermostat solves nothing

This is not to say the in line thermostat is a bad solution. Rather, I am saying it doesn’t solve anything other than to simplify the system. Unless I have something else like a head gasket going, or a slipped liner or something else precluding good coolant flow, it has not changed much. I have ZERO indication of either of those with the engine as the coolant that came out was clean and it’s not used any since I’ve added, and the dipstick is showing the oil to be perfect, not to mention no codes.

I say this because in the Alveston on the same roads, with the same load, the same fan clutch, same coolant, same ambient temp, but with a (functioning) OEM t stat, my temps are DRAMATICALLY more stable. As the only other variable in the mix is the water pump, that tells me the in line didn’t do anything. Now the only way I can fully confirm this is to go ahead and put the Flowkooler in (it finally came) and see if things get better. If I don’t get more stability, then obviously I’ll eat my words, but I’m pretty confident this is the water pump not moving enough coolant.

This could also be attributed to that kink in the hose caused by the in line housing, but I’m pretty sure that shouldn’t be enough to cause such jumps. Now I have to say also, the temps are not getting to the danger zone and have not gone over 204F, but then a couple minutes of no load and it drops over 20 degrees and that tells me the water pump isn’t keeping up. I may try to remove the T stat on the whole and see what happens, but I don’t think it will change much.

My key observation and subsequent concern is the dramatic swings in temp based on load. And, for example, on a protracted climb heading to Ouray, I’m obviously concerned it will climb even further.

Next- easy- step is to remove the T stat altogether and see what happens. Beyond that, I’ll do the water pump. If that doesn’t do it, I’m going to stick to my plan and drive it till it blows up.