I've had to put mine aside for the past year, myself. Should be getting her put back together late next month, but it sucks. I feel like that will fix your issue though. Best of luck!

 

No offense man, but it doesn't really sound like you have the constitution for this type of vehicle. More than likely this is the just first of many situations that will require several fix attempts and lots of trial and error.

I get it, I've been there, but a Toyota lol.

 

You're probably right.

Kind of a shame that being homeless in 10 days, and without a place to work on the Rover would warrant us as unfit owners. It is what it is though.

 

I mean, that sounds exactly like the type of situation that would exclude a discovery as a viable vehicle to own on any level. Hopefully this pump and fan work and you can at least utilize it for awhile, but if my life was in a period of Flux, I would be ditching the land rover like it carried the plague.

 

I completely understand where you're coming from, and believe me I've thought about it too.

At the end of the day I would find it very hard to walk away from something that I've vested so much time in. We've installed a new engine, fixed numerous issues from the previous owner, repaired frame rust, and built the inside to live from. We've spend a fair amount of money getting to where we are, and that's not something we can just walk away from. I'm OK with losing a little money, but I want to be able to use this for what we intended.

Things will break, things will fail, and I know that. I'm prepared to wrench on this whenever I have to, and I'm not afraid of doing it either. It's all part of the adventure.

 

Not bragging at all here, but nearly 20 years of driving Land Rover's and I'm not living in a van down by a river, or walking to work. I drive my Land Rovers!!!! I have yet to have a single LR that I've owned (pushing 25 now over the years) leave me stranded or paying out the (_!_) to fix. I just keep on top of their maintenance, and I do military type pre-flight checks before going on any serious trips. Even the best military aircraft require constant TLC to be air worthy.

ScanGauge II makes my life a lot easier, I know what all my LR's are supposed to sound like, what their temp ranges are, and if anything changes drastically I pull over to investigate. LR's are awesome, but unless you bought it brand new or know absolutely everything about em it could be a money pit, but that goes for any older vehicle honestly.

I've owned Japanese 4x4's and sure they're pretty bulletproof, but they can go wrong, and when they do it's usually a pretty expensive part. Anything with moving parts will need upkeep. I don't care if it's a Toyota or a Land Rover.


I just looked over my friends 03 D2 last week, and within 15min I knew more about than my friend did the past 12 years he's owned it... He had a local guy working on it, and stuff was not being done properly. I've worked on it a total of 4 days now and it is not the same D2 that he dropped offf for me to fix. It's basically fully restored to darn near brand new. It'll last him a very longtime!

 

This is the key. I bought this Rover knowing that I wasn't going to take it into the shop. The only reason why I bucked and did so was thinking they could fix it faster than I could. That ended up not being the case, and I've learned from that.

This forum has been instrumental to my learning about my Rover, and I'm starting to feel more and more comfortable around it. I feel like after the heating issue is fixed that I'll have a pretty sound Rover. I've tried taking care of issues that I know are problem, and hopefully that pays.

I will also say the my UltraGauge has been a blessing, and more than once I've been very glad to have it.

 

I'm not sure why people think that the D2's are especially
high maintenance. Mstudt has built the truck, replaced the engine and is in final stages of debugging the cooling system. What's adding to the stress level here is the build timeline. You'd have this level of pressure on any older Overland build with a hard deadline at the end of it.

While you're replacing the waterpump, the inline stat mod would greatly simplify your hose routing and results in a system that is significantly easier to bleed.

Drop me a line when/if you get into the Pacific Northwest!

 

I agree with Robert completely. Anytime there is a deadline, something is gonna go wrong but you have to fix it and move on and that's what they are doing. I think it's great that they as a couple/family are taking this adventure in a d2 of all vehicle. I do my inspections like I was still in the military. Hell I have a checklist I made and if my wife wants to drive it and play in it, she has to go through the checklist. It's all about Maitenance and upkeep. As long as the owner is proactive, as mstud is, instead of reactive, it will last a long time. I intend to be able to keep mine till my 3 year old wants it to drive. I know that discovery inside and out and will continue to know it by staying on top of it. I can tell when it's not running right and I fix it. I think you will be able to meet your deadline and enjoy it across this country

 

My lack of time is the sole reason for being stressed beyond belief right now. I'm really hoping with all the work that's been done that this will be reliable. I'm not expecting this to perform flawlessly for the next five years, and I do anticipate having to wrench while on the road at some point.