Hello,

I have been lurking on the forums for quite a while now and have saved up some money to do a bit of mods on my 2001 Discovery 2! I figured I would share what I am doing with everyone incase people have comments or suggestions and so that ideas can be shared. As the disco currently sits, I have a voyager roof rack with the chicken coop flooring recently installed on it, tail light guards, the 2004 facelift, and anthracite grey plastic-dipped rims. Heres a list of what I am doing - mostly within the next week or two:

- 3 inch OME lift. 2751 & 2763 coils and extended shocks. I know the ride my be rough; coming in this week.

-D2 OME steering Stabilizer

- 33 inch BFG M/T tires. (255/85r16). Already arrived. Beyond happy with the look of them even though I haven't mounted them yet!

- "RTE" front bumper with brush guard and skid plate. Made by Bill at his new company. Ordered about 4 weeks ago; coming in this week or next.

- Adjustable panhard bar, tire relocation bracket, and extended brake lines from Lucky8. Ordered a week ago and still waiting for them to ship it.





Once all of the above comes in (this week or maybe next week) I will be installing the lift and bumper and have someone mount the tires for me. There are a few more items I will be purchasing, mainly recovery gear, mainly in the next couple of weeks:

- A pair of matrax

-Maxtrax roof rack mounts

-A hi-lift jack

-Hi-lift jack roof rack mount

-ARB recovery gear

-Warn Zeon 10s winch (in a month or so)

-ARB twin Compressor (in a month or so)

-A new and better battery (in a month or so)




One question I do have is where would be a good idea to mount the twin air compressor? I would definitely prefer it to be in the engine bay but room is tight even without secondary air. I would consider installing it in one of the rear storage lockers but I do have a lot of stuff I like to keep in those.

Thanks for checking out this thread and for any help in advance!

 

I also realize that re-gearing would be ideal and that some people have issues and some do not with running a 33 inch tire, but the gears will be done in a year or so when I save up some money for air-lockers.

 

I don't see the expensive HD axles on your build list?

The stock axles are incredibly weak. They seem to hold up for people with the 31-32" tire size (265/75r16) on unlocked rigs, but bigger tire sizes just add to the stress. If you want to keep the stock axles, I'd recommend True-Tracs (what I intend to do) in the place of the lockers. I'm not sure what your target trail difficulty is, but true-tracs with the traction control is a venerable combination, and should protect your axles.

I'm assuming all maintenance is done? Don't forget the flex disc in the rear and a servicable driveshaft up front. If your front shaft goes, you'll be sad you spent all that $$ on the "fun stuff".

Don't forget the center locking differential. Front and rear lockers are worthless if your front-diff isn't locked. It'd stink to have all those mods and then have your front end fail to spin because the diff isn't locked. Sure, traction control can bail you out here, but if you are spending the $$ on ARBs, you'd definitely want them to work all the time as soon as you push that button.

Should be a fun build, and will be an extremely capable rig when you are done. Keep us posted.

You've already got the front bumper, but I'd consider the Tactical Rover bumper for the rear. With the increased approach angle, your rear overhang becomes the weak point!

 

The weakness of the axles is often over exaggerated. Mine have held up even to some real romping even in low range. I know that ShadeTree's Disco (thebls swapped one) is also on stock axles with, I believe, one tru-trac and one locker. He told me he romps on that thing at WOT and hasn't broken any axles, even in low range. As long as you're smart about it, stock axles will hold up. Then just replace them with HD as they break if you start to break them.


I second the addition of CDL. Your is an 01, so you may just need the shifter. ABS actually wont bail you out here because it only works side to side and does not register or correct slippage between the front and back. I'd go for CDL before lockers.

For the hi-lift, I actually ended up going for the smittybuilt version and like it better. The base is larger so it wont skink up in mud and the price is right. It will also still mount to hi-lift mounting accessories.

For your battery, get a group 65 AGM. I've got the autocraft version and have for more than a year now. Love it. Starts quick, even in negative degree weather. It's also never died on me. I even accidentally left the switch on for a whole weekend and when I found it she cranked right up.

 

The weakness of the axels (as with any axel) is in lateral flex. I really don't see an issue with running 33s on stock axels unless you are planning to push it to the limit. If you are just going for 33s for roll over height and not planning on taking on huge rock farms you should be fine.

I think this depends on what your intended usage is. I personally plan on going the True-Trac route, because it works so well with the Land Rover traction control system. However if the plan is to build a truck that will climb anything, or mud with the best of them, the ARBs would be a better choice.

X3 on the CDL, all you need is a cable and lever (lucky 8 sells a really cool one). Sure it's $550, but damn is it the way to go.

 

I'm sure all of you will be happy to know that I have installed the CDL linkage already! A few months ago, from a 2004 disco. The added traction is awesome so far. As for HD axles, I did have it in my head to do them and HD CV's at the same time as the air lockers - sometime in the future. From the response I have gotten from the other posters, I may wait and see if I would actually need them and I'll definitely have to do more research on the TrueTrac lockers before I make any moves on those items.

My rover was in Texas until about two years before I purchased it and therefore had literally no rust. To keep it that way, I undercoated it with KBS Coatings products and so far I think it'll hold up for a while. I also got tired of fixing exhaust leaks on my system and eventually bought and installed a full magnaflow system a few months ago. I know there are plenty of people who dislike them on disco's but I personally love it. It's not too loud or drony. I like the fact that it is stainless steel and although not the best grade of stainless, it has a lifetime warranty against rust..so when it does rust, magnaflow will replace it.

My rotoflex looks like it is in good condition, the front driveshaft was replaced with a greaseable one about a year before I bought it (I have owned it for a year and a half now). I grease it with every oil change. The head gaskets were replaced about a year before I bought it as well and the brand new heads were installed. All verified by paperwork and it was obvious to tell the heads were new from looking at them. Coolant was switched to Peak from Dexcool. A 180 degree thermostat was installed and I run at 188 or so. Regular oil and fluid changes.

Also in the future I would like to get a rear bumper and rock sliders from Bill since he's been great to work with and I am positive that I will be more than happy with his work when my front bumper arrives. I'll check out the other options though before then as well.

Thanks for the info on the hi-lift jack and the battery! I do believe the battery I was looking at was a 65 group if I remember correctly and it had 900 CCA. I'll double check.

I'm in upstate New York at the moment and I'm finishing up my last year of college - Mechanical Engineering at Binghamton University. So I can't honestly say exactly what type of trails I will be running after college since I have hopes of moving to the Pacific Northwest but am open to any options that come my way.

I also forgot to mention that I ordered a snorkel off of eBay, not a Safari brand but some "knockoff" dare I say. It looks legit although the directions are vague but the templates appears to line up with everything well. I'll be having at it tomorrow and will post some pictures and feedback on it incase others are curious about the $130 snorkels with shipping off of eBay. I do plan on doing some water crossings. I live basically on the Delaware River and there are plenty of spots where the water ranges from 10 to 30 inches or so from boat landings out to large rock islands and I have been drooling over the idea of taking the plunge

Thank you all for the feedback and comments!

 

Before you take on any water crossings, you better make sure the connection between the air box and the inner fender hasn't disintegrated. I'd almost guarantee it has. Every one I've ever seen had turned to much. You could probably fashion a replacement out of a silicon coupling if you knew what size you needed, but I just ended up making my own intake out of turbo couplings and pipe. I actually just extended it into a snorkel, but I'm sure you'd rather use what you've got as it will probably look better and, obviously, you've already got it.

 

Yes mine is not looking so great and I have been trying to think something up for the past few days. I ordered a tube of sensor safe silicone for the general install and I have seen some people literally just smear it all over that intermediate flex duct to make a new sealing layer around it. I bet it works but it is a matter of how long it will hold up in my opinion. Unfortunately I have not been able to find any long term feedback on that method. My plan is to try that and just see what i think once it cures on that piece and go from there. I'l be actively thinking of a new ducting method though.

 

Ive been through 2 (rear) differentials in the past 2 or so years on the same axle shafts running LT235/85/r16. The only time i broke a axle shaft (front passenger) was when my rotor split in two. So in my experience the shafts hold up pretty well.

 

I mentioned a few days ago that I was going to be installing a snorkel that I bought off of eBay. It was from a company in Australia called Cane Toad Equipment. It looked legit so I gave it a try.

I started off by examining the template. It looked like what you would see from a Safari snorkel and it lined up with the body panel, so that was a good start. I noticed right away that this snorkel only had 4 mounting stud holes. At first I was worried since the Safari brand has 6 I believe, but in the end this thing was mounted so solidly that this did not bother me one bit. The plastic appeared to be of good quality and the eBay posting claimed it was UV resistant plastic. The seams of the plastic and the snorkel head look identical to that of the Safari brand.

I held the template up to the snorkel and realized the three of the four stud holes on the template were off almost 1/4 inch. Since it wasn't much and I wanted to see how things would have worked if I solely went with the template, so I did that and am able to give a better review.

I drilled the stud holes and the air duct hole as the template instructed. As I thought, those three stud holes were off about 1/4 of an inch - not that big of a problem. The hole/oval that the actual air duct part of the snorkel passed through was spot on though - this was great news. So far so good.

I might add that this came with no directions and only a vague diagram. So, no hole diameters were given. I measured and went with a 2.5 inch hole saw and I think a 3/8 inch bit for the stud holes.

This was going great and the snorkel mounted up to the body work perfectly! The issue arose with the metal intermediate ducting they supplied to connect the snorkel duct to the factory flanged duct inside the engine bay. It was all sorts of messed up. The piece looked really roughly made to begin with and seemed too large because by the time I chopped out enough of the inner fender to pass it through, the two factory air duct studs that it was supposed to mount to were removed for the clearance needed. So I had to improvise that and it took a while.

Aside from that one piece, I had no issues. It looks great! I silaflexed all of the duct work from the air box back and also the spots where water could enter into the air box itself. I'm happy with it.