I'm on my second Disco now. First one was a 98 D1 and now I'm the proud owner of a 2004 D2. My only complaint is that my truck does not have ACE installed. All in all my experience with Discovery has been positive and exciting. Learned so much about working on vehicles. Yup the engines in these vehicles is junk, but American nevertheless - best not to forget that. The British should have used a 100% English built engine rather than the buick. Another thing worth noteing is that the Discovery model was never the pride and joy of Land Rover. The design was unique but many of the parts used came straight out of the "parts bin"... I honestly don't believe LR intended the Disco to live long past say 100,000 miles. The fact that are Disco's are still running and prowling the trails is amazing. Your a experience mechanic and a car person, so rule number 1: do the research before you buy a vehicle and spend $$$$ on it. If you cant handle it then I guess your crap out of luck. My Disco still runs fine and no leaks, but then again she was well cared for with all oil changes and serivice in time and all records kept. She has 133 on her right now. My reward to her is frequent oil changes, keeping up with basic mantinence a HD lift kit, new Hella lights, rare wheels and many other goodies hehehe

 

I have been working on this swap as well, have actually made some significant progress on the engineering, just haven't mocked up the t-case to tranny yet. It is relatively easy if you are willing to use the more modern 4l80e but I want to use the 4l60 because of availability and lighter weight.

Feel free to contact me on engineering details and to collaborate on the swap.