Took my family from Western Washington to Denver for a week in the Disco camping rig. There were some tense moments but she made the trip and lives for another day, although I’m much closer to having to drop in my rebuilt long block in my garage…. My rig uses a little coolant (exterior HG leak as far as I can work out) so I just top it up from time to time, right up until I forgot and she boiled over right as we arrived at our Air BnB. The leak got worse so I apprehensively put in half a bottle of Barr’s Stop Leak (don’t judge me!) and it seems to have done the trick for the time being. I run the inline mod with the cap loosened a little and it was HOT in Denver. The hot, dry, high altitude air really does a number on these trucks, tough to keep cool and absolutely no power at altitude, going over the Rockies was slow going. After it all, I love my Disco 2 even more, traveling in the west (especially near Moab) one sees overland builds (of which I would count mine as, although quite mild) and every single one is on a Toyota or Jeep, I must have seen literally 100 of them. You can keep your brand new 4Runner with sparkling clean paint and no dents, yeah it probably starts every time you turn the key and you don’t have to watch the coolant level like a hawk but man, it’s just so unimaginative.

By the numbers:
Round trip mileage: ~2,900
Minimum altitude: 30’ ASL
Max Altitude: 11,158’ ASL
Hottest Exterior Temp: 110 F
Hottest Disco Engine Temp: 212 F
Other Disco 2’s seen: 3
Percentage of those other Discos broken down on side of road: 33%
Number of times complete strangers complimented the Disco: 2

 

Very nice. Glad you had a good time.
but you should get the leak fixed after all you knew it was there lol.
I wouldn’t hesitate to drive mine anywhere. Maintenance is all done

 

When it gets super hot in Denver I boil over especially if I turn it off right after a uphill before temps have a chance to come down. I just did hg and everything and have zero issues. Both my discos do it when the ambient is around 100. Both run extincts inline mod. So for the summer months I run the cap tight. Everything is new when I did the hg in both of them this spring, so not super worried about blowing a hose or something like that.

 

That’s exactly what happened to me, boiled over right after I turned it off after an uphill section. I figured the heat soak must have caused it.

 

Imagine what happens on a oem thermostat when it’s running 225 and you shut it off ? That must hit 260ss

I can’t imagine my idle temp after a good highway run is 175-180. I have never seen mine boil over or anything past 195 after a shut off. And we been getting 30 plus degrees Celsius here most summer
that’s the good thing about this inline mod the idle temps are 180. Perfect

 

I don't do any better than +100 ambient once it goes over 90-95 degrees. I drove my white one for 3-4 years stock set up with zero issues. Eventually had an external hg leak but that was on original hg's at 130k miles which for 20 years old I had no complaints.

Did you do any camping/off-roading while in Denver or did you stick around the city? Normally probably would have seen one of my discos if around the city but we took both discos up to Steamboat Springs last week..

 

We were in town for a wedding plus a small family reunion of sorts so we were going somewhere just about every day. Went to Wings over the Rockies, The Science Museum, Boulder, Estes Park/ Rocky Mountain NP, Red Rocks, and the Georgetown Loop Railroad, plus the wedding and reception. We took 3 days to drive there (and back), camping each night and stopping at interesting places like Arches NP, Dinosaur National Monument, and Moab. It was a really good trip.

 

I can't seem to drive the XD anywhere anymore without being stopped and asked questions. I went to a birthday party in Houston for a friend. Jumped in the XD, stopped at a gas station and a guy asked me some questions and said nice 4x4 for sure. Then on the road a new Jeep JLU flew up beside me then slowed down, looked over and they were waving like crazy at me, and honestly at that point I thought to myself what could have fallen off haha. Then they rolled the windows down and gave me a huge thumbs up & then sped off lol. My number of D1/D2 sightings lately = 0 lol
Glad you had a great time on your trip!

 

Nice you got compliments. When I went on the White Rime Trail in my stock D2 (except for the 30.5" tires) this summer, the drivers in their pimped up Jeeps or Toyotas didn't even greet.