Looks great!! Can't wait until winter is over and I can try to make mine look good again this summer.

Did I see correctly that you have one of the back seats removed? What's there in its place?

 

Thanks! Yeah, we're lucky to have a pretty mild winter usually in Denver, down the hill from the mountains. Though we could really use more precip this winter for a lot of reasons.

Actually I didn't remove one jump seat, I added one. My truck is an SE, but I pieced together everything to add a sixth seat. The other side retains the original storage bin that occupies the footprint of a folded jump seat. The non-third row vehicles have 'em. And they are pretty handy.

 

I installed a set of Blacklisted Engineering's motor mounts and a set of D1 perches on my D2.

 

Must say, been looking for a pic of a D2 without the flares and yours looks great. They did a nice job too.

 

A few mysteries solved by applying simple physics to the approach.

As far as bleeding the system and the waterfall noise in the passenger compartment. Lets remember that when hot/under pessure every cooling system becomes a closed system after the first time you heat it up. But when cold you can break that seal which is fine because gravity keeps the fluid levels equal thus not allowing air into the system. much the same way the trap on the sink in your house which stops methane gasses from getting into your home.

Now for why the land rover way to bleed the system is the only way to do it right and its simple.

This applys to both D1's and D2's..

If you look at a picture of the truck from the side and draw a vertical line across it at level with the top of the radiator. you will notice that both the heater core and the bleed cap sit above plane with the rest of the system.

As for the heater core and the water fall noise this is do to an air pocket that gets trapped in the part of the heater core that is above plane withth the rest of the system. That said if you have even a pin hole or loose clamp bad head gasket ETC.ETC. Air is making its way into what should be a closed system. With air getting into the system it will make its way to the top of the heater core causing the water fall noise. Most likely cause for this is a pin hole in the heater core itself which is very common for all older cars. I recommend bypassing the heater core by pulling the hoses off the fire wall and hooking them together. this will give a good idea of weather the heater core is bad or not. pin holes in the heater core can cause an over heating problem to resurface moths later after you have done tons of work and spent tons of money replacing everything else to no avail.

As far as bleeding the system you must have a bleed orafice above the radiator if you dont have the factory one in the rad hose that runs over the cowl or in the T fitting that connects the 3 hoses to the left of the AC compessor you need to get the oem parts or plumb one in to either of those locations they are clearly pointed out on diagrams in the rave just look up cooling system drain and refill.

Now for simple physics if you take a clear hose and fill it water stand at the top of a stair case and have another at the bottom with a pole to hold the hose end up to same level as the person at the top the sairs the water at both ends of the hose will be level on the same spacial plane. if you were to have a third person hold the hose up in the center to same hieght then you would have a bubble in the middle. Trust me it never fails.

Now apply this Simple theory to your cooling system if part of the heater core sits above the rest of the cooling system then you have the potential to get an air bubble in the heater core this air bubble can migrate or split into 2 or 3 or more bubbles. Now one of those bubble can migrate to the thermostat housing and get cuaght in there thus allowing the thermostat to cool down and close up on you.

So when the rave tells you to unclip the hose from the top of the cowl and open the bleeder and raise the overlow tank. that opens the system at it's highest piont and puts the over flow into a potision to gravity feed and push any air out of the system.

This was an oversite in the heater design location and can only be rectified by bleeding the system the way they tell you. Or to or bypass or relocate the heater core lower in the system.

If you can have your system pressureized and watch for leak down if it does find it. leaks dont allway present them selves by fliud spilling out some of those can actually close up as the system heats up. Remember simple physics when thins get hot they expand thus closing gaps. but when the system cools down it can suck air in. Which common sense tells me is the cuase of alot of overheating and cooling system problems withese cars.

Last but not least use THE ORANGE COOLANT I cannot stress this enough. These are all aluminum motors and having owned BMW's before. Remember these motors were originally desinged and built by bosch. Which are most notable for there formula1 engines. that saud they are way over engineered for a utility aplication so treat the motor like its from a porsche or beemer. To get the performace specs they were looking for in an SUV the engine runns hotter and the orange coolant is desined to haddle that heat and keap the motor at its safe running temperature. The green stuff does not do it. remember these motors were disined by race engineers so the normal peramitters do not apply.


I hope this helps. I love this forum it has been supper helpful so I hope this helps others understand the cooling sytem better.

 

Yeah, I had trouble finding many pics without the fender flares too. Any mine were pretty cooked from the sun. Faded plastic looks even worse on a black car too, in my opinion. So I just busted out the cheapo Harbor Freight heat gun and pried 'em off one side. I liked the cleaner look a lot, so I repeated on the other side.

Be prepared to invest a decent amount of time (and heat and Goo Gone) in getting all the trim adhesive off though.

 

Thank you for the inspiration. My next mod awaits.

 

G150driver

Yours and my Rover look very similar. I too don't have flares anymore. I also removed all the badging.

One question; is that only one rumble seat you have? How did you manage that?

 

all i did was buy parts for mine

 

I didn't do anything to mine today except look at it and wish I could have driven it to work. Victim of a cracked block. New motor will be in soon.

But at least it looks good and I agree...D2's look better without flares.