Hey all, my name is Mike and am new to the forums. But this was the first one I came to and I like what you did to your rover. I JUST bought a 1995 Discovery the V8i 4.0 with a Manual transmission! Was hard to find, most I see are automatic. Is a maual uncommon? I know it was in my Jeep. I had a 1997 Jeep Grand cherokee which they DON't make in standard, try finding a standard Grand cherokee, HARD! this one was specially made for Baja racing I guess with the standard and an inline six. But she is long gone now and finally got my desired Rover! Hell it even had me get rid of my 2008 Mercedes. Of course I never wanted that damn car but it worked for work at the time, and was an idiot impulse buy LOL.
So anyway, I like what you did to it, LOVE the tent! I want a tent set up like that but am hoping to be able to find a 4 season or winter expedition style tent. Any idea if they have those? seems every tent I find is summer trek style, what do us extreme weather and snow seekers do?
So I just bought the 1995 Land Rover Discovery, with about 145K miles on it. Any recommendations were I should start? Both as far as servicing and mods go? And I'm always looking for bargins, not as well off as I used to be before my business went down, actually doing pretty bad, so any mods I can do buying used parts but still get quality and safety I am all about!!

 

The drop down service you installed on the fifth door. What is that and were did you get it or make it? also anything you take of that rover that you feel like getting rid of please let me know! I just bought my rover, than was laid off from my job right before Xmas. I am planning a move to Alaska early next year so this is making things a lot more difficult to get this truck ready for a HUGE trip and lots of "FUN" conditions! It's also my first Lad rover so as excited as I am I'm more excited to learn about them and find out the things I should know, should watch for, should service and check, and should upgrade! Your rover looks GREAT! I LOVE it and mine is jealous, and I'm depressed I can't just go out and buy all these upgrades anymore due to current financial situations. Hoping to find people and companies to help get it ready like I did with my Jeep. I had a 97 grand Cherokee years ago that I bought and had fully modified out over the summer and ended up getting asked to put companies logo's and stuff on it in exchange for gear, servicing and parts since they knew I drove it all over to just about every ski resort and many off roading events and sound events as it had a KILLER custom sound system! 6.1 surround and hitting 165db yet you couldn't even tell. I travel a lot for snowboarding and end up sleeping in the rig so being a big movie and music buff had a sound system as good as a movie theater LOL. But not in this Rover, just going to get great speakers, use the stock Sub mount but with better subs, install front tweeters and an average deck so I can rock some good travel music for the long ride
Any ideas anyone? Or advice?

 

I bought the stainless steel back panel from Columbia Overland.

Then, I built the table myself. It is a piece of high grade plywood, painted with truck bed liner paint for toughness and non-slip. The hinges and nuts and bolts all came from the local hardware store. It stays fixed in place by means of some strong magnets.

 

Damn!! wow! good for you. I like Disco Mike's advice. Always service a vehicles needs first.

 

VERY NICE WORK AND THANK YOU FOR SHARING....(and please ignore the people that keep saying "make sure you do your maintenance" I'm sure you've got it under control )

 

The only other thing you may want to check is for leaks around the head gaskets. Perhaps the others here can tell you better, but I bought my Land Rover back in 99 (it was a 96 w/ only 18K miles on it.) At 65K miles, when I took it in to a have it serviced at Bear Valley Land Rover in Atlanta, the service tech there told me that the engine was leaking water at the heads. He had to break the whole engine down and re-gasket from the block all the way up. That job was $6,500! Luckily, I had purchased an additional warranty for my Disco and walaa! they covered the whole dang thing.

I now have well over 160K miles and it's going strong w/ no smoke.

I do have a new issue that just cropped up in that it's dying when I come to a stop which I believe might be telling me I need a full cleaning of the intake & that seafoam cleaning thingy.

However, I can tell you that you've made a cool buy and one that you'll love for years. I've taken my disco into some of the harshest areas and don't have a 2 inch lift. It's gotten some scrapes and bumps but I've had the funnest time with my rover! I absolutely love the truck.

 

One more thing I might suggest. I took a trip with my disco across the U.S. from Ga to Cali during the heat of June. Along the way, my disco overheated when I left it running w/ both air conditioners in a parking lot. There is a plastic plug in top part of the radiator that when it blew, I couldn't just pull it out and had to resort to using a tool called an "Easy Out". Even though I gingerly tapped the "easy out" into place, it ended up denting the top part of the radiator and that was a bummer. I ended up replacing this plug with a copper plug which had the same threads as the plastic one.

I'm not sure why they originally made this part out of plastic but it's a good idea to have a backup copper plug just in case! They're east to find at any home depot or lowes.