Hi, my name is Brad, ive been visiting your site for the last 5 or so weeks and it looks good! I didnt want to get involved until i was officially an owner so now I am, I look forward to joining in the fun.
Having spent the last 23 years riding motorbikes through rain,sleet,snow & wotever else our Great British weather can throw at me, I now drive a 1994 Disco Tdi.
'One' of the problems i seem to have is this feeling of 'indestructability' now im in my 2ton box enjoying the change from one wheel drive to four. Its Great!!!

Another problem i have is backing up my big mouth. For years ive gone on about how 4x4s should be used both on & off road & not just for "The School Run" & running over motorcyclists!! So now i own one.... No, im not gonna start knocking down motorcyclists!

Im very pleased with my Discovery & even though it is my only form of transport, I do intend to use it off road as much as possible. Although it will be mildly at first due to my lack of knowledge in off roading & due to the fact that it is 100% standard, as time goes on, I am hoping to prove to my girlfriend, my mates, & myself that there is no reason what so ever why i cant use my Disco as an everyday car during the week & as a superb off road vehicle at the weekend. (Even in its standard form).
I hope im right!!

Well wish me luck, & i will keep you all posted with my off road adventures!!
Take care all, Brad.

 

Hi Brad, welcome to the forum, and yes it is possible to run a disco as an everyday car and use it off road. But be aware that your maintenance will rise due to the use.

When wading through water for instance, you should check as soon as possible your axle oil, transferbox and gearbox to make sure no water has entered during the wading.

When off roading, it is advisable to travel with at least one other vehicle, thus if anything happens you do not have a long walk to find help.

Also when off roading, do not cause damage to the land, the ramblers etc in the UK at least are just waiting for any excuse to add more fuel to their campaign to stop all 4x4 users from going off road on greenlanes.

If you are looking for others to join in with, migh be worth visiting the site listed below, as you will no doubt find a few.

 

Welcome to the forum! As it happens you're in a similar situation to me. I'm also new to this forum, and I'm new to owning LandRovers AND I have a series one Discovery which is both my main form of transport and a leisure vehicle as well. I can't afford to maintain two LandRovers so I'm going to need to be very careful with the one I've got so that I don't spoil it's excellent on road manner and cosmetic condition.

For that reason I'm taking a careful approach to off roading, choosing to gain experience slowly and carefully pick my off road obstacles. I think I'm going to steer away from deep water wading due to the high maintenance that particular obstacle places on a LandRover and the possible consequences of getting stuck in deep water with all the interior getting ruined and the electrics getting wet. I'll mostly be attempting mild off roading such as local green lanes and stuff.

I've already got her stuck in the middle of nowhere on the top of a very cold mountain though! I'd definately mirror Lighting90's advice and travel in pairs until you've gained enough experience to know what the LandRover can and can't do. I got mine stuck on top of some very deep and muddy ruts which I was attempting to navigate. I didn't like how deep the ruts were getting so I decide to try and come out of them, but that was my mistake as I ended up grounding the rear diff slightly on the soft ground which left a wheel each corner of the vehicle with very little traction. Even with the Diff Lock on I was going nowhere in that situation - the diffs on each axle just turned the easiest wheel, both of which were slightly off ground. Game over! I ended up walking miles in the freezing cold to a local farm and luckily he was nice enough to bring his tractor around to pull me out. If not for him I'd have been in a right mess. The girlfriend wasn't too impressed either hehe.

I'm sure everyone who's ever done any off roading has ended up in a similar predicament though so the trick is to learn from your mistakes and move on

Brian

 

Ive just read your reply, & we are both in abit of a iffy position. We have the nice shiney cars, we wanna use 'em but dont wanna bruise 'em!!
Im sure it will all come together in good time.

Something that sounds like it may be of use to us both is a organisation called "4X4 FUNDAYS LTD" They organise non competetive fundays where for a small fee you can take your vehicle onto thier off road course all day long & learn the skills in a situation where there are plenty of "Experts" to hand should you get stuck. Saving you the long walk for help not to mention any grief off "her in doors".

These people hold several events at several locations. Im planning to take my Disco out for the first time on the 9th of this month for a go at their site near to Burnley in Lancs. If ive heard right, they have 3 different routes. One is an easy route for beginners where you cant damage your vehicle, but you still get to tackle lots of obstacles. Another is more difficult & there is a fair chance of damage to your pride & joy, & the last is for the more serious experts out there who will receive degrees of damage due to the total severity of their route. Now does that sound perfect for ALL off roaders or what...

I will keep you posted on what happens, or better still, if you are in the hood, come along!

Well thats it from me except to ask you what appears to be a highly guarded LR secret: Do you know the width of the disco mk1? Two whole days of asking & still i cannot find the answer! I know its in the "Owners handbook" but i dont have one, so if you do i would be most grateful if you could tell me. Cheers, Brad.

 

I've also arranged to attend an off road day but with mine you get to drive their vehicles and you get one on one tuition. I think I'm going to insist that the vehicle I drive is a LandRover and prefferably a Discovery. No good me learning what a Shogun can do when I want to find out what my Discovery can do. Besides, the Diff Lock and everything works differently on the Japanese vehicles and in my opinion it's not as good.

Let me know how you get on with your off road day.

Why don't you get a tape measure out to measure the width? It's probably in my Haynes manual somewhere...

Brian