2000 Disco Caged Soft Top Build

[climberdiscodave]

Recently I picked up this 2000 Disco off c-list for a great price, just needing a engine swap/rebuild. Along with the truck, I purchased a 4.6 crank/rods/pistons all at std/std bearings for a great price. Mods include:

4" lift with Bilstein 7100's
33 MT's
Detroit front locker
Tru-Trac rear locker
Center locker from British Atlantic
Diff guards
Door Sliders
Safari Guard rear bumper/tank skid
ARB front bumper (weak piece of garbage, bends very easily)
Southdown skid plate
Everything mechanically rebuilt, new CV's, Rebuilt/extended driveshafts
Stainless/extended brake lines, ABS lines extended
Brand new brakes all around


I ended up spending a month figuring out what exactly I wanted to do with the truck as far as the engine goes. There is still a very good chance I'll be swapping it to a diesel of some sort in the future, but for now I ended up pulling and rebuilding the stock 4.0 to a 4.6 over a period of about 6 days, putting in 4-6 hours a day, with a couple of 12 hour days mixed in. Once it was all back together, it turned out to be a beast! It has plenty of power, and has no problem with going anywhere I tried to put it. I do wish it got better economy, but I had no expectations for getting any decent mileage out of it. I was able to get about 17mpg doing an average of about 55mph though.


Disco! by David Kvapil Photography, on Flickr


Disco above Boise by David Kvapil Photography, on Flickr

Had some fun wheeling around in the foothills just north of town, and preparing it for a month long road trip that I ended up leaving for just 5 days after getting it running. To make a long story short, I got into the mountains west of Bend, OR, and was driving down a small single lane forest service road, when most of the outside of the road washed away from me. I ended up getting pinned against some trees, which kept me from tumbling down a nice little 60' hill. I ended up walking 2 miles to get help getting out, and once out with an assessment of the damage, I turned straight around and went home to figure out what to do, haha. The passenger side headlight, turn signal, fender, door, roof, and skylight window are all destroyed. I was so upset and scared of the situation that I didn't bother or think to pull my camera out, but I'll be taking some photos of the damage today before I start to tear it apart.

Which gets me to the next part of this. During the drive home, I had time to ponder what to do with my destroyed Disco, and to think about what I should have done differently and what I should have with me next time to be prepared. The first thing was that I need to have some recovery gear with me next time, especially a winch. With a winch, the damage wouldn't have been so severe, and I would have been able to get myself out quickly and easily. The next thing was that I needed to figure out what to do with the vehicle. I started looking for replacements/parts car that I could swap everything to quickly and easily. Then I had the idea to just say **** it, I bought this thing cheap enough, why not have some fun with it. So the plan has turned into chopping the top off, which will happen tomorrow. A full 8 point cage will be built that's similarly contoured to the factory roof, with lots of gussetting, and a canvas top will be made for it. I have 100 feet of 1.75" .120 wall DOM for it, and should have the cage fully built within 2 weeks, working just evenings on it. The plan is to follow the design of this one pretty closely, but with much more triangulation.

If anyone has any input or ideas, I'd definitely be open to suggestions. My plan is to move the stock tail lights down below the window line, leave the rear pillars the height of the stock tail gate, and cap off the top of the opening. The canvas top will be 4 pieces, and I'll probably only bother with the very top of it for now until Fall when it starts to cool. My long term plan is for it to be an Overland/Expedition vehicle with either a roof top tent or a small offroad trailer behind it. I plan on putting locking Pelican boxes in the back for storage, bolted to the floor for obvious reasons with the soft top, as well as the usual array of Overland goodies.

But for now I'm off to go take some photos of the damage, and tear out the interior. I should have photos of it roof-less tomorrow by noon!

 

[Javelinadave]

Wow, a perfectly good Disco destroyed but hey, it's yours to do with what you want.

 

[justfred]

Sounds pretty cool to me. I saw one the other day with only the roof removed and replaced with a soft top, but they hadn't built in the roll cage.

I did this with my old gray market Range Rover that I rolled - it was pretty cool, until the engine dropped a piston in the middle of Utah.

I'd go further and replace as much sheet metal as possible - or at least build replacement doors out of tubing. It would be interesting to build a "cage body".

 

[Fivespddisco]

There was some guy on discoweb that did this about five years ago. That was a really cool disco 2

 

[Ray_G]

Robbie D did it to his D1, truck looks pretty good-he's on Defender Source and Discoweb, not sure how much he's on here but I'm sure he'll chime in if he sees the thread.
r-
Ray

 

[Some Dude]

Perfect, now I'll only have the second most recognizable D2 in Boise. Hope to see you rolling around some time.

 

[Rovertrader]

Check Greg Davis' rig on D-web and Pirate. Portals and a s/t, and more like 8 years in the making....

 

[climberdiscodave]

Update!!

First, I want to start off this post with showing most of the damage. Upon closer inspection, and from some of the damage I had seen when attempting to fix my leaky sunroofs, this truck has had some repairs to the roof and passenger front corner in the past, which became clearer to me when I saw that my new damage still had nice clean metal, and the old damage had surface rust and was obviously from long before I bought this thing. I also noticed a little damage to the inner fender right up by the battery on the passenger side.

The final damage from me and the trees, thus the chop :ylsmoke:

Well, I ended up about 16 hours behind what I figured would be my schedule for the roof cut, but by the end of the day yesterday I had caught back up to schedule. The first thing on the agenda for Saturday was to get the interior mostly ripped out, and wiring out of the way. I got a bit of a late start, somewhere around 12:30, but by 3:00 or so, had it down to this.

I started my Sunday off (late start again, 11-ish) by cutting out/dissecting the tail light openings, as I will be moving the stock opening and lights down low. This was something that I have thought about a lot for this project; how to keep the D2 lights, and relocate them cleanly. Once I figured out what I was doing, and how my plan would be accomplished, it was time to cut!

Then it was time for the initial cuts and to get rid of the roof!!

Then the back window and cut down the hatch.

Gut the rear doors...

And that pretty much gets us all caught up to where I'm at now. Next on the list for today is to re-mount the tail lights. They will be mounted somewhat like this.

Once the tail lights are mounted, I'm hoping to find a new headlight, turn signal, fender, and passenger front door in one of the you-pull-it yards here today, and get it over to my friend's house to start on cage-fab this week or early next. Stay tuned!!

:ylsmoke:

 

[t42beal13t]

Interested to see how this turns out.

 

[Bishops13]

Update?

 

[Chris Cordes]

Personally I think it's a cool idea. I saw an orange disco done up this way and loved it. I'll be excited to see what this turns into

 

[Aegis]

Definitely keeping an eye on this -- if done correctly, it'll be one of the cooler things out there!

 

[jh.]

Watching a hail storm pelt my Disco and thinking that this would be the route I would take to a totaled but repurchased Disco. Then the hail stopped. The roof wins this round...

 

[Chazz Layne]

How did I miss this one? I have a parts D2 that was totaled for cosmetic reasons, and I think about doing this to it every time I pull in. I look forward to seeing the finished product.

 

[Hugh166]

Any news on this? I'm really excited to see how it turns out and the process to get there