Overland Journal Project Land Rover Discovery 4 (LR4)

[perkj]

Umbertob's reccomendations are spot on; disable the automatic function of the lamps and also swap over to LEDs for lower draw. I did the same, albeit at 6000k, and have been very happy with the results.

I third the recommendation to switch all the interior lights to LEDs. You'll be very surprised with how many interior lights there actually are: Domes (3) , Maps (6) , front foot wells (2), under door (4), glove box (1). Ended up costing me $186 from superbrightleds.com, however worth every penny for amp hour savings and the added brightness of the LED lights over the incandescent. I also replaced my rear reverse lights with some extremely bright LEDs which added another $50 to the bill.

 

[DiscoDavis]

Hey I'm start recently camping on my lr4 2011. Sleeping inside was a great idea first but then the battery run out after open and closing doors. Any advice how to prevent that? Thanks

x4 on "Hunting Mode" (holding down the center roof console button) as posters have mentioned is a good solution for people that aren't so DIY-oriented. No lights will come on when the vehicle is opened up now. All lights are activated by button press only. Love the LED lighting a few guys here have done, just another tool in y'all's tool belt :ylsmoke:

 

[perro-from-hell]

Thanks guys will check battery and look into changing the lights. What about the remote car key, I read that every time I open or lock the car, there is a lot of things that the computer get ready before starting it. Is anyway to discontent or make the car not get into all this every time I close and open the doors? Thanks for all replies!


Enviado desde mi iPhone utilizando Tapatalk

 

[nwoods]

If you are camping, you shouldn't need to lock and unlock the car....if you do, your camp site kinda sucks
But you can manually open the doors using the key if you pop off the cap on the driver's door handle. (note, for sure on the LR3, not sure about he LR4)

 

[dereckmnielsen]

Hey Scott. Absolutely love the LR4 build. What vehicle would you recommend for just general weekend camping trips and weekend day trail rides. Love the overland look, but if we intend to do trails like back way to crown king and soldier pass (stuff like that) does and overland built vehicle suit that kind of use? Love land rover and love toyotas. Would prefer something after year 2000ish. What are your thoughts?

 

[Dr LC8]

Hi Scott, Hi All,

I followed this portal with loads of interest.

I am an happy owner of a LR4 SDV6 with some work in progress. I had a LR2 and a RR L322 in the past.

While I love my Disco and its electronic I could do with a rear diff lock that unfortunately didn't come with mine.

Can you give me some updates on that ARB rear diff lock for the LR4? It was featured in this thread back in 2013 but I can't find it on the ARB catalogue or anywhere else.

Thanks

Nic

 

[Deatramus]

Deatramus

Hello Scott!

First, thanks for this thread to you and everyone else on board here. I have just completed the reading of all 100 plus pages and it was extremely helpful. I have been lurking over on the Toyota section of the forum for a couple of years as I was contemplating the purchase of a low mileage 100 series to use as an adventure/travel/overlanding platform for my wife and myself as we are about to retire and "light out" and do North (and possibly South) America for a few years of extensive on and off road travel and adventure.

Your starting this thread a few years ago really caught my attention as I secretly wanted to do this trekking in a Land Rover but was skeptical because of the poor service history of the earlier Discos. My general lack of technical automotive knowlege, my age (I'm 66) and the fact that my co - pilot and I will be mostly traveling alone led me to feel that the dependability of the 100 series might be safest for us...we cannot abide by what Toyota did to the Land Cruiser with the 200 series...awful.

Any way, I am fortunate enough to be able to purchase a new vehicle for this adventure/traveling and the 100's are getting harder to find with the lower mileage on them and honestly....I want an LR4, a new one, and this is the last year of the wonderful, boxy, tall old Disco type truck.

Guess I want to hear more from you about my second most important concern, reliability and durability. You've answered my first concern about the wheel/tire issue and with so much discussion on here about it...I'm good there! Thanks to everyone here for all the info, I'll most likely go with the Compomotives and some 31.5s to keep things simple, at least to begin with, can't quite bring myself to thinking about cutting/grinding on a brand new LR4!

Scott, its almost three years now...how is the LR4 holding up? If you can elaborate a bit about reliability, durability etc. it would be really helpful. That's how this thread started and it has been an incredible wealth of info for me thus far but we've not heard about that one issue of late, and for me it's paramount.

I would also be interested to hear about the "Field fix" or band aid you were coming up with for the airbag suspension, should it fail in the wild...any news?

Thanks so much for any thoughts....sorry 'bout the length of this, guess I felt I earned it doing the 100 plus page reading !!

Happy Trails!

Ciao,
Deatramus

 

[Jwestpro]

Hi Scott, Hi All,

I followed this portal with loads of interest.

I am an happy owner of a LR4 SDV6 with some work in progress. I had a LR2 and a RR L322 in the past.

While I love my Disco and its electronic I could do with a rear diff lock that unfortunately didn't come with mine.

Can you give me some updates on that ARB rear diff lock for the LR4? It was featured in this thread back in 2013 but I can't find it on the ARB catalogue or anywhere else.

Thanks

Nic

As of last fall 2015, ARB only released F & R for the lr3 and F for LR4. That's why LR4 R locker is not in the catalogue.

 

[Jwestpro]

My general lack of technical automotive knowlege, my age (I'm 66) and the fact that my co - pilot and I will be mostly traveling alone led me to feel that the dependability of the 100 series might be safest for us...we cannot abide by what Toyota did to the Land Cruiser with the 200 series...awful.

Any way, I am fortunate enough to be able to purchase a new vehicle for this adventure/traveling and the 100's are getting harder to find with the lower mileage on them and honestly....I want an LR4, a new one, and this is the last year of the wonderful, boxy, tall old Disco type truck.

Being that the 200 series is by far a better vehicle over the 100, it must be the styling you aren't fond of, which is fine of course. If you can afford a new LR4 though, you can also afford a new LC 200 or new-ish. For US travel, even Canada, I'd feel perfectly fine going off in my LR3 or a new LR4 but to South America.... I'd be constantly worrying.

As for function of the shape and styling, yeah, I much prefer the LR3/4 but to just go off into the wild for months on end, far from a technician, it would have to be a Mercedes G, Land Cruiser, or Lexus LX 570. Maybe you should consider/compare a G model in your process. They combine a deep simplicity with refined ruggedness, at least in the areas that matter most.

Good luck. You have some great adventures ahead of you

 

[Deatramus]

Thanks for gently nudging me back into reality....I needed that!

 

[dereckmnielsen]

1. LR3 can fit a 17" or 18" wheel factory
2. LR3 can take a factory snorkel. Any snorkel option for the LR4 would be ridiculous given the DUAL air filters.
3. LR3 dash and interior is more utilitarian, which I actually like. The LR4 interior is of course beautiful
4. LR4 has this massive glass on the roof

Overall, the LR4 is a better truck, particularly the motor which is such a pleasure to drive. We are really brushing up against the limits of what is possible with a modern Land Rover in the US, especially for long-distance abuse and exploration. I believe the Land Rover nameplate should reflect an appropriate degree of utility and simplicity, of course wrapped in a generous dose of civility. It will be very interesting to see what the Discovery 5 brings. . .

Scott, are you saying you can fit 17s on the LR3 without changing the brake setup? Or do you have to fit the smaller brakes?

 

[A.J.M]

You need the tdv6 brakes.

Make sure you get a good disc and pad set up and you will also need the tdv6 calliper carriers.

It's a popular mod for us with tdv6 brakes to "upgrade" to the v8 set up as the disc is 1 inch larger.
Pads are the same size but you need to swap carriers to allow the bigger discs to fit.

The diesel brakes are adequate. Not superb but enough.

 

[Victory_Overland]

You need the tdv6 brakes.

Make sure you get a good disc and pad set up and you will also need the tdv6 calliper carriers.

It's a popular mod for us with tdv6 brakes to "upgrade" to the v8 set up as the disc is 1 inch larger.
Pads are the same size but you need to swap carriers to allow the bigger discs to fit.

The diesel brakes are adequate. Not superb but enough.

Just out of curiosity, do you know the difference from a TDV6 to V8 in comparison to weight? I know the brake set ups are related to the weight and performance of the vehicle and since the LR3 and RR Sport share the same chassis, I am assuming the big brakes were the best option for the sport package and weight comparison.

I have considered looking at doing the opposite on my LR3 and downgrading the brake size to the TDV6 size in order to allow for 17" wheels. I wouldn't do this until my rig makes the complete offroad/overland conversion but if the braking is comparable based on the weight/performance of the two engine set ups, I do not see why there would be any real adverse effects.

Might be a topic of discussion on a different post, just curious if you know or not?

Thanks,

E

 

[Jwestpro]

You need the tdv6 brakes.

Make sure you get a good disc and pad set up and you will also need the tdv6 calliper carriers.

It's a popular mod for us with tdv6 brakes to "upgrade" to the v8 set up as the disc is 1 inch larger.
Pads are the same size but you need to swap carriers to allow the bigger discs to fit.

The diesel brakes are adequate. Not superb but enough.

This winter I wanted to use the Hakkapeliitta LT2 studded tire. It does come in a size I can fit with my fender liner mods 275/65-18, but I wanted to also allow use of my RUD 4x4 snow chains which would not be usable more than on flat roads mostly lifted and being careful turning, plus using spacers for clearance behind the tire at the upper A arm.

So, I got the 17" which is 245/75x17 for roughly 31.6" height but 1" narrower. For a winter tire this is the very best combination of width and obviously incredible traction made even more awesome by the E load range. The factory 17" wheel also sits the tire away from the A arm but I used spacers for now by grinding the excess off my brake calipers. The reasoning was trying to keep the higher braking power but also avoid the hassle of changing out all 4 brakes until I need to replace rotors due to wear.

Nobody would want to buy used lr3 brakes anyway so I figured if the grinding went wrong, then I wasn't out any $ or much time. These things not being sport brake calipers have so much excess casting and never seemed to be lacking in power or having too much heat build up, it seemed like an ok plan.

Both front and rear needed grinding and the fit is darn perfection with the spacer pulling the tire safely away from the A arm for chain clearance too. Again, being 1" narrower tire section on a 1" narrower wheel (ideal pairing of 7" wheel and 245 width), the spacer doesn't push it out too far either so there aren't any issues at full turns/bumper, etc.

The visual look is very different going from a 275 to 245 but the stellar grip on snow and slicing through slush is thusly amazing. People often forget that for winter "traction" a narrower tire works better for a couple reasons, the main two being higher ground pressure due to smaller contact patch and narrower tracks through dense crud more easily.

https://www.nokiantires.com/winter-tires/nokian-hakkapeliitta-lt2/

 

[Jwestpro]

Scott, are you saying you can fit 17s on the LR3 without changing the brake setup? Or do you have to fit the smaller brakes?

See my post. Either choice but grinding to lr3 calipers or swapping to v6 sized both front and rear.

Grinding choice still requires spacers.
V6 brake kit allows no spacers. "kit" sorry, for any confusion. it's just the carrier and rotors, not the calipers.

It's all very annoying seeing as Mercedes up until 2010 or 2012 had AMG bad *** brakes that still allowed an 18" and the standard brakes allow 16" !

I want to see an lr3 with hubs changed to allow the 18" beadlock that come on a G500 "4x4^2"