What to look for when buying a Rover?

[SeaRubi]

Keep your eyes peeled on the for-sale sections of the normal rover boards. 5sp discos show up periodically. I saw a 5sp '97 D1 up for sale not too long ago for $3800. I've also seen recently a 4sp gray market 1983 RRC with dual strombergs.

Just be patient and find the truck you want. Relative to the cost of the vehicle, doing a swap later is expensive. I greatly prefer manuals off-road and on-road, too.

 

[SeaRubi]

About the dunking part... I'm sure I will end up dunking it at some point... I was thinking, would it be possible to wax/epoxy pot, the electronics? That way even if they got dunked, you wouldn't have to worry about the actual circuit board being trashed... Any ideas?

The coil packs are up high on the rear of the motor and stay relatively dry. I've always gone through with a tube of di-electric grease and dabbed any connector in sight, including the plug wires. This is good enough for most folks.

Some of the more paranoid folks have had decent luck with using tupperware containers to seal up the ECU. Use a hole-saw to make a path for the wiring harness and find a good rubber grommet to use. Around the grommet, then take silicon to it. Just keep in mind that if you completely swamp your rig up to the dash you're going to have a lot more problems than just the ECU ...

I've seen at least one truck that was prepped for competition that completely relocated the ECU to the ceiling and ran the wiring harness up the a-pillar. They also took an extra instrument binnacle and grafted it onto the passenger side of the dash to house navigation aids. That was a sweet truck but obviously is overkill for most. They'd also pulled most anything electric out of it.

fwiw.

 

[stevenmd]

Just waterproof your ECU.:ylsmoke:

 

[Roverhound]

Flounder, Pangaea, gjackson, Andrew Walcker, Connie, MuddyMudskipper, Scott Brady, and I all own Land Rovers of various vintages. Probably a couple other moderators as well, but you get the point.

But then again, we don't qualify as enthusiasts.

I don't know about the other guys, but I can find something to dislike about just about every vehicle. I can also find something to like about them. Same with people.

Well, I'm off to work on my Rover...

Owning a vehicle doesn't make you an enthusiast.
My Rover runs reliably and I use it every day as a daily driver and on the weekends on the trail.

 

[ExplorerExplorer]

Keep your eyes peeled on the for-sale sections of the normal rover boards. 5sp discos show up periodically. I saw a 5sp '97 D1 up for sale not too long ago for $3800. I've also seen recently a 4sp gray market 1983 RRC with dual strombergs.

Just be patient and find the truck you want. Relative to the cost of the vehicle, doing a swap later is expensive. I greatly prefer manuals off-road and on-road, too.

I prefer manual also, but finding one is difficult... I've been searching CL and Discoweb, any place that might have something else? I'm relatively new to this, so I don't really know where I'd go...

Just waterproof your ECU.:ylsmoke:

That's what the epoxy potting was for... ECU waterproofing

The coil packs are up high on the rear of the motor and stay relatively dry. I've always gone through with a tube of di-electric grease and dabbed any connector in sight, including the plug wires. This is good enough for most folks.

Some of the more paranoid folks have had decent luck with using tupperware containers to seal up the ECU. Use a hole-saw to make a path for the wiring harness and find a good rubber grommet to use. Around the grommet, then take silicon to it. Just keep in mind that if you completely swamp your rig up to the dash you're going to have a lot more problems than just the ECU ...

I've seen at least one truck that was prepped for competition that completely relocated the ECU to the ceiling and ran the wiring harness up the a-pillar. They also took an extra instrument binnacle and grafted it onto the passenger side of the dash to house navigation aids. That was a sweet truck but obviously is overkill for most. They'd also pulled most anything electric out of it.

fwiw.

Hmm, seems to me it would be easier to just open up the case and fill the open spaces with a good epoxy material or something... I figure it would be best to do that BEFORE I play in the water... Something about an ounce of prevention... I plan on keeping this until it absolutely falls apart...

 

[SeaRubi]

dweb is decent to keep an eye on

also check out crazedlist-dot-com ...

You might peek over at RoversNorth. not too active but sometimes nice ones will pop up there.
http://www.roversnorth.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=28

Don't really go to this forum but see it pop up on the 'net a fair amount.
http://www.landroversonly.com/forums/f15/


at least here in Cali it seems like craigslist has the most listings but they're usually sad, dilapidated grocery getters.

 

[kellymoe]

. I would love to hear stories about Land Rovers being extremely reliable. I have yet to hear any.

I have had my Defender 130 Crew Cab for about 6 years. It has 194k miles on it, maybe more. I have had zero issues with my truck. I have driven it every day for the for the past 4 years in Los Angeles traffic and dropping kids off at school. It's beauty is in it's simplicity both aesthetically and mechanically.

On the other hand I had a 1994 Discovery for over 12 years. It was never a vehicle I felt absolutely comfortable with on long trips or remote places, it left me stranded on more than a few occasions. The Disco just had too issues and the day we sold it was a big relief.

Anyone who is looking at a disco should really be enamored with the vehicle and be willing to accept its deficiencies.

 

[SeaRubi]

Hmm, seems to me it would be easier to just open up the case and fill the open spaces with a good epoxy material or something... I figure it would be best to do that BEFORE I play in the water... Something about an ounce of prevention... I plan on keeping this until it absolutely falls apart...

It's been a long time since I had one of these to look at, but assuming the thing won't overheat that could probably work ... I believe there might be a couple vents in there for heat dissipation but I can't remember.

(edited out a bunch of stuff - forgot you were looking at Disco not RRC)


For a manual, do a google on RAVE and some combo of these kw's: pdf download cd

chances are you'll find a link that works.

:beer:

 

[stevenmd]

I have had my Defender 130 Crew Cab for about 6 years. It has 194k miles on it, maybe more. I have had zero issues with my truck. I have driven it every day for the for the past 4 years in Los Angeles traffic and dropping kids off at school. It's beauty is in it's simplicity both aesthetically and mechanically.

On the other hand I had a 1994 Discovery for over 12 years. It was never a vehicle I felt absolutely comfortable with on long trips or remote places, it left me stranded on more than a few occasions. The Disco just had too issues and the day we sold it was a big relief.

Anyone who is looking at a disco should really be enamored with the vehicle and be willing to accept its deficiencies.

To add to this, my old DI left me stranded twice - once with a broken belt tensioner and once with a bad fuel pump, both items of which can be easily carried and swapped out in 10 minutes.

My RRC has yet to leave me stranded. I even laid it on it's side once on a trail and she started right up and drove fine.

My 109... well, let me change the carburetor first...

 

[kellymoe]

To add to this, my old DI left me stranded twice - once with a broken belt tensioner and once with a bad fuel pump, both items of which can be easily carried and swapped out in 10 minutes.

My RRC has yet to leave me stranded. I even laid it on it's side once on a trail and she started right up and drove fine.

My 109... well, let me change the carburetor first...

My RRC was also a very reliable rover. IMO the early RRC is the best vehicle Land Rover ever made.

 

[R_Lefebvre]

Hmm, seems to me it would be easier to just open up the case and fill the open spaces with a good epoxy material or something... I figure it would be best to do that BEFORE I play in the water... Something about an ounce of prevention... I plan on keeping this until it absolutely falls apart...

Yeah, I mean, this is not rocket science. I can't believe the lengths people go to reinvent the wheel on this. Waterproofing electronics is nothing new, there are tons of products available specifically for it.

 

[Alaska Mike]

I was kinda wondering about heat dissipation on an expoxy covered board, but a conformal coating from any electronics store should help a bit. It's amazing that more manufacturers don't do it at the factory just to keep down warranty claims. Some environments are just death to electronics. When I worked on F-15 avionics down in Florida, we used to get in some crusty looking boards just from the salt air and humidity. Conformal coatings were our friends just to keep the backlog on our bench down. A $20 bottle would save hundreds of thousands in depot-level repair.

 

[R_Lefebvre]

The drive to save pennies on every single item on a car is relentless. The factory fording depth is 12 or 20" or whatever and... so it's just not needed.

 

[Alaska Mike]

To add to this, my old DI left me stranded twice - once with a broken belt tensioner and once with a bad fuel pump, both items of which can be easily carried and swapped out in 10 minutes.

My RRC has yet to leave me stranded. I even laid it on it's side once on a trail and she started right up and drove fine.

My 109... well, let me change the carburetor first...

My RRC was also a very reliable rover. IMO the early RRC is the best vehicle Land Rover ever made.

Good to hear the positive stories. What do you think were the primary characteristics that led to them being reliable? Simplicity? Overall design? Weekday it was made? Just curious why one Rover owner will claim his (fill in the blank) is the most reliable vehicle ever made, and another with the same year/model will lovingly curse it as the spawn of Satan.

 

[ExplorerExplorer]

Good to hear the positive stories. What do you think were the primary characteristics that led to them being reliable? Simplicity? Overall design? Weekday it was made? Just curious why one Rover owner will claim his (fill in the blank) is the most reliable vehicle ever made, and another with the same year/model will lovingly curse it as the spawn of Satan.

This is what I've been seeing... Most of the time it's followed up by either, "Well, I expected this to happen, because I hadn't done it yet", or "Oh, I'm supposed to do this at xx,xxx miles?" It seems like it's just keeping up on maintenance, and keeping the vehicle in proper shape that is key... It seems to be these vehicle are rather reliable, until you start neglecting maintenance (this is just what I've gathered from my research)...

As to the waterproofing, I don't see why an epoxy potting procedure wouldn't work, It's relatively easy to do (I wax pot all my handmade guitar pickups myself), I figure it basically the same process, just make sure there are no bubbles in it (I figure some vibrating mechanism would be good for this), It seems to me as long as it's a rather thin coating (just enough to waterproof it), overheating should not be a big problem...