Yet another new guy posting

[tikicar]

Hi guys, I have been lurking for awhile. I work alot of hours so I usally am not a big poster to forum sites. I really enjoy this site and try to visit it as often as I can. I live in York, Pa. Work with my father in the used car buisness. He has done it for over 40 years and I have been with him since I could walk. My dad sold and work on Rovers at a Rover dealership in the early 1960s. So I guess that and my Sundays watching Wildkingdom as a kid has always made me love these trucks. Being in the car buisness there is very little that I have not owned or drove. From Model Ts on up. I have a real love for traditional Hot Rods and Customs and basically anything old or odd that is mechanical. I have been riding motorcycles since I was five and driving way before I was legal. Built my first magazine show car at 18. 1974 Ghia Cal Look. Featured in VW Trends in 1986. I have owned lots of different 4x4s. I guess my favorites are Land Rovers of course and International Scouts. I had a 1980 Terra that I absolutly loved untill it just rusted away from me. I had a SSII Yellow with soft doors and the gold stripes that I should have never sold. We traded it in in 1987. It had 15,000 miles on it. I drove it for awhile and sold it. Figured another would come along. I have owned several Series, a 1994 Defender 90 and two 1991 Range Rover Hunter editions. My current Rover is a 97 Discovery XD. It has 117,000 on it. I bought it last year. You can say she didn't have a easy life. It is a great truck but it was neglected. I have found the missing XD things it was missing when I bought it. So far I have just been getting it mechanically sound and enjoying driving it. It does have a wrist pin wrap. I didn't hear that When I bought it because the exhaust was broke at the cats on both sides. I really wanted one of these new but I couldn't get a good trade for my D90 against a new XD. (defenders were still somewhat cheap then) So I passed. I found this one at a little country car auction last year in the middle of Lancaster farm country. It had been traded in at a Ford dealership. I have never been able to find anything on the last owners other than they were in the military due to the stickers on the windshield. Since it was $35,500 new I figure it is better to start this way. I can eventually have it completly rebuilt and outfitted for expedition use and still have less in it than new. Other than the wrist pin noise it runs great. I get 13mpg even with the rack and hills around here. I have a complete 98 Disco I bought for parts with a perfect motor. Just slight front end damage (I drove it home) which I paid $800 for. This will give me spares. I plan to pull the motors and swap them this summer when the weather is warmer. I will go through the 98 motor and do complete gaskets etc. before reinstall. My plans are to have it completely done in 5 years. Then the wife and I can take a cross country trip and end in Mexico to watch the Baja 1000. Plan for rooftop tent and basically convert it like your rigs as much of a camper and self sufficient rig as I can build. If you don't see me posting please don't think I am being rude, Just busy. Usally by the time I see something I can answer on it has already been answered by someone else. Thanks for the inspiration and hope to see you out there someday. Scott

 

[adventureduo]

Welcome to the board Scott and thanks for finally posting up! My dad was born in York PA. Small world i always say. Great looking Rover you have there.

 

[DaktariEd]

Welcome to ExPo, Scott! :wavey:
Lots of good people and good info on this forum....you'll be amazed.
Check out some of the links in the signature lines.
Very cool indeed! :26_7_2:
Again, welcome....

Ed

 

[MuddyMudskipper]

Welcome! Triple A yellow sure looks nice in the snow.

If you ever make the Baja trip let me know, there is usually a caravan of SoCal Rover guys that head down for the race.​

 

[Overland Hadley]

Welcome to Expedition Portal!

Nice looking rig you have there, sounds like you have big plans for it. Keep us posted.

 

[bovw]

Welcome, nice XD. I currently have 2 Hunters, the first came from PA. You'll love it here, great people, enjoy.

 

[tikicar]

Thanks for the welcome guys, Being in the car buisness I like basically anything. So those of Jeep and Toyota guys thanks also. I had had plenty of each. Alot of 4-runners an straight axel trucks. Last year I had a real nce 77 Long bed SR5 in 2wd. We grew up always having Jeeps around. In the late 70s I have shots of my dads lot packed with CJs. Sometimes we had more than the local jeep dealer. A few years ago we had a 77 Honcho with 9,000 miles and Levi interior. It was new!! Antique and classic cars is a big part of our buisness as well. In the 80s there were no Suzuki dealers around here unless you went to Baltimore. So we went to Fl. and brought bunches of them home. We sold accessories for them and did well with them for awhile. Once I drove one from Daytona to York. 946 miles. I could get 72 mph out of it if I drafted really close to a tractor trailer. I had a portable CB and hooked up with a couple drivers. They were reall cool. They would tell me when they were changing lanes. They would laugh and say that was great. We never saw you back there. They got a kick out of it. This was before there were many Suzukis around. Stupid I know but I was a kid and was having a good time. I don't want to drive straight though in a sami again.
My first Hunter was Eastnor Green. I sold that to a college professor at Gettysburg College. My second was Arran Beige. A good friend of mine now owns that one. It was really nice when I had it but it is getting rougher now. It was featured in the April 2002 issue of Land Rover Enthusiast. Neither had sunroofs.
The only reason I got rid of them was to save money for a house. Kind of hard to do and drive a LR if you are on a budget. My plans were the same for them as is now the XD. Now that I own a house I didn't mind getting back into another Rover. The house now takes top prioriy so the XD will take time. I can say no rover has ever left me sit completely dead. My 90 did have some real wierd electrical problems that would cause it to die randomly at any time or speed. After it sat a few minutes it would always restart. It was a the dealership alot. One of the reasons I wanted to trade it. We finally figured out the problem. The dealer had it at least 10 times swapping just about everything and it still broke down coming home. The worst was running 70 on the DC beltway coming home from Florida in the left lane and it dies. That was real scary getting across 4 lanes in a few seconds with no power. My dad & I finally got the parts manual and service manuals and started going through everything. We finally discovered it was missing the big ground straps from the motor to the frame and frame to firewall. They were shown in the parts book but were never on mine. I got mine with 3,000 miles and the people traded it back in on another RR. One time pulling a wet seat belt across them was enough. Once we put the ground straps on it still happened but not as often. Then finally a week or so later we were driving on a side street. It was a very quiet street. It died and I was sitting there saying nothing. I had already said everything negative about this thing. After about a minute I heard a click from the passenger side under the dash. I know there were relays there because I installed the factory A/C unit myself. Well the relays were getting hot because of the poor grounds and had fatigued. I replaced both relays and it never died again. I sold it shortly there after to either get a XD or a 97 wagon with auto so my wife could drive it. Well both were always crazy priced at auction and I moved on to buy the Beige Hunter. Other car projects always took the top priority. I have driven across the country a few times but never been able to really take the time to really stop and camp an see everything. We were always short of time. Rover ownership is a love hate kind of thing. Later, Scott

 

[Funrover]

Welcome man!! Sweet XD!

 

[Andrew Walcker]

After about a minute I heard a click from the passenger side under the dash. I know there were relays there because I installed the factory A/C unit myself. Well the relays were getting hot because of the poor grounds and had fatigued. I replaced both relays and it never died again.

Welcome Aboard! :beer:

I've replaced those same relays myself and keep a spare around. Did you have an alarm? I uninstalled my alarm and have not had it act up again. Rovers and relays, who really knows

 

[tikicar]

I didn't have an alarm. After I fixed it I had to go to the dealer for some other warranty work. The warranty was getting close to running out so I made them replace alot of stuff that was going bad, Like drivers seat cushion foam was falling out of it and the third brake light piece the coating was splitting and starting to rust. The service manager never asked how it was running. I think he was afraid to. The parts manager who had sent me the relays free when I called him and told him what had happened. He had the relays at my shop within a hour and they were a good hour away from my shop. So he was a good guy in the deal. Later I had talked to them and it became more common that they tried these relays and they had other D90s missing ground straps. At least my pain helped someone else. That is why I bought the 98 Disco for parts. It was just lightly tapped in the front. Actually if it would not of had the brush guard it wouldn't have been bad. I am keeping it for parts. After I swap the motor I figure for trips I can outfit a pelican case complete with full spares of relays, computer, MAF etc. This way with a code reader. I can swap the parts needed and get back on the road. Even with all the hassel and all the cars I have owned my D90 was still one of my favorites and still miss it. Maybe someday I will own another one. I kind of like to see what fate brings in life. Like the day I bought the XD. That auction gets maybe 400 cars on a Tuesday. We hadn't been there in over a year. We decided why not go over and see what was there. It was meant to be I guess. Scott