british build quality :(

[darrenwall]

i decided to lift up the rear carpet and sound proofing on my discovery after my daughter said she could see the road through the floor at the weekend . i lifted up the very stuck down sound proofing to be met by this -




bollox , from what i read tho its very common even affecting 7 year old discos and just to show you that mine aint that bad , this is what a bad one looks like -

[steve_earwig]

Ouch! If the floor's that bad then what's the chassis like?? Looks like it's over the tank, a nice place to trap mud and sh!t with minimal rustproofing What's the plan?

[neildavies]

Bloody hell Dar, what a comparison to the outside of the car!

Where do you go with that then, a full sheet of steel welded in and cover the lot up?

I'm not up with welding and all that, but you could buy a new boot floor, I had mine replaced after an accident where the wheel well was dented.

[darrenwall]

i been underneath and the chassis seems fine but i couldnt see above the fuel tank to check the floor but at worse its only a cross member that needs replacing as well ( its a ladder type chassis with a bolt on body unlike a car which is all one piece ) . they are so common to go that you can buy a replacement for £59 and pop rivet them or weld them in place but with over 120 rivet holes i think ill be welding it in place . the reason the boot floor goes is cos the rear window seals are shite and lets water in and cos the sound proofing is a plastic covered sponge it holds water against the floor without the carpet feeling wet . ill probably invest in a welder and do it over the next month or 2 while its ( apparently ) still summer

[steve_earwig]

Not sure if you know anything about them, so... I bought mysell a 90 amp mig about 20 years ago and I use it for all sorts of stuff It's more than enough for welding up old cars, anything more powerful starts getting pricey (90 amp only does up to 4mm steel), but then anything major and you really need arc.

Don't bother with a gasless mig, you need the gas for when you set old underseal/carpets on fire Use CO2/Argon for welding rusty stuff, those natty little bottles keep the thing portable but they run out very quickly (especially when the cheap crappy valves break ) so get a proper bottle if you can - that's all I could get here and the damn thing's bigger than the welder!!

Cut as much of the old rust out as you can, I used to use a ball pein hammer for locating weak spots . You'll probably need to practice with your welder first, the sound you're looking for is "sizzling sausages" and you'll probably find you need less current and wire than you think...

And don't bother hiring one, they're usually shagged.

[Welly]

the rear window seals....... the sound proofing is a plastic covered sponge it holds water against the floor without the carpet feeling wet

Cool idea

This looks bad darren but with some further stripping down I don't think it will be too bad. As you say - Disco's are like a big mechano set

[Mrs Darrenwall]"didn't you check under the carpet before you bought it????"[/Mrs Darrenwall]

[puggy]

Aaaaahhh brings back memories of my maestro's

[steve_earwig]

Avengers (no spare panels ), Marinas, Escroates, Craptinas, Minis (apex panel anyone?)... I totalled a mk1 Transit camper van with my trusty ball pein hammer (didn't look so bad before I started tapping )

Actually, it takes me back to my childhood, being told off for lifting up the carpets in the back of our Morris Traveller to look at the road going past underneath.

[DaiRees]

Awwww, that's nothing Dar!

Here's the Spanish built (out of cardboard apparently ) Japanese shyte that I drive on weekends.....



































If you need a hand, let me know...

[steve_earwig]

Has this thing got "Tetley's" written on it? My god, that's a hell of a lot of welding!

[DaiRees]

That's just some of what I've done in the 3 years since I've had it, couldn't find any more photos, but each year it spends pretty much a whole month of evenings and weekends getting patched up for the MOT (this year it was 2 months, but that was partly due to a total lack of motivation ). I'm quite proud that it always passes the MOT 1st time, so I must be doing a good job of it .

Yeah it is a lot or rot, but while the bodywork is the poorest, cheapest, crappy steel they can get their hands on, the good thing about Suzukis is that the chassis never rot .

[STALLED]

Didn't they bloody well put an ounce of rustproofing on that? I went with a mate who went and bought a Vitara the other day, 6 shockies, 32 inch tyres, racing buckets - this thing is serious for off road! It's had rust repair too around the window frame - it's his daily driver (until he lost his license last week) but I'd hate to have an accident in the bloody thing!

As for the Disco - i was always under the impression that they were galvanized. Never heard of them rotting out like that here? Is it just with the S1 Disco's and not the later cars?

[DaiRees]

As for the Disco - i was always under the impression that they were galvanized. Never heard of them rotting out like that here? Is it just with the S1 Disco's and not the later cars?

You don't use salt on the roads over there though do you? There's a big trend here on importing 10 year old Japanese 4X4s at the moment, Now we all now that Japan has it's fair share of rain, but they don't get much snow / ice so they don't salt the roads, and their 4X4s are like new underneath, not a spot of rust anywhere, despite not having any proper rust protection under there. I'm currently looking for a Mitsubishi Pajero , but my budget is pushing me towards ones that've already been here for a few years, and the problem I'm finding is that some lazy owners didn't underseal them when they first came in and as a result they're starting to suffer a bit....

Disco 1s don't suffer the metal worm too badly, just a couple of areas where they're prone to water ingress due to the piss poor build quality as Darren's already said, plus I'm starting to see quite a few needing the sills replaced, My advice would be to use box section like I've done with the zook, let's see Mr MOT man tap that with his little hammer also acts as a built in rock slider . The other thing to watch for on a disco is chassis rot, the problem there is that they rot from the inside out, so it looks fine, then one day there's suddenly a hole

[STALLED]

As for the Disco - i was always under the impression that they were galvanized. Never heard of them rotting out like that here? Is it just with the S1 Disco's and not the later cars?

You don't use salt on the roads over there though do you? There's a big trend here on importing 10 year old Japanese 4X4s at the moment, Now we all now that Japan has it's fair share of rain, but they don't get much snow / ice so they don't salt the roads, and their 4X4s are like new underneath, not a spot of rust anywhere, despite not having any proper rust protection under there. I'm currently looking for a Mitsubishi Pajero , but my budget is pushing me towards ones that've already been here for a few years, and the problem I'm finding is that some lazy owners didn't underseal them when they first came in and as a result they're starting to suffer a bit....

Disco 1s don't suffer the metal worm too badly, just a couple of areas where they're prone to water ingress due to the piss poor build quality as Darren's already said, plus I'm starting to see quite a few needing the sills replaced, My advice would be to use box section like I've done with the zook, let's see Mr MOT man tap that with his little hammer also acts as a built in rock slider . The other thing to watch for on a disco is chassis rot, the problem there is that they rot from the inside out, so it looks fine, then one day there's suddenly a hole

Salt belongs on chips - not on roads!

As for the Pajero's - what engine were you thinking of getting? I've driven my mates 3500 V6 GLS 3 door which can be quite a bit of fun out on the road - SWB and the LSD in the back can make for fun times through roundabouts...this is what he tells me, I didn't try it! Was the first 4x4 I had driven and it was such a weird feeling. Came up to a set of lights and there was an Astra next to me - felt like I could of squashed it due to the notion of you sitting so high!

I'd be wary of an import diesel - From reports, people have had problems with the Hilux "Surf" which is popular to import here from Japan! Someone said it had to do with the fuel quality wrecking injectors and pumps etc? Not 100% sure on that one!

I'm assuming that any import from Japan would be an Automatic? We have strict laws here in Australia which basically mean that if the car was sold here new by the official importer with Australian Design Rule (ADR) compliance - you can't import this car from Japan. There are loopholes though eg - an Evo Lancer 4 wasn't sold new here - so you can import it but the Evo 8 and 9 were officially imported so they are not allowed to have non factory backing importation!

Saves the car industry here - New Zealand doesn't have this protection and their new car market almost hit the wall as everyone was importing near new cars from Japan for not much cash!

Good luck with the Shogun hunting! Nice cars

[steve_earwig]

For the curious, the Spanish word pajero means ‘w**ker’, from paja meaning ‘wank’ (literally, ‘straw’), in the expression hacerse una paja, (literally ‘to do oneself a straw’). These slang expressions come from the fact that both a straw and the penis are similar in being pipe-like. It is the first meaning to come to mind to Spanish speakers in both Spain and the majority of Latin America.

From here.

Now we all now that Japan has it's fair share of rain, but they don't get much snow / ice...

Except for the Hokkaido area and the subtropical Okinawa region, the weather is mostly temperate, with four seasons. Winters are cool and sunny in the south, cold and sunny around Tokyo (which occasionally has snow), and very cold around Hokkaido, which is covered in snow for up to four months a year.

From here.