Old Discos - worth a look as a tempory fix?

[dnb]

My old van has terminally expired and I'm at least a month from having the TVR back.
There's a disturbingly cheap v8 disco in the paper with a reasonable amount of MOT and tax, so thought it might be worth a look.

What sort of (expensive) things go wrong with early Discos that would make fixing a sub £1k high milage disco unviable? I'm no stranger to the Rover v8 engine, and have a considerable box of spares for this, so I'm more interested in chassis and running gear issues.

If the worst happens, I have a friend who would be very keen to have at least the diffs & cylinder heads for his SWB project vehicle...

Thanks

[100SRV]

I think that rusting of the luggage bay floor and rear body mounting brackets can be a problem. Also check that there is not excessive backlash in the transmission - a shunting sensation as you change gear or apply/release the throttle points towards worn main shaft splines for the transfer box input runs.

HTH
100SRV

[Hard-Drive]

V8 Disco said:

Rust - chassis, plus sills and boot floor
Whining transfer boxes/knackered manuals (reputation for problems)
Lots of play in transmission on autos
ABS if fitted (If working, ABS light comes on with ignition, blinks once, then goes out at 5mph)
Cats if fitted on petrol V8 (plus lambda probes x 2 @£100+ each)
Immobiliser spider - this little addition to the alarm system is fitted between the heater and radio, behind the dash centre panel (b*gger to get at)suffer badly from dry solder joints and cause intermittent stalling/no starts
CV joints
Suspension bushes
Rear brakes - theres a balance valve that can fail, leading to no rear brakes. Look at the discs to see if they are shiny or rusty...
Swivels
Leaky sunroofs - they all do
Electric seat switches - over £100 each if faulty, I am going to try to repair mine!
V8 engines that overheat - very bad news

[greenlandy]

V8 Disco said:

Rust - chassis, plus sills and boot floor
Whining transfer boxes/knackered manuals (reputation for problems)
Lots of play in transmission on autos
ABS if fitted (If working, ABS light comes on with ignition, blinks once, then goes out at 5mph)
Cats if fitted on petrol V8 (plus lambda probes x 2 @£100+ each)
Immobiliser spider - this little addition to the alarm system is fitted between the heater and radio, behind the dash centre panel (b*gger to get at)suffer badly from dry solder joints and cause intermittent stalling/no starts
CV joints
Suspension bushes
Rear brakes - theres a balance valve that can fail, leading to no rear brakes. Look at the discs to see if they are shiny or rusty...
Swivels
Leaky sunroofs - they all do
Electric seat switches - over £100 each if faulty, I am going to try to repair mine!
V8 engines that overheat - very bad news

V8's are great fun but expensive to feed IMO I couldn't/wouldn't use one as a daily commute again. 18mpg was just too much for me.

[dnb]

My commute is 6 miles each way, and my usual car doesn't do much more than 18 mpg.
Unless you're saying 18 mpg on M-way type roads and less on urban crawl mode?

[greenlandy]

If you already used to 18mpg Welcome to the world of leaking, breaking Landrovers but if you have a TVR your already used to that

[cre]

Imagine the economy of a 5.0 Griff, then reduce that further!

It doesnt seem to matter if its gentle or mental...very poor on fuel!

Jamie

[Graham]

cre said:

Imagine the economy of a 5.0 Griff, then reduce that further!

It doesnt seem to matter if its gentle or mental...very poor on fuel!

Jamie

There is a simple answer to that... always mental.... doesnt work quite so well on a td5 though...

I can get v8 mpg of of an oil burner

G

did i ever mention there are two things i hate ( well maybe 4 if you include tony&gordon) Diesel and Turbos....

Edited by Graham on Tuesday 13th March 19:31

[rustybin]

Shirley if you buy it for a grand and anything serious goes wrong it will cost around a grand to fix. Alternatively if you don't fix it you are sitting on at least a grands worth of spares. Even an MOT failure is five hundred odd quid so you can only lose half your money and if all goes well you'll have had lots of burbley slurpy petrol drinkey goodness in between times.

[Zumbruk]

dnb said:

My commute is 6 miles each way, and my usual car doesn't do much more than 18 mpg.
Unless you're saying 18 mpg on M-way type roads and less on urban crawl mode?

My V8 auto Disco used to do around 13mpg sitting in traffic and up to 21 on a long run.