Frae rust in Discovery II - the Achilles' heel?

[robisonservice]

I examined a badly rusted truck last week and that led me to an exploration of the frames on Discovery II models. I made some surprising discoveries. I'd be interested in your thoughts and experiences. Here is the link to my blog on it:

http://robisonservice.blogspot.com/2014/03/frame-rust-in-land-rover-discovery-ii.html

Best wishes
John Elder Robison

 

[seventyfive]

I could go on for days on this topic.
My '99 D2 has no issues compared to my '03. The '03/'04 trucks are hands down the biggest hunks of shit made.
Last fall I looked inside the '03's frames, they looked fine so after power washing the inner rails, let them dry out, then wanded enough hard wax for two trucks. Hard waxed the entire under side at the shop on a lift. Last month I had it on the lift for an oil change and sure enough the passenger rail, right next to the fuel tank, looks like the back of a suicide victims head.

I feel bad for people currently getting into rovers, because they truly have no idea they are throwing money in the toilet. Anything is repairable BUT the cost to swap a frame is absolutely absurd on a discovery. And every single '03/'04 we see at the shop has busted frame rails.

 

[Nomar]

Nice to see you posting articles again John.
This is another good one.




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[listerdiesel]

Ours is a 1998 build D2, November 98 in fact, and the rear rails just behind the axle are starting to look as though work will need to be done soon.

The problem seems to be water laying between the internal stiffener and the chassis main rails.

Peter

 

[Mongo]

Nice write up…I couldn't imagine a frame swap on a D2 being done in economical way. My D2's frame is shot, and it was in Upstate NY for only 5 years

 

[jhmover]

I'd buy a another D2 before I'd do a frame swap. Especially at $4230.00 for a frame.

 

[nickb857]

My 99DII has a fair amount of surface rust in the front. Oddly the rear of the frame around the fuel tank had substantially less.

The floor panel in the drivers side foot well rusted through, two holes about the size of a quarter. The rear brake line running along the side of the frame rusted out as well.

I'm repairing the holes and working on rust removal and treating the frame once I've cleaned it up. I've replaced all the brakes lines throughout aswell.

Luckily I did not drive it this winter with all the salt that was used due to all the snow storms.

 

[KyleT]

rust? whats that?

j/k. i saw a fair amount of about to be swiss cheese d2's come through from up north. i pity those people who had to work on them all the time. even saw lr3 and sports that looked terrible only a couple of years old.

I would never want to frame swap a D2, especially at the prices they can be had at.

 

[jsonova99]

Is there any value in Waxoyl treatments of cleaner frames? I did mine about 7 years ago and it has held up well. I was going to wire brush a few small spots and re-coat since I have 6 or 7 cans left over. I've had a second vehicle since about the second year I owned my 2000 that always took the abuse of salty roads instead. I think my truck really only saw one or two winters in Bucks county Pennsylvania (not as bad as upstate NY or New England) where it had any exposure to salt. I definitely think that has helped a lot.

 

[robisonservice]

I think Waxoyl can help but the time to do it was when the truck was new, and then redo it 5 years later. For most enthusiasts buying the cars later in life Waxoyl won't be much help on rust that is already going. It's interesting to see that this problem is becoming pretty widespread. Rust was never something we talked about on DII trucks before.

It's something how they cut the frame thickness down, and abandoned galvanizing too, isn't it?

 

[DiscoPhoto]

They would have had to start galvanizing to abandon it.


Luckily I knew of these terrible chassis before I bought a D2, got mine from Arizona.

 

[pjkbrit]

Yep...here too...I grew up in the UK so I klnow rust only too well....(huge salt use over there).

I have an 04 and have waxoyled it religiously since I got it in 2005....guess what...it STILL needed a rear frame rail repair last year and I spent HOURS sandblasting and in particular using Eastwoods Internal Frame Coating product on the INSIDE of all the frame rails. Then I used the Rust treatment and various rust chassis paints they also sell.....THEN I sprayed used engine oil periodically over the bits that get the worst of the salt spray.....after this winter here in the Northeast it did pretty well....BUT I know I will be having to stay on it or else this issue WILL kill my truck.

My GF and I play the game of looking under the rear ends of every D2 we see parked, ( I know...a little sick)...they are ALL falling apart. Given a few more years I think they will be a rarity on the road frankly.

Of course they SHOULD have galvanized the frames from the factory.....but that would have added $50.00 to the cost of the truck right!

 

[Some Dude]

This is all great news! As long as I can keep my piece of shit 4.6 from imploding, the value of my rust free, western US truck ought to start going up.

Right? Guys?

 

[Mongo]

no, only because it you...

 

[Dane!]

I have no rust at all on my truck, my steering box is flaking its paint off but that's it. I guess I'll consider myself lucky that I live in Nevada, there's tons of Disco's here that are rust free with no SAI pumps, but most of them are mistreated and end up in the junkyards out here. I saw near 10 of them out in the junkyard last time I went.

 

[riceybean]

Isn't the leaking oil part of rust proofing? Guess I will never fix mine, dont want rust on the frame. Mine is a northwest rover all its life, no rust thank goodness.

 

[jsonova99]

Just out of curiousity, do P38 Range Rovers have similar problems with their chassis? I was under my D2 yesterday tracing down a coolant leak so I took a good look at my chassis and it really looks good, I think being very anal about keeping this off the roads whenever salt was present for the past 12 years and being very good about keeping the truck clean the first year I had it the few times it was exposed really made a difference. It's very clean underneath. The only items that stood out as having rust issues were the two front shock towers, the bases of them are just peeling off in layers. That will be a project this fall probably.

 

[Nomar]

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[fcdrifter13]

My 00 has a small fist sized hole right where the drivers side cat is. I am fixing it tomorrow with some extra plate i had laying around. Nothing serious, defiantly not as bad as my datsun.

 

[robertf]

so I'm looking at the sales brochure for my 95 and it advertises a 14 gauge steel frame rail. That is .0747" thick. You are saying a d2 is closer to .052"? The spring that holds the ash tray shut is thicker than that. I'm not sure I believe this.