Discovery I : Alternative Rear Mud Flaps
Becoming a recent Discovery owner, the mind began wandering, what improvements can be done? A competent vehicle in its own right, but Land Rover still manages to do things that make a person wonder.
Case in point is the mud flaps. What protection do they really offer? They are so small. How they are mounted.... Small steel brackets that are not even galvanized! Also, they are mounted in a way, so that they collect road grim rather than protect.
Our “new” Disco’s rear mud flap brackets were rusted thoroughly through, to the point where
one was nearly falling off.
Well, within a short time after buying the Disco, it did fall off, some where’s between Kalmar and Nybro.
Stemming from this, the first improvement on our new ride became a reality.
Having successfully made mud flaps for my hybrid using old conveyer belt, I decided to go the same route again.
Measure and test fit, I decided that the new mud flaps were going to cover as much area as possible, stopping as much road grim kicking up under the back of the Disco.
Trimmed behind the wheel well opening lip, and as wide as possible without any contact with the exhaust system and the fuel filler neck.
As you can see, I placed the mud flap behind the original mounting point, because I don’t want the road grim collecting in any one spot. Set up like this, everything should simply run off.
At the original mounting point, you can see that there is a 1 cm lip. So, what I did was cut a strip of rubber to fill in the area so that the mud flap could be mounted properly. Also, I’m using rust free mounting hardware.
Before assembly, I sprayed undercoating behind this area, so that the body shell is protected from further rust.
Another thing that had to be considered is the rear mounting bracket from the original mud flap. The new mud flaps don’t need to be connected to them, but they can still serve a purpose. The rear quarter panels with the brackets removed were very flexible, almost to the point, that they began waving when I drove the Disco.
So, I used 4mm aluminum stock as a stiffener for the rear quarter panels. I used the original mounting holes, so
no additional holes had to be drilled.
There we have it simple and effective rear mud flaps on the Disco that cost nearly nothing to make, but offer more protection than the original parts.
#1902 Todd Jackson, Distrikt Kalmar
El-tips för din vardag
Här är "Bullen´s" förslag till kom-i-håg-viktigt för ditt elarbete på din Land Rover.
>> Koppling av släpvagnskontakt
#2766 Christian "Bullen" Andreasson, Distrikt Väst
El-tips för dina expeditioner
Här är ett bra tips för en lyckad resa, det är ett ordentligt el-system med dubbla batterier. För är det något som verkligen behövs så är det ett väl fungerande kylskåp till semester maten.
Det här grundar sig på Hellas skiljerelä för batterier nr 4RA003437-061 som går att få via de flesta större reservdelsfirmor samt att det går att anpassa till de flesta bilmodeller.
Hellas skiljerelä klarar 12V/70A, prova inte med mindre, dom fungerar bara en kort tid
Koppla in reläet mellan batterierna enligt ritning och använd så grov area som möjligt, min 10 mm, grövre area om du har längre avstånd mellan batterierna. Se till att allt sitter stadigt fast och inga lösa kablar som kan orsaka kortslutning. En säkringspanel är att föredra här.
Koppla in kylskåpet och njut. Laddar extrabatteriet ur så har du alltid startbatteriet fullt. Kopplat winchen direkt till extrabatteriet pga. att generatorn inte laddar lika mycket som winchen förbrukar, även 220v omvandlaren pga. om man glömmer att stänga av dator/olika laddare så töms inte startbatteriet.
Detta kopplingsschema kanske inte passar nyare bilar.
