The British Mountain Goat

Except for a short time in San Francisco, all of my driving experience has been in snowy areas including four winters in Winnipeg, Manitoba where ice covers the roads for most of the winter. It doesn’t take long to realize that the most important aspect for safe winter driving is not ground clearance or AWD, but good winter tires. While in Calgary I even experimented with studded tires on my wife’s RWD G35 coupe. We put the Nokian Haakapeliitta 8 tires on the car and it was amazing on hard snow and icy roads. This winter, I want to use the Discovery both around town and when we visit the mountains, so I started looking for the best winter tire option.

Continue reading “Winter Tires & Wheels”

One of things that sold me on this truck was the amazingly rust free chassis. It is most likely due to it only being in a snow state for the last year and some early Ming rustproofing I found in the receipts. I don’t expect the chassis to stay that way after a few winters of salted Denver roads, so rust prevention was in order.

Continue reading “Rustproofing”

While working in the area of the air cleaner, I leaned on a black plastic pipe and it cracked….oops. At first I thought I would just splice in some hose to repair, but one thing led to another and the plastic connector on the radiator itself broke….oh boy. Time to look at this as an opportunity to upgrade

Continue reading “Radiator Bleed Pipe Upgrade”

I did a little cosmetic work this weekend. The plastic wheel arch trim on the truck was really weathered.

Continue reading “Painting Fender Flares”

The last thing from the PPI was the brakes. Some shuddering was noted on hard braking, but the pads had plenty of life left. Rotors needed changing out but it wasn’t urgent, so this project was on hold until last weekend.

Continue reading “Brake Rotors, Pads and Fluid Flush”

The “Service Engine Soon” indicator came on, so I started down the path to learn about this truck’s engine management codes and what could be causing them.

Continue reading “P1174, P0134, P1415, P0154, P1171 codes”

The last area I could see leaking was from the transfer case. This was the project I took on last Sunday.

Continue reading “Reseal Transfer Case Bottom Cover”

Its been in the high 90 degrees the last couple of weeks, so I have been keeping an eye on the coolant levels and looking for potential leaks since my recent coolant flush. After getting home and checking the level, it looked like I had white residue and leaking around the bleed screw. Easy fix right? Just tighten it…well the engine and plastic were still hot and the plastic bleed screw sheared into two pieces

Continue reading “Coolant Bleed Screw”

Coolant age and type is unknown on this truck so I decided to follow the workshop manual versus the simpler “drain from lower radiator hose” method favored on the forums. Be warned….this is a messy job.

Continue reading “Coolant Flush and Change”

We have put 3,000 miles on the truck since its first oil change by the dealer. I plan to change every 3,000 miles with synthetic, so I have documented the steps here. Also, the PPI found that there was leaking around the oil filter adapter seal, so decided to replace that at the same time.

Continue reading “Oil Filter Adapter O-ring and Oil/Filter Change”