Land Rover Discovery 1 Build

[CruiserHead]

Beautiful rig my man....You should be proud of that one!

C H

 

[nevets]

TRAUMATIC UPDATE!

After rewiring all the electronics to fit into the gas tank, I had been doing tests on the kitchen island. Everything worked as it should. I, without thinking, hit the off switch on the transmitter causing the truck to fly into reverse doing a 4 foot swandive off the kitchen island onto the marble floor.

The sound of the crash was not unlike an explosion. An explosion of plastic being destroyed.

The results were devastating.

I stood in shock thinking that it really did not happen as I could see bits of light buckets, a window frame and shards of plastic everywhere.

These were the largest pieces that I could gather up:

Looking at the next photo I believe that when it took off in reverse, it immediately went nose down and hit the top of the brush bar and landed on the roof rack lights.

I do not think I can repair these lights, but I will try. I may have to order new light buckets.

Obviously, the roof rack lights are non repairable. There is actually very little left of them. The biggest problem with these is that they were very permanently attached to the roof rack. A LOT of CA was used in the application of these lights.

The front grill took a hit too. I think this will be a pretty easy fix.

This is by far the worst part of it all. I will never be able to get this looking like it did. You can see that my body filler broke away, paint gave way, some major stress cracking and the window gasket ripped off. This will be the biggest challenge. Realigning the window and putting the window divider on the rear door will be about the only easy parts.

The roof rack caused the rain gutter to separate. This does not surprise me. If it were not for the fact that I screwed the gutters on, It would have been worse.

Here is just some small plastic chipping where the body rests in the rock sliders.

Just one last look at the roof rack lights

So, there it is. I am very discouraged and will probably mope about a bit before I start to rebuild. One of the bad parts is that those light buckets were not cheap and came from Stefan at Scale Off Road. I will have that huge expense as well as the time it takes to get from Germany to here.

 

[CruiserHead]

I know this is not what you want to hear but fixing the body, lights, bezels, interior, battery mount, etc.......Is a daily part of my hobby experience. I built my rig to drive like i stole it. I am very hard on it. I just think it's a shame that you don't have a story like: ...and my Disco rolled off this 100' cliff!!! :lmao:

You'll laugh at it soon enough. Now get it fixed so you can get out and beat the tar out of it...Over and Over

C H

 

[nevets]

I know this is not what you want to hear but fixing the body, lights, bezels, interior, battery mount, etc.......Is a daily part of my hobby experience. I built my rig to drive like i stole it. I am very hard on it. I just think it's a shame that you don't have a story like: ...and my Disco rolled off this 100' cliff!!! :lmao:

You'll laugh at it soon enough. Now get it fixed so you can get out and beat the tar out of it...Over and Over

C H

See, the thing is, I bought another Disco body that I can beat on. This was to be my show off model.

And you are absolutely right. For a devastating accident like this... It needed to be while in use, out on the trail.

The good part is that the chassis and everything seems to be ok.

 

[Tremelle]

I actually think I felt some of your pain while reading your post and viewing the pictures. I hope you are able to get it back close to it's original glory. If not, try to get as close as possible and make the best of it.

 

[nevets]

I actually think I felt some of your pain while reading your post and viewing the pictures. I hope you are able to get it back close to it's original glory. If not, try to get as close as possible and make the best of it.

Thanks. I started on the tear-down tonight. Removed the roof rack and what was left of the lights. Then popped out the windows that were half popped out and started on some bondo.

I think it may be ok. There are some serious stress cracks in the paint that I will just have to lease as is and get over it.

 

[dont slow down]

That sucks man, I hate it when that happens. I shed a tear for ya when I read that. That is seriously one of the best looking rigs I've seen. I love the details and how everything is replicated from the 1:1. Makes me want to get back into detailing my Tundra.

 

[Rook82]

Heres what you do. bring it outside and walk up the nearest hill/cliff. Chuck the Rover down it. you will feel better after and be able to say the damage came from the trail!:mrgreen:

Joking aside, that is a beautiful rig and it sucks what happened regardless of what caused it. I have had issues like that in the past and most of it was due to Nitro rigs and receiver issues. Try running your .21 motored 1/8 scale buggie for tuning in a parking lot. Have the receiver lose conection/glitch and have said rig run full blast for 100 yards till it crashes head on into a foot high curb. Total loss Even my backup return spring on the carb had failed so the throttle didn't close, hence the full speed (55-60 mph) run into the curb. This was about 10 years ago and before some of the nice fail safes they have now for nitro rc's.

You have some great skills and she will be fine once again.

 

[66sprint6]

I was thinkin bout this the other night...you could
1) Fix the 1:10 back to its former glory
or
2) Roll the 1:1 a couple times till it matches the 1:10 and then you dont have to do anymore work!!! :lmao:

Dont do number 2 thats a terrible idea LOL
Matt

 

[prifral]

Eeek man! Sorry to see that happen specially since that is one unique rig you go there. Good to see you are planning repairs already. I feel your pain... this is kinda like when my unimog decided to fly off a cliff:evil: http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/showthread.php?t=245952&page=6

 

[nevets]

That sucks man, I hate it when that happens. I shed a tear for ya when I read that. That is seriously one of the best looking rigs I've seen. I love the details and how everything is replicated from the 1:1. Makes me want to get back into detailing my Tundra.

Thanks. IT does suck, but It'll be alright. Just hate it got damaged this way and not on the trail.

Heres what you do. bring it outside and walk up the nearest hill/cliff. Chuck the Rover down it. you will feel better after and be able to say the damage came from the trail!:mrgreen:

Joking aside, that is a beautiful rig and it sucks what happened regardless of what caused it. I have had issues like that in the past and most of it was due to Nitro rigs and receiver issues. Try running your .21 motored 1/8 scale buggie for tuning in a parking lot. Have the receiver lose conection/glitch and have said rig run full blast for 100 yards till it crashes head on into a foot high curb. Total loss Even my backup return spring on the carb had failed so the throttle didn't close, hence the full speed (55-60 mph) run into the curb. This was about 10 years ago and before some of the nice fail safes they have now for nitro rc's.

You have some great skills and she will be fine once again.

That's a horrible story! I don't feel so bad about the damages I incurred now... SO I guess Thanks!

I was thinkin bout this the other night...you could
1) Fix the 1:10 back to its former glory
or
2) Roll the 1:1 a couple times till it matches the 1:10 and then you dont have to do anymore work!!! :lmao:

Dont do number 2 thats a terrible idea LOL
Matt

Ha! It actually almost does match the 1:1 now. I should get some closer photos of the real zebra to see how bad it really is.

Eeek man! Sorry to see that happen specially since that is one unique rig you go there. Good to see you are planning repairs already. I feel your pain... this is kinda like when my unimog decided to fly off a cliff:evil: http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/showthread.php?t=245952&page=6

Thanks prifral. I have looked at your builds and remember that incident. Isn't that was spawned the Tumbler II?

 

[nevets]

Did some repair work last night.

Here’s a pic of the bondo filler that I did the previous night:

I also noticed that there was some issues with the C-Pillar and decided to do some reinforcing. It’s not pretty, but it’s nice and rigid.

This is the repair of the part of the grill that broke off. I repaired with Tenax-7, then laid a little filler where the paint chipped off.

Finally, I have the sanded down body with the new window gasket in place. I will start masking off and shoot a bit of primer. Then I will see if I need to do any touch-up body filler.

I did not take any photos of it, but I repaired the bumper light buckets and they will be ok... Hopefully.

I am waiting on a total from Stefan for new roof rack lights. I was able to get all the old CA off the LEDs and now the rack will patiently wait for new light buckets.

Cheers,
-Steven

 

[nevets]

Got a little bit done. Got the area that I am going to repaint masked off. My mask pattern follows the zebra stripes. I will leave this masking on for the duration of the painting until clear coats.

I also shot about 3 coats of primer throughout the night. In between, I had a bit of filler areas that I had to address. It is not perfect, but it is not too bad either. Basically, I can live with how this will turn out.

Tomorrow, I plan to put my first coat of black.

Thanks for looking,
-Steven

 

[ser3100]

Well im sure that since you did such a fine job the first time, this should go well. Yes please put my favorite rover back together! Such a beaut!

 

[nevets]

Well, I have been working on the paint on and off for the last several days. It's now pretty much rebuilt.

This photo shows the result of 2 coats of base with sanding in between and a final sanding:

Here we are getting ready for the zebra stripes. Re-laying these out was pretty easy due to the shadowing of the original stripes.

This is 2 coats of white paint:

I remasked for the clear coat.

This is now after 3 coats of clear and the masking is removed:

Last step is to paint the flat black areas (window gasket and door handle). Sure, I could have brush painted these small areas, but then I would have deprived myself the joy of masking...

This is 2 coats of flat black and 2 coats of matte clear top coat:

And the final repair work all completed:

I have some small little touch ups to do here and there, but I am almost back to where I was a week ago.

Cheers,
-Steven

 

[pardonmyn00b]

Good as new! Great job on the repair work.

 

[CreepyCrawl]

I've never been a fan of Zebra stripe anything but you did a superb job throwing the paint, this is a very nice build.

Solid repair work as well...nicely done "thumbsup"

 

[prifral]

X2 on the repair job, looks good as new. Not that you need them cuz you pulled off a nice repair - but the zebra stripes would help hide any other imperfection. These zebra stripes makes me wonder what a rig would look like with a dazzle paint scheme. U know like the old battle ships and whatnot"thumbsup"

 

[nevets]

Been working on the new "alternate" body for the past week.

So far I have:
- cut wheel wells, windows and head/tail lights
- created large dents/body damage
- cut/glued window gaskets
- made rain gutters
- made side marker lights
- made side door moulding
- made Saudi style Discovery grill

Here are some photos:

Still have to make door latches.

 

[nevets]

The next major project for this body will be the exo cage. Because I want to use one chassis and swap bodies, I will not make the cage like I would want to with connecting to bumpers and sliders, etc. The cage will be on the top of the body.

I actually have a good example of what I'm basing my build off of:

That's pretty similar to what my exo cage will look like.