Writers’ Rovers
Dave tackles the rusty bumper and rock sliders on his Discovery... then treats it to a performance boost
What team LRM have been doing this month in our own Land Rovers
’ve kept the promise I made last month and set about the rust on my Discovery 1’s back bumper and rock sliders. They were only twoyears-old, but the powder coating was already peeling away to reveal a level of corrosion I hadn’t seen since for over 30 years.
It was back in 1984, to be exact, for it was in that year that rust started to bubble through the paintwork on my company car, an Alfa Romeo. In fact the top of the wings behind the headlights had rusted right through – and the car was less than three-years-old and hadn’t even been for its first MOT!
Many Italian cars of that era were notorious rust buckets. Lancias got such a bad name that they pulled out of the UK. Mind you, there were a few British-built
Icars around that time that were nearly as bad. But obviously they couldn’t pull out of the UK... I digress. Back to the Discovery. I took a no-nonsense approach to the rusty metal and went straight in with various abrasive and wire brush attachments on the angle grinder. It didn’t take long to strip off the loose powder coating and rub down the underlying rust back to bare metal, which I then treated with Kurust rust treatment. Once that had dried to its characteristic blue metallic colour, I followed up with smooth black Hammerite, applied generously with a brush.
As you may have guessed, I wasn’t interested in finesse. Next year my Discovery will be 20 years old (and has plenty of battle scars to prove it). Never mind the appearance, I just want to keep the rust out. In fact, I plan to follow up with a final layer of Tetroseal underseal.
Hammerite is brilliant in keeping rust at bay, but if it is chipped it will let it in. Tetroseal, from Carplan, is a rubberised compound that self-heals when hit by stones and the like. I’ll leave the Hammerite a week or so to really harden off, then get busy with the brush again.
Meanwhile, I’ve managed to coax a little extra performance from the Discovery’s 300Tdi engine by replacing the standard paper air filter with a Pipercross foam panel filter. It allows 30 per cent more air through and the manufacturer – British, by the way – claims an increase in economy and performance.
It’s easy to fit: it’s a straight swap with the standard filter. Access to the air filter box is simple, via four spring clips. It takes all of two minutes.
Sadly, I can’t make any economy comparisons because I haven’t done an mpg audit yet, but I can vouch for the performance increase. It is very noticeable when accelerating, especially from a standing start.
Also, the exhaust note is noticeably throatier. I hope that’s the effect of the new filter and not a hole in the back box. I’ll have to crawl under and check it out, as the MOT is due in a couple of weeks. I’ll let you know how I get on next month.
“I hadn’t seen rust that bad since 1984 – and that was on an Alfa Romeo”