chasema
Member
Hi everyone,
My name is Matt and I’ve mostly been a lurker here on expo since I found it when I was in high school in like 2008. This place has been Pretty pivotal for my self and thousands of others i’m sure in inspiring them to pursue adventure travel and long road trips into the unknown. I usually don’t post a whole lot on social media but I wanted to make this thread to sort of document the progress I’ve made on our quirky truck Nigel, and also serve as a way to keep track of maintenance and other modifications.
I guess I could start with a little bit about myself before I get into the truck though. I am 26, live just north of Seattle, Ive worked in the commercial fishing industry for the last 4 years and just switched over to the state ferry system as an Engineer. The last 4 years commercial fishing gave me the opportunity to really stretch my legs and go on all kinds of amazing adventures with my months off at a time. Most of these adventures where either in my built up xterra, or my klr 650, ranging from Prudhoe Bay to Cabo San Lucas. Somewhere in that time I acquired a 1997 Land Rover Discovery that Became Nigel.
When I was a kid we had a 96 discovery that we went on a road trip around all the western states in for 3 weeks, on top of that, Land Rover used to include promotional videos of the Camel Trophy with Leased and sold vehicles. I remember days where I would get “sick” and stay home all day mesmerized by all these awesome land rovers bombing through the jungles.
Fast forward 15 years, I found the Rover on some shaddy lot on a highway known for being a bad part of town and I sorta fell in love with it. When I got it it had the following already done to it:
- Terra Firma Shocks
- OME heavy duty springs
- Rear Long travel suspension (relocating cones, longer trailing arms, and terrafirma shock relocating brackets)
- steel wheels with Duratracs
- and it was pre-scratched and banged up
- some manga flow cut off exhaust
I drove it like that for about two years as a wheeler and using the nissan for long distance stuff.
Well fast forward to November 2017 and I decided that I was ready to make the transition from the boring anemic Nissan to life on the edge with the Land Rover being the sole vehicle for traveling and off-road use. I decided that a mechanically injected turbo diesel was the only way to make this feasible. So over months of planning, going from a 4bt to a 4bd, a nissan diesel, to land rovers own 300tdi and decided that was probably the best move to keep everything as simple and trouble free as possible. So I sold the Nissan and used the funds for a 300tdi diesel swap Global Land Rovers in the UK, all in all it was a good experience and ended up being about as cost effective as it could be all things considered. Any way, I’ll throw up some pictures, I don’t have many on my IPad (what i’m writing this on) but i’ll Try to add some more later.
My name is Matt and I’ve mostly been a lurker here on expo since I found it when I was in high school in like 2008. This place has been Pretty pivotal for my self and thousands of others i’m sure in inspiring them to pursue adventure travel and long road trips into the unknown. I usually don’t post a whole lot on social media but I wanted to make this thread to sort of document the progress I’ve made on our quirky truck Nigel, and also serve as a way to keep track of maintenance and other modifications.
I guess I could start with a little bit about myself before I get into the truck though. I am 26, live just north of Seattle, Ive worked in the commercial fishing industry for the last 4 years and just switched over to the state ferry system as an Engineer. The last 4 years commercial fishing gave me the opportunity to really stretch my legs and go on all kinds of amazing adventures with my months off at a time. Most of these adventures where either in my built up xterra, or my klr 650, ranging from Prudhoe Bay to Cabo San Lucas. Somewhere in that time I acquired a 1997 Land Rover Discovery that Became Nigel.
When I was a kid we had a 96 discovery that we went on a road trip around all the western states in for 3 weeks, on top of that, Land Rover used to include promotional videos of the Camel Trophy with Leased and sold vehicles. I remember days where I would get “sick” and stay home all day mesmerized by all these awesome land rovers bombing through the jungles.
Fast forward 15 years, I found the Rover on some shaddy lot on a highway known for being a bad part of town and I sorta fell in love with it. When I got it it had the following already done to it:
- Terra Firma Shocks
- OME heavy duty springs
- Rear Long travel suspension (relocating cones, longer trailing arms, and terrafirma shock relocating brackets)
- steel wheels with Duratracs
- and it was pre-scratched and banged up
- some manga flow cut off exhaust
I drove it like that for about two years as a wheeler and using the nissan for long distance stuff.
Well fast forward to November 2017 and I decided that I was ready to make the transition from the boring anemic Nissan to life on the edge with the Land Rover being the sole vehicle for traveling and off-road use. I decided that a mechanically injected turbo diesel was the only way to make this feasible. So over months of planning, going from a 4bt to a 4bd, a nissan diesel, to land rovers own 300tdi and decided that was probably the best move to keep everything as simple and trouble free as possible. So I sold the Nissan and used the funds for a 300tdi diesel swap Global Land Rovers in the UK, all in all it was a good experience and ended up being about as cost effective as it could be all things considered. Any way, I’ll throw up some pictures, I don’t have many on my IPad (what i’m writing this on) but i’ll Try to add some more later.