My disco makes me want to dance

phobucket

Observer
Hi All,

It finally happened and I am completely thrilled. My lease ended on the MINI and I picked a 2008 LR3 HSE Lux at Land Rover in Rocklin. To my surprise, it also has the HD package. Super Score :wings: We're planning to build it up slowly as we learn more about overlanding.


Goodbye MINI.
16983989190_2df84b4054_n.jpg


Hello Disco3.


It already has a bit of kit, but my family and I are excited out the plans for it. The roof rack is going to get a haircut pronto. It has already kissed the support beams in the parking garage. Oops...
 
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phobucket

Observer
Your ride and Lucky8's are big inspirations for us, Dendy. Do you know anyone that did a writeup of how to chop the top off of the rack? Any special tools required? Did you have to remove the rack first?
 

DVD

Adventurer
Nice! Another green one. Score with the HD, and the chopped factory roof rack I've seen looks really good, so that will save you some $. And the 18 wheels.
I hope yours treats you as well as mine has for me, and that it provides some great adventures.
 

srschick

Adventurer
Nice ride! Have the same but in black (and BTW, it's just an HSE, I don't recall the LUX being on LR3s)
If you don't feel the need to chop the rack, you're first priority is a IIDTool, that'll get you into the garage without damage.
Hell, despite that, the first thing a proper LR owner should get is that device!
 

phobucket

Observer
Nice rigs, everyone.

I think lux was an option package on the 2008 LR3s, but became a trim level later. As far as I know, all it means is I have a tiny fridge (meh), and nicer seats (hooray). I definitely notice a difference between the leather and cushioning on these seats vs. other LR3s I have driven. Maybe 2008 had upgraded level all around. I don't know, but I'm please as punch with mine.

Starting from ground zero, there are some basic safety necessities I need, but yes, an IID tool is high on the list of priorities.
This site has so much incredibly helpful information. Safety gear first. Heading out tomorrow for our first trip. :)
 

psykokid

Explorer
The NCLR group is a good group of people..

In two weeks is the NCLR/SCLR meet in the middle run at Pismo / Oceano Dunes SVRA. I'll be driving up with a few of the Socal Guys and a few of the Norcal Guys are making the trek down. Should be a fun weekend of playing in the sand. If your schedule allows you should try to make it down.
 

phobucket

Observer
I would love to make it but we are going to be out of town that weekend.
Speaking of road trips, the boys and I went on our first off-road adventure last weekend. We drove Fish Rock Rd from Highway 128 in Boonville, CA to Route 1 in Gualula, CA. It's a 25 mile road through the mountains, ~15 miles of which are unpaved. I chose this easy route from URL="http://www.trails.com/tcatalog_trail.aspx?trailid=HGS240-017"]trails.com[/URL] because I have never been off road, was travelling with my kids, was travelling without any other vehicles, and had owned my vehicle for just one week.

We loaded up the Disco with our camping gear (soooo much more room in this than the MINI), and took off on Saturday morning.

Our first stop was O'Reilly auto parts to pick up a fire extinguisher (just in case), and jumper cables. Now I realize picking up jumper cables when you are going off road by yourself is kind of dumb. Did I expect to get a jump from a tree? In any rate, I can put the cables in my girlfriend's car when I find the proper solution for overlanding.

Next stop was REI for an AMK Weekender Medical kit. Feeling at least somewhat prepared for a minor emergency, we popped on the Land Rover G4 Challenge podcast for a little inspiration and took to the highway. After struggling through traffic on 101 until just north a Petaluma, we finally made the cutoff for Hwy 128 in Cloverdale around 2pm. We passed Fish Rock Rd and drove 7 miles further into downtown Boonville to fill up on gas before circling back to start the route.

Fish Rock Rd is paved through Mailliard Redwoods State Reserve. It really is a gorgeous road to drive with either redwoods on ranches on either side. A few miles later we ceremoniously raised the suspension and set the traffic control to gravel as we passed the sign saying "Pavement Ends"




Now I know that many cars could drive this road with no problems, but it was still exciting for me, and most importantly, the kids were having a blast. There were a few epic views worthy of photographs, but most of the time we used the GoPro to document our adventure.



The land on either side of the road was always fenced off with no trespassing signs so we drove straight through to Gualala, which took about 1 1/2 hours.

Look, Ma. Real dirt!



From there we headed southwards down the coast looking for a place to camp. In addition to being new to overlanding, we are new to camping, having only done it a few times before. The first 2 places we checked were full, but the ranger recommended Woodside a few miles futher down the road. Success! We pulled into Woodside Camp grounds in Salt Point State Park around 5:30pm. Ruben and I cooked Chef Boy R'Dee raviolis over the campfire while Simon set up the tent. Simon's verdict on Chef Boy R' Dee was "like nothing my tongue has ever tasted." I think he meant this in a good way. In any rate, we followed up dinner with toasted marshmallows and hot chocolate before turning in for the night.




The next morning we made Mancakes (pancakes with bacon in them thanks Expedition Overland!) before packing up camping and driving home down the coast. We were all really pleased about our first fun - and thankfully uneventful - adventure and or looking forwards to getting further off the beaten path.
 
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Cobra_R

Adventurer
Very cool! You'll have fun with that I'm sure. I'm actually looking at selling my Focus ST and buying an lr3 myself. Either an lr3 or a tacoma. Love the color by the way!

I'm actually in Roseville right now getting some tires put on my Focus and I was planning on dropping by the Rocklin LR dealership to check out their inventory. If they don't have any LR3s maybe I can take a look at some LR4s.

Kinda off topic, but I'm really impressed by the organization of the NorCal Land Rover club. That's one thing that's making me lean LR.
 
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zelatore

Explorer
A- nice LR3 you picked up there Phobucket. Great color and some nice bonuses like the rack and what looks like a decent tire for dirt roads.
B- Thanks Cobra_R for the NCLR complement. I'm 'one of them' as are several folks on this forum.
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Pho- Not sure where you are located but since you picked the Rover up in Rocklin I'm guessing somewhere around Sac. We are having an informal get-together of Sac area NCLR members Thursday night at Kilt Pub just off Arden. If you're free, pop by and introduce yourself. We'll start wondering in around 6:30 or so and will stay until we leave... You'll see at least one other LR3 (mine) there - should be a few other Rovers to point at as well. Or if you're in the bay area, we're having our annual meeting of the members and board elections at Mexxi's in the east bay on Saturday.
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If you have a minute, pop over to our club website and have a look around. We're pretty active with outings from expo-style events (a week in OR in June) to rock crawling (Fordyce in July). And as psycokid mentioned, we're heading to Pismo in 2 weeks. Just last weekend we had everything from a CT110 to an LR4 out for a couple days at SlickRock trail up at Lake Alpine.
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The club's page:
http://www.norcalrovers.org/
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A couple shots from last weekend:


 
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Cobra_R

Adventurer
The NCLR has an annual trip to Moab too right? How did your LR3 do on the slickrock trail? I took my old tacoma through that a couple years ago and it was extremely fun and kinda challenging!
 

phobucket

Observer
The club looks like an awesome amount of fun and I'm definitely looking forward to joining. I live in the east bay, but really wanted this particular LR3, so I was happy to make the drive. I'll attend an outing soon :)
 

zelatore

Explorer
We don't have an annual club trip to Moab, though we have done it as a club in the past and we have at least one member heading out there later this year in his LR4. I've been a couple times, but in a Jeep (!!); haven't taken my LR3 to Moab ... yet. It's on the to-do list ASAP but the schedule is pretty full for this year.
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We had a mixed group on SlickRock; My LR3, an LR4, a CT110, a couple D1s, and a P38. Everybody got through with nothing more than some scuffs on wheels/sliders and a cut sidewall on the LR4. I think he might have scuffed a bumper as well; he still has stock f/r bumpers.
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The LR3 did well. A few challenging spots, and the trail was in rougher shape than in years past per others who'd run it before. Now I'm not bragging (well, OK, I am) but only one Rover made it up the stairs at the south end without taking the by-pass on the left half way up. That would be the LR3...:) It wasn't easy though and took several attempts. I think some of the other guys could have done it as well but they didn't have the same tolerance level for banging into rocks (plenty of armor on my rig as well as new scrapes on the wheels) or backed out instead of risking breakage (the D1s in particular here).
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We may make this an annual trip as well - sort of 'so you think you want to do the Rubicon....an intro to rock crawling' as it's short but has just enough challenge at the end to give you a taste of the tough stuff. And yes, I do plan to drag my LR3 through the 'con at some point.
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Phobucket, if you're around on Saturday feel free to stop by Mexxis in San Ramone. Our meeting starts at 10 and we're having a swap meet as well (though much of the stuff has already been spoken for on the website).
 

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