The Disco has proven to be a good tow-behind thus far. Given its role, my #1 priority is that the wheels don't fall off (literally) and similarly that the steering doesn't go bad. On the first trip rocks kicked up and broke the headlights. So I got a set of used headlights (plenty of Discos being parted out so that was cheap and simple) and they took all of 10 minutes to install, easy.
I did an oil change knowing how these old engines tend to sludge up and not knowing when the last one was done on it, and then tomorrow I'll change the transmission filter and pan gasket, and of course drain and refill the pan. I'm quite certain all of that was original.
I took a look at the exhaust since the rear muffler was rattling, wanting to see if I could bend something to make it stop. However when I hit the muffler I heard it rattling badly inside. That's not good. So out came the sawzall and I cut it out, to find chunks of the catalytic converters coming out in my hand. That's not a good sign. There's no check engine light indicating that the rear O2 sensors are telling the computer the cats are still functional, but what I want to make sure of now is that the cats are falling apart but not clogging the exhaust elsewhere. Those chunk were definitely restricting the exhaust flow through that rear muffler. I haven't driven it yet to see if there's a performance difference, so that will be interesting. The exhaust is original so I may be doing something there, although not before this next trip. For now, simple "fix" and we'll see what that does.
The coolant consumption is another issue I wanted to look into. The head gaskets were done recently but the car does consume a lot of coolant. Not through the exhaust, the smell is very much under the hood. Also no leaks on the ground. I tried pressurizing the system with a tester and it held just fine, indicating the problem may be just the radiator cap. A cap and expansion tank isn't much, so I'll probably just order those when I order new tie rod ends (and maybe a pitman arm which seems to be bad/loose) to make sure that none of those break. The Disco does need an alignment, and for how cheap OEM tie rods are and how many miles this thing gets towed behind the RV, may as well get those freshened up.