Hi everyone!
I'm in the process of selling my '91 V8i disco but I want to get to the bottom of my problems which have led me to want to sell it. It's a long story which I will shorten a lot, and get to the point.
I bought the Disco not that long ago and in ran fine. It just needed to warm up 5 minutes otherwise the engine would be a bit erratic in idle. So far so good. I then quite quickly -and in hindsight, too hastily- decided to have it converted to LPG. The conversion was done expertly but it started to highlight a problem. The LPG system needs good electrics, I was warned about that. The Disco still ran ok on petrol, but the erratic behaviour on LPG in idle were magnified.. btw, erratic is actually not the right word, the real problem is that the engine would slow down and shut down. So I decided to change the plugs, change the distributor cap and rotor (genuine Land Rover parts) and I bought a good set of leads as well. To make the story short, this is when I found the problem: one of the plugs didn't go in as deep as it should. There's clearly something wrong with the thread, either clogged up with carbon or the thread is damaged. That explains the better running when warmed up of course.. the expansion improves the seal.
By this time, I have given up on owning a Disco. I'm not a mechanic, I don't even have a garage or driveway.. not ideal to maintain a car like this. So I've put it on ebay..
But I would still like to know if I'm right about what's wrong with the car. Do you think it's likely to be the dodgy plug thread? You can actually hear a slight 'ffft fft fft' noise coming from the cylinder when the engine is turning. When I disconnecting the lead you can't even hear a difference in the running of the engine (you can when I disconnect one of the other leads). And it still improves after having been running for a while (although it needs at least 15 minutes now, but that's probably because I haven't been able to get the plug in as deep as it was when I bought the car).
Or could there be a different or additional problem?
Any help would be very much appreciated. Even though I'm in the process of selling it, I still would want to know.. who knows, maybe it doesn't sell and I give fixing it an other try. It would be a pity, it's otherwise in good condition, it's got the raised suspension, the snorkel, etc but it looks like I'm never going to get to do any off-roading.
