geoffbeaumont

If I can get the rear propshaft off I can take it for a run without the half shafts in, which would allow me to eliminate the diff if I still get the noise. It's going to put up a fight though

Not sure how many vehicles were affected (this truck is one of the first 300TDis - my parents waited for the change from 200TDi before taking delivery) - nor have I come across this anywhere else, just what my parents have been told by the garage that worked on it.

I think it's a bit more serious than a change of oil is going to fix - the plate has been removed now, which helped and made it drivable again, but I think the only permanent fix is a new gearbox

Will probably have the opportunity to aquire my parents M-reg 300TDi Disco in July, for a very reasonable price. It's well looked after, about 125K on the clock and they've had it from new so I know it's entire history. There's only really one fly in the ointment - it has a faulty gearbox. Apparently the early R380s had a plate in them that was later removed because it caused problems (premature wear of the syncromesh on 3rd and 4th, I think) - it should have been removed from the truck years ago, but wasn't with the result that changing between 3rd and 4th is awkward. It's generally okay if you take it slowly, and my parents have been driving it like this for months, since deciding a recon gearbox was uneconomical. Is anyone familiar with this problem? How serious is it? Is it likely to be an issue for the MOT if it's left as is?

Those oiks in 90s been splashing you again?

Noisier is up for debate, but it's certainly more frequent. Most of the time now, at low speeds.

The wheel bearing seem to be fine - no movement in either of them. It's not the brakes, either.

I hate to be a killjoy, but that's pretty much how mine looked when I had to do the head gaskets at about the same mileage - I stuck it back together and a few thousand miles later the timing gear disintegrated...

I've had an intermittent clunk from the back of my rangie for a while now - lately it's been getting less intermittent and noisier...from inside it sounds like it's coming from the offside rear, but running alongside the car it sounds about the same both sides. It's usually heard when running with no load on the drive train, is worse when going round left hand bends and doesn't occur at all in right handers. It's road speed related and unaffected by whether the gearbox is in drive or neutral. Has my rear diff had it? This would be bad, seeing as my transfer box is seized and my attempt to remove the rear prop tonight was thwarted by rounding nuts - it's going to need attention from a grinder Because of the transfer box, I've no front prop at the moment, so if the rear diff goes it's yellow taxi time.

I'm not going to build any extra circuitry for mine, seeing I'll be getting rid of the Hotwire ECU just as soon as I find a dead one to butcher for its connector. Nige will be very interested in that, though...

Piccies here

I'm afraid I might have got slightly carried away in my enthusiasm last night...the sparks are only jumping a (good) inch today... Still...sparks as never seen before under the bonnet of my rangie

Was it getting its own back for the waxoyl incident?

Fired up the EDIS for the first time today - was a bit disappointed by the spark (still better than the original ignition gives), until it occurred to us that the wasted spark coils probably wouldn't work properly without and earth on either end - stuck another lead and plug on and I now have sparks that reliably jump a good three inch gap Way too much advance at the moment, so I need to take the crank position sensor bracket off and modify it to allow more adjustment. Once I've got it sitting nicely on ten degrees BTDC in limp home mode I can hook it up to the real spark plugs and get it running the engine Then I can start playing with the megasquirt end of things. I'm liking this EDIS thing...

Bugger, now the rest of us are going to have to start pulling our weight Les has done far more than any other single person for this forum, right from day one. He's given far more of his personal time than anyone else, stood up as front man and taken the flack when people didn't like decisions by the mod team and generally been the guiding hand that has got us where we are now. Given the vast amount of time he spends doing it, and the fact that it's usually Les that grasps the nettle when there's a tricky issue to deal with, he's managed to upset remarkably few people too, which says a lot for him as a moderator. Thanks Les. Hope you'll change your mind.

You'd do more than eighty on raised suspension...?

Been there - mine was off the road (and not in a good way ) for four month recently after the timing gear went. Bought an old escort off a mate to keep me going. It was reliable and...err...can't think of much else to say about it...

3.9 would be Hotwire - the cold start injector was part of the older flapper system. 'Fraid I haven't any useful suggestions to add

Now there's a thought...I've got access to the kit. Not sure about running it off Land Rover electrics though Should I fit the smoke machine too, or just wait for the head gasket to go south?

At the end of the day the best you can hope to do is stop drive-away theft, anyway. With car security being so much better these days a lot of the professional car theives will just lift it onto a truck and drive away. Easy to do in broad daylight, too, as most people will just assume it's the council or a recovery organisation.

Stud doesn't need to be removed (although getting the pump off it without doing any damage can be a git, judging by mine). I've had one replaced at a garage and done one myself, both times done with gaskets and have been fine. Only real problem I've had was getting the fan viscous coupling off the front of the pump - the one I had done at a garage was because I couldn't shift that.

It just started working again. No apparent reason for it... Wierd...

While I'm slaving away indoors Jonathan's been outside wiring the EDIS power supply up. He's done a nice tidy job with a relay off the immobilised, ignition switched circuitry on the steering column, run the main power cables through a couple of fuse holders and thought it was all done and dusted. Hooked the battery back up and, with a couple of doors open, the EAS dropped onto the stops Everything else is working and the EAS isn't displaying a fault, but it doesn't want to come out to play... Any ideas? It isn't playing by the book at all this time...

Nah, in for a dollar... I'm switching over the petrol fueling too. LPG will have to stay under the Landi-Renzo ECU as I have a venturi gas kit. If it was injected I might be able to get Megasquirt running the whole lot They'll run at more than ten on petrol, even cold - I run an idle advance of 12deg with the dizzy. It is indeed a bit lumpy, but as I only run on petrol until it's warm enough to switch to LPG it's worthwhile for the better performance on the latter. I'm working from memory here...definitely time to go reread the docs If EDIS4 will do less than 10deg I'm pretty certain EDIS8 will too - so far as I know their operation is exactly the same. I mean harmonic damper, of course... That's what I thought...just remembered seeing something on a Megasquirt forum post about standard timing lights being no use with wasted spark and starting to think I might have missed something. Probably just someone talking borlocks I'm going to have to work tomorrow now , so no fun for me. Jonathan's looking for something to keep him out of mischief, though, so I'll leave him to finish off the wiring - he'll do a better job of it than me anyway

Cheers Fridge. Jon W's supplied me with the ignition map from his 3.5RV8, so that should be a good starting point for mine. Would be nice to get hold of a known good ignition map for LPG, but I can start off by just advancing the whole map a few degrees - will at least be no worse than what I've got now.