John Groome

The final outcome of this story is that the problem was not the tappets or the ECU, but the injector harness. We replaced the fuel pressure regulator and the injector harness. The injector harness plug was full of oil and the O-rings were perished. She now runs like a thoroughbred. We also discovered that Landrover had lied to me. They had told me that they had replaced the engine wiring harness as there was an upgrade chip installed and it had damaged it. This chip was supposedly installed by the previous owner. Landrover wanted to rush me R25000.00 to do this as they claimed it was not covered by the warrantee. I told them that, as I did not have the chip installed and they sold it to me with the chip, it was their problem. The eventually agreed and kept the car for some time while they did the replacement. With this problem I have now had, we checked the wiring harness and found the place where the chip had been installed. They had removed it and covered the damage over with tape. Anyway all is well now. Thank you all for your suggestions and advice.

Hi Guys Thank you for all your help. Any ideas on price of the ECU? The prices of Landrover parts here in SA are unbelievably high, so in idea of the price would be helpful. This Disco has been a money pit from the day I bought it. In the 2 1/2 years that I have had it, the following major things have been done: 1. Clutch overhaul. (2 weeks after buying it) 2. Engine harness replacement. 3. New fuel pump and hoses. 4. Gearbox overhaul. (2nd clutch overhaul) In this time I have done 60000km in the vehicle. I bought it from Landrover 2nd hand with a Landrover warrantee. Fortunately the warrentee covered most of the above, but not without some fighting. We have 2 Landrovers, a Defender 2.5TDI and the DiscoII. My wife often says we should trade the 2 of them in on a Toyota or something less troublesome. Rant off.

Thanks guys for you insight on this issue. There have been some more developments on this now, so here is the story. The engine has started running rough again and it would seem that it is coincidence that the problem went away with the "twiddeling" of the tappet settings. They have been set back to what they were. I had a Landy shop run the diagnostics on the engine and the result was "Topside switch failed pre injection". The guy at the Landy shop said that it could be one of 3 things: 1. Faulty Injector. 2. Fuel pressure problem. 3. ECU problem. The fuel pressure regulator is leaking so this may be the fuel pressure problem. Any ideas anyone?

I do not believe the inlet tappets are hydraulic as the rockers run directly on the overhead cam. I think the exhaust tappets may be hydraulic. The fact of the matter is that by slackening the tappets the problem goes away. I was also not convinced at first but it seems to be so. The Landrover agents here in South Africa are pretty useless. They charge you an arm and a leg and still stuff it up, so it is pointless asking them.

Hi All I am new to this forum and I have a question to ask. I have found that the tappets are not set correctly on my TD5 Disco motor. ( this was discovered when it began to run rough - "missing" on one cylinder). A friend, who is a diesel mechanic, had a look and found that the inlet valve was not closing properly on one of the cylinders. He proceeded to slacken off all the tappets by 1/2 a turn and the engine ran fine and has been ever since. We looked all over for the correct procedure to set the tappets and have not found anything. He believes that the tappets are all too tight and should be correctly set. Can anyone help? Thanks.