Tetsu0san

The 300Tdi engine is a slightly better engine to work on in my opinion, but the 200Tdi seems to be a more reliable engine. I am sure people will view this the other way perhaps, but everyone's experiences of Land Rovers are different. Rust is the biggest problem really, before engine problems. Check the boot floor, the body mounts, outriggers on the chassis, if it is a 5 door then check the wheel arches inside the door as that will rust too. Inner wheel arches and battery box in the engine bay can also be a problem. Check all the gears and hi/lo and diff lock. HI/lo and diff lock rarely actually go wrong, but may be seized through lack of use. Usually an easy fix but a bargaining tool. Check the wheel bearings for play as this could also be the swivel bearings. Knowing what I know now about Discovery's I would buy a 200Tdi because I would hope it would be cheaper than a 300Tdi, but I do prefer the 300Tdi to work on. I just sold my 300Tdi for £1200 (M reg) so I would imagine you can get one cheaper than that. I had done everything on it though, including a new head, so the bloke won't have the same problems that I had in buying a Disco.

Just to let you all know, I finally got around to pulling the winch apart and found most of the cogs full of dirt, dry grease and some fairly unsightly rust. Spent this evening cleaning, oiling, greasing and got it back together earlier and it works a treat!! That guide on servicing the winch was very usefull, but I found it not to be very hard to do anyway. Once you see how it all comes apart, it is pretty easy to get it all working again. Cheers to all though. Should really have taken pics and done a guide on it...

Cheers for that information. I have been told that you can take an R380 straight out of a Disco and put this straight into a 300Tdi Defender, which would mean that the bell housing must be the same length, but until actually see someone who has done this I will treat it with a little suspicion. But back to the original question, I was going to fit an electric fan at some point, so perhaps this would be a good time to do so. I know the engines seem to run quite cool and people remove the fans on them all the time, but I was unsure as to the cowling. Gonna give it a go anyway. Cheers

You could almost have another storage area in front of the engine! The engine being this far back must be a throwback to the older series Land Rovers, am I right? This also brings me onto another question. Is the engine further forward on a 300Tdi Defender than on a 200Tdi (or TD, NA or earlier)? If so, does that mean that the 300Tdi Defender bell housing is the same as the Disco bell housing? I have pondered this for a while and if I am right that would also explain why short R380 gearboxes are few and far between as they must have been in the transition period between the two engines.

Does anyone out there have a 200Tdi (or possibly an older engine) running without the radiator cowling? I have a 200Tdi 90 and the cowling takes up so much space and makes it very difficult to work in the engine bay without removing it first, which is a pain in the arse. I don't appear to have any overheating issues at the moment so would it be OK to remove it from mine? Or should I just live with it and leave it where it is? The reason why I ask is that I have just seen a 200Tdi on ebay with the cowling removed, and it suddenly dawned on me that I have been missing a trick somewhere. Your opinions are welcomed. Cheers

All you need for setting the preload is a spring balance, nothing more. Make sure you set the preload without the seals in place though. The whole thing is not a hard job, but it takes quite a while and is a really messy job. Les has done a tech guide on this job, very good it is too. I was advised not to get cheap swivels for this job as they will leak very quickly. I would imagine that Paddocks will be sh**part, however I fitted these and it has not leaked (yet).

Forgot to mention that I did the valve clearances just after checking the timing belt. As an update, I drove it again today and it is better than yesterday, so I think that something must be sticking and freeing up with use. The wastegate seems the obvious thing to check, but would this cause the slugishness at low revs too?

I don't think the timing belt is out, although I won't rule this out totally. My mate who is a mechanic also said it seemed like a timing belt issue, but in checking the belt it looked as if it was 1/2 a tooth out at the most on the cam pulley. This picture was taken at TDC (checked on the rocker and through the belhousing and a pin through the pump hole). The angle of the picture is also not great as I had left the radiator in when I removed the timing chest. But this wouldn't give the rev topping out and then carrying on problem (I don't think). Also people seem to advise that as long as the pump and the crank are in time then the cam pulley can be a little out and not give any problems. And it doesn't run rough. I had a Scenic where the garage had put the timing belt on one tooth out and that sounded rough. This actually sounds really nice. Haven't checked the throttle cable, no. But the laggy-ness happens when you are under the bonnet pulling the throttle arm. I will check the cable tomorrow though. Cheers for the suggestions though, keep them coming!

Serviced, clean filters, timing seems OK. I was thinking this too, but wanted to rule out everything else before I buy a lift pump.

There is a fuel filter in the engine bay, that is not the filter I was talking about. I meant is there a sedimentor bowl somewhere in the pipework and should there be a filter on the pickup pipe in the fuel tank. My Disco didn't have a filter on the pickup either, but there was a sedimenter bowl. The wastegate is very stiff to push by hand, almost impossible. Perhaps this is the issue? I will spray it with oodles of WD40 later, and I will also blow out the fuel pipes when I get a chance. One of the intercooler hoses is a little soft too, I was thinking of replacing them all with silicon hoses anyway. Although the problem with the turbo seems to be that it just revs, stops and then eventually revs up higher, like pushing your head through a collar on a tight jumper. There is resitance but eventually if goes through. I honestly couldn't think of a better desciption for it.

Hi all I have a 200Tdi Defender (original engine) and I am having a few little issues with performance. I know that these sort of issues have been posted before, but I just want to ask a few questions that I don't think have been answered elsewhere. As a bit of a background, this is a K reg 90 with its original 200Tdi engine with just over 87K on the clock. It was parked up about 3 years ago, I bought it just over a year ago and welded the chassis, got an MOT on it and started to drive it. I have only done about 600 miles on it since I had it, and that is the sum total of the mileage for the past 3 years. The first problem I noticed was that it seemed to have very little power. When I MOT'd it, it just didn't seem like it would pull you out of bed. There was a bit of white smoke (unburned fuel?) from the exhaust, and if you revved hard and kept it there and then let off the throttle it would sometimes stall. It also seemed to top out on the revs, and if you held it there long enough it would seem to free up and pull a bit more. The more I drove it the less it did this until it was gone altogether. It still didn't have the pull before the turbo kicks in that I would expect to feel, but as long as you keep the revs up reasonably high it was OK. I took it back to the bloke I bought it from and he was suprised that it wasn't revving like it used to. It sort of seemed that the pump was retarted as there was a bit of a delay when you blipped the throttle. I know it's not meant to be a sports car, but my 300Tdi picked up better after I advanced the pump a little, but I don't think I should have to advance the pump on an engine that has done under half of what my 300Tdi had done. I stripped the timing chest off and had a look and it all seemed OK, it has not long had a cam belt change anyway. I had not driven the 90 for about 10 days and when I took it out today and the problem returned. Topping out on the revs and just not pulling 100%. It seems to idle OK, starts really easily, not breathing at all, the turbo has no lateral movement in the turbine bit. I fitted a turbo guage about 3 weeks ago to monitor it and today the boost only got up to about 0.7, whereas it was getting up to 0.9 before. I also didn't realise quite how underpowered before the turbo kicks in until I drove a TD 90 the other week. Although this isn't fast it seems to pull really strong, regardless of the revs. Basically my question is about what this could be. I looked in the fuel tank (as I had a fuel starvation problem on my old 300Tdi Disco) and I expected to see a filter on the pickup, but it is just a tube. I am 99% sure there is no sedimenter bowl, and I changed the fuel filter when I serviced it only 600 miles ago. If there was carp in the fuel tank, could this have been picked up and pushed into the lift pump and this could cause my symptoms? Is there meant to be a filter on the pickup? How easily should it be to move the wastegate? Should you be able to move it by hand easily? Could a cheap fuel filter cause the same problems? Suggestions? Sorry for the essay, but I wanted to give as much information as possible.

Just awesome!

Check the valve clearances. Could be that the little cap on one of the valves has worn through. Easy enough to check and fix if need be.

Anything British

2Gether Insurance. Cheaper than Frank Pickles and if you catch them late on a Friday evening, they might even discount it even more (they did for me anyway). K Reg 200Tdi 90, £125 fully comp with no no-claims. All mods covered with greenlaning and offroading included. Couldn't argue really.

But from his point of view, why not just SORN it?

What does he mean by the new DVLA ruling? He says is the same cost as any other Land Rover, so surely he must have been paying the same before. Still, looks pretty cool. Seen a few 110 bobtails that look funny, but that one doesn't.

I used a nylon scouring pad that you can get from any supermarket or similar. Doesn't scratch the ally head and will get all of that stuff off. Found it worked better when wet too.

Did you get a wobble through the steering wheel which could only be bought under control by slowing down? This could be bump steer which can be made worse by a lift as the castor on the front axle puts the steering geometry out of wack. This and worn swivel bearings/preload can possibly cause what you are describing. Check your preload on the swivels and that might fix it. If not you may have to fit castor corrected radius arms too. Or just avoid bricks in the road!

Bloke has just bought a van side for a 90 off me for 99p. This is going the other way I suppose but he had a bargain. Ebay is both your friend and your enemy. Too many evenings spent looking through the listings. No wonder I am short sighted now

Depending on the age you will either have bearings top and bottom or a railko bush on top and bearing on the bottom, but if you are rebuilding the whole lot then it doesn't really matter because a full kit will have the lot. But (as always) avoid the blue box stuff... People seem to like the teflon coated cups, and I fitted these on mine when I rebuild the swivels. They don't leak and look pretty nice.

That is why I have put it off soo long. A friend has a 54 plate 110, top of the range spec, ex demo vehicle and that leaks too. Not as bad, but still a wet foot on occasion. I am sure they must have a part number for a water leak, same as they have for oil...

Cheers for all that info, that is very helpfull. I think I see the problem now though. Where the channel behind the bonnet lets water run off the side, it goes down the joint between the wing and the bulkhead and down the side of the footwell. There is a pretty big hole there which is probably where the water is coming in. It then runs along the plastic under the dash and onto my foot. Wing off as well as dash out I think. I also want to get to some holes on the inside in the top corners by the windscreen hinge bolt holes. Usually this is on the outside, but not on mine!

Hi all This is a job I have been putting off for a while, but with the heavy rain today I was getting a wet foot while driving, so I need to remove the dash to see where the rain is coming in, and to repair a couple of holes that I can see. How easy is it to remove the dashboard? What do I have to remove to get access to the bulkhead from the inside? Cheers

I am trying not to hijack this thread, but does anyone know if you can take the electric bits out of a Discovery or Range Rover door and fit into a Defender door? If you could without too much effort then you could to this convertion very cheaply. Disco and Rangey doors are pretty cheap to buy