rincewind23

Hi all, I've got a 90 with a Disco 3.9 v8 in it, and since this is an engine question I've put it here. The guy who owned it before me decided to replace the radiator but keep the oil cooler bit.. Now I'm looking to fit a Mocal oil cooler. When I removed this cooler, one of the pipes into the timing cover is 'normal', the other has a strange hole/plug end: My question is: Can I just plug the existing holes and use a sandwich plate to take off to the oil cooler? Or do I need to use this special connector as pictured? I've done some research online but the results are inconclusive. I think I have an intermediate serp timing cover, and I've seen reference to this pipe bunging the 'easy way' for the oil, but nothing as to whether I can use a sandwich plate instead. Cheers, Kev.

Hi all, I have just uploaded episode 3 of my Defender upgrade videos at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlR9JeYZhdA If you like it please subscribe to my channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS32K2jJ7MRADgT1VwFQ9rA I'm sure I haven't done everything quite right, but I'm hoping people find it interesting. Constructive criticism always welcome

I manage to get three flanges off (the castellated nut on the front one refuses to move despite penetrating oil, heat, and an impact wrench!) cleaned up and bolts replaced. When I drained the transfer box before removing the rear flange there was only about a litre of oil (before I dropped it all over the floor!) so it's a good job I did this - I think it's supposed to be more around the 2 litre mark.. Thanks again for all the replies, I'm certainly learning a lot!

Thanks for letting me know I need a new flange. I'm not feeling flush enough for one of your superflanges yet, but maybe some time in the future if I ever decide to overhaul the diff I'll treat myself I also wasn't planning to replace the seal, but if the flange is shot chances are the seal is also shot already. Is it FRC8220 I need? Looks like the flange is 236632 and shield is FRC8154.

It's a 1988 CSW. I know it's a CSW because you can still see the decals underneath where a previous owner just resprayed over everything.

Scotts, There are indeed only four spines on that flange - that's the one I managed to get off from the rear diff. I don't know how many splines on the front flange yet, It's raining hard and blowing a gale here so I haven't ventured out to try again yet.. Is that unusual, then? I bought this Defender (with a 3.9v8 Disco engine) as-is, and I have already had plenty of surprises from it..

Thanks Mo - I have a ton of other leaky things to get to - sump, sump plug, oil takeoff, power steering, transfer box, bank account... - I wil throw it all back in and hope it holds until I've got to everything else. On a related note, how much rotational play should there be in the flange? My front one has enough play that an impact wrench won't get the big nut off, it just shakes the flange back and forwards

Thanks Western - I already have the correct nuts and bolts (including the slightly longer ones for where the prop connects to the handbrake). I also bought the special tool which made it marginally easier to undo things

Thanks for all the replies - I thought I had read that the bolt head should face the diff casing - obviously it's easier to put them in the other way (no need to remove the flange) so that's what had been done before. a 14mm socket/spanner had been used by a previous owner and had mangled the heads, so replacing them was a no-brainer and I want to put them the right way round. Mo, I checked and there are a couple of scores on the flange - the larger one in the photo I can *just about* feel by running my nail across it if I'm really concentrating to notice it. Should I replace something else to prevent this getting worse, or is it just a bit of grit that needs cleaning out. I nearly forgot - the shield popped off nicely once the rust seal broke. I'm going to respray the flange then press it back together with the bolts in place before reassembling.

Hi all, I'm currently replacing the u-joints on both prop shafts on my Defender. While I've got them off I figured I would clean up the shafts and replace the nuts and bolts attaching them to the transfer box and diffs. As I understand it from reading up on it, the bolts should go in the diff flanges and the nuts on the propshaft side. I *think* from what I've seen that the thin plate stopping me from getting the bolts in (see pic) is a mud shield and I should be able to get this off with a press, but I wanted to check with people who know before I just bend something and need to buy a new one..

Sorry for the delay in replying; we moved house (and I towed a trailer for the first time to transport my kit car so I feel like a grownup!) ' You could remove the takeoff plate & delete the oil cooler, tidy plumbing ' Excuse my ignorance but is this ok to do? Was it not put there in the first place for a reason? Also I'm switching from 14CUX to Megasquirt so I should be able to pull a signal from there for a VDO gauge. Or at the very least check it with the laptop..

Good to know, thanks. I have an issue where the engine is a Disco engine but the gauge is a Defender gauge and it always runs off the end of the dial but the temp is fine. I don't know if I can fit a Disco gauge in the Defender dash. It's on my TODO list (and it's a loong list right now.. whoever had it before me did everything half-arsed..)

Hi, I've got a Discovery 3.9 v8 in my Defender (hence posting here). The guy who had it before me replaced the radiator, but the new radiator doesn't have an oil cooler. It turns out what he's done is cut the oil cooler part out of the original radiator and leave it in line. It looks horrible, rattles around and the hoses are getting in the way of a couple of other things, so I'm wondering if anyone can suggest a good oil cooler? I've been looking around and I'm thinking a long, squat one to fit under the current radiator may be the way to go, but figured people here may know better. Cheers, Kev.

Hi again, I'd like to close this topic out, and thank everyone for their input. I managed to get it to driving with the stupidly high fuel pressure, but it was running really badly. After a decent (10-15 mile) trip I pulled all the plugs again, and two of them were clean. Not wet, not sooty, not sandy, just clean. I guessed that change of fuel pump (to the external one with no filter) and the fact there was no other filter in the fuel line may have blocked the injectors. I swapped them with a couple of injectors from my kit car and it started running properly (at normal pressure)! So whatever the initial issue was, swapping bits around caused a different problem. Needless to say I now have a separate inline fuel filter, and there seems to be a ton of carp in the fuel tank that must have got through before I fitted the inine filter. Looking at the original in-tank fuel pump, it looks like I may have ripped the filter bag around the input of it, which may have let carp into the injectors in the first place. All I can say is, it works now.. Thanks again, all!

I have checked; there are no air leaks to the plenum, the hose is good and tightly connected at the plenum and at the MAF. I checked the vacuum tubes. The FPR tube was a little loose so I swapped it out for one that fits tightly at the FPR end, and is secured with a jubilee clip next to the idle valve. The vacuum advance to the dizzy had splits in the boots at both ends, so i've replaced those with some tight fitting tube. I put the original FPR back on and managed to get it to run for a couple of miles, before it went back to misfiring. I managed to get home before it went totally dead and now it's back to the original 'idles ok but revs poorly' state, even after leaving it overnight to cool down. I pulled the plugs and cleaned them yesterday; they were all very sooty, but 2,3,5,7 and 8 were starting to get sandy brown at the tip from the bit of good run I got. 1,4 and 6 were still fully black. I doubt this will indicate the fault but I just wanted to include all the info I have..

Bogmonster, I have run through that fuel pressure check (didn't realise that it was the test process in the book, but had done it anyway) with three different pressure regulators - the original one on the car, the one from my 3.5 v8 (from a Disco) that's in my kit car (both of which work fine in my kit car), and a brand new one that the mechanic made me buy and fit to verify it wasn't the culprit, and all three get up to pressure when switching to position II, but immediately drop back to zero after the 2 second priming period turns the pump off again (for which I've seen conflicting information on the forums - some people agree with the pic you posted, some people say theirs drops to zero and the engine runs fine). As a side note my fuel system doesn't have a filter; the guy who had it before me obviously decided it didn't need one. This is on my 'to fix' list. Bowie69, I've run through the hotwire diagnostics steps (including taking the fuel rail off to test the injectors!) and everything is correct according to the document. I've hooked up rovergauge to the 14CUX and the temperatures seem to be ok - well the coolant temp seems ok, I'm not sure what the fuel temp should be to be 'normal' As far as I can tell the MAF is good. I've swapped it with the 3AM off the other engine with the same result, although I megasquirted the other engine so the MAF has been in a box for a while. I'm not sure how to test the MAF, and I don't have a known good one to test with. So now, I think my 'to test' list looks like: Air leaks between the MAF and the plenum vacuum to the pressure regulator MAF (other than the tests in the hotwire diagnostics)

Thanks for all the replies. The fuel pump I bought was from ebay - 'Lucas type 4FP replacement Fuel Pump'. The ad said it was rated @ 3 bar - 2.54 KGF / cm3 - 36.25 lbs / square inch (and I only just realised that 3 bar is way more than 36psi!). When I run without a return restriction, my pressure gauge (plumbed in at the pump output) reads at around 30psi. I've now got a jubliee clip on the return line restricting the flow just enough to get the engine running smoothly. I forgot to check if there are any air leaks.. I'll do that tomorrow and post back. Cheers, Kev.

Hi all, TL;DR is: Should there be a restrictor of some sort on the fuel return pipe of a Discovery 3.9 EFI fuel system? Details follow.. I've started a new topic since 'Dead MAF?' it certainly wasn't. Recap: I've had a Defender with a 3.9 EFI Disco engine in it for about three weeks - it's been running fine but then yesterday it started messing around - it wouldn't rev when I hit the accelerator. It was intermittent to start with but then went full on broken. I managed to limp home in 1st gear on idle. I did all the electrical diagnostics (from the original workshop manual), verified the injectors were working etc, bought a fuel pressure tester and plumbed it in next to the fuel pump (30-35psi), all good. I eventually gave up and sent it to a mechanic. He had it working within 3 hours - he said he'd done all the same tests as me, then somehow stumbled across clamping the fuel return pipe got it working. I went and picked it up, got about a mile away and it went back to the original state - limping along on idle. Only now when I got it back to him clamping wasn't fixing the issue. He said it needed a new fuel pressure regulator (even though this one works on the 3.5 v8 in my kit car, also from a Disco), so I bought one, he fitted it, same issue. Then he said it must be the fuel pump, so I bought a new external one and the long pipe to feed it from the bottom of the fuel tank. He got back to me today to say that it now runs again when the return pipe is clamped. So, it seems like the fuel is running out too quickly. Is this likely? Should there be a restrictor of some sort on the return pipe? I did have the fuel tank out to replace the gearbox bushings, and there was a piece of rubber hose laying in the bottom of the fuel tank. However, since it ran fine before/after the refit I didn't think anything of it (apart from googling around and not finding any forum posts, references or pictures of similar). Cheers, Kev.

I just sent it to a mechanic and after testing all the electrics, he says he put a clamp on the fuel return line to keep the pressure up and it runs fine. So I guess it's the fuel pressure regulator.. strange since I swapped it out for a known good one (off my kit car's rover v8). Maybe a vacuum issue to the regulator? Anyway, going to collect it and do some more investigation.

hey IanS, Thanks for the reply. I think you might have misread my original post.. the engine runs *better* with the MAF disconnected, but still won't rev correctly when the throttle is applied normally (versus applying it extremely slowly, when the revs will pick up). Cheers, Kev.

Coil and dizzy look fine - I think this is backed up by the fact that it idles pretty well when the MAF is disconnected (although this is more a guess than anything else). Coolant temp looks about right according to rovergauge. When I pulled the plugs they were covered in soot - probably from when it was idling lumpy when the MAF was hooked up. I cleaned them up but no change.

Well, it's not the fuel pressure - the gauge arrived at lunchtime, so I hooked it up (had to hook it in-line next to the pump, since the schrader adapter is the wrong size for the valve on the fuel rail) - on the startup pulse it goes up to 35psi then during idle sits at around 28. From what I've read this is about right. Does anyone have any other ideas? I'm really stuck now Cheers, Kev.

It appears the MAF is reading correctly - I managed to get it to idle earlier (at about 400rpm - constantly threatening to stall but managed to lurch along) and on rovergauge the MAF (direct) was reading bouncing around 30-40%. I still have the issue where it stalls if I touch the throttle. Without the MAF connected, it idles better and if I slowly apply throttle I can get the revs to rise consistently; if I stab the throttle, it will die (or nearly die). Could this be a fuel pump issue? It runs but when I disconnect the return pipe it just seems to be gently pouring out. I would expect gushing since it's supposed to be pressurised, but that's just me guessing. I have ordered a fuel pressure gauge kit, since there is a schrader valve on the fuel rail. So I should hopefully be able to check pressure tomorrow.

Hi all, I've got Defender 90 but it's got a 3.9v8 from a Discovery so I'm posting here.. I've had it for about three weeks - it's been running fine but then yesterday it started messing around - it wouldn't rev when I hit the accelerator. It was intermittent to start with but then went full on broken. I managed to limp home in 1st gear on idle. Now when I start it up it runs lumpy for a few seconds before cutting out. If I disconnect the MAF it will idle fine, but then when I hit the accelerator nothing happens - well actually it threatens to stall until I let off the accelerator when it recovers. I've hooked up rovergauge, and the throttle sensor is reading correctly - but the MAF reading stays at 0%. I piggy-backed on blue/green wire from the MAF and that reads about 0.5v when the ignition is on but the engine's not running, then goes up to about 2v when the engine is cranking. Is my MAF dead? Or is the ECU just not reading it for some reason? Cheers, Kev.

Honestly, I don't know if the ECU goes with the engine. It runs, that's all I can say - it was like this when I bought it. I am considering going the megasquirt route - I have the 3.5 v8 from a Disco microsquirted in my kit car and that runs pretty well. I just built a cable for hooking up the RoverGauge software to the 14CUX and the MAF sits at a solid 3% (whatever that means - I just had long enough to test it worked before I had to go do my day job!). I'm pretty sure I paid way too much for this thing, considering how much I'm finding was done poorly and needs redoing (I have already removed a large carrier bag of wires that went nowhere), but even after I drove it once I decided I don't care, it's my new baby and babies are always perfect when they're yours I still have the old connector that came from my kit car's donor, so I'm going to steal a pin or two from that and hook the MAF up, to see if it makes any difference. I forgot I had it until I was looking for donor pins (from a different connector) to hook up the rovergauge.