jackmac

I misunderstood the energiser circuit and was blowing fuses like no tomorrow. It's a double pole single throw contacter, with 4 spade terminals on it in a square. I assumed that 2 of the spade terminals needed a live, and 2 of them went to earth. In fact, 2 of the spade terminals are not needed. The 2 that are connected by a wire can be ignored, meaning you put a live to top left and earth to bottom left. Off to go and buy another box of blade fuses now...

Woops... fixed! Please delete

Just fitted a paddocks tank guard, thought I would add a few things.... The holes for the first bracket did not line up, so be prepared to drill out some new holes. In fact literally nothing has lined up, lots of drilling... and half the fixings were missing as well I managed to get the 2nd bolt for the first bracket in by bending a spanner to around 75 degrees and glueing the nut to the spanner. I can't see how else you would get to it, just don't apply too much glue otherwise the spanner's there for good! Without having an x-brake, it's impossible to put the anti crush tube and bolt in from the inside side of the chassis (as shown above). Instead, it has to go in from the outerside but before the bracket goes on. It won't go on after the bracket unless you enlarge the hole in the bracket significantly, in which case it won't work as an anti crush tube!

Extra rare means extra valuable, right?! Any ideas on fitting the rear shafts to my TD5 axles? Asked ashcroft but didn't get a reply yet, I appreciate they are very busy and probably get hundreds of emails a day!

17mm, which I guess would make them M10 bolts. On a slight aside, I would like to fit the rear halfshafts to my truck. I have TD5 axles, which take the shorter halfshafts with a thin drive flange. Is it possible to fit these halfshafts to my axle by just buying some thick drive flanges, or is there a bit more to it?

Anoraks welcome Yup they do indeed have those 3 bolts holding the air flange on, so that's that sorted! We can only find one place selling gears that match those teeth numbers. http://gbrutah.com/cs_drivetrain_diff%20gearing.html#intro_to_diffgearing they seem to sell their own brand and discontinued ashcroft gears that would match the numbers. There's no marking at all on the end of the pinion. The crownwheel is chemically blackened, and looks to have done absolutely zero miles with no wear on teeth. Certainly since they were built they have never been used as there is still engineers blue on them.

Hi all, I have in my possession some diffs and halfshafts which I could do with some help identifying! What we know so far is that they are 24 spline ARB locking diffs, with 4.11 ratio crownwheel and pinion (37 teeth and 9 teeth). The crownwheels are quite a bit thicker than normal. They have some numbers engraved into them which can be seen below. The halfshafts are of unknown origin. Again 24 spline, the rears are the earlier type which take a thick drive flange. The splined section (diff end) of the rears seems a bit longer than the standard late rears we compared them against. The shafts also seem to be a bit thicker than the standard ones we have to hand, you can see in the photo the diameter does not sharply reduce after the splines as on the standard ones. The only engraving on them is a small B on the diff end of the shaft. What we are trying to work out is: Which version of ARB locker are they? What manufacturer are the crownwheel and pinions? Can't find anyone who does those teeth numbers... What manufacturer are the halfshafts? Pics: (unknown shaft left vs standard on the right)

Looks no good to me, I'll get rid of it for you!

You can buy delay relays to do that sort of thing for you. For example http://www.autoelectricsupplies.co.uk/product/175/category/36, that sort of thing?

Good news everyone! Seems to be fixing itself. I tried starting it in low 1st with the clutch down, and low and behold it didn't move. Doing that a few times and rocking back and forth and I seem to have a clutch again. Bite point is very high on the pedal, and there's somewhere between 5 and 10mm play at the very top of the pedal so everything seems about right! Not sure what the problem was, I think it might have been spigot related.

Definitely the right part yes, don't think I have the tin can thing. I'm hoping it is an airlock, even though the pedal feels good

Nothing out of a blue box on my truck! Both cylinders were Lucas TRW

Hi all, Have recently had the engine out of my defender. When it was out, flywheel etc was all removed so clutch had to be refitted, a new spigot bush was fitted, new master and slave cylinders both fitted. I went to take it out for a test drive tonight, and I can't get it into a gear. Engine off it goes in fine, but running I can't do it. Clearly the clutch is not disengaging. It seems to have bled OK, no bubbles at all and the pedal feels firm and normal. I know one cause of this could be the input shaft dragging on the spigot, we noticed when putting the engine back in that it seemed extremely tight and had a bit of a struggle to get it all back together. Could it be caused by ill adjustment of the clutch master cylinder push rod? I'm not sure that I got that bit right, and ended up with the lock nuts as far towards the end of the push rod as they could go. I'll check the push rod adjustment tomorrow, but what else should I be looking at? Meant to be taking it to an event on Saturday so the pressure's on!

Do them up to the correct torque (110Nm I think), check them after you have driven a few miles on them. If you overtighten them then it stretches the studs, which I understand makes the nuts more prone to coming loose.

Just done mine recently (engine out instead though), had to hammer a sharpened flathead screwdriver into the joint at the bottom. Depending on whether you have jacked the transmission up at the front or back will determine if it's going to split from top to bottom or vice versa.

Check the injector leak off pipes are not loose/coming off. Had the same in my 200 until I took a sniff under the bonnet! Otherwise, have you remembered to reconnect the wire to the rearmost glow plug?

Nevermind, missed a bolt in the 10mm thick coating of oil and mud in the timing case!

Following on from this... Crank needs a regrind, thus needs to come out. To do so, I think I need to remove the timing housing. But for the life of me I can't separate it from the block? Tried driving a flathead between them, tried hitting it quite sharply with LR tool no. 1... I daren't hit it any harder! Any ideas why it's not coming off? All the bolts are loose, camshaft pulley hub is off

How much movement before the bearing is toast? I can just about feel some side to side movement in mine, not so much that you can hear it clonking when you try and move it about though

Have now discovered that the front crank seal appears to have gone as well. Looking like it might be uneconomical to repair it now as the cost of parts is rapidly rising. If anyone has a 300tdi they are looking to sell, let me know!

So I don't need to take the gearbox off to access them all? Big ends were standard, the crank was not reground when engine was rebuilt. I thought the crank looked pretty good. There were some very slight marks on one of the journals, shells removed from there were very heavily scored by some kind of foreign material.

Hi all, In August I had to replace the big end bearings on my 300TDi after it emerged that the previous owner had apparently not torqued them up, leading to them coming loose. Since then, I have enjoyed about 2500 miles (at most) of engine trouble free motoring. Unfortunately, on the way back from a pay and play day recently the oil warning light came on. I pulled over straight away, confirmed there was still plenty of oil, and got a recovery truck home. When the light came on, the engine was running quite hot (about 3/4 on the gauge, no doubt partly due to mud in the radiator) and I didn't seem to have the same amount of power as I had done on the way to the event. Just been out in it again tonight, managed about 10 miles and then the warning light starting flickering very faintly just as I pulled up at home. I've ordered a new oil pressure sensor which I will fit this weekend and take it out for another drive. I don't expect it to fix the problem at all! I suspect that either the big ends have gone again or the main bearings have gone. When I fitted the big ends, I noted that the mains were not properly torqued up, but when properly torqued I couldn't turn the engine over. Being a bit short on time, I just put them back to the torque I found them all at. If the new sensor does not fix the issue, I plan on fitting a new set of big end and main shells to try and get another couple of thousand miles out of her before changing the engine out. I don't have the money at the moment to change it, or to send the crank off to have it checked and possibly reground. My question (got there eventually) is: how much of a job is it to change the main bearings on a 300TDi? I know I don't need to remove the crank as I can slide the new shells around it, but can I access all of the nuts & bolts to remove them without having to split the engine and gearbox?

I like how they have included 'simex arb' in the title as well. I'm sure people on the look out for a locker will probably just abandon their search for diffs and buy the rocker cover instead! Do you think you have to have it wrapped to match the seasons as well? An autumnal rocker cover would look downright ridiculous in the spring

Surely if it's new and not working, you should send it back for replacement?

I bought this one a while ago to do my 200TDi. It's cheaper, and specifically says it will do 200 and 300TDi. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140800584157