JimAttrill

You must realise that the standard LR temp gauge is a load of rubbish. It reads 'in the middle' from 40 to 110c. If you want to know what is going on there fit a VDO 40-120c gauge and their sender. This may worry you because the temp will vary depending whether you are going up or down hill, what the ambient temp is, etc. LR don't want to worry you with this stuff so they fit a gauge which is always in the centre. The TD5 gauge is the same, btw. Though made by VDO it does not show you what the engine temp really is. The ECU knows it to the degree, but LR don't want you to know that.

My '95 version still has the 3 plugs - filler, level and drain, and I also still use EP90. One problem with the later versions is that if you do wading you don't know if water has got in with the grease and you can't drain the grease out anyway. My answer to the grease question is always this: "If grease is so wonderful why aren't the gearboxes filled with it?"

No, not even a down pipe as none of the stuff fits yet. It was not quiet, just quieter than I expected.

We have just transplanted a 300tdi ex Disco into a Defender which had a 19J diesel turbo engine. Anyway, we eventually started it with no exhaust at all and it was remarkably quiet. Sounds nice, in fact, because you can hear the turbo whistling. Goes like a bomb. This has convinced me more than ever to have at least my centre silencer removed in order to reduce back pressure in the system. Or maybe remove both. This was a good demonstration of how much power and therefore noise the turbo removes from the system. A while back we ran a 200tdi with no turbo and that was noisy. Believe it or not, the 19J is going into the Disco which is to have the top chopped off and become a 'play' machine.

If it's the centre of the clutch you are lucky, for that is cheaper to fix than a new gearbox mainshaft. It's all a pain though.

It would be an idea to fit 19J pistons, but on the other hand... A mate of mine ran a turbocharged 2.5 3 bearing petrol with water injection and it went like a rocket

We don't have that problem with the fuzz here. They are all too busy trying to stay alive. That concentrates the mind away from stupid regulations.

You could fit a wading plug to stop the oil leaking on your driveway and remove it and let it drain into a tin once a week.

The 300tdi with the electronic injector goes quite well up hills from a standing start. (I did drive one, just didn't look too closely at the injector pump at the time). The terrible beast is the TD5 auto. You can stand outside the car and push the pedal down by hand without getting left behind. The 5000ft altitude doesn't help much when off the turbo either. We remap the ECU (with a map from the UK) and the TD5 then goes like a bomb. Maybe not for long, though, so we are going to fit a larger intercooler as well. We had a Disco I 300tdi manual which had the engine overhauled by us, the owner brought it back complaining of lack of go. We agreed, and fixed the first problem which was loss of coolant. It was the tank cap, even though it was less than a year old. Also the viscous fan was poked. But it still didn't go properly. The EGT was down on what it should be. Eventually we found that there was a leak at the banjo on the injector pump where the pressure comes in from the turbo. Someone had cut the pipe and fitted a rubber sleeve which had perished. We also checked the timing and found it to be 8 deg BTDC rather than 10 degrees. (We use a Snap-on sensor and a timing light for this). It now goes like it should, no ball of fire but much better.

We've got good parts dealers only 12 hours from Heathrow

Getting the collar off is not easy, you need one of those split circular things attached to a couple of long bolts, a cross bar and another pulling screw. Not difficult to make if you have the bits. To get the collar back on you need a bit of pipe, a long bolt and a few washers. A job to be avoided if you don't have the tools or the bits to make them.

That amount of play is quite normal for a Salisbury axle. Don't worry about it. Learn to drive smoothly.

None whatsoever, this is why cats are removed for better performance and scrap value. The average age of a car is about 13 years (no rust on the highveld and no MOT) so 99% of cars do not have cats anyway. I left the UK in 1975, and can remember swopping sets of wheels to get cars through the MOT (or the TUV test in Krautland) which gave me this idea. I had heard that cats were so expensive that they exceed the value of a car that is a couple of years old.

Well, now we know it is definitely NOT the Electronic version! This non-spider theory sounds right. Now we have to figure out how to steal this engine

It does have the EGR which we will throw away, of course. The throttle potentiometer we just leave as is. I reckon we will just put some power on one of the wires and see what happens. What does the electronic Disco pump look like? Unfortunately we had one in a few weeks ago, it was a personal import as they were never sold here AFAIK. I should have looked at it more carefully, I suppose.

I like the flowers

Surely it would be quite simple to put a pipe into the tank full of real diesel in case the dippers come along and plumb another filler into the tank that the barstewards can't see. So you fill up with whatever through your filler and let them dip the tank through the fake filler.

We are busy fitting a disco 300 tdi engine to a Falcon Defender, but alas, we found that the injector pump is the 3 wire version, and not a single wire like a Defender. We took of the cover and found one wire going into the pump but there is also a sort of magnetic coil thingie. How do we wire it up ? Or do we fit a fuel solenoid from a defender ??

I see your probems, which we all suffer from with LR stealers. ie we change all the bits but if it doesn't fix the problem you pay anyway. But my question still stands: how about an MOT fixing business changing new CATs ?

Maybe LR aren't as stupid as I make them out to be. BUT those spacers we would have to buy from the stealers and would most likely cost at least a finger if not a hand or an arm or leg. We avoid buying from the stealers, only the bits we can't get anywhere else like TD5 injection harnesses etc. So we just buy lots of old-type nuts and the lock washers. Mostly Bearmach or Britpart. Oh, and I like your description: "The Td5 bearing spacers are available in about six or eight different thicknesses, I can't remember the numbers offhand though. The idea being that you put the bearing on with a spacer, check the slack in the bearing, substitute the next thinnest spacer, check it again, etc etc until it is right, then put the stake nut on the outside torque it up to silly tight and chisel the edge over onto the stub axle to stop it falling off." I somehow can't imagine our local stealers getting this right as they seem to have difficulty getting a sump plug in without stripping it. Oh, and what did you think of my tip Steve?

If (not when) your wheel bearings need adjusting you will find that it is now impossible, for LR have replaced the two nuts and lock washer with a spacer thingy and one strange nut. We always remove the nut and the spacer, fit two of the old nuts and a lock washer and away you go. I mean, how stupid is it to fit adjustable taper roller bearings and then make them non-adjustable? (Don't ask, done by the company that brought you non-actuating Diff locks on the Disco II) (Scrap Iron sell a kit to do the above, but include 2 wheel bearings which you most likely do not need) The tip is that the spacer is PREZACKLY the right size to use when fitting caliper seals, to be exact the steel dust seal, to the front brakes. So hang on to one of them.

You can't (source them that is). Thanks for the tip about the CAV valves. ps what does CAV stand for? Is it some guy's name like JAP or KLG?

Following what I have seen in the various LR mags, I have tried wearing latex gloves while working on the oily bits. I can't stand them as they make my hands so sweaty even when it isn't very hot. I can't believe anyone would wear them on purpose unless you can get airconditioned versions. Is it a legal requirement or something in the UK?

We all know how expensive these things are. This was brought back to me by visiting our local exhaust shop on Friday. There was a pile of CATs in the corner, must have been a hundred or so. The owner tells me that they remove them to make the vehicles run better and pay the owners for the scrap value. (There is no MOT or emission controls here - yet) What surprises me is that some enterprising soul has not started a 'exhaust hire' place in the UK where you can have a lovely exhaust system fitted complete with CATs and so on, get your MOT and then have the fancy system changed back to your old stuffed one. Or does your labour cost over there make this an uneconomic idea?

At least this didn't happen to you - Damper was running out of true caused by rubber moving, key worn but keyway and crank were ok. New damper is expensive though....