Tanuki

Have you recently driven through a herd of fatty pigeons/pheasants/new-age-travellers/urban-protesters? If it was coming from the intercooler you'd hear the hissing of the associated air-leak. My suggestion - Jet-wash it off ASAP, and hope that the police don't come seeking DNA-evidence. --Tanuki. "Do not despize the Snake for having no horns, for who is to say he will not become a Dragon!"

Water in a "catch tank" is not necessarily a sign of issues: the vapours exhaled from a crankcase breather do contain a significant quantity of water which is produced by normal combustion-processes. It's the same water that causes "steam" from the exhaust on a cold day - just that in your case it sounds like you've got a bit more than usual of the combustion-gases getting out of the combustion-chamber and into the crankcase. Worn piston-rings can cause this, so can worn exhaust-valve guides. Of course a cracked head or failing head-gasket can too! My approach would be to get the head off. Have it crack-tested. If it passes, have the valve-guides replaced and new valve-seats fitted. Also get the head checked-for-flatness then maybe also a "facing" skim (5 thousandths of an inch) to make sure the surface is perfectly smooth. While he head's off you can check the bores for any signs of scoring and whether the pistons are showing signs of wear (the pistons should not wobble about when you try to press them from side to side!). If the bottom end looks good, reassemble it all with a new head-gasket. --Tanuki.

I've used Speedi-sleeves in the past to recover a diff input-flange where the seal had worn a groove in it. Worked just fine!

The problem with old tyres is that with age the rubber loses its elasticity and so the available grip will reduce. You can't tell this by mere inspection. An old tyre can look fine - no obvious cracks splits or bulges - but be hard-as-hell and a death-trap on a wet road!

One "cheap trick" I've seen done is to put a T-piece in the pipe from the plenum to the wastegate, then connect the spare leg of this T-piece into some sort of reservoir. The idea is that when you get lots of boost, initially the pressure fed to the wastegate actuator is lower because some of the pressure-flow is going into the reservoir. When the pressure in the reservoir rises sufficiently, the wastegate opens in the traditional way. The effect being to allow 'overboost' for a period which is dependent on the size of the reservoir, while at the same time preventing the risk of any engine damage because of *sustained* overboosting.

Unless you also specify the friction-characteristics of the things-being-clamped, along with details of any 'self-servo' effects intrinsic to the mechanical design and the expected component-life, clamping-force alone is completely inadequate to characterise the behaviour of a clutch. What are the clutch-linings? Cerametallic ones can stand one hell of a lot of abuse (red-hot is not a problem) but at the expense of a much rougher engagement. 'Hard' linings also have spectacularly-life-shortening effects on the other clutch-components. Do you need a smooth clutch-takeup or can your installation handle a 'snatch' engagement??

The TD5 throttle-pedal contains two potnetiometers wired in anti-phase; as the pedal is pressed the output from one potentiometer goes from low-to-high voltage while the output from the other goes from high-to-low voltage. If the potentiometer-tracks get worn/dirty or something in the wiring causes a voltage 'leak' then the ECU does not see the correct relationship between the rising- and falling-voltages as the pedal is operated - it then shuts down the throttle-pedal as an input and flashes the lights. First thing I'd do is check for dirt/mud around the pedal: there is a metal shield for the terminals where the loom is attached to the pedal but muddy/snowy boots or a prolonged water-leak from the bulkhead/windscreen seal (conveniently placed immediately above the throttle pedal) can cause conductive bridging of the connections.

But what use is your engine-driven winch when your battery's flat and you can't start the engine? I've always considered winching as the last-resort.

I'm seriously considering getting a D4 Commercial; my accountant is rather happy with the idea. I looked at an Amarok: it doesn't really pass my "dogs-and-logs" jetwash-it-down-after-use test, and also fails on corporate image. "Volkswagen" says over-50s fuddy-duddy; SEAT is youth-market; Audi is technology-leader; Skoda is value-first. I really wonder why Mercedes don't enter the market with a hot 300BHP turbodiesel stripped-out-trim version of the Gelandewagen.

If there's any lateral 'slop' in the guides (which you've mentioned in a previous post) then this is likely to mean your newly-replaced valve-stem seals will be pushed about in unhealthy ways. When you park up and the engine cools the seals will take a "set" depending on where the valve-stems happen to be. Oil then leaks down the guides. When you start the engine again you get an initial belch of blue/white smoke, followed by a decreasing smoke-trail as the seals gradually warm and become more-flexible so letting them mould back to the profile of the wobbling valves. My approach would be to pull the head and send it to a good engineering-shop. They'll measure the wear in the guides - and from what you've already described, class the wear as 'out-of-spec'. Given that the head's already off I'd be going for an entirely-new set of valves, and Phosphor-Bronze guides.

What is your ambient temperature range? Must admit unless you're in the Arctic I'd be going for a 10W40. Also, what's been in there before? Switching to a high-detergency oil in an engine that's not had such an oil in it previously can be a recipe for oil-burning and gasket/oilseal leaks. The other consideration is the oil-spec itself: is it rated for turbodiesels? I wouldn't use anything that is not API CH-4 rated.

They're not really the same: 75W80 GL4 is an ordinary generic gear-oil; MTF94 is a "modified friction" oil: thinner, and rather closer to ATF in its characteristics. Use the wrong one and the gearchange-quality will be compromised.

If the smoking problem is cleared by replacing the stem-seals, but returns shortly afterwards - this rather indicates that the *valve-guides* are worn and the valves are slopping/rocking in the guides, which will knock-out new stem-seals in a short time. What mileage has it done? After 150,000 miles it could well be due a top-end overhaul [new valves and valve-guides all round, along with new seals]. --Tanuki "No man is totally useless: he can always serve as a horrible reminder to others".

Question is, how often do you expect to self-recover? If the answer is "a few times a month" then built-in winches make sense. If the answer is "once or twice a year" then a Tirfor is the logical option. It can also be used for a whole slew of other purposes. Personally, I dislike the idea of permanently-installed winches; they add extra weight ahead of the front-axle, precisely the last place you want extra weight in a daily-driver (it promotes understeer, wallow and pitching). As others have observed, a winch at the front is only of use if you intend to winch yourself further into the problem. . . ! !

If the pedal's hard with the engine not-running and doesn't get lighter when the engine is running it all points to the servo truly not fulfilling its servoing-duties.

Yes, the servo-casing can crack, then all the "suck" produced by the vac-pump goes to waste. The test is: with the engine stopped, pump the brake-pedal vigorously 6 or 8 times to exhaust any retained vacuum from the servo. Then, with a light pressure on the pedal, start the engine. If the servo is servo-ing, the pedal should go down as the vacuum from the engine builds up. If the pedal goes down, switch the engine off, wait 30 seconds and release the pedal. Then apply pressure to the pedal again. If it feels 'harder' than before then the vacuum's all escaped! Note-for-reference: it takes me about 20 minutes to replace a Defender servo. No need to break the hydraulics/bleed the brakes if you know what to do.

Rather than spending silly-money on pimp-my-ride audio-grade damping, go and visit your nearest commercial/industrial air-conditioning-system supplier/installer. They use a range of self-adhesive mats and claddings to damp out very-low-frequency rumbles/throbs in air-conditioning plenums and ducts. Most of these are fire-retardant/high-temperature-rated (to comply with building-regulations) and are _much_ cheaper than dynamat etc. If you're lucky they may give you a few offcuts (enough to do a Land-Rover) for the price of a beer.

First thing to do is check that the camshaft(s) is/are going round. Not sure about rhe Freelanders but on quite a lot of modern engines the camshaft-pulley isn't keyed to the camshaft; similarly the bottom toothed-belt pulley isn't always keyed to the crankshaft. If a bolt works loose pulleys can turn on shafts and big bills are on the horizon.

Sounds to me like you have a defective [sticking] contact in the ignition switch which is failing to disconnect the fuel-solenoid when you turn the ignition-switch to '0'. Alternatively, it's possible for some alternator-related problems to continue to feed power to the fuel-solenoid even when you turn the key to '0'. --G6Tanuki. "Do not despize the snake for having no horns, for who is to say he will not become a dragon?"

Valve-guide oilseals can harden with age - they can also get knocked-out quickly if the valve-guides have worn and there is significant 'slop' allowing the valve stems to rock in the guides. Still, new stem-seals are a cheap/quick thing to try. I always used to do them by pulling the spark-plugs then stuffing a length of thick cord into a cylinder and rotating the engine with a wrench on the crank pulley so the piston rammed the cord up against the inlet-valve. Only engine this fails on: the 2.6-litre 6-cylinder 1960s IOE Land-Rovers. Which can really develop an oil-appetite when the valve-guide seals harden with age. 100 miles per pint of oil leaves a nice blue haze behind you... --Tanuki. "Badgers are never the answer, always the problem!!"

Sounds a good approach: given the inaccessibility of the pump I'd really not want to go through the whole replacement-process again in a year's time - or worse lose the coolant and cremate the head-gasket or something - because a 'cheap-at-the-time' £15 'Blue Box' part failed.

My 90TD5 has - for something like 10,000 miles - been losing small amounts of coolant; maybe 1/2 litre every 1000 miles, but only really when I've been working it hard which has led to my description of the car as having 'stress incontinence' issues. Recently it started getting worse to the point where it's doing a litre every 1000 miles and I can see the dreaded pink powdery stains down the side of the auxiliary unit housing from where coolant's obviously emerging from the water pump weep-hole. Time for a new water-pump: it looks a pain to fit (popping the rotary filter-housing from the side of the engine to get access should do the trick though). Will be studiously avoiding anything that comes in a blue box. Are there any other non-OEM brands to seek out/avoid, or should I just bite my lip and let the credit-card feel the pain for "Land Rover Genuine Parts" ?? --G6Tanuki

While you've got the front of the engine in bits, it makes sense to replace any tensioners irrespective of how they may feel. They're cheap, your time isn't. Same goes for all the belts - reassemble with new ones and you know the job's good for the next 50,000 miles.

Try this: Measure the battery terminal-voltage - should be around 13.8 - 14V if the battery is fully-charged. Turn on the ignition without starting engine, then switch on main-beam headlamps, heated rear window, heater-blower. This will apply a drain of something like 30 Amps to the battery. Go and have a cup of tea. After you've drunk the tea, measure the battery terminal-voltage with the above loads still applied. It should be something around 12V. Start the engine. Raise the revs slightly above idle, and your battery-voltage should rise quite rapidly to around 14V as the alternator starts charging. Switch off all the loads, and the voltage should rise further over the next few minutes to stabilise at 14.5 to 15 volts. Switch all the loads back on - the battery voltage will fall but if it drops below 13.5 then your alternator's not keeping up with the load. My #1 thing to check on this sort of thing is earthing. Also, what do you have n the way of the connector on the back of the alternator? The "3 pin plastic plug" type used with a lot of car-type alternators are notorious for going high-resistance.

I've always wound them up until you run out of thread, to give the maximum compression on the bushes - after all, any 'slack' or 'bounce' added by the bushes will only compromise the damping-efficiency. In an ideal world I'd replace the rubber with Rose-joints so axle-movement is directly fed to the dampers with no 'slop' in the rubbers. --Tanuki.