Boydie

Only 500 Hp in a 2 ton Disco? Humm you don't need brakes, you need large testicles and a good navigator

There isn't a bronze bush that I'm aware of, certainly not in mine anyway. Try goggling with the High/Low selector lever to see if the grinding noise is being caused by the selector while being in High isn't impinging on the Low

Yes, at times very hard and of course the front axle takes most of the strain, especially on badly rutted sharp corners where despite taking it easy speed wise quite often the inside wheel isn't in contact with anything solid or could even be in the air, the rear simply follows the front.

Yes the front axle has a Detroit "TrueTrac" (helically geared thing) while the rear has a Detroit Locker on the rear. I've never had them "fighting" as you put it but driving over deep soft sand on the French Line in the Simpson Desert in low range with the diff lock engaged was, at times, "interesting" Since fitting the ATB I'm getting a shuddering from the front axle just before the Disco comes to a stop. I'll email David Ashcroft about it and ask his advice.

Fed up with being house-bound due to foul weather Julie and I set off in the rain aiming for the sun for a weekend camping. General weather experienced, Friday - intermittent showers, 20*C; Saturday cloudless sunny and 36*C. Sunday Overcast and 24*C We traveled up to the Liverpool planes to an advertised "Harvest Festival" only to find it was a con, in reality it was a mass protest against the construction of a huge open cut coal mine by a Chinese conglomerate, while i'm anti the mine I'm more anti the conned protest, so we left. On the way there we went through the Goulburn National park and hit some good dirt roads, the ABT came into it's fore for the first time. The first thing I noticed was that the two Detroit differentials a "trulock" in the front and "Locker" in the rear were more audible than ever before, a tad alarming at first to hear the ratcheting noise we had never heard before but interesting nevertheless, generally traction, especially in tight uphill bends and badly washed away tracks was noticeably improved. The only time I had to engage low range was to negotiate some really deep river gravel to get to a fabulous campsite that we spotted next to the Goulburn River. I wish I'd packed my fishing gear as a brown trout at least 2' long kept us amused for some time watching it leap out of the water to catch hoverflies. On the wet roads - dirt as well as bitumen, understeer was greatly reduced, the steering being far more positive and direct. The only comment would be that the ABT has a quite noticeable differential type whine, but with all those helical gears I guess some noise is to be expected. We are going up the north coast of NSW in 2 weeks time as Julie won a weekend away in a flash beach side hotel so we will stay for a week camping as well and I'll be able to give it a try out on some of the fabulous sandy beaches that are up that way, with luck we may even get bogged above the high tide mark in some soft sand and get to try out winching with the sand anchor instead of burying the spare wheel. It's all done in the name of good fun and gaining experience.

I'll do it today - weather permitting !

Sounds a plan Nigel, did you change the type of oil used or stayed with normal differential oil?

You don't have to have a full length pit, - work on the front, get out, turn the car around and then service the rear.

Points noted and I will ponder on my next course of action, incidentally I only use Lithium based high temp bearing Grease - very similar to that used on the front CV joints, as you know this turns to a liquid when "working" and goes back to a semi-solid when idle, I prefer to use it as even as a thick liquid it gives far better lubrication to the bearings than conventional bearing grease.

Has anyone drilled and tapped and put a grease nipple into these hubs? I'm looking at the official Land Rover service manual, section 51, page 1 at the sectional drawing showing the rear wheel hub, (item 4) and the disc (item 10) and I can see no reason why a grease nipple cannot be tapped and fitted into the hub to permit easy greasing of the two hub bearings without having to remove the halfshafts and inner bearing in order to do so. Has anyone done this ?

Yes, 35mm at the front sounds about right, but did you look at the ends of the bolts to see if they were rubbing against the gears? If not and if the grinding noise is coming from the transfer box you are going to have to drop it our again and see what is going on inside, it should be fairly obvious . I've just done mine and fitted an Ashcroft ATB differential, new bearings, seals, shims etc, I'll look through my assembly notes to self for future reference and see if I can shed any light on what your problem might be. Keep us posted.

Service the master cylinder, the supply orifice from the reservoir to the piston is quite small, it could be blocked with crud preventing brake fluid from flowing into the brake piston, fit new piston rubbers and seals while you are at it. Sorry, I thought you had done this already and had supply at the master cylinder

I'd endorse the last two comments however my garage roller door width was a standard 2.4 metres (8') so there was never a risk of dropping a wheel into the pit as it was central to the door, consequently I never bothered with a cover.

Humm, I seem to have started something here, so, what's the worst thing that you have ever done? One of mine was after working through most of the night reassembling a Toyota Corolla really engine I fired it up only to have it simply turn and not fire, I tried everything, points, coil, plugs, leads before falling asleep in the navigator's seat, totally exhausted. The following morning my "mate" called in to see how it was going and, on glancing into the engine bay asked me why I had the inlet manifold washers sandwiched between the manifold and the block ! My habit of putting things back where they came off had caught me out ! Another unfortunate incident that comes to mind was flaring about 80 identical pipes for a mate, I bent them beautifully - exactly to his profile, the ends were swaged to perfection, the pity of it was I really should have put the flare nuts on first!

I hired a bobcat to excavate mine, I then lined it with 2 layers wide of 500 x 250 x 250 hollow "double figure 8" concrete blocks all round. One course up from the bottom steel angle lintels were placed on both sides to support the upper inner courses of blocks so that I had formed a recess 250 deep and 500 high x 1500 long on each side of the pit for my wine store - a small drainage sump was located in the bottom later fitted with a small pump discharging into the nearest storm water drain. The hollows in the concrete blocks were then backfilled with 35 mpa concrete slurry before the garage slab and the floor of the pit was poured, the slab was formed over the tops of the concrete blocks. The internal sides of the pit was painted with bituminous paint as a waterproof membrane with a final white gloss top-coat. The steps were fabricated from two very cheap (on special) aluminium step ladders from the local hardware store.

Spray them with electronic PCB cleaner, leave them for about 5 minutes and they should easily separate, when you reassemble them rub some vaseline over them to prevent future corrosion.

Ross, since my quadruple heart bypass in 2007 I have never worn a seatbelt, the feeling of the slightest pressure on my sternum is nauseating, besides, I enjoy the "free" feeling

Way back in 1998 when I built a 4 bedroom cottage for my then family I naturally built a garage to one side, complete with toilet, shower cubicle and service pit. The pit was 1.5 metres wide, 2 metres deep by 6 metres long with an access ladder at either end, illumination was supplied by 4 off twin 40 watt fluros - 2 per side and set into either side - my wine storage racks oh the many very happy hours I spent under various cars in that garage.

If your RR has electronic injection DONT!! The viscosity of bio is thicker than standard diesel - especially on colder days - and you will quickly be up for a new set of injectors. In addition to which bio produces different exhaust trace gasses which will affect the exhaust gas sensor causing it to send the wrong signals to your engine management computer. If you want to use Bio, buy an older car that has a mechanical fuel injection pump and pressure operated injectors - 300tdi or 200tdi

You're right, my bad, sorry - White /Red -- mind you those LR electrical wiring diagrams would confuse Einstein which is another reason why I tore all the standard wiring harnesses out and totally rewired my Disco without the myriad of wires for factory fitted options that my car didn't have and that I would never want anyway - as well as doing away with the Spider, MFU and other electronic devices that I could never hope to repair in the bush should they fail at an inconvenient time - such as crossing a deep creek !

Dave, I'll make a few calls and get back to you. One company that could certainly do it made me up two drive shafts when I put the sequential gearbox on the Charade rally car in 2008. I'll see if they are still in business.

Oh it's so good to know that I have such fine company. I haven't left the sump plug out -- yet -- but I must confess to "putting things in a safe place" only to find that it's that safe that even I cannot remember where it was The immoral of this tale is getting old sucks

So, the weather's fine, I've installed the transfer box with the Ashcroft ABT and I noticed a bit of slop in the drive chain so i decided that after well over 80,000 kilometers it was time to service the front and rear axles. I jacked up the rear axle, put under the rear axle the axle stands, removed both road wheels and, starting on the drivers side, I removed the half shafts, then disconnected the propshaft drained the old oil and removed the differential. Once on the bench I checked the backlash - 0.006mm - nothing short of perfect so back in it went and reconnected the propshaft. Next was the half shafts nuts, torqued up exactly as per the LR maintenance manual, 65Nm then back off 90 degrees then 10Nm, locked the tab washer and 65Nm on the outer lock nut. I did this to both sides, replaced the half shafts, torqued up the retaining bolts, filled the axle with new oil, refitted the tyres, dropped the Disco off the axle stands and then sat and contemplated the untouched unopened brand new tin of axle bearing grease sitting on the ground next to my tool box ........... aaaargh I must be losing it !!! I'll go through it all again next week when I've regained my sense of humour

Oops, of course, to stop, flick the toggle to OFF

I've just spent 20 minutes and getting a headache from the LR wiring diagrams because you need to look at about 6 chapters just to understand how the key ignition switch operates but as Dave said:- Brown (permanent live) into the input connection of the On/Off toggle switch White : Green/White trace : Yellow Connect these three wires to output connection of the Toggle switch. Bridge the Yellow from the toggle switch to the input connection of the Push Button. Connect the Red/White trace wire to the output connection of the Push Button. To start, flick the toggle switch to ON, press the Push Button.