Boydie

If you have no spider then happy days you dont have any anti theft devices to worry about, just bypass the central locking unit under the glove box, from faded memory it's a green PCU device and the wiring diagram shows you the bridge wire - with and without central door locking -

Open up,the electrical manual, you need to remove the spider located under the radio (this is a partial dash removal) and the immobiliser which is under the passenger glove box. If you look at the wiring diagrams it gives you the connections on the connector(s) to bypass - use an insulated paper clip - and hey presto you no longer have anti-theft alarm or remote door access. If you have a problem get back to me

Genuine, or, if you dont mind a higher degree of feedback, Superpro which are stiffer and therefore less forgiving.

BTW, from a previous thread you may be aware that I blanked off the standard blow off valve and fitted a remote aftermarket adjustable valve that recycles the blow off compressed air back to the intercooler inlet, complicated but "fun" at the time Since then, and as part of this "conversion" my thermocouple was relocated on the C/L of the turbo (as I've described) and screwed into the boss at the left (front) of the exhaust manifold. I've had the thermocouple and gauge tested and they are accurate to +/- 5*C and even under extreme acceleration at 15 psi up a steep gradient on a stinking hot Australian summers day of over 40*C ambient I've never had turbo temperatures in excess of 580*C.

The location of the thermocouple probe is critical, most (on a 300Tdi) have been or are fitted into the EGR valve plate just on the exhaust side of the turbo, this position will read up to 50*C higher than at the turbo - even for that short distance! The ideal location is to drill the manifold and locate the probe on the C/L of the turbo shaft and about 5mm off the shaft -- this will give you an accurate turbo vane temperature, this position is problematical however due to the close position of the alternator, some thermocouples will fit, others will not. Garratt state quite often in all their literature that temperatures in excess of 750*C for prolonged periods of more than 5 minutes can seriously distort the shape of the exhaust vanes rendering the turbo ineffective and also it can cause the edges of the blow off plate/valve to erode away causing leakage and preventing the maximum turbo pressure of 14,7 psi from being achieved due to exhaust gas bypass, that being the case it can be assumed that reports of temperatures in excess of 750*C are or have been measured on the exhaust side of the turbo manifold and are higher than at the actual turbo or the gauge isn't accurate. I hope that this helps or confuses you even further

Davo, Lets see if we can meet up next year around September when we are next up in your neck of the woods, we can have a good whinge to each other

I have to admit becoming a tad anti-social, Julie and I enjoy touring in the red centre and our top travel period to date was in 2014 driving 9 days without seeing another living soul - thats sublime peace and quiet. When we are looking for a place to camp up for the night or even for a few days and we see another 4WD we generally go another 5-10 kilometres so we have space of our own. Yes, living in the UK has its attractions, 4 mates and I celebrated finishing uni in '68 by driving in three Cooper "S" to Israel - we had a great time but you couldn't travel for more than an hour in europe or in the UK without coming across some form of civilisation, a house, farm, village, town or city. Here in Oz drive over the Anne Beadell and you have 850 kilometers (510 miles) between fuel points or human habitation and as I found out on one occasion,1500 kilometres (900 miles) and a good four days driving over rough corrugated tracks to get to the nearest nurse or hospital and that knowledge makes you exceedingly resourceful, and thats the outback I love.

I dont know about 2600 kilometer recovery but the Birdsville Roadhouse charges $400 an hour for desert recoveries, there and back and you can figure it out at around 20 kph and when we were at the Ilkurlka Roadhouse some years back we heard of a guy who had his Land Cruiser towed off the Anne Beadell to Warburton to get suspension repairs carried out and didn't get any change out of an $8000 towing fee

Ally V8, yeah, I know, I used to live there but you can fit the UK into Australia 25 times and 6 times into NSW and we have less population than greater London. There would be NO kids in the UK that spend up to 3 hours each way (6 hours a day traveling ) on school a bus just getting them to the nearest primary or high school, if their daily trip is over 3 hours and they are allowed to use the "school of the air" up to high school (12 years old) when they go to board at the nearest large town. It often cracks me up traveling to see a small bomb of a car parked at the gate to a property so that the kids can drive from the homestead to the main road, meet the school bus and drive back to the homestead in the evenings - (the homestead can be anywhere up to 10 kilometers away from the road) and these "drivers" can be as young as 8 years old ! This is a BIG country and on the trip from Melbourne to Sydney you go from 50 feet above sea level to 1825 feet and back down and over that distance you can experience 24 *C down to 4* (snow and ice) and back up to 24* -- not bad all in one day and a single trip

Just for comparison, Australia vs England. I drove home from Melbourne back to Bullaburra yesterday in Julie's Kia Cerato. This is a trip we do on a fairly regular basis as her extended family live down there. Total trip distance door to door, 964 kilometres. (578 miles) Average speed 102 kph. (61 mph) Our freeways have a maximum posted speed limit of 110kph (66 mph) Time taken 9 hours 52 minutes. (2 coffee / toilet stops on the way). Average fuel consumption 6.8 litres per 100 kilometres (40 mpg) Of the 578 kilometres, 522 are on the Hume Highway, a four / six lane freeway that goes from Melbourne to Brisbane, switch on cruise control sit back, relax and just watch the kilometers flow past.

The best are Bilsteins, that said I've just had to refurbish my Discos suspension as the shocks (Bilsteins) and springs were getting a tad tired, they have after all done well over 220,000 kilometres of some of the worst corrugated roads in Australia. I've replaced the springs with Tough Dog. +300 kilo constant rated coils front and rear and Tough Dog foam filled 41mm shocks just to see how they compare. I'll have the Bilsteins refurbished and put them in the shed as a spare set

Buy a set of easy-out extractors, they aren't expensive and will always come in handy with any Land Rover maintenance

Just use an "easy-out", otherwise known as stud or bolt extractors. They come in sets normally with matching drills for each size of extractor. They have helical left hand thread so when you "unscrew" the easy-out it screws into the remains of the switch and will screw it out of the box.

Snagger, I think you and I went through this some time ago when I rebuilt my spare cover and had a new shaft machined with standard taper roller bearings, seals and a new flange with a left hand thread so it easily screwed onto the shaft. That said I have rebuilt two other covers and, if you treat the original flange with lots of TLC it will come off in one piece, As an added precaution I submerge the flange in an arsenic mixture to give it a good case hardening before re-fitting. On the ones I've rebuilt I've not seen one with shot bearing races, the balls fail first and show clear sings of brinelling (they must be male components ) It would seem to me that the weakest link is the lubrication grease that was used, despite the temperature the case reaches it goes solid and simply isn't up to the task of lubricating the rollers.

The problem comes in two parts, the first is the flange, its heat shrunk onto the shaft the second is the bearing - there are in fact two. Okay, heat the flange up to below red/cherry hot and with a puller pull it off the shaft, mark or measure how far the shaft protruded before you remove it. Next remove the plastic cover and discard it. the bearings have a removable cage, lift this out and the roller bearings and the shaft will draw out. You can obtain a new seal, do so and fit it - I got mine from a company called Bearing Services, its a standard size. Check the bearings, in most cases its a simple case of poor lubrication due to thick dry grease. repack and replace the bearings, if any balls are badly brinnelled (cracked) replace them, I got a whole load of them from my local bicycle shop. Lastly, go to my pictures, you will see the replacement cover I made out of 3mm alloy and tapped a grease nipple into it, fit this new cover give the assemble three or four good squirts of grease - not that much that it comes out of the seal. Re-heat the flange, this time to cherry hot, fit it onto the shaft and quickly wrap it with a wet rag, keep wetting it down until its hand cool, refit the cover, you should get many more miles out of it.

I smell a rat

cheaper doesn't always pay, it's a hassle removing and replacing them - you will need a hydraulic press - so get genuine and you will not have to replace them any time soon.

It comes down to this, if its a competition car where you want zero flex but you are happy to change the bushes every two or three events fine, go Poly, if you want long wear and pleasant handling go for the standard metalastic. One thing I would add to that and that is that you ask for the bushes that were/are fitted to Range Rover Classics, these have a double inner metal sleeve and are stiffer and longer lasting than the single sleeve units fitted to the Disco. Interestingly these were fitted to all the Camel Discos - and not the standard bush !

I agree with the Hobbit, the standard radiator core is, from memory, a 3 row 1/4" matrix, I had mine replaced with a 4 row 1/2" matrix effectively increasing the water volume in the radiator by some 40% (you need the original copper headers to have this done). The breather hole is there for a reason, remove or blank it off and you WILL have an air lock in the radiator !

In short, nope! If its weeping at the separation plate, the only cure is to drop it and recondition the box, and while its out replace the wearing parts, syncros, bearings bushes etc. The manual will tell you if it's a late model box to NOT use the gaskets, instead use a high temperature flexible silicone jointing compound on the faces, I found the best treatment for all the machined faces was a brand new oil or wet stone and after painting the surfaces with engineers blue, just rub them with the fine side of the stone to ensure they were flat - you will easily see any hollows if they are not perfect. Put the stone aside for future use, cylinder head, manifolds, cylinder block and any machined face etc.

My understanding is all V8 models had a temperature sender on the transfer box, the R380 had an oil cooler with a thermostatic wax pellet connection on the side -- my 300Tdi has this to compensate for the higher Australian ambient temperatures, not standard but I fitted it myself using an auto box oil cooler and connection hoses. The high temp sender switch turned on a separate transfer box oil warning light on the dash, mine switches the same light as the R380 - I just have to figure out which box, transfer or R380 is running hot this has only happened a couple of times crossing over bloody huge sand dunes in the Simpson desert on extremely hot days and my modus operandi is to pull over for a cuppa and relax for an hour with the engine idling away to circulate the oil.

Les, I'm amazed that copper brake line pipe is legal on road cars in the UK, it must be given your rigorous MOT annual tests but I would never use it, I'll stay with cadmium plated steel, it may be harder to work with but apart from it being the only legal type here in Oz copper simply wouldn't take the constant gravel rash and wear of our roads, I even have to wrap the front stainless steel braided lines to protect them.

You also need to use pressure hose, the clear plastic hose in the photo will quickly expand with pressure and heat and be useless. The fitting on the rear of the manifold is the same thread/type as the breather fittings on the axles and gear boxes so you should be easily be able to acquire a banjo bolt and connection from your dealer or local spares/wrecker.

De Ranged, 3rd Party insurance is compulsory in Oz, consequently all my medical bills, ongoing physio rehabilitation etc are picked up by his insurance, That does not however cover such things as destroyed mobile phone, sunglasses, clothing and loss of my mobility (due to vertebral fusing spinal operation) and reduced quality of life, nerve damage pain etc. etc. For that you go to court and sue the other persons insurance, generally out of court settlements are reached that do not negate future medical claims that might arise as a result of the original accident,

Is copper allowed in the UK for on road vehicles? Here in Australia is wont pass the DOT design rules as it age hardens and is prone to cracking. I have only ever seen it used on race cars.