Sheffield

I have just refurbished the two rear calipers, and I was lucky with the near side bolts. The hub seal has been leaking oil for a while and all has had a good soaking. They came out easily, which perhaps suggests repeated spraying of the caliper bolts with Plusgas starting several days in advance may help get them out.

Are not the sping clips holding brake pads on the wrong way round? The manual appears to show the two little upturned tags in the middle should face one another.

Well, many thanks for your advice. I have fitted the springs and dampers, and they are indeed fine. The ride is smoother, without the hardness it had before. I suspect it would be too soft for a heavily loaded vehicle, or one hard driven, but for me with road use only it is fine.

For some reason this seems to have been reported. Sorrry.

At present I am engaged in the entertaining task of replacing the shock absorbers on my 1996 300TDI, using Procomp ES9000s. However I have found the passenger side front spring is broken at the bottom seat. While it still supports the weight I obviously do not want to put it back on. Nor do I want to wait while the near useless French parcel carriers bring me some new springs. I do have amongst my treasures a set of four coil springs from a RRC V8. These were originally supplied by Famous Four of Louth, and are I believe their own spec. I am wondering if I can use them on the Discovery. FF do not say what spring rate their springs are. so I can not make a comparison. The original unbroken spring is 405, while the RRC springs are 380 free unloaded length. I have a set of spring isolators which brings the unloaded length to 385. The vehicle is an ex Police Discovery, RHD, so I assume the original springs may be Police spec. The vehicle is not used off road, and most of the time carries only me. It does not carry an excess weight. Does any one have any adfvice, please, as to whether I can use these springs, or will they be too soft, especially with the relatively soft Procomp shocks? I am concerned it may wallow too much. Thanks.

I refurbished the existing calipers by cleaning them and fitting stainless steel pistons and OEM seals, together with silicon fluid. I can lock the front wheels if I have to, which I found out the other day avoiding a stray dog.

I suspect the design of the pump was in the hands of the pump maker who supplied them to LR, not LR.

When I took the engine fan off our 300 Discovery I fitted an electric fan with a simple on/off switch to control it. In three years I have never needed to switch it on. Even in the height of summer it seems to run quite happily without a fan at all.

I have found that some Britpart items are excellent value and quality, most are acceptable/tolerable, and some are useless rubbish. The real problem is knowing which is which before I buy.

Our 96 auto has not had a fan on for years. I did fit an electric fan made from an air conditioner fan and manually switched on in case it should need some thing, but I have never had to use it. I think they only need a fan if stuck in very heavy traffice on a very hot day, provided the cooling system is in good order of course. I did have a droning sort of vibration once that I could not seem to cure. I eventually found the exhaust downpipe had a number of very small holes where it had been welded along the length fo form a tube. Not big enough to make a blowing exhaust sound, but just enough to make a buzzing droning sound at certain speeds.

I would be surprised if the MOD pay any thing like these prices. They will have put engine overhauls out to tender, and got a much lower price. I suspect these prices are for engines sold through the main dealer network, and not many of them at that.

When the 101 was being developed part of the development included a powered tailer to go with it. However it was found during testing that under some circumstance the trailer could push the vehicle over, and the idea was abandoned.

But what about the hidden costs to society. As more people find they can get away with living outside the law, and have a better and easier life stealing from others more people will join in and live that way. It becomes socially acceptable to many, The crumbling edge of society and civilisation. It is one way a society can wither and die. Putting people in the stocks is now unacceptable, but it is a cheap and effective way of controlling crime. Sometimes the old ways had good reasoning behind them. Perhaps if prisons were much less pleasant places to stay it would put some of them off, but until there is an effective means of catching a much greatter proportion of criminals discussing punishment is largely pointless.

There is a growing group of people who see nothing wrong in living off other people. They know the chance of getting caught are low, and the consequences of getting caught nothing to worry about. Not the time to reduce spending on the Police in my view.

I had a metal one off a RRC 3.9 recored by a chap near Milton Keynes some years ago. It seems he left some bits inside the oil cooling side and they eventually cost me an automatice gearbox. So when I needed a rad for our 300TDI Discovery I had a new Nissens one, not withstanding the plastic caps. It has been on some three years now and seems fine.

Is this a manual or an auto with EDC? If the vehicle has EDC it will want a good battery able to give a good cranking speed and working glow plugs, I have found ours will start immediately with these aids, and is difficult without.

One security idea I saw some time ago, but have never seen any thing made of it featured a sensor fixed to the underside of the vehicle, and a responder fixed to a piece of steel plate. When the vehicle was parked the reponder was placed under the vehicle immediately under the sensor, and the device activated. The two talked to one another, and knew just where each was, and importantly, just how far apart they were. Any attempt to move either would set off the alarms. How ever the vehicle was moved, even lifted off, the alarm would sound.

Given this situation, I want to replace the brake master cylinder on our 96 Discovery 300TDI. It seems OEM non abs master cylinders are nolonger available, so it seems I have to buy a copy/pattern. But these are priced from less than £30 (Brit part), through £40 (Eurospares) to well over £100, depending on the supplier. How do I know which is the one to buy, and how can I be sure they are not all made in the same Far East factory, just in different boxes? Buying parts these days is a mine field.

I think the sensor should change from a few meg ohms to about 680 ohms, but it will not like switching a relay, even assuming you can get one to react to this sort of change. I used a transistorised relay from Interface Solutions, part IS M 12T, which will sense the change without loading the sensor and will drive an indicator. Cost me about £13 a couple of years ago, and has worked fine since.

I think the failure of the thread in the alloy casting must be a common problem. I have wondered if I should get a spare one while they are still available.

As mentioned by Boydie before you start dismantling the engine I think you should look in the sump in case the oil pick up pipe has come off. Not unheard of I believe.

Once upon a time OEM meant made by the company that made the original part for Land Rover. But now the term has become corrupted, and just means made by a company that has, at some time, made parts for Land Rover. It may not be the same part as you are considering buying, or if it is, it may not be to the same standards. Buying LR parts has become either a lottery if you don't buy from Land Rover, or expensive if you do.

Although we may think it a bit strange to have the air flow in the opposite direction to the general air flow around the engine it seems to work. Generally alternators on LR engines give very little trouble, and only fail because they become worn out, and that after high mileages..

I think it is easy to get a misleading reading on the dip stick because the oil tends to stay in the tube clinging to the surfaces if the stick is in place. I take the dip stick out before I start, and leave it out until I am ready to dip the level. This seems to make sure the oil clears from the tube properly and I get a true reading..

Recently I purchased some Elf brand antifreeze for a vehicle that uses OAT antifreeze. The pack claims it is OAT, but also claims to be suitable for all vehicles and able to mix with all antifreezes. It is green in colour. They also sell a pink OAT type for Volkswagens and Audis. It does seem a bit confusing.