Igol

Real lights not LED fairy lights that seem like a great low energy idea that will illuminate huge swathes of workshop in your head but in fact are very, very bright, but actually emit bugger all light around them. Leaving you feeling somewhat deflated that september night you turn them on expecting to be blinded, then after that you live in denial thinking that maybe its not dark enough yet to see the full effect(??!!) and dont want to admit to the wife until you have to call in at wicks for a load of ip56 fixtures.

I found a bit of 4x2 works wonders and a lot less sweary than leaving fingers in the way when you add the compressed air.

Ive pulled the slave and the master will be coming off when the wife lets me go out and play, currently the push rod is inside the bell housing and ive yet to get a good look at it. But i did notice when laying underneath that theres a threaded hole at the base of the clutch that to my mind should have a bolt screwed into it to keep stuff in. So I'm wondering if the sticky stalagtites are in fact the gearbox oil?

Cheers the engine crane holding the transmission from above looks to be a plan if its going down that route. New master and slave cylinder on order and I know I have a roll of copper pipe and fittings when I discover all the fittings have siezed and are twisting. I should of heeded my About to Break Soon light yesterday.

A quick look under in daylight and theres an awful lot of yellow fluid sprayed around the engine and some similar coloured staligtites just next to the slave cylinder, which looks fine from the outside. I'm wondering if somethings let go and squirted its fluid everywhere, the master cylinder is full of stuff that really could do with changing but theres no resistance on the peddle at all. Hydraulics look the way to go right now, I'll try swapping the slave and get ready to fabricate a new pipe from the master cylinder and bypass the damper to make things easier. Never touched the clutch on the Disco so-far and as I'm gentle on the gears I'm hoping I wont have to.

My 97 TDi has just flown though its MOT - well ignoring the new rear discs and pads and hand brake adjustment I had to do. So tonight after getting out of the works Defender and into my Disco I stick it in reverse with a bit of a clunk (no more than normal) and come out of the parking bay. 'First seems a long way down' thinks I after being in the Defender, 'never noticed that before?' Up the little slope I drive to the road and into neutral to wait for a gap in the traffic. 'Ooh the lights have changed; into first......get in you sod......ah bugger'. Clutch peddle is flat on the floor and I'm not going anywhere apart from back down the slope to the bay I just left. I've had no great issues with the gears up to now and as the peddle is all flappy I'm thinking its a failed cylinder or pipe rather than the clutch itself (well hoping tbh after swapping one out on a Citroen AX and not having fun). Would anyone like to confirm my diagnosis or cruelly dash my thoughts and upset the wife who was thinking she was getting a new car but it may be me.

Any randomness mixed with electrickery I'd be looking at earth faults.

I'd be thinking broken spring but why it wont work from inside? Can you get the door card off and see if theres something hanging?

I looked at this a while ago when I was fitting my new DAB radio. After cutting and trying to get everything to match up with the wiring diag and the radios fittings I realised it was plug and play and all the connectors just slotted in so much reconnecting of plugs occured. You have tried the simple method first havent you?

Som creative welding required then. Still be cheaper than an all singing and dancing armoured guard that I really dont need.

Seems that NTC5787 is no longer available and my searches keep chucking up ESR2204 which is for 110s and Ranger Rovers. Now I know that a lot of the back end bits are interchangeable with the Rangies so will this fit too? At £25 I could take a punt and fettle as required if its not going to involve too much cutting/sticking metal on as opposed to a few hundred on a guard.

I did mean to add ala haynes manual there. And I did think grinder access was going to be a bit tight and I'm wondering if extending a new tray and attaching it to more easily accessable bolts may be the way forward. Thanks for the part number though

I've just serviced the brake callipers on my 97 TDi and while poking around(as you do) discovered that the tin worm had been nibbling on the rear chassis to quite an alarming extent. So it was out with the grinder which was shortly followed by the normal smell of burning flesh and searing pain as weld spatter managed to find its way through my all singing and dancing coveralls and as I lay there pondering why this was becoming 'normal' I noticed another little gap near the fuel tank where a bolt apparently was meant to serve some purpose. Closer inspection of this little gap showed it to be the metal tray that supports the fuel tank and the little gap runs pretty much the whole length to the other bolt on the right side of the car. Now I'm no MOT inspector but I've a sneaking suspicion that may be a fail and possibly the tiny rusty bit of steel that's keeping it attached to the rest of the chassis may need a little help,though, lets face it, it can only drop as far as the anti-roll bar So what the tray bit called or its part number? I've found 'guards' and 'cradles' when I've looked ranging from £ very few to £ I'll get a new car so would kinda like to get the right bit. And am I right in thinking its just a case of supporting the tank removing the four bolts front and rear and installing the new tray?

M10 if its the same as my 97 tdi, just got 10 off fleabay for about a quid to service my calipers.

My ABS comes on for: dodgy wheel bearings, worn brake pads/discs, spongy brakes siezed pots, rusted back box earth faults ARB links worn shock bushes etc Basically if theres something wrong the About to Brake Soon light comes on, once its fixed it goes out and occasionally I need to clean the sensors and reseat them.

I was looking earlier in the week at planning permission and gotthe 30m2 from somewhere. Is it under garages rather than ouitbuildings?

Thanks all, you now have me thinking about a hybrid using the current wall and timber framing on the path and rear.

Its a single concrete pour with no breaks and sits on clay but I guess I need to check its depth.

I'm planning to drop my current aluminium plate garage (that doesn’t fit the Disco) this year and replace it with a nice new block built one, well to be fair if I don’t drop it myself it'll fall down on its own. Currently there’s a 2m concrete block wall that runs along one side of the garage that I'm planning on making one of the outer walls and increasing to 2.5m high (decent footings piers etc. went in a few years ago when I was already thinking along these lines) and will need to dig new footings and construct a new wall at the back that links into the existing wall dodging the gas main that’s handily in the way. Now the interesting bit. The current garage is on a slight slope and the hard standing/drive is about 400mm higher than the path to the house so I've a nice deep solid base I could build on. But, I don’t want to do that. If I build the remaining side on the concrete path that runs alongside the garage that I could grab a few more CMs. I don’t know how deep this is but I was thinking that rather than dig out a lot of what is perfectly sound concrete and start with new and wait for it to cure I could use dense concrete blocks on top of the path as the footing then as the wall goes up drill ties into the existing base before overlapping the corners and pier as well to pull it all together. Then it’s just windows, personnel door, pitched roof, power and I should have something to fit the Disco in. I’ve checked the permitted development regs and will fall within them but I like to be belt and braces when I build things so are there any huge issues with using the path as part of my load bearing footing??

So as I said, its definitely not the earth. After trying to add additional temporary wires to extend the terminal block and add in the temp earth wire as soon as the tail light was included headlights started flashing again. So there's a short somewhere in that bit of the loom that I need to locate/bypass, at least the bumper tail light is unaffected so I've got power to everything bar the high level tail.

Kinda is the best response I can give, work, carp weather and the demands of Major Sunray have diverted me from a concerted effort, not to mention the r/r packing up on the Triumph (why do we buy British??). Definitely an earth fault, I've currently got a jury rigged series of wires running to the NS upper light cluster and a temporary earth on the boot floor but at least I have lights. So does anyone know if the numbered earths in the Haynes manual wiring diagram actually correspond to anything? According to that I should be looking at earth 11 or possibly 16 (from memory) but theres no key saying earth number 6 is on the front inner wing for example.

I'm thinking that rather than spend time hunting for the fault in the loom it'd be easier to run new wires to the rear brakes, the wiring diag in the Haynes manual seems to correspond with the vehicle so if I just need to order the right colour wire.

Typically once I started poking around I ended up getting out the grinder and the welder to stick a plate to the front wing. Main earth was spotless and with the help of the wife I discovered that the rear lights are also coming on with the front headlights, not the side lights as I originally thought and when the lights are on the brake lights are as well. I'm thinking that rather than an earth fault its a couple of worn wires shorting somewhere in the loom.

Well towing socket is out, decided the simple way to test that theory was to simply unplug it in the boot and other than discovering that the bottom brake light bulb had blown no joy. Hopefully the weather will be kinder in the morning and I can dodge whatever missions the wife has planned and start checking the rear bulbs and the temporary earth idea.

Thanks, BIL suggested the same at the weekend so when I finish work tomorrow I'm planning on having a look and fit the new bulbs that shattered when I pulled em :s