mahon257

The driveway is at a slight angle... The car is on axle stands purely to give me a bit more room underneath! She is sitting on brand new Police Range Rover heavy duty springs as well as new britpart shocks. oh - and for anyone curious - the red plastic bags inside the rear springs are an air-lift kit ( I guess most people in this forum would know that! just thought I'd mention it). All this extra suspension work was needed mainly to support extra fuel and water for desert travel - as attached photo from Sahara last year.

Just to be clear, I think this is a hole, caused by corrosion - rather than a stress crack. The rest of the chassis is intact, and the car drives just fine. It's a bit hard to tell on the pictues I know, but a poke with a screw driver caused a fair degree of further collapse. The metal on this cross-member, I would guess, is about 0.6-0/0.8mm thick. Really thin, so as Dave W suggests, I would be surprised if this beam is structural. I'm not an expert - but the feedback from other members I think is leading to this conclusion. My plan is to fold some 1.6mm sheet metal, and weld a corner patch... hopefully that should do it. When I'm done I'll be posting pictures of the rear-body cross member replacement - seems to be a common failure - which so far I've only seen documented on a Range Rover! Oh - and many many thanks to all of you that have replied... I'd truly be stuck without this forum.

That makes a lot of sense Dave W. The metal in this cross member is like tin-foil! Really thin (I had a trial run at welding a small hole on the other side - the metal just evaporated!) If, as you suggest, it's only job is to support the fuel tank - then that explains alot... Cheers for that.

Thanks for the reply Dave W, The hole is in the end of the cross-member. It's the same story on the other side (looking at the car from the front to back). Fortuntately, the top/bottom edges of the join are fine - it is only the vertical edges - on the cross member itself.

Looking for a bit of help! I'm mid-way thru replacing the rear-body-crossmember on my 300TDi Disco. Whilst stripping down the car, noticed a few large cracks/holes where the rear chassis cross beams meet the main chassis beams (sorry about cr*p description - photos attached should help). I'm all geared up with a MIG welder, and a locally based skilled welder chap to do the welding, but my question is: The cracks are about 6mm wide - I'm told too wide to "fill" Can I simply plate over the cracks? Would it have to be a seam weld (to seal all edges of the plate) - or would other types of weld suffice (i.e. plug welds) Any advice much appreciated, I love this old banger - really want to keep her going! Cheers

Yes - I meant the "boot", or rear entrance! (ahem). Thanks for the replies guys...

My 1996 Disco rear door is complete mess.... there are a few TD5 doors on various auction websites - which would obviously be newer and likely be in better condition.... does anyone know if a TD5 (say 2003 model) rear door will fit a 1996 300TDi? Grateful for any advice...

This may help... http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopic=34146

To get the script to set a different date, just find the line that reads: .Run "%comspec% /c date 01/01/2008" ..and change it to read whatever date you want, i.e. .Run "%comspec% /c date 12/09/2006" Hope that helps...

If you own a Land Rover, like me, you'll need a regular supply of parts! Many of us have "acquired" the Landrover EPC, on CD Rom. This software usually requires you to set your computer clock to the 1st of Jan 2008 (or another date). This can be a pain - especially if you forget to set the clock back to normal after running the program. So, as I work in IT, I figured it's time I gave something back to this forum, which has helped me on a number of occassions! When you start the program (called a "script") it sets your computer clock to 01/01/2008 12:00hrs. It then starts Microcat. After you close Microcat - the script automatically resets your computer clock back to normal, and closes itself. Oh - one other thing, the last action the script takes it to sync your PC clock with special "time servers" on the internet. If you don't want it to do this - open the script in a text editor - like "Notepad.exe", and follow the instructions in the last few lines in the script. Any questions just post a reply, Have fun! ------------------------------------------------------------ I would have preferred to provide this program, or "script", as an attachment in a ZIP file - but the forum rules are blocking the upload (which is fair enough!) So instead, if you want to use this, you'll have to do a bit of extra work! Bascially, copy/paste the text after the words "start of script", into a text editor like "notepad.exe". Then, in notepad, save the text file as "C:\MCLRE\Run-Microcat.vbs" (assumming that's where you have installed Microcat). The Script was written for Windows XP - but should work on all versions of Windows later than "Windows 2000". To run Notepad, just click "start", "run", then type "notepad.exe" - and click "ok". In future, instead of running the normal shortcut for Microcat - run the script instead (double click it, create a shortcut to it, etc). ------------------------------------------------------------ Start of script (do not copy this line) Option Explicit 'This script is designed to run the Land Rover EPC. 'The basic idea, is to set the system clock to 1st Jan 08, run the EPC, then restore the system clock after. 'Additionaly, you can re-sync your clock with an Internet NTP server.. Dim oFSO, oShell, sNowDate, sNowTime, dStartTime, dEndTime, dDuration, dRealStartTime dim sAppPath, sEPCFileName set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") Set oShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell") sAppPath= Replace(WScript.ScriptFullName, WScript.ScriptName, "") sEPCFileName="mclre.exe" if not oFSO.FileExists(sAppPath & sEPCFileName) then msgbox "Land Rover EPC not found at : " & sAppPath & sEPCFileName & vbcrlf & vbcrlf & "Ensure that the EPC is installed, and that you are running this script from the same Folder as the EPC.",16,"EPC not found" wscript.quit end if 'Capture current Date.. dRealStartTime=now() 'Set Date to 1st Jan 2008: With oShell .Run "%comspec% /c date 01/01/2008" .Run "%comspec% /c time 12:00:00" msgbox "System Date Changed to 01-Jan-2008", 64, "Clock Set:" 'Start a Stopwatch, to capture Duration (to be used to reset clock after EPC closed) dStartTime=now() 'start the EPC here .Run sAppPath & sEPCFileName,1,True 'Start EPC, and force this script to wait until EPC is closed before continuing... 'msgbox "simulate running EPC here..." dEndTime=now() dDuration=dEndTime-dStartTime 'Restore Date to when this script started: sNowDate = FormatDateTime (dRealStartTime + dDuration, vbShortDate) sNowTime = FormatDateTime (dRealStartTime + dDuration, vbLongTime) sNowTime = replace(sNowTime,":",".") .Run "%comspec% /c date " & sNowDate .Run "%comspec% /c time " & sNowTime End With msgbox "Date Restored to " & sNowDate & " " & sNowTime & ", EPC ran for " & FormatDateTime (dDuration, vbLongTime) & " seconds.." 'Update System Clock wth Internet Time Servers. 'Note: software firewalls, like ZoneAlarm may block Internet Time service lookups 'see: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=18540203 'To ignore this next section, simply put an ' before each line... With oShell .Run "%comspec% /c w32tm /config /syncfromflags:manual /manualpeerlist:pool.ntp.org"',tick.usno.navy.mil,tock.usno.navy.mil,time.windows.com" .Run "%comspec% /c w32tm /config /update" .Run "%comspec% /c w32tm /resync /nowait" End With msgbox "System Date re-sync'd with Internet NTP servers - it may take a few seconds for your clock to be updated (assuming your firewall permits Time Server updates (TCP port 123)." 'end of copy/paste here

Many Thanks Dr Rob... I think committing to buy a cross member (from YRM) is the best way forward - once I've got my hands on a new one - hopefully, figuring out how to remove the old one will be a bit easier...

Well, it happened. I knew I shouldn't. After the rear door got jammed, somewhere in the Western Sahara, I knew something was up... When I got back home to Sunny Norwich, put the car up on the ramps, and foolishly decided to poke about for signs of rust. Oh dear. My tRusty 1996 300Tdi has a few "issues" - I'm told this is all part of the experience, as they say in China, "One Life, Rivet". So, I'm up for a challenge! Has anyone any experience of removing / fitting a "rear body cross member"? From the little that I can see - with the bumper removed, it looks welded to the main body. I know I can buy a replacement cross member - just looking for advice on tackling it myself.. (have a MIG welder etc). Here's a few pics of the state of things - pretty much beyond repair (I also optimisically bought the cross member supports - but have now accepted the proper fix is to replace the whole thing). Any help would be much appreciated!