[Boge shocks]

Anyone tried these? I'm in the process of getting new shocks and one of the suppliers suggested these. I'm wary of an oil shock, but they claimed to have plenty of happy clients using them.

My biggest worry would be fade on long sections of corrugated gravel taken at reasonably high speed.

[Starting issue on a 300Tdi]

After a while not driving the vehicle I got my act together and replaced the lift pump on Monday evening. Everything is working fine again

[Starting issue on a 300Tdi]

I reversed up the drive this afternoon to see if this is related to

the gradient.

And it started with no complaints.

[Starting issue on a 300Tdi]

Over the past while my Disco has had to sleep outside in the driveway.

Since it got colder (or thereabouts) I have noticed an issue when

starting up. It coughs on the first crank but doesn't start and then

takes a bit of cranking to get it going. Once the motor starts it runs

like a dream, is as powerful and economical as ever. Restarting after

this wasn't a problem until yesterday. I've been on a course at a

place which involved parking on a slope with the nose facing up (much

the same as my driveway, although a fair bit steeper). On both days

it's also taken a fair amount of cranking to get the motor going. The

other restarts have been largely on level ground.

My immediate thoughts are:

1. Cold weather, although the past two afternoons tend to suggest

something else.

2. Lift pump struggling.

3. Blocked fuel filter.

I reversed up the drive this afternoon to see if this is related to

the gradient.

Any ideas?

Henk

[Noisy interior fan]

200 or 300 ?

300

[I need a good digital camera for website update]

IMNSHO, if you want to update your web page, a DSLR is overkill. You would be better off with a good compact with a wide range zoom. Panasonic and Fuji get good reviews. The major advantages of a DSLR are better performance in low light, much less image noise, more flexibility in terms of lenses (if you and your budget want to go there), access to better lenses and (generally) more robust construction than compacts.

If you find another excuse for the DSLR (and there are many), you're in a good space to start shopping. They're all good. Things to watch out for are the quality of the kit lenses (typically 18-55mm f3.5-5.6-ish) that come bundled with the cameras. Read the reviews and take them with a large pinch of salt. Remember that often the reviewers are used to using really good, really expensive lenses and compare cheaper lenses to these. I find the reviews on http://www.photozone.de reasonably useful.

To give an idea of what's possible and to add some LR content, this is what can be achieved with a cheapo kit lens, although it probably would also have been possible with pretty much anything.

One consideration I would take into account is that the 3 smaller manufacturers - Pentax, Sony and Olympus use in-body image stabilisation which will potentially save a lot of money on image stabilised lenses in future, if you are going to get a whole bunch of lenses at some point.

If however you do still want a DSLR, I would go for a Nikon... having been a pentax man since I was 12, the pentax digital wasn't cutting it, so I now have the Nikon D50 (sadly no longer available) and it is excellent.

Pentax were slow to get into digital SLRs, but are now up there with the rest of them. They also have maintained backward compatibility with old Pentax lenses.

As long as you stick to the quality names you can't go too far wrong, certainly into SLR territory the issues of carp lenses on the cheaper options are less of an issue.

Well I wouldn't know what digital zoom means. You see even with an SLR I wouldn't even consider a zoom lens.

That of course is personal preference.

mike

Although all the manufacturers have some lenses with issues. I'm with Mike in liking fast primes.

[Noisy interior fan]

Hi

I have a rhythmic noise coming from the interior fan in my Disco 1. I suspect it is a piece of dried leaf or something that has found its way down there. How difficult is it to get in there and clean it out (or repair replace if necessary).

Henk

[Disco 1 subwoofer]

Jim suggested:

Hi Henk, maybe if you get a reply on ZA-LRO you will post the answer here? Others may want to know the result.

Corne Smith commented on ZA-LRO:

Henk, I'm no Disco sound expert, but what MT are saying might be true. I

know the guy there from past dealings with him (couldn't remember his name

though...) and know that he is very competent. He's considered one of the

top five sound installers in SA. If you look at his ears, you'kk

agree...lol!

Jokes aside....what he might know, is that the subwoofer is an exact match

to the Disco radio, that might be using its own internal(radio) amplifier to

power the sub. Connecting the sub to an amplifier of more serious

nature, might damage the unit(sub). I had the same problem with a Volkwagen.

The radio and speakers plays nice and the sound is good...ish. But an amp

would have destroyed them fast, and here's the shock, without making them

sound better. The idea on the street is that you sould give a speaker more

power to make it sound better, but thats only half the story. The speaker

must be matched to an amp to get the best performace. Top subs, fot

instance, has got piston actuators with two or more coils, making it

possible to power them with two amps etc. My point is this then, if you're

not happy with the state of your system now, wait untill these guys did

their job!!

Doef-doef groete

Corne S

I then answered:

Corne, thanks. Basically I am unhappy with two things - no handsfree

and no integrated CD/MP3 solution. I was hoping that the bluetooth

head unit would solve this, but it seems that it would create

additional complexities, which would only really be solved by throwing

money at the problem. I agree that the last thing I need is a system

with worse sound than I already have.

One thing I did manage to find was a bluetooth earpiece thingy with a

car charger. That goes a long way to solving one of my problems, as

the major handsfree issue I have had is that my earpiece is usually

either in the Disco and discharged or at home on the charger. As for

integrating CDs and MP3s, the modulator system I have is OK, measured

against the R6.5K it's going to cost to upgrade it.

[Disco 1 subwoofer]

Every two years when I get a cellphone upgrade I get to thinking that a hands free kit wouldn't be such a bad idea, but have never really got around to it. This time round I discovered that bluetooth enabled radios now exist, which would solve the hands free problem as well as getting away from the RF modulator that I currently use for playing MP3 CDs. I started to look at what's available and ended up speaking to a car sound place which has been recommended to me. They seem to know what they are talking about, but claim that it is not possible to connect the Disco's installed subwoofer to anything other than the standard Disco radio, adding the costs of another subwoofer and an amplifier to the installation. Is this indeed the case?

Henk

[Clutch hydraulic damper leak - Disco Tdi]

This morning I did an oil and filters service on the Disco (I live the smell of EP90 in the morning) and noticed that the level in the clutch reservoir was a little low. I've tracked down the leak to the front of the clutch damper.

A while back there was an attempt to stop this by tightening the pipe connectors, which doesn't seem to have worked (or stayed working if it ever did work). What do you think I should do to address this:

1. Tighten the unions some more and see what happens.

2. New damper.

3. New hydraulic lines.

4. All of the above.

5. Something else.

Anyone had this problem before?

Cheers

Henk

[Checking shocks on a Disco 1]

Last time I replaced the shocks on my Disco - about 50k km ago - the old ones were clearly shot. Now I'm not so sure. The Disco somehow seems to ride a bit rougher and is a bit bouncy at the back, particularly when heavily loaded. Is there a reliable way to check shocks without pulling them off? I'm currently running on Gabriel Kubus, which are gas pressurised, so I wouldn't be able to check them manually unless they were completely shot. Also, what are the signs of a worn steering damper?

Henk

[SHOW US YOUR DISCO]

Mine in really good company

[Water injection for my 300Tdi]

I've had a read of that technical pdf from Daimler a few posts up.

Although they are specifically looking at direct water injection in which the fuel and water are mixed in the injector just before injection, they do mention your 'upstream' method as well which they call fumigation.

This is an interesting idea for a diesel. As an alternative, I bought some diesel like this in Lesotho a while ago. They do an excellent diesel-water premix. I can't say I felt any difference in performance, although I hid behind a smoke screen on all the descents .