The emerald beast - TD5 Disco

Hi All,

As promised from my intro here is my Disco
.

Pretty clean, surface rust underside but its solid. As soon as parts are delivered ill be taking a wire brush to the whole chassis starting with the rear cross member, rust inhibiting, priming, painting and applying waxoil.

The plan is to remove all the surface rust from the chassis and do a rolling resto. Replacing bushes and joints as and when the props, arms and knuckled etc come off for a spruce.



Although after only 3 weeks of living with her i already have the bonnet up.



I had a look at the intake and saw oil and EGR sludge everywhere so decided to fit my EGR delete kit and clean up the MAP sensor. The car was making a slight whirring sound between off throttle and 800rpm with a slight throttle input. Whilst the aux belt looks in ok shape, there is no service record of it ever being changed. So i ordered one and will fit when that turns up.
I also ordered oil, air and fuel filters with fresh oil to go in, the oil pump pulley bolt and a new gasket for the sump.

Also, unfortunately yesterday i started getting a check engine light when driving to work in the morning, half a mile away from the house the engine light came on and lost the throttle. I had a look under the bonnet thinking i disturbed the ECU and connectors when fitting the EGR to find the ECU had a fair amount of oil in it aswell as the connector. Cleaned it up, reconnected battery and it started and drove me to work 8 miles down the road. After a bit of forum searching and googling i ordered a new injection harness and rocker cover gasket. Hopefully this will cure the loss of power and stop my ECU getting drowned

In my once over i also discovered the front lower shock bushes are non existent. So i ordered them and will be fitting asap.

- Injection harness
- Lower damper bush
- Oil pump bolt
- Oil and filters

SO... Busy weekend but the more work i do to her and the more new parts i fit, the more i know she will be reliable when i start venturing further afield.

All looks good.

One hint, ref the oil pump bolt. Make sure your cross member can be unbolted before you drop the oil.

The bolts are prone to snapping off / rounding off, or in the case of mine the PO had welded the crossmember in place. It apparently is possible to do the oil bolt with the crossmember in place but it is tighter for access.

If your front dampers lower bush is non existant then you may find the shocks are past their best anyway.

Cheers

Hi Nielly,

Thanks for the advice, i had gone onto discovery2.co.uk and had a read up but didn't consider the fact someone would weld up the cross member or the bolts would be that far gone. I shall try a trial removal tonight and most likely try to find some new bolts to replace them.

I had considered the dampers being scrap but the amount of parts i ordered for the service / injection harness repair has been somewhat pricey. The plan is to replace the bushes for now and then replace the dampers with Bilsteins at some point when cash is flowing a little more freely.

Check engine light and loss of throttle has momentarily disappeared. Previously i was managing 3 miles before the amber light came on. A battery reset, and disconnecting and reconnecting the ECM whilst cleaning out the plugs.

I removed the EGR solenoid, taped up the connectors and put them away, blanked up the vacuum pipes and had a good look at my main harness (needs replacing or at least going over with a fine comb)


I have since checked the throttle position sensors. Sensor 1 at no throttle input is reading 4.6v and sensor 2 is reading 0.4 so they add up but may need to be replaced or adjusted.

But... The amber light hasn't come back yet in 20 miles, so touch wood, doesn't come back until i have replaced the throttle pedal and main harness.

Swapped the injector harness out yesterday. Bit of a fiddly job. I would recommend some tacky gasket sealant to keep the gasket in place on the rocker cover whilst fitting.

The harness i received appeared to have a fix on it to eliminate the oil seepage. However, the wires connecting were still exposed. Using some oil resistant loctite silicone rubber sealant i covered everything exposed in the harness cap and closed it back up. The wires leak oil through capillary action so if theres no exposed wire, no oil gets through

I had noticed in the service history, the previous owner had the harness and oil in ecu issue 'fixed' 4 times in the last 10 years. The harness i took out of the car was similar to the one i recently bought in that the wires were still exposed.
I am going to soak it in solvents to get rid of the oil then silicone up the main cap and the injector caps. Should i ever have another problem i have a spare in the car now.

Also, word of advice, use a set of pliers to remove the clips from the injectors. I lost one momentarily in the oil and had to go fishing with a magnet.

All in all, removal of rocker cover, cleaning up both surfaces, gasket and harness swap took around 40 minutes. Whilst i was there i noticed oil in the breather so will be adding the removal and cleaning of the intercooler to my service list.

Replaced the damper bushes over the last 2 nights. Forgot to take photos amidst the swearing and wishing i had 4 arms to move the ACE pipes, wiggle the shock turret and keep the shock bush from catching on the spring.
Absolute chore using a vice to push the bush in without a good set of large sockets. Good thing my other half helped man handle the vice as i moved the shock around getting even pressure on the bush as it went in.
Added to the list is new turrets on both sides as they are starting to swell at the bottom, replacing the nuts and bolts for stainless ones.
Found a new issue, the car makes a grinding sound as if cocking up a gear change when lifting off throttle and turning into a junction, very intermittently however i have read that the hi/lo linkage can rub on the transfer case which can nudge it out of hi range when lifting off.
Will investigate and get back on here with updates and pictures.

Replaced the oil pump bolt today. The bolt wasn't falling out but wasn't the correct torque either.

There was a grinding sound prior to replacing the bolt, filters and oil on start up. That sound has now disappeared. So i am hoping it was the oil pump bolt being loose and causing a rattle.

For anyone planning on doing it who hasn't before, hire a ramp or buy a high lift jack. I spent about 7 hours doing this job and a very good portion of this was due to not getting enough clearance between the gearbox and front axle to slide the sump through. A second pair of hands, popping the exhaust mounts out and a high lift jack may have meant the whole job would take 5 hours on the drive instead of 7. If i had a ramp i reckon i could have done the job in 2-3.

Happy its sorted now though, engine oil came out black as the night, thankfully no big chunks of metal or swarf. Engine is quieter now, starts easier and the death rattle on start up has gone.

Air and fuel filter to be changed in the week, and also noticed one of the bump stops missing whilst under there.

Glad to hear you got it sorted,

One question, what and how would you use the hi lift jack?

I used a 3 tonne troley jack and put ithe chassis on axle stands letting the axle hang. Loads of room.

Cheers

If there was a bit of a rattle on start-up, check for oil in the injector harness, also check for oil traces in the ECU connector
Does it miss under load at all ?

Speckydude said:

If there was a bit of a rattle on start-up, check for oil in the injector harness, also check for oil traces in the ECU connector
Does it miss under load at all ?

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Did you read his earlier posts???? Speckydude , should have gone to specsavers...................

Cheers

neilly said:

Did you read his earlier posts???? Speckydude , should have gone to specsavers...................

Cheers

Click to expand...

Ah, the joys of skim-reading post Sunday lunch.

Adventure_Coachworks said:

So i am hoping it was the oil pump bolt being loose

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Just for info, what Year is your D2? is it a 10P or 15P engine?

Cheers

neilly said:

Just for info, what Year is your D2? is it a 10P or 15P engine?

Cheers

Click to expand...

Hi Neilly,

Ah i mis-typed. I meant to say a high lift trolley jack. I used a 2 tonne jack on the chassis letting the axle hang, but it was too short by about 30mm. Ended up using some offcuts of timber joist to give it the extra height.
Its a '99 disco, so i assumed it is a 10p. However i haven't checked the engine number myself yet.

Got underneath the car over the weekend with a wire cup on a grinder and took away the surface rust on the back end. Thankfully previous owner jet washed the chassis frequently so there was only minor flaking and essentially just the paint falling off. This is the only photo I took as I was covered in primer and chassis paint. Once the metal was exposed I used alcohol to clean the chassis, applied corroless rust inhibitor with a brush and then rubberized undersealer in a can.
Used this method on my triumph herald and it yielded good results without need to reapply for 2 winters.
Once I get the tank out and give the inside face of the rear rails a good clean and paint I'll apply a good layer of waxoil for added protection.

Sort of semi toying with getting one of these myself but nothing I've seen has a chassis anywhere near as good as yours!! If yours is as good as it looks then well done!!!! There must be hope that some good ones are out there!
Interested to see how this develops.
Rich

Hi callisr,

Thanks, i was lucky with the car i found. The previous owner had owned it for 13 years, and even though he wasn't the most clued up with preventative maintenance he regularly had it serviced at a local to him 4x4 and LR specialist, so it had been taken care of. Having said that i have viewed about a dozen before coming to this one.