Thought I'd start a vehicle thread going here, I've been running one for a couple of years on another forum so will start back in time copy and pasting some of the more interesting bits... might take a bit to catch up!

After much deliberation I bought this Vehicle, It's a 2000 TD5 Manual, it already had a D44 De-EGR kit fitted (with vac tube on EGR mod left wide open and connector still on!).

Bought this S spec disco as a family car, to get us from Hudders up to the lakes when we go camping, and to cope with the crappy road we live on when the snows come.

Fabric interior, no SLS, no Aircon, no ACE - but I guess that's just a whole bunch of stuff less to go wrong




This is how it looks now (ish)

First little fix (bodge) was the fuel latch which wouldn't stay shut - luckily a nice dollop of Blu-Tack seemed to fix the problem

Scratched my head for a bit about the wires hanging down next to the fuel filter, then found out they are for the sedimenter which the previous owner had binned - I degreased/****ted the connector and taped it up for safe keeping.



Filter looked a bit mucky, but no problems with fueling. Gave the drain a turn and no water came out in the fuel.

You can see the chassis was rather ****ted up, I really wasn't looking forward to getting under and seeing how bad it was.

Found some more rust.

luckily thats a separate replaceable part ,and only it and chassis suffer

Car seemed to have a bit more poke than I expected so I had a look at the ECU

Turned out it has an NNN ecu in which was odd for a 2000 vehicle, had a look through the mountain of receipts the previous owner supplied to find the head had been replace 10K miles earlier, but no clue why the ECU was swapped out.

Had no clue if it was mapped at this point.

jamesmartin said:

luckily thats a separate replaceable part ,and only it and chassis suffer

Click to expand...

Yeah already done James, this is a 2 year old pic - I'm copying a vehicle thread over from another forum

Bennehboy said:

Yeah already done James, this is a 2 year old pic - I'm copying a vehicle thread over from another forum

Click to expand...

its a shame they didnt make disco 1 body as good

Battery neg clamp was goosed

I found a heavy duty clamp in halfrauds (not exactly brilliant but it would do)



Hacksawed the old clamp off, and the new one was snug as a bug in a rug, sorted.

jamesmartin said:

its a shame they didnt make disco 1 body as good

Click to expand...

Yeah D2 body quality with D1 chassis, winner!

Got some new boots on modulars

Replaced the knackered spare wheel carrier

Found I had a shock bolt missing:



And a snapped bush!

Got my hands on a 2nd hand NAS hitch to replace the plough...

It took me about 3 hours to get the plough off All of the bolts were seized, had to plus gas the lot and employ the breaker bar + extreme force. Once the bolts were cracked I then had to try and use a stilson to grab the nuts on the other ends of them, not fun, in future I'm going to pick up another full set of sockets so I can grab both end for similar jobs (I have both metric and imperial, but the imperial were just a bit off in size and they are 12 point so didn't want to round anything off!)

So, 3 hours removal of plough, 15 minutes fitting of hitch! :clap:

I also had to unwire the double tow electrics to feed the wires through the plough mounts...

Here's the results, you can see my bodge it electrics 'bracket' :lol1:


Side view showing the vastly improved departure angle:


Double electrics bracket - not sure how to mount this without worsening the departure angle - suggestions please!


Spot the schoolboy error - avoid [beer] whilst adding a tow hook to a drop plate!


Here's the plough once removed.

Found a broken bolt in the rocker cover so bought some ezi outs and removed it:

Fixed the leaking turbo oil return

Here're the RAVE directions for replacing the gasket - 9nm torque required when refitting the bolts.


here's the fresh gasket:

You can see from the photo that I had to use a deep socket to get the bolts out, the turbo housing gets in the way otherwise.

Here's the leaking gasket that came off - although the bolts didn't feel like they were at 9nm, quarter turn to crack them and they were finger tight (flushed the area with WD40 first though).


Next I cleaned the mounting faces of the return pipe and the turbo, you'll need to use a mirror to check the turbo face.


Fit the new gasket by placing on top of the return pipe, the raised ring should face upwards towards the turbo, slide a bolt through the closest hole and use this to guide up into the turbo, finger turn it a couple of times then reach under to put the other bolt in, be careful to get the gasket aligned carefully. Finger tighten it all up, get your ratchet back on and nip up prior to torque'ing.

9nm Torque is required here, not much, and the problem I immediately hit was that my Sealey 7-106 NM wrench was too long:


So I had to use a 'feels right' torque setting.

Now I was all done I degreased the whole area, using a paintbrush on the stubborn bits, fired up the engine and hosed it off.

Gear changing on my truck has been a bit notchy since I bought it a few months back.

With no real service history details ever being supplied I decided it was a good idea to change the gearbox oil.

With this in mind I bought 5L of MTF94 from JGS.

I bought a Silverline fluid transfer pump - big mistake, although it would pull in oil, it just didn't have the guts to blow it back out :/ So that got BINNED, and I bought a garden pump sprayer.

Here are the tools needed for the job:


* MTF94 - gearbox takes 2 litres of oil, this comes in a 5 litre container from JGS.
* breaker bar (the filler plug usually needs cracking off)
* torque wrench, filler plug is 30NM, drain plug is 50NM
* 55 Torx bit for filler plug
* pump to get the oil in, access is VERY constrained
* 2+ litre container to catch the waste oil
* 1/2 to 3/8 adapter for breaker bar (depends on what sockets bits/bar you have)
* 32mm socket for sump plug - if you are lucky enough to have one shallow enough to fit
* stilson wrench or 32 mm spanner.

So first of all get the filler plug out using the 55 Torx, you might need to crack it off with the breaker bar.

Next thing to tackle is the sump plug, this is a 32mm bolt. Unfortunately the front prop shaft impedes access to get a socket and ratchet in to get to this. You may be lucky and have sockets that are less deep than mine, if so use them, but I had to use a stilson wrench.


Crack it off, then finger unscrew it until you can feel that it is fully unthreaded, quickly whip it away whilst your waste oil container is beneath.

Here's what my sump plug looked like:


You can clearly see some metal shavings/filings that the magnet has picked up.

Here's the crappy oil that came out, it really stank badly, so heaven knows when it was last changed:


Only 1.7 litres came out, and before I drained the oil I could NOT see the oil level using a mirror and torch, so it was quite low.

Clean off the sump plug, and refit it with a fresh washer, to 50NM, or feels right torque if using a stilson/spanner.



Put 2.5 litres of oil in your pump and fill the box via the filler plug, you might need to repressure your pump a couple of times.

Stop when a bead of oil begins to run over the bottom of the filler.

Refit the filler plug and tighten it to 30NM.

Enjoy smooth gear changes and a drive train that doesn't feel as wound up

Car was banging over speed bumps so I had a look at the engine mounts only to find they were shot.

Got some new genuine ones:





And some new toys to help get the olds one off:



Cranked spanner on the top bolt:


Undo both of those, jack up the engine, under the lower bolts and swap the new mounts in.

Got a bit giddy when I finally managed to remove the old ones - took bloody ages

Bent my sidesteps at Yarwell so they had to go....

All the bolts and nuts were completely shot through corrosion, so it was time to get the grinder out with a cutting disc:



Note the all important safety gems - YOU MUST WEAR THESE!

Before they were removed:


SWMBO's yoga mat laid out for comfort :shh: although guessing the yarwell mud now on it might get me rumbled :surprised:

Offside rear mount:


Offside front mount:


Steps off.... in bits:


After shot:


Note the 'huge' increase in clearance :tup:

Fitted some cheap chinese LED interior lights, miles brigher than the old bulbs


The middle interior light, had to trim the ends off the bulb holder otherwise the LEDs wouldn't sit deep enough in the housing for the cover to go back on.