We made the rear lights for the Disco 3 too. If you promise to keep it to yourself......
At some point in production before the D3 was released, a heat shield inside the lamp, which was flat but the two edges were bent to about 40degrees which meant to push them into the groove in the plastic the operator had to place the body moulding in a cradle and use a small hand press to press the shield into the groove.
At some point the supplier cocked up and made the shields so they jst fell into the groove by hand. Instead of flagging this, the operators just popped them in by hand and i hate to think how many (4 figures) went down the assemble line like this.
Southampton docks was jam packed with D3sawaiting shipping, a few more large compounds were also packed awaiting release and delivery/shipping etc.
And then one day at Land Rover, someone on the line slammed the back door and heard a rattle.
Several slammings later the rattle was tracked down the the driver's side tail lamp.
The next step was to walk behind all the cars slapping the lamp with the palm of your hand. Those with the loose heat shield rattled and were pulled to one side to have the lamp replaced.
We were contacted. An investigation as to the cause was performed. The loose heat shield was found to be at fault. People were taken outside and shot! (not really, but should have been!)
Replacement lamps were sent to the line, then to LR's parts store, then people were despatched to several points around the country to 'slap every Disco' on the arse. Fortunately it was only the right hand lamp!
I was only involved on one day going through a few hundred cars stored at Gaydon. I discovered that to replace the lamp you have to open the back door and to open the back door you need a computer to plug into the car to tell it to let you do so because when the cars leave the factory they are programmed to only allow the driver's door to unlock so they can be driven onto delivery transport and off again to the dealer.
We were borrowing one that belonged to Jaguar and after a 14 hour day walking up and down lines of D3s i was told i had to return the damn thing to a man at Jaguar. Not to leave it at the gate, but deliver it into HIS hands only.
Which was a right pain in the arse, as i had to hang about for 20 minutes waiting for him to come down to the gatehouse.
There was a silver lining though. While sat in the car waiting i sprang wood as a D-Type bawbled past through the factory!
I'm into me old stuff and it was all i could do but not pull over on the way home!!!
