4Bee4Bee said:

Looks like you will be kept nice and busy with the new purchase

The water in the cubby box could be from the rear door seal, which usually seems to be a replacement job. The water marks on the B pillar might go away if you take the hard top off, and then give the seals on both the car and the roof a good clean. Last year I found that grit, dirt, and green mould, on mine was causing problems with the seal. But after taking off, cleaning, and rubbing a rubber conditioner on the seals before putting the roof back on, solved the leaking problem. Don't be alarmed when you look at the seal to see a split at some point on the slope. It is supposed to be there. (fingers crossed it *might* solve the wet cubby box problem too)

Have fun with the new vehicle! - 3 door with the removable roof are great.

Jim

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Joe_H said:

Hi Rob and welcome.
Providing you are sure the brakes are ok and not binding, then and 'tightness' on lock and especially in reverse should condemn the VCU immediately.
Best place to get a VCU is from Bell Engineering - very very well respected. Probably the best recon VCU units in the world.
275 quid with fitted bearings. !
http://www.bellengineering.co.uk
Also, for VCU info -
http://www.bellengineering.co.uk/5.html

You can do the OWUT by all means but without a brake issue the symptoms you have are enough to condemn the VCU. Also, the OWUT only does a static test, whereas the rolling test on lock is dynamic. Many people prefer one or the other. - some do both
As for IRD, if the 'tightness' is as bad as you describe, then there is a good chance that a hell of a lot of strain has been applied to the IRD and even possibly the DIFF.
Unfortunately, it will be difficult to tell until you get a decent vcu.
You could of course remove the pinion input and inspect the crown wheel in the IRD - simple job to do.
Also, if you remove the IRD you can easily remove the end cover and slide out the main dual shaft assembly complete with DIFF and examine most components in situ. Pinion housing and end cover unit are simple to refit.
Also check all the drive shafts and cv joints (inner and outer) - where the D/S - in the UK - drive shaft inner cv enters the IRD can be an issue. (Details are in the Bell guide)
Might be as easy to remove the whole unit and give it a good once over - DO all the work on the engine - check the clutch and check the IRD at the same time ?
My L series had IRD issues when purchased and needed clutch and Cam / HPFP belts - and a LOT of other things .. so out came the complete lump - far easier.

I wish you well.
I dont envy the air freshner 'pollution' - In a vehicle I cannot stand the smell of smoking, Dogs or bloody air fresheners - YUK !

Enjoy, it will keep you off the streets
(literally!)
Joe

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1. Head gasket failure and likely cooked cylinder head - 15/8/16 - Cylinder head confirmed toasted; replacement head with bent valves acquired, currently undergoing rebuild. Now completed along with new cam belt, new water pump and new tensioner, full gasket set replacement and new valve stem seals.
2. Viscous coupling unit failing (now worried about the IRD...) and/or... - 13/8/17 - VCU seems okay, with a 45sec time to complete the OWUT (5kg@1.2m)
3. Seizing handbrake (???) - 27/11/16 - confirmed seized OSR brake: rear brake disassembled and inspected; caked in brake dust and corrosion of back plate. Cleaned up and reassembled - now un-seized! Now need to run the OWUT, but no nasty clunks from the transmission, so fingers crossed the IRD and rear diff are still functioning fine
4. Hardtop seal leak - curiously not leaking at the moment, and no more water in the boot. Not sure why, although the rear window has been re-calibrated following replacement of the battery. Watch this space for more water based fun... See (26) below for update. 01/17 - more water in boot - sprayed seals with silicone spray. Now seems surprisingly water tight See (26) below.
5. Non-functioning reverse lights - 29/8/16 - identified that the reversing switch is FUBAR: new one ordered (Land Rover parts suppliers cheaper than MG Rover ones?). 4/9/16 - Replacement arrived next day, but found to be 1.8mm too long. Raided a spare gearbox for replacement. Now all fixed! - 27/11/16 - Err, no not all fixed. Reverse lights still didn't work. Discovered that the main loom bullet connector was also severely corroded. Cleaned up, normal working service restored. Happy days!
6. Interior is hairy and stinks ("air fresheners"?!?) - it's like the fall out from biological and chemical warfare! - 22 and 29/8/16 - multiple attempts to vacuum and clean interior, leaving windows open in vain hope that the malodorous stench eventually receeds... So far, most effective product is Fabresse Soft Furnishing de-odouriser. 15/1/17 - Interior still smells of cheap air fresheners. Jeepers, how long does it take for this stench to go away?!? Not quite as bad as it was, but honestly... 05/06/17 - Yes, the interior still smells of nasty Halfrauds "air freshener"... grr! 04/12/18 - The "Au de Halfrauds" still lingers - if anyone has any suggestions on how to finally rid the car of the odour, please do let me know (so long as it doesn't involve a more powerful airfreshener!)
7. Windscreen wiper blades disintegrating - 22/8/16 - Replaced with new Bosch items from Halfrauds
8. Washer jets very slow (suspect gunked up reservoir tank: which idiot hid it behind the bumper?!?) - 16/12/16 - seems to be better now after a bit of use, but now noticed that the rear screen wash isn't working? I'm sure it did before... further investigation needed. 15/1/17 - Refreshed washer tank with 4 litres of fresh screen mix. Surprisingly, the rear wash has now come back to play! Happy days
9. ABS, TC and HDC warning lights now permanently on (hello to the three amigos!) - 15/8/16 - Spoke to Phil at pscan.eu - he'll come over when back from hols (and I've finished rebuilding the engine) and get his diagnostic kit on the thing to work out what's gone wrong! 19/12/16 - the three amigos disappeared in time for the MoT, thankfully. But they've come back after the car's first road trip in my ownership. The TC seemed quick to come on, and the ABS seemed premature - and drives nicer with the system off in "fail-safe". Wheel speed sensor? 14/01/17 - Now had the car on Philip's T4. Non-functioning longitudinal accelerometer and an erratic signal from the right front wheel speed sensor. Not sure whether erratic speed signal is a sensor problem or a cracked reluctor ring: will need to take things apart to find out! 04/06/17 - After much phaff, the OSF ABS sensor broke when trying to remove it. That led to me having to remove the hub and hammering it out using a 3/4" extension. Replaced with eBay special and the "three amigos" have been extinguished. Still to replace the Yaw sensor... 6/8/2017 - replaced the Yaw/G-sensor, calibrated it on T4, and all seems to be well in the world: the three amigos are now obediently going away once the engine is running. Yay 01/12/18 - damp in the OSF connector causes Amigo's return. Now hopefully cured by smothering connector terminals with Vaseline.
10. Aerial broken: can't receive radio 4 (disaster!) - 29/8/16 - Replaced with a spare MGF one - it's short, so not sure what the radio reception will be like with it. But the radio is a DAB unit, and has it's own aerial on the windscreen anyway? Update 29/12/17 - signal from both DAB and FM is pretty poor. Oh well, at least I have got the hands-free working (which works surprisingly well) and the CD is fine. Plus I can blue-tooth audio connect. Who needs a radio anyway? Feb 2018 - accidentally broke aerial base when jet washing the car: replacement acquired - awaiting an opportune moment to drop the headlining to replace!
11. Rust behind tail gate handle - taking the ostrich position on this one until other problems sorted, but thinking of cutting out bad metal and brazing in new... Painted area in rust preventer for now - but really needs for me to take the handle off and repair properly: ?braise in some fresh steel and paint?
12. Interior clock works, but neither the minute nor hour setting buttons work. Repairable? Surround trim also broken, but sort of stays in place. - 29/11/16: replaced broken illumination bulb with WQ13 12V filament bulb from Maplins - £1.49 and job done. Clock taken apart. Minute/hour adjustment switch contacts cleaned, but still no joy. More investigations required. Searching on ebay for a reasonably priced replacement clock surround. Note to self - might try and take carbon rubber buttons from PCB of a spare MG ZR clock to see whether I can get it to work with these... 8/1/17 - discovered that despite the similarity in design, the ZR clock is Pektron and the LR one is Lucas. Rubber buttons are not interchangeable. Worse, even shorting the button pads with copper wires doesn't work. Can't quite work out the fault: PCB tracks are all fine as far as I can see and test. Good news: the clock keeps time - I can live with it being an hour slow during the sunny months - 25/03/2018 - Weirdly, the clock adjusters now work: my Son kindly just lent over and adjusted when the clocks went forward today. Happy days!
13. Rear ash tray trim cover fallen off. Hopefully able to glue it back on? - 4/9/2016 - gorilla glued original facing back on, but ideally the rear ash tray could do with replacing... FAIL. The rear ashtray looked a mess, and wouldn't open. Decided to bite the bullet and buy a new replacement OE assembly from eBay (£15). 27/11/16 - replaced and it looks much, much better. And it works properly too.
14. Rear back rest does not release to fold flat: near side mechanism appears to have failed? - 11/09/16 - identified that cable end has slipped out of handle. Cable still works, but attempt to reunite cable with handle failed, so will attempt again at a later date! - 01/12/18 - ahem - still bust! I haven't bothered to fix this yet, and have a small pair of pliers to pull on cable when I need to drop the rear seats... I know, that's a bodge!
15. Corrosion on high level brake light/ rear wheel carrier. - 02/10/16 - removed wheel carrier, cleaned, primed and re-painted in satin black smoothrite. Looks much nicer now
16. Passenger face level air vent has a missing adjuster knob. Not the end of the world, but could do with replacing. Can't remember when I fixed this - some time in 2017 I think - I popped the vent out, disassembled and then reassembled it, and it's now as good as new!
17. Gear lever gaiter split. Eying up replacement on the bay of fleas.
18. Rubbish, cheap Chinese light commercial vehicle tyres fitted by PO (doubtless a penny-pinching attempt to get through its last MoT). Plenty of tread, but won't be much cop off the tarmac. Looking to buy a set of Yoko Geolanders (215/65R16) - may be on a set of 16x7" Tuff Torque Modular steel wheels... hmmm [The slide into the darkside starts here!] - 8/1/17 - after much prevarication on my part, Geolander AT-S tyres ordered and fitted to the original 16" Triple Sport rims on the car: I wasn't too happy about wheels (i.e. Tuff Torque Modulars) that aren't hub centric. 15/1/17 - new tyres proven excellent on green roads and through mud!!!
19. Near side rear brake light not working - 27/11/16 - after much messing around with fuses and checking of wiring diagrams, eventually figured out that at the problem was with the bulb holder: a contact just needed tweaking to come into contact with the electrodes on the bulb itself. Now fixed!
20. Book for MoT - 30/11/16 - day of reckoning booked: 5pm 5th December... fingers crossed!!! 5/12/16 - failed on NSF ARB drop link. Replaced on 10/12/16: passed MoT 13/12/16 - yay! Happy days. 30/11/18 - another MoT passed: no significant advisories
21. Undertray is looking worse for wear after some muppet cut a flap in it to make for lazy oil changes, and has lost the fixings for the plastic insert and replaced these with cable ties. Everything also covered in rancid oil. Not yet sure what to do about it... fix/repair or re-skin in alloy plate for better protection off road/ green-laning? - 8/1/17 - re-affixed the plastic undertray to sump guard with new stainless bolts and nyloc nuts. 15/1/17 - plastic undertray ripped off when green laning over Salisbury Plain. Grrr. Plastic brackets ripped off - I presume that these are sacrificial, but it has meant that rather more water than is desirable got into engine bay. Now thinking about replacing with an alloy plate replacement. Have now fashioned a lightweight alloy replacement in 2mm alloy. Should be adequate for the light green laning I have planned for the Hippo Feb 2018 - alloy better than plastic, but took quite a pummeling. Ideally wants to be 3 or 4mm thick I think - or better, raise the suspension!
22. Change the oil in the IRD
23. Perform OWUT to determine current health of the VCU - 13/8/2017 - as mentioned above - 45 seconds using 5kg@1.2m, so should be okay for another year yet
24. Noticed that the NS door mirror heater isn't working. Not sure why - driver's (OS) seems fine.
25. Bearing type noise - difficult to figure where it is coming from: ?VCU support bearing? Dec 2018 - still ignoring this; doesn't seem to be getting any worse. Will observe and perhaps plan replacement in the warmer weather.
26. Water getting into the luggage compartment past the rear door seal on the hinged side (damp carpet tell-tale). Might see whether the rubber can be re-vitalised... 8/1/17 - I think I've found the problem: a split in a part of the weather seal around the rear window. I've sprayed the rubber in silicone spray, which has certainly helped stop water ingress for now, but may need a small rubber repair to resolve.
27. Developed knock from OSF suspension. MoT man had noted that lower wishbones had corroded and may need replacement in near future. Looking at the lower wishbone ball joint, rubber seal had split: needs replacement! 04/01/17 - completed replacement of lower wishbone and ball joint. Impossible to remove the old rear bush and housing from the wishbone - rusted solid inside the bush insert. Replaced with pattern parts. Now replaced, and knock has gone! 9/8/2017 - went to get the tracking done: man at tracking centre said that the adjusters and retaining screws were all seized. Decided to replace the steering arms and track rod end/ball joints. Used TrackAce to set tracking - which seems to have worked really well With rack centred, the steering wheel is not at straightahead - will need to remove and put back into correct position. March 2018 - knock as re-appeared. Bearmach drop links are already worn: either faulty or poor quality. Have replaced with OEM Delphi items - hopefully these will last longer!
28. NSF brake caliper seized in March/April. OSF caliper piston seal found to have split. Both calipers replaced with new.

rob_bell said:

Hi Joe, thanks - great post and extremely helpful.

I have no experience (yet?) with the IRD: are there some on-line guides for what you've just mentioned? I'll just go looking for some now.

On a positive note, it doesn't appear that the previous owner was a smoker... (!)

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Joe_H said:

Hi Rob, also, if you haven't got them - get the RAVE land rover service manuals !
For your model - you are best with both the early and later versions of rave (there is one for <2000 and another for >2000, however, for things like th IRD etc there is often more data in one or the other so worth checking. Things like the IRD are the same for all models and years apart from the V6.
Here is a link to my google drive to get both versions. (I will keep it active for a week or so)
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzkFpJClXDWlNXJnX3hhUDlJM3M
both run happily on win 64, however, the original rave will uses it's own early version of acrobat - no worries - it will co-exist. It may also come up with an error on startup but this fine.
Another useful thing to have is the Microcat parts catalogue - you can enter your vin and get all the parts details, numbers and exploded diagrams. Very useful.
If you want that let me know. The thing with that is that it needs Win 32 - NOT 64. If you are familiar with setting up a virtual machine using Virtual box or similar then you can run a 32bit VM on 64 bit windows and run Microcat.
Hope that helps.
Joe

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rob_bell said:

Thanks once again Joe! I'll see how I get on. As it happens, I still have a PC at home running Win98, so I suspect that I'll be fine with these

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rob_bell said:

Ah. They're selling a service? Okay... (GULP)

So what I think we're saying (correct me if I am wrong), is that if I have the prop shaft off to change the VCU, I might as well unbolt the pinion to inspect the crown and pinion gears and the oil? Assuming that the oil hasn't assumed a metallic hue (like the example in that video) and the teeth on those gears are okay, chances are the VCU hasn't yet killed the IRD?

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rob_bell said:

PS I was amused to see an advert for the new Merc C-class on the telly the other night. Only £299 per month apparently. In three months, that would buy my car, a head gasket repair and a VCU. Add another month and a half for the worst case scenario of a replacement IRD! I know which I'd prefer.

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GrumpyGel said:

The first thing to remove on the IRD is the fill plug - be careful it is made of a very soft cheese.

Nice write up

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4Bee4Bee said:

And that would be after putting down a hefty deposit, no doubt.
Also, have you seen inside a Merc recently. They all seem to have a really crappy plastic looking tablet thing shoved in the middle of the dash that looks totally out of place.

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rob_bell said:

PS I was amused to see an advert for the new Merc C-class on the telly the other night. Only £299 per month apparently. In three months, that would buy my car, a head gasket repair and a VCU. Add another month and a half for the worst case scenario of a replacement IRD! I know which I'd prefer.

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4Bee4Bee said:

And that would be after putting down a hefty deposit, no doubt.
Also, have you seen inside a Merc recently. They all seem to have a really crappy plastic looking tablet thing shoved in the middle of the dash that looks totally out of place.

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rob_bell said:

Difficult to describe a modern Merc without being rude... They're much too bling for my taste. And yup, there is deposit, insurance - and I would imagine that that £299 is only to lease the car for a couple of years, after which you own nothing at all. Bargain.

I'm old fashioned. I quite like owning what I drive.

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