Take the bloody things off, and you’ll find your trouser legs no longer get mud all over them.

Are you sure the prop bearings are shot? They normally rumble/hum. Remember they are slung in a rubber diaphragm which can resemble bearing play. If you thump the prop with your fist near the bearing and it knocks, they’re shot. General knocking is often the drop links. Also, I’ve had two prop...

Recently bought an 07 Disco 3 TDV6 which seems to have had everything done - belts, oil pump... When it starts up there is a slight rattle/ticking from somewhere near the back of the engine. I’m told there’s a timing chain in there that has a hydraulic tensioner that needs to come up to...

Shout out for the Ctek MXS 5.0 intelligent charger - it gave me another three years out of my Defender battery that would not hold a conventional charge and kept letting me down. The desulphate and recondition/destratification modes made the difference. The opposite of a shout-out for anything...

Those bolts are often RTB - rusted to buggery.

Hold the brake pedal down while you start the engine - the vacuum boost should cause the pedal to creep down.

Many a battery has been replaced unnecessarily ;) Normal battery failure mode is to lose its capacity, but maintain cranking amps. This means it will continue to start the car, but maybe slower and slower until one day, usually a cold morning after a short journey - click-click-click. Before...

:rolleyes: I’m afraid I just went into my local auto parts shop and asked for ‘brake pipe unions’. I was given a little bag of them and went away happy... If you’re using copper pipe, don’t worry too much - the flares conform well as soon as you tighten.

I have this type of flaring tool, and have used it to completely re-pipe two Freelanders, and do odd jobs on other cars, using 3/16 copper pipe. The instructions didn’t mention SAE or DIN, but rather OP1 and OP2 flares. Either way, it works very well. Just remember that copper pipe shouldn’t...

At least with your hippo you know what jobs have been done, and that further work is unlikely to be as costly as something like a Disco 3. Say you put in a genuine fuel pump - that will likely be it for the rest of the car’s life. Another car will mean starting again with all the jobs that...

Preferably with the odd jobs, eg belts, handbrake, oil pump done. HSE would be nice. Not had one before. Mileage no more than 150-160,000 if poss Otherwise fairly flexible. Cheers

Holy nitpicking, Batman! 100 micron difference. Shove ‘em in and get on with your day ;)

I’ve done that a few times with tractor PTO shafts. If the needles are dropping out, isn’t that a sign that there’s not enough grease?

That’s pretty much the story of my HP leak. I bought the car with a very recent MOT. Had a good look round after a longish test drive - no signs of a leak. Next morning, took it in the workshop and fuel was dripping from the HP with the engine cold. The leak would stop within about 10-15 mins...

My HP pump would leak when cold, but not when warm, which is very common. So it could depend on how far it is to your MOT station. I’ve also known good, honest mechanics tell me they’ve overquoted for things because they didn’t want the job.

No, just commuting!

Keep the receipt. This was my £40 back box after 18 months...

I think the prime sequence is just timed rather than reaching a pressure threshold. If the low pressure sensor doesn’t see enough pressure, the HP pump will be shut down to preserve it. An OBD scanner might be useful here, but try some easystart. If it fires and keeps running, could be a leaky...

Having got the gearbox free, there wouldn’t be many more things to undo to drop the whole engine/transmission out of the bottom. You would drop the unit onto a pallet, raise the body, then slide everything out. Much easier to get at the gearbox and other things then. I might do this next time...

^^ Yes, I wouldn’t suggest a Freelander as your first clutch job. It has the worst of both worlds - a transverse engine like a FWD to limit space, and the extra hassle of the 4WD bits. But then again, I gained the ‘expertise’ to do clutches by... doing clutches. As for infrastructure, a jack...