Thread: TD5 Fuel Filter Drain Plug Failure

Originally Posted by greg-g

Discovery 2 TD5 2004
Today I pulled into a rather remote parking lot to find very large trail of diesel behind me.
Inspection showed the water drain plug had broken and fuel was pouring out.

After a bit of head scratching, I removed the filter, extracted the remaining piece of the drain plug and screwed a wood dowel into the hole.
This slowed the leak down enough to allow me to sprint home.
I lost about 30 litres in about 2 km looking at the diesel trail on the way back.

Obviously someone had over tightened the drain plug at some previous service.

Has anyone had any experience with this problem, and is it possible to get a better drain plug.

This model doesn’t have the water sensor.

Thanks

Greg.

Can the drain plug be replaced with a stainless bolt? That is what a few of us have done on the older CAV style filters.

Can't recall if it's an M6 or M8 bolt but one of those, not to long with a gasket will seal it until you decide to spend $80 on a new water sensor (assuming yours has the sensor and not simply a drain plug)

Yep. I've smashed the sensor out before. I now keep a short M10x1.5 bolt in the ashtray for next time.

Originally Posted by Slunnie

Yep. I've smashed the sensor out before. I now keep a short M10x1.5 bolt in the ashtray for next time.

And an M10 Bonded Washer wont go astray either

M6 ... M8 ... M10

I knew it was one of them metric sizes I used! I should have check in the car as I now keep a bolt for that purpose.

Many thanks for your comments
M10 is the correct thread. I still have to find a washer.
That water drain valve is a really poor design. Over tighten, and it will fail sometime and drain the tank in probably about 10 minutes. I was really lucky that it failed about 2 minutes short of our destination

Greg

Thanks Greg
I will be servicing mine soon.Will look at changing over to a stainless bolt.What lenght is needed???
Its always concerned me how open to damage the filter is on the D2 TD5.
Andrew

same thing happened to my wife's disco, fixed it on the spot with the pin from the D shackel on her trailer, and i later made up a bolt for her to carry when it happens next time.