Should there be a bolt in here?

[bell1975]

Evening all.

I am new to the LR family having just bought a 99 Disco 2 Td5.
As you do when you get something new you want to open it up and see how it works, make it as shiny as you can, etc.

Well, I crawled underneath the Disco this arvo with a few rags and a bottle of degreaser...and started to clean up a few years' worth of crud and gunge.

I spotted a 'hole' in the casing of the gearbox (Auto). And it happens to have a thread inside it. There is also some 'stuff'/metal bits visible inside too.

I'm guessing that there should be a quantity of oil/fluid between the 'stuff' I can see and the casing, held in by a bolt. Yes, the gearbox did have an amount of oil/gunge buildup on it before I cleaned it up.

At the time I thought that the hole was fairly obvious, and that it should have been picked up by the LR mechanics that had just done $1500 worth of other work on the vehicle. But, when it was on the hoist they wouldn't have been 5cms away from the gearbox as I was wedged under there this afternoon.

Anyway, thoughts please on what the go is with this. Am I up for a bolt and some new ATF or is it nothing to be worried about (scrape some crud back over the hole...)?

Thanks in advance folks.

[Rosscoe68]

nothing to be concerned about . the gurus will be along shortly to talk about wading holes and plugs etc, but no concern about you missing anything there.
:)

[Blknight.aus]

you can fit a wading plug to help seal up the bell housing, Its nothing to worry about though. of all the ones Ive worked on/with itsa mixed bag of its open, its got an ally plug in it a bolt or a plastic bung.

[Toppa]

I had the exact same heart attack just after I bought mine sept last year. The boys here were good enough to put my mind at ease - wading plug hole is all.:)

[alien]

As others have said you can fit a bung/bolt to the hole for wadding.
Wadding is the Land Rover term for playing in water;)
The hole serves 3 purposes;-
1st it allows a little air to move around inside the bell housing.
2nd it allows any oil(if it leaks past the seals) to escape(even if it's not at the bottom).
3rd it's used for holding the crank shaft when setting the cam timing(when the heads been off).

[Sharkee]

Curious? What happens if you play in the water without a plug in , does it do damage/suck water in?

[Rosscoe68]

wont really suck water in as such, but it would allow water and muck/mud to get to the gearbox seal and rear main seal, where if there was a wade plug in it would stop access to those seals.

[bell1975]

nothing to be concerned about . the gurus will be along shortly to talk about wading holes and plugs etc, but no concern about you missing anything there.
:)


you can fit a wading plug to help seal up the bell housing, Its nothing to worry about though. of all the ones Ive worked on/with itsa mixed bag of its open, its got an ally plug in it a bolt or a plastic bung.


I had the exact same heart attack just after I bought mine sept last year. The boys here were good enough to put my mind at ease - wading plug hole is all.:)


As others have said you can fit a bung/bolt to the hole for wadding.
Wadding is the Land Rover term for playing in water;)
The hole serves 3 purposes;-
1st it allows a little air to move around inside the bell housing.
2nd it allows any oil(if it leaks past the seals) to escape(even if it's not at the bottom).
3rd it's used for holding the crank shaft when setting the cam timing(when the heads been off).

Thanks for following up fellas - I didn't really want to have to start a conversation with my wife along the lines of "You'll never guess what I found underneath the Disco yesterday..."

Thanks again. I'll get back to drawing up my wish list of mods and extras now.

[Sharkee]

Thanks Rosscoe

[justinc]

Thats actually the hole to fit the crank locking pin tool for timing purposes.

JC