Thread: Need loads of left hand down going up sandy track.

Hi
Just back from Straddie, had a great time. My 1994 Disco series 1 V8 automatic is slowly being brought back to good working order after what looks like several years of being ignored. A couple of problems remain.
The cooling system is still giving a slight worry since it is losing a bit of water every 100k or so, head checked and appears ok, no sign of water in oil etc. I am going to get a full replacement set of hoses anyway which will hopefully cure it and give me some spares for my planned 2 month trip up North.
However as mentioned, when climbing up soft deepish sand to Tripod lookout on Straddie I found I had to keep the steering wheel at least half turn to the left and sometimes almost a full turn just to go straight! everything else seemed ok. It did this whether I had the diff lock on or off. I have got a brand new set of Yoko Geolander AT/S's btw.
Any thoughts on where to start looking?
Sandy.

I would inspect the suspension bushes on both axles and the panhard rod bushes. By "inspect" I mean lever each bush with a screwdriver to ascertain whether the bush has delaminated from its centre tube. Wher the bush moves sideways, and you can see that the rubber is moving on the centre tube, you should remove the bolt from the offending bush and pull the suspension component out for inspection.
Sometimes this can be caused by the top bushes on the rear A Arm, where the arms go onto the chassis cross member.
Another cause can be the bushes under the front axle on the leadng arms, or the panhard rod bushes , but if they are that bad then you would probably have the shimmies.
This is heavy dirty work with BIG spanners and lots of muscle and lifting and pushing and pulling , so if you are not really keen , it may be best to book it in to a specialist .
Regards Philip A