Thread: What did you do with or to your Disco today

On the way back from Canberra the alternator light came on. When the back of the alternator was given a light tap the light would stay off for awhile. Removed the alternator and found that the regulator/ brushes are cactus. I had already ordered a replacement regulator/ brushes unit. I found that the area that one of the brushes has run on has worn a groove. So I packed the regulator/brushes unit up with some washers so that the brushes now run in a new section of shaft. This fix will do till the new regulator/brushes arrive ...hopefully
Cheers Hall

i loaded my kyak on the roof and some fishing gear on the back seat and went for a fish for a few hours



but last week i did the valve clearancesfor the second time(it would seem some of the lock nuts didnt get tightened quite tight enough and slowly went back out of wack but i made sure i tightened em all properly this time)
hit alot of areas with degreaser to try and find more oil leak sources again, i also removed my boost guage pickup ect so i would stop freaking out with the guage not actually reading boost properly and also makes it feel like it was delayed making any boost actually so iul need to go over those hoses and joins and see if something is amis or the sensor for the boost guage is just acting up or if the guage itself is acting up i have a mechanical guage to help trouble shoot so il get it sorted one day or replace that setup with something better quality later on lol


i really do need to locate someone wrecking a 300tdi in dark blue rather soon tho i need a few things hahaha(the closer to southeast brisbane the better

Originally Posted by Robmacca

Just throwing this out there......

Has any Disco-1 owner swapped their 1.2 ratio Transfer Case over to a Defender 1.4 ratio Transfer Case at all? With running the larger 235/85 tyres, I would have thought this would be a good solution to bring back to almost standard gearing?

Mine (200tdi manual) has a 1.4 high, but with maxi drive low ratio gears. Currently run 265/70 tyres and definitely revs to hard at 100. Undecided as to go 265/75 (or 235/85) or 285/75 tyres to correct it.

Took the TDi for another run last week. This time I drove and camped on the Holland Track, Cave Hill wood lines tracks, and the WA old telegraph track.



The Holland track was mostly dry and no problem for the Disco. But you really are in the middle of nowhere so a reliable vehicle is everything. The only other prerequisite at this time of year is a fair bit of ground clearance/flex as you often have deep ruts to cross etc.





In some places the chicken tracks used to drive around bog holes had another one or two chicken tracks around them! The Disco is so comfortable offroading we did the track in good time whilst also stopping and exploring most of the sights to see.

Also drove and camped the Cave Hill woodlines tracks south of Coolgardie. The track follows the old railway line mostly and many times you drive on the actual old railway embankment. These tracks are not as well travelled as others, and have lots of fallen trees etc that often need to be cleared - instead of lazily just driving off the track around them. Less chance of a stake in the sidewall too!





Then I drove and camped out on the WA old telegraph track which runs from south of Norseman out to Balladonia on the Eyre Highway.





Clocked up another 2000+ kms on the TDi.
Dust, corrugations, ruts, rocks, the odd patch of slippery mud, hills and highways - she never misses a beat. It's always fun to drive out of these tracks in a 20 year old Disco and see the looks on passers by who drive flash new four wheel drives that will never go half of the places my old landy has been.

Now for some more maintenance on her... yay!

Finally got off my lazy @ $ $ and changed the coolant hoses with the 'silly con' hose set I purchased about 2 years ago!
Have had it in mind to do for a long time, but one thing has always lead to another and I'd usually found a good reason to delay it again.

Last summer I tried out the Cost Effective Maintenance coolant flush/additive product they sell, to help clean out the cooling system a bit.
Gave it first try for a day, drained it done it again but left it in as is to help clean it up for as long as possible.
So I've been running with water and their coolant treatment(RMI-25) only for the past few months, that is no coolant additive other than CEM's RMI-25(and water obviously!).

Seems to have done a good job of removing/loosening scale/rust.
On the first try I ran for a day or so, the fresh water I was running for a short while was drained, engine flushed(garden hose) and checked for how clean it was.
Sorry didn't take photos .. too busy doing the work, but the water I was running was clean as it flushed out the the various pipes I removed.
A day with the RMI-25, flushing again produced brown mucky water, less so from engine, more so from radiator.
Looked like it was doing what it says it was supposed too.
So I then filled with water only again, and just the amount of this RMI-25 that CEM recommends for the 11 Lt, or so, that the 300 tdi takes. I think it was about 100ml, I may have added about 120-150ml.

It was on this next run with 'clean water' and additive that produced what can only be described as rust vapour buildup in the reservoir bottle.
Prior to this second run with the RMI-25, the coolant reservoir was clean inside, but after a few days with the additive, a film of what's best be described as rusty buildup had formed above the waterline in the reservoir.
it was soft, and it smeared like grease when touched, but it was definitely a rusty looking goop, but not hard like rust pieces or flakes.

So coolant bottle also came off and I tried in vain to clean it out best I could(tried rice, degreaser, washing powder, etc.. ) only way to remove it from the upper half of the inside was to stuff a rag in there and twist it to wipe it all out.
Came out pretty clean too .. clean enough, anyhow.

One monumental stuff up later tho: I blocked the main inlet pipe on the waterpump with a silicon stopper to flush out engine/heater core/etc, and on trying to remove the stopper(like a large plug), I accidentally pushed it all the way in!
Trying to get a knife in there to pull it out, I only managed to push it further to the point of no return!
In the end the only way to get it out now was to remove the waterpump!
Even tho it turned an easy job into a needlessly more difficult one, I was glad I did remove the waterpump, as more of that goopy soft rust had deposited on the waterpump vanes too. No rust or build up anywhere else inside the water galleries that I could feel.

Only other places that this soft goopy rusty buildup occurred was at the end of each pipe connection for each hose .. right at the tips of each pipe. It all just wiped off clean, but it was weird to see all the pipes with that buildup on them too.

Topped up with standard coolant stuff for now tho. I only used the CEM additive to clean out any possible buildup, and the more I've looked into it, the more I'm convinced it's worked as they say it does.

I really had to replace the large main coolant hose as there is some delamination on the arms that come off and go towards the reservoir and heater pipe, and hence why I got a set of silicon hoses with the metal junctions on the main inlet hose!
Also, one of the heater pipes had been rubbing on the corner of the head for a while(before I bought the car) and was a dead cert to fail.
I'd placed a bit of heat proof foam between it and the head a long time back to stop it rubbing, and having had in my hand now the wear mark is pretty much paper thin! ... should have changed it 2 years ago!(got away with it, but my bad!)

Those areas you went to in the post above look really interesting. D1s are great.

A while back I started feeling some vibration through my feet when driving my D1. Got under it and gave the Front shaft a bit wiggle test and noticed a small amount of movement side-to-side, so I made the effort to remove the front driveshaft which wasn't a straight forward process due to what looked like some burred nuts. Eventually got all the nuts off and removed the shaft to find that other UJ had a small amount of movement so I'm in the process to order some UJ's to fit to my front shaft which will hopefully cure the vibrations....

Finished making and fitted some heavy duty steering rods and made some brackets to fit a Defender steering damper to the drag link. Also found all the nuts holding the front shock towers were loose.

Looks like i'm due for some front front uni's too, only one spare here so that may be a next weekend job......