Thread: Well, I've picked it up...(and all is not well)

So, I picked up the Disco from Grays yesterday. (For background, it's a 1995-built, V8 ES manual, with all the usual "fruit" these things came with).
The inside of the Grays auto area (where they store the vehicles they sell) is quite poorly lit - which should have raised alarm bells!

Anyway, while the Grays staffer is filling out the paperwork, I'm (vainly) trying to check oil/coolant etc (both low ), and have a general look at the vehicle. It all looked "OK", although the Driver's sie rear door has a nice dent in it, as does the Driver's side guard...

Fired it up and noticed a bit of tappet noise which went away shortly afterwards, and the V8 settled down to a nice idle. So far, so good. Having signed for the vehicle and settled into to it, I proceeded out of Grays' premises and down to a Service station a km or two down the road to fuel it, and add some coolant and oil. First set of lights and I'm hearing a knock at idle. I'm like "WTF?"

Get to the servo, and I'm filling it up, just looking around the car (as you do), and I notice those small windows in the roof...and the quite obvious rust issues under them (on both sides). Grays' photos didn't show this; Nor did their description mention it. Having since spoken to them, their attitude is "If you don't physically come and inspect the vehicle, stiff sh*t"

Lesson learnt.

So, my questions are these:

1) What do blokes reckon the "knock" might be? Note that it's only heard at idle, and the engine pulls well (as I had occasion to test in re-joining the Hume Fwy at Marulen - first 3 gears at 5,000 or so RPM...I must say, the V8 certainly sounds good when being revved!) It's also (apparently) been serviced for most of it's life at Graeme Cooper Automotive, which (I hope) helps.

2) The rust around those small windows looks pretty severe, although the gutters don't seem to be affected, and there doesn't seem to be much rust elsewhere (that may change when I start pulling bits off to check - I'll keep you guys posted on that score). So, is it worth saving, or should I try and move it on? I should note that it sems to drive well, and most things seem to work!

Thanks in advance.

(PS. Offers of welding assistance/rust repair gratefully accepted. )

Originally Posted by justinc

FWIW I have a customer with a same age SE, they had a knock at idle some years back, after taking the sump off I found fretted main caps and badly worn big end bearings I stuck some Big end shells in and advised them to find another short engine, as repairing the damaged block where the main caps have been moving was hideously expensive...

I managed to source them a cheap 4litre short engine, and that was 4 years ago. (Since then the price of these engines has gone up, so if they wanted to resell it they will not lose out)Their idea was to keep going with it until it got worse and then swap it out. Well, the knock is still there when hot, the oil pressure is still OK, and it has done about 30,oookm since.

Yes it has got a problem, but it is still basically been a reliable and useful vehicle so until it does get worse, they'll persist with it. I should add that it was bought with heaps of accessories etc that make it definately worth keeping . (Hydraulic winch etc etc etc)
The knock could sound worse than it really is, and the alpine windows, well any D1 in this age group can suffer from this complaint, just do as suggested and check the floor under the carpet ASAP.

As for GC or anybody else for that matter, servicing the vehicle, he can't keep it in tip top condition if the customer doesn't A bring it in for routine maintenance, or B doesn't want to spend the money fixing the jobs required to keep it in tip top condition.



JC

The service history is complete until the 190,000km service (car crossed 213,000 on the way back from Sydney). There is a GC service sticker on the window advising that the next service was due at 210,000, so that one might have been missed.

Speaking to the Service Manager at GC yesterday about the knock, his first question was "Is at idle, or under load or...?" When I told him that it was only at idle, he suggested that it may be due to some cam "float", where is can move a little bit at idle (making the knock), but "seats" properly under load, and so the noise disappears. Apparently this was a quite common problem on '94/95 3.9s. I conducted a test earlier today by letting it idle (knocking sound), then slowly increasing the revs - sound goes away. I'm thinking I will book it into GC during December (does anyone know if they shutdown for a period over Xmas?).

As for the rust, I've taken the carpet "sill" off and had a look under there - some very light surface rust, but certainly nothing like the stuff 'round the Alpine windows. (Or like another poster's floor, which looked pretty nasty).

Next step is probably to remove the dickie seats and all the interior panelling, to take a look at what's going on in there...