Thread: What happened to your Discovery 2 today?

Had a good couple of days in Barrington Tops with a couple of mates, absolutely cracking weather.
Pretty muddy and lots of fun, even though I busted something!

Climbing a short greasy hill with a deep rut, fair bit of wheel spin and there was a loud bang and I busted something in the ds front drive - half shaft or cv I think.
Reversed back down freewheeling and she was making some nasty noises; it was getting late so I pulled the front drive shaft out & left diff lock on and drove back to camp as a 2wd.

Drove home yesterday, picked up a 2nd hand rear bar and winch bar in Raymond Tce area in the trailer and got home after dark but she sat on 120 most of the way, no issues.

Busy day w family and a friends 40th today but will have to get the 32mm socket out tomorrow and assess damage.

Originally Posted by Slunnie

Youve got to be kidding. You can understand it when playing offroad, but the Ring Road was very unlucky! I hope there isn't too much to clean out.

To be fair to the car, it has sat for a long time. I changed the oils in the diffs and TC, and I didn't see any issues, but I guess the top parts of the bearings, i.e. the bits that weren't submerged, could have suffered some rust or something. Car has done around 340,000. Anyway, I guess I'm pulling it out Not how I'd expected life to be like at 70

EDIT: If I'm correct I guess I should pull the back one as well, for inspection. Bloody. thing has only been registered for three weeks.🤣

I took the head off (again) the Td5 on Friday still chasing the internal water leak and this time found signs of water seepage around number 1, also found No. 1 has a bent conrod (sits half mil below deck while other 4 are proud) .

The head I had on had being refaced and came with the cam and injector rocker gear I bought to replace the badly pitted stuff I discovered not long after I obtained the vehicle, not sure if the refacing had stuffed it but have been meaning to swap it over for a few months now to eliminate it as a cause.

So last night I swapped the cam over to the old head that came with the car and torqued it down (no water loss when I had that head on) . As I need to source another donk anyway due to high mileage and worn bores, and because I can't help myself and have a need to experiment, I actually sprayed the head gasket with copper spray, and used greentops combined with disco 1 injector washers and later rockers from head that greentops came from.

Due to being unhappy with the way the aftermarket head bolts seem to torque up I also re used the OEM marked head bolts that the vehicle came with, immediately I noticed a difference as they got far more progressively tighter at each stage compared to the 2 sets of previous new bolts, both previous sets were name brand but can't remember which what but one is sold in repco.

So this mornings job is to finish up by setting the injector clearance, plugging in the cabling, hoses back on and topping up the radiator and other re assembly doodads, then hope it runs, without bleeding the fuel rail of air causing me too much angst.

3 years on still waiting for very audible whining front diff to give out after the metallic slurry I drained out of it when I went through and changed all fluids when I obtained it.

Currently doing a mig and tig welding course so I can build bits for it.

Climbing a short greasy hill with a deep rut, fair bit of wheel spin and there was a loud bang and I busted something in the ds front drive - half shaft or cv I think.

The most common thing to happen is that the planetary gears in the diff seized on the shaft and the shaft falls out which usually elongates the holes and maybe spits out through the diff housing.

Very common if one front or rear wheel spins even a small bit

Regards PhilipA.

A couple of days ago I blew out the exhaust manifold gasket. What a horrible noise that made. Sounded like a cross between an air compressor at knock off time and a machine gun. Bit the bullet today and took the manifold off (what a pain in the proverbial that is). The gasket had gone missing at number one exhaust port. Used my wife's car (1997 Subaru liberty) and went and got a new gasket kit complete with a new turbo-gasket and new studs and nuts. A few therapeutic hours was spent getting the manifold off and the studs replaced and giving the manifold and head a good clean up. Then came the big test - was it warped. As luck would have it it was as flat as flat can be. Whew....
Put it all back together and took it for a drive and "pop" the little short turbo outlet hose popped off. Really should have tightened the hose clamps...
I've probably used up my luck quota for a few years...

Originally Posted by PhilipA

The most common thing to happen is that the planetary gears in the diff seized on the shaft and the shaft falls out which usually elongates the holes and maybe spits out through the diff housing.

Very common if one front or rear wheel spins even a small bit

Regards PhilipA.

Gday Philip

I was up to the ARB test track in lower Wattagans a couple of weeks ago and spun wheels quite a lot with opposing wheels in the air, with no issues - this time though I only had my ds front just unweighted with some wheel spin and bang!

Is wheelspin something to be avoided in Discos?!

I’ve had 4 Defenders over the years and driven them the same; I’m not a lair with my accelerator foot to the floor all the time.
I lugged a pair of axles and a stub around all over the wide brown land in them and never broke one ( I did come close a few times with worn splines causing backlash but always got to them in time)

This is my first Disco and she feels pretty tight driveline wise.

I haven’t had a chance to pull it apart to diagnose yet as my wife’s Subaru is in the local mechanic shop and we need one serviceable car.

Originally Posted by Colmoore

Is wheelspin something to be avoided in Discos?!

Sort of OT and unrelated to front or rear diffs, but yes if the CDL isn't engaged. Dave Ashcroft says its the most common cause of failure of the centre diff.

Unboxed the new nanocom and gave it a whirl in the D2



Changed some door lock settings and immobiliser settings that were annoying me and then took it for a spin to test and log.
Coolant temps higher than I expected at 97 while cruising but all seems pretty good.