Thread: Td5 Oil Pump Bolt – The Adventure and Public Service Announcement!

Td5 Oil Pump Bolt – The Adventure and Public Service Announcement!

Admins, if this is in the incorrect section please let me know so I can place it in the correct location.

For starters these are the ‘stats’ of my Disco 2 for comparison

• 2001 Discovery 2 (10P) Td5 Auto
• 320 000km young
• Never missed a beat!

I am by no means a mechanic nor is it close to my day job but I am not too bad on the spanners; so I believe it could be done in a much shorter time by people who are more fluent with spanners and all thing mechanical.

It was time. Yesterday I decided it was the day to see if I could concur the infamous oil pump bolt or if it was going to concur me…

I decided to get this job off the to-do list as it has been something that I had been meaning to do and plus it was time for a service so it was a good time.

So let’s begin. The oil drain was relatively mess free for once… The front cross member came off easily, the rotary oil filter sump gasket removal was easy too and so was the jacking up of the car using the bullbar winch cradle.

Now, to removing the four bolts in the bell housing that connect to the sump. Well, I had three bolts which I thought was interesting but more on the ‘repair’ later. Now these bolts are meant to be at 13Nm I think from memory – well after a failed attempt with a three-foot breaker bar, it was time to break out the rattle gun. They were tight to say the least.

Now out with the 20 bolts holding the sump in an exact order. The. Exact. Order. - otherwise things will go catastrophically wrong or so I have been led to believe. No big deal with that – a stickie note stuck up on the driver side chassis rail for quick reference and a piece of cardboard to stick the bolts in so I know which bolt came from where – as they were different lengths.

After I removed the last bolt and lowered the sump carefully I was being hung up. The beautiful ACE pipe that runs to the rear I believe – some careful giggling was required to massage it in a direction that would not hinder any further progress. And so too was the coolant cross-over pipe. A quick massage and again we were moving forward figuratively speaking.

The original idea was to completely remove the sump to inspect and clean it but that course of action was changed because I was fighting a losing battle with the steering arm, front diff and exhaust pipe. Anyways, I got it into a position where I could work with the oil pump bolt.

Ah the oil pump bolt. I was pleased to see it was still in the sprocket but my heart did skip a beat when I put the socket to remove it and it only needed a small twist of the wrist to ‘loosen’ it; so much for the correct tension of 25ish Nm. At this point I was glad I had suffered through everything to get to it because despite the possibility of it remaining there for the next x amount of kilometres, I wasn’t going to take the chance. I would say it was the original bolt because upon inspection there was no sign of the yellow threadlock – so not too bad an innings I would say but still concerning something so small was overlooked and nothing really was done to rectify it. I have been reading of recent that this is unfortunately becoming a common trend on our trucks at this age. Anyway, the new bolt which has yellow threadlock on it was given another small helping of Loctite 243 to help it stay put.

Now the new sump gasket. The old one was removed and was in relatively good shape but to the bin it went. Both mating surfaces were cleaned whist laying quite awkwardly under the mighty Disco and with the front diff and my face being almost on a first name basis.

I aligned the gasket up on the sump which is an interesting exercise whilst working above your head and I used small zip ties to ensure it held its position until I put the bolts. But before I could bolt it up, some instant gooey gasket stuff is required. Of course the tube decided to explode in my hand sending it everywhere. Good. And the places where it is meant to go on the sump mating face is something that would make a three-jointed elbow handy. I am sure most of the owners on here are familiar with Sikaflex and how that stuff sticks like treacle to a blanket. Let’s just say that I would rather use Sikaflex any day over the gooey gasket stuff.

Now the fun part, a race against time before the gooey gasket goes off. Holding the sump above me whilst trying to get a few bolts in to take the weight whilst trying to remove the carefully placed zip ties. A handful would be a relatively accurate description I think. It was at this point where I smashed my knee into something metal underneath and a random bit of oil from somewhere further up made its way into my hair, face and pretty much everywhere else. At this point, I was still ‘living the dream’. Oh, also one must remember that there is an exact install order. Exact. Install. Order. Again, another stickie note on the chassis rail.

Everything else was pretty straightforward with the refit, torquing, removal, regooey gasketing, refit and re-torquing again. See Dot Point 3 below.

Now, back to the issue of the missing bolt from the bellhousing. I found it. Well half of it. It had been snapped off by what I assume was a previous attempt by a previous owner or mechanic. Luckily it was snapped in such a way that all I needed was a flat bladed screwdriver to remove it. What I do have is documentation saying a new transmission was fitted at only 20 000km old back in the day. So I assume and this is a large assumption that when it was being put back together a rattle gun was used to tighten the bolts to a whopping 13Nm but may have misread and ended up at 130Nm or 1300Nm and the head of the bolt found its way quietly into the bin. Remember, a three-foot long breaker couldn’t even budge these bolts… So after a quick trip to the local Bunnings and a compulsory Bunnings sausage I found a suitable replacement bolt.

An M10 x 50mm stainless bolt and M8 stainless washer. Here are the Bunnings fineline lookup numbers for those if they find themselves in a similar situation.

2260636 (bolt)
2430050 (washer)

Never a dull day working on a Disco!

I completed the rest of the grease and oil change service – intercooler removal and flush still pending for a future weekend.

After a 50km test drive under all ‘accelerator conditions’ I am happy to report that there are no leaks. For those reading this and asking… Yes, I did put oil it in. So unless in traditional Land Rover fashion it leaked out immediately, I assume it is still in there somewhere.

So in all, I spent about somewhere in the order of seven hours on my back underneath the Disco as it was fiddly job.

I’m still living the dream!

So to the Public Service Announcement part of proceedings….

Things learnt:

1. It is not a glamorous or particular enjoyable job but I believe it to be necessary – especially as our trucks are getting older and clocking up more kms. Make it a priority if you haven’t done it yet.

1. Holding the sump gasket in place with zip ties is a great idea. Just don’t use them for the rear four holes of the sump because they will be inaccessible when the sump is mounted up – ask me how I know!

1. Bunnings also produces Disco parts in the form of bolts and Loctite 243.

1. The Discovery 2 UK website proved to be a useful resource.

The end…at least for now.
Cheers!

Originally Posted by wrigallaway

whoever installed the bolt the stripped the head of the nut. Not happy! Any suggestions?

I have had very good results with flank-drive sockets, in particular, Metrinch, on bolts/nuts that are almost completely rounded off.

metrinch-socket-1020-x-1020-510x510.jpg