Thread: Buying a td5 disco

Originally Posted by JoshV12345

Thanks for all the replies, I'm definitely swaying more towards a disco now. Have been looking at other cars mainly 80 or 105 series but they seem to be double the price and double the amount of k's on them, or even any of the dual cab ute options but then you get worse ride and independent front.

The disco is very capable and probably the best bang for buck.

How does the ecu/auto ecu do with water crossings? I'd definitely be doing the top end of aus such as pascoe river and nolans crossing, do they have issues of water stopping them, they don't seem very protected or high where they are.

most of them are oil filled. mine is.

they do have good gaskets / seals on the plugs. carry a spare ECU just in case though

Originally Posted by JoshV12345

Thanks for all the replies, I'm definitely swaying more towards a disco now. Have been looking at other cars mainly 80 or 105 series but they seem to be double the price and double the amount of k's on them, or even any of the dual cab ute options but then you get worse ride and independent front.

The disco is very capable and probably the best bang for buck.

How does the ecu/auto ecu do with water crossings? I'd definitely be doing the top end of aus such as pascoe river and nolans crossing, do they have issues of water stopping them, they don't seem very protected or high where they are.

I got back from Cape York just over a week ago. Did the old telephone track and went through Nolan's with no problems at all. But I did have my old ecu with me just in case.

The auto ecu is most vulnerable under the passenger seat but IMHO if you are stopped in water to that depth then you have more problems .
you can relocate it up in the back or side of the console as I believe there is enough cable.
the engine ecu is quite high in the engine bay.
of course a snorkel is necessary both from water entry and dust as stock pulls from lh guard.
regards PhilipA
ps if there is a dvd stacker it sits on top of the trans ecu.

Originally Posted by PhilipA

The auto ecu is most vulnerable under the passenger seat but IMHO if you are stopped in water to that depth then you have more problems .
you can relocate it up in the back or side of the console as I believe there is enough cable.
the engine ecu is quite high in the engine bay.
of course a snorkel is necessary both from water entry and dust as stock pulls from lh guard.
regards PhilipA
ps if there is a dvd stacker it sits on top of the trans ecu.

Will a drowned BCU stop a TD5?

I do not know. I think it would go into limp home and only have2 nd gear available.
I once read a long time ago that the car refused to move after a dunk but I do not remember the details.
regards PhilipA
maybe someone else knows

Originally Posted by JoshV12345

....

How does the ecu/auto ecu do with water crossings? I'd definitely be doing the top end of aus such as pascoe river and nolans crossing, do they have issues of water stopping them, they don't seem very protected or high where they are.

Originally Posted by Discosux

Will a drowned BCU stop a TD5?

No direct experience, but auto ECU should be fine .. not so sure about BCU tho.
My experience with this issue comes from the brothers TD5.

It had some weird stuff about it. Bro bought it 'modded' to high heaven by previous owners(??), but idiots had no real idea about how to achieve it. But it didn't stop them from trying hard.
Many clues pointed to a point in time previously where they(POs), must have drowned the TD5. BCU wasn't in sync with ECU nor actual VIN on the body .. all had different VIN numbers!(once again, sorry 'bout that Shack ).

Once all the small bits of info came together, the only conclusion was that it had been drowned in silty stuff, all doors had silty build up inside them(I just assumed it was 20+ years of dust) .. and then the ECU anomalies.
Auto ECU tho appears to be original. I recently changed it out for the V8 version(better).

So I assume a drowned auto ECU may hold up fine, no idea how a drowned BCU, will survive .. but expect anomalies at the least.
ECU may also have been changed, as the TD5 is an NNN, so reason to swap it out for mapping(which had also been done) .. but the point that it had a different VIN to the body VIN suggest it was changed too.

I might try unplugging the BCU to find out how it goes. I've already disabled all the immobiliser and alarm settings.

Last thing I want to be carrying around when remote is a spare BCU.

My young bloke bought his D2a about 2 years ago as a first car, was in pretty good shape, very straight with reasonable service history. It did turn out to have several issues that we've (read, me..) have fixed.
Front drive shaft was first to fail, that was replaced with a heavier unit (not a super HD unit but at least greasable uni's)
Then came the general wear and tare items, engine mounts, rotoflex coupling and a few other bits and bobs. The biggest one was it needed a head gasket replacement, the lead up to this nearly made the young bloke sell it (or burn it to the ground..) kept on over heating, split a hose or 2 and generally miss-behaving.

I did some research here and with Google, ended up new head gasket, injector seals, exhaust gasket, modded the exhaust manifold, new studs, tweaked the waste gate and basically reset things. it is now quite a weapon, runs well, uses no coolant, very little oil between changes and just runs very nicely.

Currently he doesn't need a vehicle (living in Perth CBD) so I am driving it around, as I do FIFO it is now clocking up 700km a week back and forth to the airport, showing 325,000 on the clock and due for a service in a few weeks. The next plans will be the gearbox, as it is showing signs of slipping and the trans fluid is showing metal partials (auto) but as others have said, 20 years old, returns about 10.5L/100km day in day out with all the mod cons you really need, I would deffinetly be looking at a D2 again

cheers

Redd