Clean and polish, and clean!

Well after the last trip out the Disco was seriously covered in scratches - not any more!
I spent a few hours cleaning and polishing her this weekend (and got a bit of sunburn too on a 35 degC day!) with my favourite polish, AutoGlym's "Super Resin Polish". I used to use this stuff all the time in the UK when I used to prepare and show British Leyland/Austin Mini's. I was put onto it by an old friend of mine who worked for a BMW bodyshop, and assured me that this was the only polish they were authorised to use.

quote:
Recommended for all royal carriages. Including yours!

By appointment to H. M. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, and H. R. H. The Prince of Wales, AutoGlym Super Resin Polish is the official polish/protectant for all royal vehicles. It has also been approved by the manufacturers and/or importers of these marques: Aston Martin, Bentley, BMW, Ferrari, Jaguar, Lotus, McLaren, Mercedes Benz, Porsche, Rolls Royce, Toyota, Volvo, VW. and Team Penske.

It might cost a bit more than other products on the shelf, but I do feel they can justify it a little.
The finish is awesome and removes almost every blemish, without taking off a layer of paint like T-Cut does.
The only other polish I would use would be MER, but I can't find any local shops that sell it.
MER is fantastic for tar spots and deeper scratches, but does act a little like T-Cut, and is very dusty.

I also did a clean of my MAF sensor, following on from the quick clean I did last week.. The difference is unbelievable! It says on the can of cleaner to clean this sensor every time you have a service, or at least when you change the air filter.
The D2 feels alive and sprightly again (at least as much as 4.0 V8 Disco can!).
The lumpy feeling has almost gone and the engine runs much smoother now.
Still think there may be a slight flat spot a bit higher up the rev range, but I'm keeping my eye on that.

Hopefully my mate will have finished fabricating my CDL actuator before Xmas, and I might look at doing the install over the break. Fingers crossed!

Edit - Tues 16th Dec 2008:
While it is definitely running considerably better, it is still slightly lumpy. Maybe the error codes need resetting? Maybe I do need a new MAF sensor! It'll wait till after xmas now!!

Dreaded MAF Sensor

Since the trip last Sunday to Cervantes and Lancelin, the Disco has been running quite a bit rough, and had a serious lack of power from 3100rpm when putting it under load.

A quick trip up to the local LandRover specialist shop and hooking it up to a diagnostic thingy, showed the MAF sensor has probably capput. They wanted $497 for a new one. LR main dealer wants over $800!! If I order from a popular parts centre over East I can get one for $289.30 inc GST. Found a new one on eBay for less than $90 delivered from the UK.
Hmmm.....which one should I go for?!? Its even a Bosch one (and did I mention it's new?!), which I'm 99.9% sure is genuine OE on the Disco.

Another case of being ripped off in Western Australia because (and I quote) "we live so far away from anywhere that we expect to pay higher shipping costs". How do the garages selling them get hold of them, and how come I can get a new one from the UK for a fifth of the price INCLUDING delivery!

No-one will guarantee the MAF sensors as they are prone to malfunction at any time, so I'm not really going to loose anything by going for the eBay one. Especially as its a Bosch one.

While searching through some forums (those on the right of this post, coincidentally!), I read about a product by CRC called, surprisingly enough, "Mass Air Flow Cleaner"! This stuff is a spray can aerosol cleaner designed especially for this part. It cost me $22.95 and has made a huge improvement, after just a very quick blast of the stuff. A "proper" clean will take place this weekend when I have more time.

ref: How to clean a MAF sensor.
In the majority of fuel injected cars there's a small wire in at piece of pipe between the air box and engine, that gets covered, over time, with dirt and dust, and this usually just needs cleaning with this CRC stuff to ensure the correct info on air flow is sent back to the engine management system. In reality, this ideally need cleaning at every service, or at least when the air filter is changed. But it rarely gets done by garages.

It might just have fixed the problem for now, or at least helped it a bit, and will most definitely do until I can arrange for the purchase off eBay.

So what have I done to her

Well, not much really from when I bought her.
It came fitted with four 245x70R16 Goodyear Wrangler ATR's, with the spare being a standard size road tyre. Actually quite an aggressive looking tread for an ATR. These may get replaced next year though with something a little more standard sized, for those "stuck in the bush" moments. have found she runs very nice at around 16psi on soft sand (tested around Lancelin, Cervantes and Willbinga), around 24psi on tracks (Powerlines track), and at 29psi front & 38psi rear for normal road driving.

A dual battery setup was also installed, complete with second battery, but it's not connected. Makes my wonder why.....but there is what looks like an Engel(?) fridge socket fitted to the rear cargo area, so maybe it does work after all. Need to check.

On the front is a full size TJM bull bar, but it had no recovery points or spotties on, so that has been rectified. It now boasts a pair of rated points back to the chassis under the bar, and a set of "SuperCheap" lamps on the front. Not the best quality I admit, but they light up the road in front and do what the description on the box says they should!

The rear has a genuine LandRover towing bracket and wiring, together with a reverse camera wired up to the in-car DVD player that pops out of the dash. Very flash! But sadly the camera is faulty and the image is distorted somewhat. Need to check the earthing.

Along with the spot lights and recovery points, I have also since installed a UHF radio. Its a Uniden UH400SX-RM. I chose this unit as it has all the controls and display on the handset as well as the main box, which I find very useful when using, and I've heard many good things about Uniden. Not overly priced and much cheaper than some.

I've also bought some cheaper recovery gear including snatch strap, distribution strap (trunk protector), long handled shovel, various sized rated shackles, and compressor. Only the basics, but should suffice providing someone else is around!

In the shed I have a brand new set of Lovells +2" springs waiting to go in, but I can't decide whether to wait till I get new shockers to go in with them, or fit with my standard shocks.....decisions, decisions!

I was also extremely lucky to be given (free of charge) a set of OE cross bars for the roof bars, by a very kind member of the AULRO forums. They were missing from the Disco when bought, together with the wheel brace and extension bar for the jack! At least the jack was there.....!!

Next big job is the install of a home made CDL (Centre Diff Lock) actuator as, though the gearing is in the housing, LandRover in their wisdom didn't think the lever was worth putting in on this years model. Thanks for that LR! I'll keep you posted on how the install goes, more on this in a future post, together with my attempt at a cheap sand flag for playing in the dunes.

So thats about it, pretty stock really which helps keep its reliabilty to some extent I suppose.

Lets bring you up to date

Let me take you back to June 2008......for nearly two years I had a 1991 Toyota Surf 2.4TD Japanese Import. The interior was SO red it was like a blood bath! Red everything, the same colour as the outside!

Yeah, I know its sad, but don't hold it against me! I saw the light, got rid of it, and bought myself a REAL 4x4! The Surf was in the garage more times than it was on the road. But that's a story all of its own.....and one worth forgetting!!

So I decided to chop the Toyota in for my Discovery. A little bit less than I wanted to let it go for, and little more money than I wanted to spend on the new one. But isn't that the way it generally goes?!

Thought we had a reasonable bargain (I'm not going into prices coz that's my business!), a little cosmetic work, but nothing much more than a good polish and clean round sorted that out, and far less money than the additional required to buy something not much better.....or so I thought! That's where the real probs started.

Just three weeks after getting it home I noticed I was loosing coolant - BIG TIME. Back to the dealer I bought it from. NOT a main dealer I hasten to add. They got it booked into a specialist LandRover service shop, who replaced a bottom hose on the radiator free of charge. Nice chaps!

Turns out it was leaking a little. Told to keep an eye on the fluid levels. Two weeks later, more coolant loss, about the same as before. Back to the garage to have a complete new radiator fitted.

All looked good for little while. After a few weeks of to-ing and fro-ing checking this and that, the head was stripped down only to find that the coolant chambers around the block had rusted so badly, the block was irrepairable! The previous owner had obviously been using the wrong coolant, a mix of different coolant types, and a periodic top-up with tap water. MUPPET!!

Bloody typical of second hand cars here in Oz though. Stuff up the engine, trade it in, dealer cleans and polishes it, puts it straight back on the forecourt, you buy it, no servicing done, and they hope you don't come back within the statutory three month warranty period!

Hmmmm.....

Anyway, I was two days over the mandatory three month warranty when we found the engine was stuffed. I won't go into ll the details, but all I can say is the owner of the dealership I bought it from was extremely helpful and willing to listen, and paid for a new block to be shipped and installed with him footing the entire bill. Something I was quoted as being in the region of $10,000!

So after a few delays in engine delivery etc, and fitting time, I finally got the Disco back. It came back with new block, internals, fuel pump, water pump, and front prop shaft (as this was just about to go bang too!). So I now have a nice new block, and at today's date have only clocked up some 3500km's. So plenty of life in her yet, and I'll make damn sure it gets serviced properly from now on.

So this is what she looks like now after a bit of TLC.

Here we go...

I've set up this page as a bit of a homage to my LandRover.
It's a 2000 Discovery II Automatic 4.0ltr V8. 

And before you say anything - yes, it is thirsty!

I'll be listing all the things that have happened to it since its purchase back in June of 2008 - and there's been some stuff I can tell you! It'll all be back-dated so you'll miss nothing!!
I'll also be posting details and photos of any trips I go on, and also any mods that get done to the Disco as and when they happen.

Feel free to add this page to your bookmarks or favourites, there'll be some graphical updates and changes too as I get to grips with how this Blogger thing works, so keep checking back regularly to see the next installments!

There is also an RSS feed button on the site, so if you've got an RSS reader you can get automatic notifications of when new items are added.

Enjoy!