1992 200tdi Discovery- gradually improving my daily driver

MOT passed! All advisories cleared too apart from the underseal. Even polished it...





Now I just need everything to return to “normal” so I can drive it properly!

Little bits getting done now, fixed bonnet release which hadn’t worked since last year and painted grille and headlamp surrounds. Makes front end a lot better.

Just got the remote central locking working! Not much to show in a picture, but should make it a lot easier to live with...!

Probably the best looking D1 on this site!!

Such a nice thing to see a stock D1 instead of the ones with comedy tires and bolt ons!

Henry_b said:

Such a nice thing to see a stock D1

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+1, they are getting rarer now especially stock

Ric.

Cheers! That’s great to hear. Sadly I’ve picked up a death wobble recently, despite (or because) of all the steering work it’s had.

Ordered new panhard rod bushes, but wondering if it’s the swivels. Still, there’s always something...!!

After driving to Wales over the weekend, the death wobble presented itself quite dramatically, and again it was very wandery over 60mph!

So am going to sort the Panhard rod bushes, possibly get power steering box refurbished (it’s dribbling a bit), and look at swivels.

I saw that you can try putting shims in the top of the swivel housing without stripping the whole thing down- does this work?

K2tnt said:

After driving to Wales over the weekend, the death wobble presented itself quite dramatically, and again it was very wandery over 60mph!

So am going to sort the Panhard rod bushes, possibly get power steering box refurbished (it’s dribbling a bit), and look at swivels.

I saw that you can try putting shims in the top of the swivel housing without stripping the whole thing down- does this work?

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Very much doubt it. If anything, adding shims is likely to make the problem worse.

Oh! Thought adding shims tightened them up if they’re loose?

K2tnt said:

Oh! Thought adding shims tightened them up if they’re loose?

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No they are tapered. Removing shims tightens the top bearings up stoping the play.
Rock the steering left/right about 1/4turn if you can feel/see the body moving the panard bushes gone. Also look at each end of the arm While moving the steering.

Ah, right. The shims are the things that sit between the “top hat” and the housing aren’t they?

Panhard rod is already off so going to do bushes anyway. Getting it off was fun, pinch bolts will definitely need replacing as they were very rusty. Taking it somewhere to get bushes pressed out.

Are you putting in metalastic bushes back in?

Got polybushes.

K2tnt said:

Got polybushes.

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Ok. Power flex? (Not cheap BP ones they don’t last )

Yeah they are, so that should help anyway.

Panhard rod likely suspect but don't rule out the 4 steering ball joints and even steering damper.

Yeah, did all 4 ball joints and steering damper at MOT time. Was still wobbling after that.

Had new bushes put in Panhard rod today, and sent steering box off to be reconditioned. As well as getting some new Super Gaz shocks for the rear (they were mismatched). Also changed engine, transfer, gearbox and axle oil too! Very busy. Should be much better to drive when all done.

Put 2x rear Super Gas shocks on the back today, not too tricky. Stupid tiny nuts at bottom of shock absorbers (8mm?) which you need to hold onto to undo bottom bolt! Both were stuck! Ended up using Stilsons to hold body of shock absorber still to get bottom bolts off!



Spot Merlin the cat under my wife’s car in second pic...

Putting back on reconditioned steering box, everything was going so well...


All bolts and fittings went on fine until one of the power steering pipes wouldn’t go back in- union thread wouldn’t bite! Damn annoying!

Have pulled the pipe off- reckon replacing it would be best option- here’s the shagged union.

All done! Box back in place and connected, drives great now. Got a bit worried when I noticed a trail on the ground underneath where I parked it, relieved to realise this was air con dribble from previous car to park there.

Acid test will be driving up to Scarborough on Friday! Got up to 65mph with no wobbles, which is a massive improvement. Fingers crossed it’s sorted...

Another picture after cleaning in the summer evening sunshine- she cleans up nicely!