Disco 1 Canadian V8 questions

I'm currently looking for a Disco here in Quebec, I've had a number of 300tdi manuals when I lived in France so I know my way around them.
Anyhow, there's an ad for one going cheap locally, it's a '97 &, as you'd expect for here, a V8 auto.
The seller is selling as is a non-runner with a duff crank sensor.
Now here's what I'm wondering, why hasn't he just replaced it, they're not that expensive? is there anything else hiding behind the sensor fault? Is there any way to bypass the sensor to see if the thing runs at all? I don't want to haul the beast home and order in the sensor to find when I fire it that the bottom's knocked out.

Alternatively there's a few Disco II about, mostly with about 130-140,000 miles on the clock. I'd not hesitate on an old bulletproof 300tdi but I'm lamentably ignorant on the 3.9/4.0 V8s, are they any good?

Any help gratefully received.

UK discoveries of that year run hotwire efi, distributor, no crank sensor. The plenum looks like this

This is NAS. As I understand it from the information I've been able to find, from 96 on N, American market had the 4.0 engine (same displacement as the 3.9 I know) as they had to be OBD-II compliant.

Sounds like you could be chasing your tail then. Surely there must be proper v8s available over there. Both the discoveries are a bit tame but the twos I hate with a passion after owning a td5 version. Overweight and underwhelming

Oh there's plenty of V8s, I drive a Mercury Grand Marquis with a 4.6 Triton, and the spousal unit runs a Jeep Grand Cherokee with a 5.7 Hemi.
The Disco purchase is by way of a spare vehicle, and for me they're like putting on my favourite slippers.

MrGrumpy said:

This is NAS. As I understand it from the information I've been able to find, from 96 on N, American market had the 4.0 engine (same displacement as the 3.9 I know) as they had to be OBD-II compliant.

Click to expand...

Your correct u have the 4.0 GEMS engine as u say with the same displacement of 3,947cc. The same engine is fitted to the RR P38, the GEMS engine was never fitted into the UK disco.. So u certainly will have a crank sensor and not a distributor, a crank sensor issue is not unknown.