Disco 2 Compressor piston kit - help

Yoguko said:

Watched the video @gstuart shared and at the end there are a few more, amongst which was this one:



The guy even replaced the compressor head!

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hope it may be of some use , as others have said if not to give the suppliers a call if u get stuck

i did try and repair mine but just bought a new one in the end

also bought a kit, with new seals, piston rings and silica but the push fit collets were finished so cut my loses and got a hitachi unit, know urs is different , however i think a lot of the principals are the same

gstuart said:

hope it may be of some use , as others have said if not to give the suppliers a call if u get stuck

i did try and repair mine but just bought a new one in the end

also bought a kit, with new seals, piston rings and silica but the push fit collets were finished so cut my loses and got a hitachi unit, know urs is different , however i think a lot of the principals are the same

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I´m trying to exhaust all possibilities before thinking of buying a new one. I know the Hitachi units are a bit more complex to fix - not a lot of success fixing those. The Wabco is just a glorified air pump, to be honest.

Yoguko said:

I´m trying to exhaust all possibilities before thinking of buying a new one. I know the Hitachi units are a bit more complex to fix - not a lot of success fixing those. The Wabco is just a glorified air pump, to be honest.

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was the same in going down the repair route

at the end of the day, my compressor was noisy , found the bracket had also failed on one corner so cut my loses

alas though other D2 owners will be best to advise u on the best course of action, in what the success rate is to repair them

agree i held off for ages and tried to repair mine, all depends i suppose in what condition urs is in first and foremost

u also mentioned u don't get the hiss when turning off the engine , exhaust valve should be operating , maybe that's also faulty

Yoguko said:

Thanks Brian, very helpful. Hopefully the car won´t drop with me under it

I got the original P38 air filter elements which apparently are a straight fit.

Silica gel kit is this one:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/281769623406

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Thats the same kit I used. The filters weren't a great fit so I cleaned up an original and doubled up to make sure no granules would get through.to the cylinder. You don't have to go under the car as it is mounted at the side under the front passenger door ( on the D2 at least ). I undid the air line connections to depressurize the system but I am not sure it was necessary. I put some coloured tape around one line so I didn;t connect them to the wrong side..

I all sounds complicated but is quite simple in practice. I thought I would have a lot of trouble re-fastening the three screws as they mount through springs, but they weren't too bad.

gstuart said:

was the same in going down the repair route

at the end of the day, my compressor was noisy , found the bracket had also failed on one corner so cut my loses

alas though other D2 owners will be best to advise u on the best course of action, in what the success rate is to repair them

agree i held off for ages and tried to repair mine, all depends i suppose in what condition urs is in first and foremost

u also mentioned u don't get the hiss when turning off the engine , exhaust valve should be operating , maybe that's also faulty

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No hiss at the moment, no. But that´s probably because the volume of air inside the system isn´t changing. It used to work until yesterday, right before I left it at the garage...

brianconwy said:

Thats the same kit I used. The filters weren't a great fit so I cleaned up an original and doubled up to make sure no granules would get through.to the cylinder. You don't have to go under the car as it is mounted at the side under the front passenger door ( on the D2 at least ). I undid the air line connections to depressurize the system but I am not sure it was necessary. I put some coloured tape around one line so I didn;t connect them to the wrong side..

I all sounds complicated but is quite simple in practice. I thought I would have a lot of trouble re-fastening the three screws as they mount through springs, but they weren't too bad.

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So, when you depressurized the lines, how did the car hold it´s height? My ideia was to lift it on the ORM button, get some stand under it and then undo the lines. You´re saying it´s not necessary to jack the car up? Sorry, it seems like a stupid question but I´ve not done this before, so don´t really know what to expect.

Weather´s miserable at the moment, otherwise I would drive to local supermarket car park and try to do it there, hidden in a little corner. Silica and filters have just arrived! I love Lady mail day.

Yoguko said:

So, when you depressurized the lines, how did the car hold it´s height? My ideia was to lift it on the ORM button, get some stand under it and then undo the lines. You´re saying it´s not necessary to jack the car up? Sorry, it seems like a stupid question but I´ve not done this before, so don´t really know what to expect.

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@brianconwy the weather looks decent today. Will probably try to fix the compressor. How low does the car go when you disconnect the lines? Do I need axle stands or just let it drop to the stops?...

Just put an axle stand on the side you are working on. I didn't bother as our drive slopes, although I could have parked it at the flatter bottom part of the drive. I wouldn't disconnect the electrics. It is just two bolts to disconnect the cylinder head and dryer. You may not even need to undo the bottom three screws holding the compressor to the box, although I did.

brianconwy said:

Just put an axle stand on the side you are working on. I didn't bother as our drive slopes, although I could have parked it at the flatter bottom part of the drive. I wouldn't disconnect the electrics. It is just two bolts to disconnect the cylinder head and dryer. You may not even need to undo the bottom three screws holding the compressor to the box, although I did.

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Great, thanks. I don´t have any stands at hand, so I´ll try my luck without them. Will report back!

Right, didn´t get anywhere with this compressor issue. Only managed to pull the plastic cover off the compressor and my neighbour arrives and parks next to me - no room to move. The joys of shared car parks...

I did hear the compressor working though. Pressed the ORM button from outside the car, it started working and went off after about 20 seconds.

Was taking my eldest to ballet class and the SLS fault light comes on. Parked and noticed the car is sitting low now. Light went after restarting the car, but it´s still sitting too low.

What have they done do it?!

On the bright side, I changed the air filter behind the rear light cluster - the old one wasn´t too bad tbh, just a bit dusty - was expecting much worse.

Also managed to get some festoon LED bulbs for license plate and fixed and cleaned the clear plastic lenses on both of them, which were held in place with silicone and spit, by the looks of it . New U bolts, new screws, new gaskets. Why can´t people just fix things properly instead of taking these stupid shortcuts?!?!

Noticed another cylindrical container further down the pilar, right behind the bumper. Is this another filter of some kind?

If anyone´s around my area, I would really appreciate a hand...

I would think the SLS light came on because it is sitting low. It seems the garage weren;t keen on servicing the compressor in the first place. A lot of the garage industry just seem to want to replace whole units. Perhaps its down to labour rates and complexity of modern cars.

brianconwy said:

I would think the SLS light came on because it is sitting low. It seems the garage weren;t keen on servicing the compressor in the first place. A lot of the garage industry just seem to want to replace whole units. Perhaps its down to labour rates and complexity of modern cars.

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My thoughts exactly @brianconwy!

They were extremely negative from the time I arrived - "We´ve done some of these before and they never worked", "This isn´t a serviceable unit", "it needs a new compressor" and so on. Honestly, I didn´t expect them to make it work, after the initial impression they gave me. If they didn´t want to do it, they should´ve said so in the first place, just be honest.

They´ve been ok in the past, a bit disorganised, but the quality of work has been acceptable. They service and restore Series and Defenders mainly, and I think the finer nuances of the Disco are a bit too modern for them. I regret following their advice to remove my ACE system, though. I didn´t know any better at the time. I would´ve tried to save it if it was today...

brianconwy said:

I would think the SLS light came on because it is sitting low. It seems the garage weren;t keen on servicing the compressor in the first place. A lot of the garage industry just seem to want to replace whole units. Perhaps its down to labour rates and complexity of modern cars.

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TBH, I think you are right there. There is a certain point where the "labour rates " come into it, is it viable to do it? but there is also the factors of the guys are no longer taught trouble shooting or they do not understand the tech.

Cheers

neilly said:

TBH, I think you are right there. There is a certain point where the "labour rates " come into it, is it viable to do it? but there is also the factors of the guys are no longer taught trouble shooting or they do not understand the tech.

Cheers

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I would think that there isn´t a large margin on original parts from Land Rover. They could charge me 2 hours labour to change the piston ring instead of 1 to fit a new compressor and I don´t think they would lose any money...

If you do fix it in situ I would try it first without undoing the three screws at the bottom. One of them needs an offset spanner to undo. Its not a problem if you have to undo them, but I am wondering if I really needed to. Looking at the pictures it shouldn't be necessary to undo them.

brianconwy said:

If you do fix it in situ I would try it first without undoing the three screws at the bottom. One of them needs an offset spanner to undo. Its not a problem if you have to undo them, but I am wondering if I really needed to. Looking at the pictures it shouldn't be necessary to undo them.

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I think I'll try and drop the cage first by removing the two bolts on the chassis. If the garage did remove it, they shouldn't be seized.

True There are a lot of boxes for sale on ebay and you can see sheared off bolts stuck in the threads. Don't forget to support it on a brick or something while you disconnect all the air and electric connections. There isn't much advantage to taking it off because the two bolts you need to undo are accessible from the front with the unit in place.

brianconwy said:

True There are a lot of boxes for sale on ebay and you can see sheared off bolts stuck in the threads. Don't forget to support it on a brick or something while you disconnect all the air and electric connections. There isn't much advantage to taking it off because the two bolts you need to undo are accessible from the front with the unit in place.

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Doesn't the air dryer have their own two bolts to hold it in place?

No it comes off with the cylinder head, but the airdryer itself is hed together with two nuts and bolts. There is a tube to remove but is only held in place with push fit connectors.