Discovery 300Tdi Off Roader

I will be unpopular for saying this, but transfer box wise, you can better bite the bullet on it an order up a reconditioned one from Ashcroft's with a steel sleeve in the casing for the intermediate shaft.

I'll put a pound on it that it's leaking there and if it is, the likely cause is the O rings flattening, the bearings wearing and then chattering the soft ally case oval, seen dozens like it now.

Yeah was considering recon'd as well. Thinking of getting a L230 with 1.6 ratio as I have 33" tyres and one day will likely have 35" ones as well. We'll see. All dependant on money. Spent this much so far so what's a **** load more? lol

Tomushh said:

Yeah was considering recon'd as well. Thinking of getting a L230 with 1.6 ratio as I have 33" tyres and one day will likely have 35" ones as well. We'll see. All dependant on money. Spent this much so far so what's a **** load more? lol

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I'm planning on a recon but sticking with a 1.2 box an wish list is pegged 4.1 ring and pinions with a locker in each diff.

Don't talk to me about lockers, got a coin jar saving up for a rear Detroit LSD

I have convinced myself they will be worth the hardship of not having takeout once a week and I put £20 extra in the savings account each week for the big day when get to place the order.

Her indoors says just buy the lockers and store them, then buy the ring and pinions, then save enough for them all to be built up into pegged casings, her reasoning is that it's smaller amounts bit by bit and all roads lead to the same destination, where as that lot works out the be £3,000 for the front & back combined, a bit much all in one hit for a hobby but I wouldn't miss £500 here an there so much on components then about a grand for the building into the casings.

Yep haha, I'm always putting away the pennies for new mods Considering getting an Adrenaline 4x4 Panhard rod as well, but don't know if I need it that extreme. They're 120 odd quid as well.

Done the diff oil yesterday, easy job.


Then I was looking at the drivers side rear half shaft, it looked like one of the bots was partially out and not tight. ok.. so i tightened it and then it snapped off. I was like **** okay I now have 3 on that axle. but the plate was moving. then noticed that another was loose so tightened that and it was already snapped. I didn't even use much force at all on them. So ok great I got some threading to do which is such an annoyance but hey ho. Better I found it NOW that when i was out.



Really ****ing annoying as I thought I'd fixed most of the problems on mine now, apparently not.

Then drove all the way to Billinghurst to pick up a land rover for my mate, won it on ebay for 540 quid. 165k. decent sounding engine (quieter than mine) and usual boot floor rot but had MOT til August so he was happy.

It never ends does it

Tomushh said:

Yep haha, I'm always putting away the pennies for new mods Considering getting an Adrenaline 4x4 Panhard rod as well, but don't know if I need it that extreme. They're 120 odd quid as well.

Done the diff oil yesterday, easy job.

Then I was looking at the drivers side rear half shaft, it looked like one of the bots was partially out and not tight. ok.. so i tightened it and then it snapped off. I was like **** okay I now have 3 on that axle. but the plate was moving. then noticed that another was loose so tightened that and it was already snapped. I didn't even use much force at all on them. So ok great I got some threading to do which is such an annoyance but hey ho. Better I found it NOW that when i was out.

Really ****ing annoying as I thought I'd fixed most of the problems on mine now, apparently not.

Then drove all the way to Billinghurst to pick up a land rover for my mate, won it on ebay for 540 quid. 165k. decent sounding engine (quieter than mine) and usual boot floor rot but had MOT til August so he was happy.

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Nightmare with those bolts!

That Disco your mate bought looks like a bit of a bargain to me!

So after all this time of owning it, I finally thought I better take care of the engine. I've always thought it was a well taken care of engine and looking in the head it does look rather nice come to the conclusion that the ticking noise is from one of the fuel/injector pumps.

Fuel leak off pipes were perished and a bit crappy. Then ended up ripping one whilst taking it off so replaced them all.



Adjusted the valve clearance, was an easy enough job. I took the viscous fan off to get better access to the crank so I didn't need someone else laying under the car to turn it. Don't think I'll put the fan back on to be honest. I'll carry it with me just in case but you don't really need it on a diesel anyway. Also fitted a new rocker gasket as the old one was a little leaky, could see some oil marks coming out from where it sits and it seeping down the engine a bit.


Engine oil was black as expected, but wasn't gloopy and I don't think too long ago it was serviced. If it was a long time you'd expect it to be really horrible. But no issues here!


Short video of the engine running. Can see it's quite smooth. The valve clearance made the engine a tiny tiny but quieter and smoother. Then after the service that made it even more quieter. Put decent 10w40 semi synth in as it's better than mineral.



Really think I should clean the engine bay now haha

Done my transfer box oil last night, easy with the little pump I bought. 1.7 liters came out, and I put 2.4 or so back in, and you can see somewhere I have a leak so I will have to keep an eye on it and keep it topped up, I have a lot spare. I don't get marks on the drive so must not be that bad of a leak.



So I also bought a boost pin, went to change it and hey! I have a boost pin in there already lol. The one I removed is slightly damaged as presumably the previous owner didn't grease it up before fitting. Also, the new one has a slightly shorter slant by about 2mm. Wonder what one is actually better and gives better boost compensation? Unsure.

Damaged old one


One closest to the camera is the new one, look at the shorter and ever so slightly steeper slope angle.


Will see if it makes a difference when I next go out. Ordered a Helicoil kit to sort out my rear hub and I am then good to go! Hopefully lol

Finally getting round to changing the exhaust, bought months ago but it's one another one of the jobs you can never be bothered to do.

Took the exhaust off, was a pain to get off the turbo as the bolts were rounded off.. but once off thought I'd have a bit of fun to see what it sounds like without a turbo, got my brother to do the revving



Got the one one off and the new one 90% fitted. Lost my exhaust gasket so got to buy another one and a couple of the nuts for connecting the straight pipe to the mid section. Plus need new nuts for bolting to the turbo.



Old one was rather rotted!! There was meant to be a backbox on there but I cut that off last year as it was rotten to pieces.

Just hoping the decat pipe won't cause any issues with the MOT next year. Luckily mine is due this month before the new rules come in. Still can't get my head around whether or not i need one as the 300tdi doesn't NEED a cat but I'm sure I'll find a way.

Hoping the system will sound pretty good. It's straight through all the way to the backbox, but the baffler is smaller than the standard one so hopefully doesn't dampen it down too much. If not I'll get a side exit at some point..

Doubt there are sufficient or complete enough records for that to affect you as at that point in time it was still just a smoke test for diesels so I doubt that there would be any need for it.

I didn't have enough money this time round for the stainless exhaust for my Disco but I will just bung it on the credit card next time the back box falls to bits.

Not sure why on earth you want it to be loud? My hearing is not great but boomy bassy sounds annoy the living hell out of me and having owned a lot of V8s over the years I can tell you that the sound of a custom special exhaust that can make your ears bleed actually wears quite thin, quite quick when you have to do a few long journeys in it These days a nice standard system or at least one that is less restrictive without being too loud is the order of the day.

Little jobs that are small enough to do in under an hour but just awkward and cumbersome are always put off lol

I’m sure we still all know that understanding MOT centre

Joss155 said:

I’m sure we still all know that understanding MOT centre

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I do, but it's not really worth it if there were ever to be an accident.

As far as the CAT goes, I doubt there are complete enough records to say whether or not there was one fitted to this motor or not.

It's not that I want it any louder, just want it to sound a bit throatier. Got it fitted and it does! Not too loud, but a nice tome. The engine on mine is rather loud anyway (injector pump mainly) so this just makes it sound less tappy from the pump.

Done a bit of work over the weekend. Will upload photos and info soon.

Currently on 3 wheels as rebuilding yet another hub!!!! Lol. Getting annoying now but hopefully that's it. Just got to source a new hub and I'll be able to build it back up again.

I note you're not running spacers and the offsets aren't silly on your rims, I'm at odds as to why your hubs are failing so fast?

Hubs bearings are fine etc as they are all new apart from this one.

Basically the bolts that go through the drive flange into the hub were snapped off on this one, looks like it has always been like that as I have never taken this half shaft out whilst I have owned it. All 5 bolts were in about 2/3 threads and the ends were rusted in place. So I assume someone snapped them then just put them back in place and forgot about it. I only noticed the half shaft moving left/right by the mud deposits on the hub being cleaned a lot so I checked it out

As I'm there I may as well do the bearings as all the rest are new.

I'm a bit of a preventative maintenance sort of person I guess! Would rather do it now than whilst out and about

Sounds like all's still going well there Tomushh! Glad you're getting some more driving of it in nowadays, loving the copper pipe bodge on the breather as well

The old boost pin looks like it has a deeper and steeper curve - that'll give more extra fuel on boost vs the new one with a more aggressive delivery curve, probably not noticeably though.

Chris on LRTV has a video for checking backlash, if you're worried enough about your transfer case to check it (same chap dieseldog linked a page or two ago, great content)

Last thought if you're on a service kick - cambelt, if you're running a really rotten one at the moment it'll help clear up some of the FIP noise if it's running on a slack belt.

Good luck helicoiling & keep the updates coming... Especially when the detroit turns up

Thanks mate

Hahaha, the breather wasn't me, one of the previous owners I presume! Buy hey, if it works it aint stupid!

Cambelt is next item really, done with mods for a while (next actual mod will likely be a LSD, but got to work some things out first!) Never done a cambelt before but it doesn't look too hard.

Gave up with the helicoil idea, as I found a hub for £15 on ebay. Hopefully get it over the weekend. Even with the hardest drill bits i could find it was taking ages to drill through so i thought it's easier and cheaper to just get another hub. Will keep this as a spare and might use a pillar drill in my spare time to try it.

Either Saint V8 or Wammers has done a how to on the cambelt I think. Can’t remember which.