Hi. Advice aprreciated

Good evening folks, i bought a 5 door 03 160000 td4 freelander. Ive owned 2 previously one i wrote off and one was a rusty swimming pool. Now i have this one pre facelift no rust and the all windows work, bad points half the prop is missing
(All is present upto and including the VCU) thats all of the bad point/s so far.

Im fine with the prop missing the last 2 had 4x4 working they used more fuel and felt a lot less pokey. Also i drove this landy on snow, ice and mud before i realized i was in mondeo mode and it went fine.
After work today a cleaned the agr valve it was horrific i dont think it had ever been done you could harly see through it but its all shiny now - went morrisons after i did it felt more resposive could be placebo who nos.
Anyway im planning to
Change engine oil and filter
Clean crank case breather/change filter
Gereal sevice kit stuff
Change gearbox oil
Change IRD oil all as soon as possible

I have a couple of questions
1)Is it best i remove the vcu or doesnt it matter?
And 2) as the 4 wheel drive is disconnected can i put my best tyres (currently on the back) on the front?
The vehicle drives fine brakes are good clutch and gears seem all good more like a dumper than a car but smooth no grinding slipping or otherwise.

Is there any other things you recommend i look at/have looked at bearing in mind there are no nasty noises, missing power or funny coloured smoke. All/any advice is welcome. Thankyou

1) I don't think it matters, although you're carrying around unnecessary weight. I'd check your insurance though.

and 2) as you're in Mondo Mode, yes

kernowsvenski said:

1) I don't think it matters, although you're carrying around unnecessary weight. I'd check your insurance though.

and 2) as you're in Mondo Mode, yes

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Thanks for advice on insurance. Good to hear about tyres ill switch them tomorrow. Might take off the vcu aswel.

From what people are saying, if bits of the propshafts are missing, it is now an MOT fail.

Not sure on the exact wording, and it by no means clear and may be open to different interpretation by different examiners.

It may be that in future 2WD Freelanders will need to carry props and VCU but have the crown gear removed from the IRD rear pinion.

Good to know ill talk to my garage

GrumpyGel said:

From what people are saying, if bits of the propshafts are missing, it is now an MOT fail.

Not sure on the exact wording, and it by no means clear and may be open to different interpretation by different examiners.

It may be that in future 2WD Freelanders will need to carry props and VCU but have the crown gear removed from the IRD rear pinion.

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Presumably though, leaving the props and VCU on but removing the crown gear would constitute a "modification" that makes the vehicle 2WD and therefore falls into the same insurance/MOT category? It would just be more difficult to detect obviously and no doubt insurers wouldn't dismantle the transmission to find out.

I think you will find the props and vcu might come under recorded missing in concern to MOT. I am going to ring my garage chaps tomorrow to book for an MOT next week. If they say it will be a automatic fail then this will be cheerio old faithful friend as I cannot afford the replacement and the bills.

Im the same would rather go for a bigger landy with the option to switch in and out of 4x4 than spent the best part of a grand on perfect tyres and recoditiond parts in the hope that i might get 70k worth of 4 wheel drive

Edit: actually no i think about it i bought the landy with 12 months mot in january so im certain it got MOT without the prop

Spambunny said:

Im the same would rather go for a bigger landy with the option to switch in and out of 4x4 than spent the best part of a grand on perfect tyres and recoditiond parts in the hope that i might get 70k worth of 4 wheel drive

Edit: actually no i think about it i bought the landy with 12 months mot in january so im certain it got MOT without the prop

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Don't know about more modern ones, but all Disco, Defender & RR are permanent 4WD. Late Classics and P38 have a viscous coupling locking the center diff. D2 doesn't have a locking diff.

GrumpyGel said:

Don't know about more modern ones, but all Disco, Defender & RR are permanent 4WD. Late Classics and P38 have a viscous coupling locking the center diff. D2 doesn't have a locking diff.

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Oh bugger ill have to do some research i always just assumed you could switch in and out of 4wd on some landies. Was hoping i wouldnt have to bother with VCUs tyre matching ect....all seems a bit fragile to me

Spambunny said:

Oh bugger ill have to do some research i always just assumed you could switch in and out of 4wd on some landies. Was hoping i wouldnt have to bother with VCUs tyre matching ect....all seems a bit fragile to me

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Disco1 and Defender have an open center diff that has manual locking. Disco2 has an open diff but no locking capability. None of these have any viscous coupling and tyre matching is not so important as on Freelander.

Freelander is best - so long as its maintained properly

GrumpyGel said:

Disco1 and Defender have an open center diff that has manual locking. Disco2 has an open diff but no locking capability. None of these have any viscous coupling and tyre matching is not so important as on Freelander.

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Ahhh thankyou very interesting...glad i made this thread already learning a lot !!

Also That was my agr and yes the stuff inside was as tasty as it looked

Mrs Grumpy gets all excitable when I walk that black gunk in onto the carpet. Starts waving her arms around in the air and using lots of naughty words.

GrumpyGel said:

Mrs Grumpy gets all excitable when I walk that black gunk in onto the carpet. Starts waving her arms around in the air and using lots of naughty words.

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Hahhaa well i was extra carful last night....the dog not so much theres about 100 paw prints of black muck over the livingroom carpet....time for laminate i think

spoke with my mot garage and the issue for Freelander is, that as long as there's no props and vcu there, then no problem.
it more to do with the part removal which raises the advisory flags. Phew mine okay still even without the props and vcu. Cross fingers for Wednesday mot

Spambunny said:

Im fine with the prop missing the last 2 had 4x4 working they used more fuel and felt a lot less pokey.

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That's not the case, unless there's a fault with the 4X4 system. After extensive testing, there's a negligible difference between having propshafts and not having them.

Spambunny said:

could be placebo

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Exactly.

Spambunny said:

After work today a cleaned the agr valve it was horrific i dont think it had ever been done you could harly see through it but its all shiny now - went morrisons after i did it felt more resposive

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Unless you cleaned the inlet manifold too, the benefit of cleaning the EGR valve is minimal.

Spambunny said:

could be placebo.

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potentially.

GrumpyGel said:

From what people are saying, if bits of the propshafts are missing, it is now an MOT fail.

Not sure on the exact wording, and it by no means clear and may be open to different interpretation by different examiners.

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It is in the opinion of the examiner and his/hers interpretation of the rules.

GrumpyGel said:

Freelanders will need to carry props and VCU but have the crown gear removed from the IRD rear pinion

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That's one way to hide it. But then what's the point in carrying around the extra weight of the props, unless they're actually doing something beneficial?

kernowsvenski said:

resumably though, leaving the props and VCU on but removing the crown gear would constitute a "modification" that makes the vehicle 2WD and therefore falls into the same insurance/MOT category?

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It could be classed as fraud, as a deliberate attempt has been made to hide the ture mechanical condition of the vehicle.

Spambunny said:

than spent the best part of a grand on perfect tyres and recoditiond parts in the hope that i might get 70k worth of 4 wheel drive

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What's 70K got to do with anything? A correctly maintained Freelander drive train has a life that far exceeds 100,000 miles. My own TD4 has over 127,000 miles and isn't showing any undue wear of the components.

The tyres need to be kept the same and replaced in pairs, with identical tyres, to avoid problems. I can't see the problem with that myself. It's definitely better than driving around in a potentially unsafe vehicle, where 1/2 the factory installed components are removed.

Nodge68 said:

That's one way to hide it. But then what's the point in carrying around the extra weight of the props, unless they're actually doing something beneficial?

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The minor benefit would be keeping the car on the road rather than scrapping it.

Nodge68 said:

It could be classed as fraud, as a deliberate attempt has been made to hide the ture mechanical condition of the vehicle.

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The major benefits are to maintain dampening of the engine, maintain a smoother ride, maintain lifespan of engine mount components etc. Its done for a purpose.... m' lud.

So im guessing nodge is the absolute jobsworth of the forum