Oil Issues

Believe me when I say I feel like an idiot asking some of these questions.

A bit of a back story. I have recently acquired my first LR after over five years of Mitsubishi ownership. I've had a fair few Pajero's which I've used for off roading but wanting a more capable machine has lead me down this dark path. Im electrical through and through and my mechanical skill is alright.

First off, this is my truck.



Its a '93 Disco Classic... well... in the past it was.

Its got a rather nice spec but a few issues of which im hoping for some help.

First off is how do I check the oils? I got the truck off the trailer and first thing I noticed was this high pitched rattle. See video for noise. That rattle was not there during the test.

Tdi300 engine rattle. - YouTube

After a drive up and down the drive. I pulled the dipsticks on both the ATF and engine oil. Transmission stick was bone dry and the oil had about 5mm on it! When I ask how to do check the oil, do I need to have the engine on to check the ATF? Do I need the engine off to check the engine oil? Warm? Cold? I cant seem to find a definitive answer. Something else I should probably point out is the engines a 300Tdi but the box is the old V8's auto. Which a fair bit of work went into to make it compliant with the 300Tdi.

I've got the types of oil I need, rough idea of the quantities and I'll get both engine and transmission filters sourced.

Now after discovering the lack of oil I had a look under and I spotted this.



Crank seal? Im going to clean the underside tonight and top up some fluids to see what drips out. Being black oil its looking like engine oil.

Thats it for now, any advice welcomed and appreciated. Id buy a Haynes but there's not exactly much that would apply.

Engine oil, does not matter if it's cold or hot. Just check it on the level. If engine has been running, leave it off for about 20 mins for the oil to settle back into the sump.

Transmission engine running and in either park or neutral if I remember correctly !

Just listened to your engine. That's quite noisy! Is it obvious where the noise is coming from? I had bad alternator bearings but I could tell the noise was from the alt and was able to confirm it by removing the belt. May be the water pump. Is it cooling ok or losing water from the pump? Also, if you put a tube to your ear and put the other end to an area you want to check, that can help a lot to pinpoint noises.

You could run the engine for a very short time with the belt removed. This will eliminate the water pump and alt. Just run it for seconds though as the water pump will not be running and the engine will quickly overheat.

I would not be too concerned about the oil underneath. It looks like it's been there a fair while. Just clean it off and see how it develops

I always check the trans fluid with the engine running and in park. But if you have left the vehicle laid up then run the engine until warm and sitting in (brake on)go through all the gear selections slowly so that fluid can pressurise the parts that have lost their fluid.

Apologies for not posting last night. I ended up working away on the truck until around eleven. After which I had to gather a few pic's for my teams Mongol Rally sponsor sheet. We're not taking the Landy, only using it for pictures as it looks the business on our sponsor application. My decent camera phone was left in a friends car who drove away so all pics taken on the works Iphone.

Right, on with the findings!

I spent the majority of the night ripping out a ton of useless/redundant wiring. There was all sorts of wires running in all sorts of directions. A few head scratchers but all sorted now. The front spots are wired, I've got the cage lights wired and two more defender spots to mount and wire. Oh and all the rear spots. Ignition will be torn out and done away with. I'll run a set of hidden switches out to act as the ignition as currently any nobber with half a brain could figure out how to hot wire it.


The illuminated switches glow is a touch bright. :lol:

Next I topped up the engine oil. It swallowed around two litres before it reached halfway between the high and low marks on the dipstick. I took a note of it and placed a bucket under the engine.

Next was the transmission ATF. Now I read online how to change it over so out with the allen keys, under I go. I slide up to see that the drain plug is a bolt. I thought 'its probably a replacement' so I start looking for the fill plug. Nothing. I scraped off all the crap on the sump and I couldnt find anything that resembled a fill hole. I then decided to rip the switch panels up above the transmission. Looking down at it all I can see are more stray wires I need to sort and the return from the rear mounted oil cooler. I decided to not bother with trying to get the hose off and fill it from there. Instead I called it quits on the fluids and decided to have a good look at what else needs done. I then noticed a leak from the front right hub



And then another leak from the rear diff


So in total I have a three leaks to sort. The diff I can do no problem, I'll try seal it with silicone. The rear crank seal after running the engine for a good ten minutes only dropped drips of oil so I can live with that. The hub however spewed a fair bit. I also noticed the compressor is coming back on every 4-5 minutes. Would the active compressor force more oil out the leaky seal? Is replacing the seal a hard job?

That rattle I linked to in the vid is still present! No change after topping up the engine oil. I've got a stick looked out Spook and will try your suggestion on the weekend. It does sound like its coming from the engines sump which is odd. Still I'll wait until I've taken a stick to it to be sure.

As for the cooling. I dont know Spook. Main reason being the only thing to look at on the dash is a bullet hole. Onto some good news though regarding cooling. I believe I've found the water temp sender so I'll order a LR gauge off ebay. It, a turbo boost and volt meter gauge will be the first gauges in the truck. Im not going to bother with a speedo or tacho as the autobox will keep the rev's in check and I know im going to fast when the wind hurts my eyes

Fiddle brakes! Decided to run the front locker, rear open with fiddles. Main reason being cost and secondly I will mainly be using this for RTV's. With fiddles I can afford to get a gutsy winch which will give me a decent setup to get started! Also the gf might actually get something for Christmas too!

How do you like these badboys? Look upto the job? Lines already ran!






And finally, here's me sitting on the body (due to not being able to be pictured in the cab because of low light) showing off my Movember tache. The power hose is coming out with me this weekend for an overdue clean, sand and seal session. The bead lockers are actually red under all that mud. Anyone tried Dynax's sealant?



Again, thank you for the replies. If a mod wants to move this thread feel free as I am going slightly off the forums topic.