The joys of discovering your Discovery!

Ok so finally picked up my lovely Disco on Saturday, had a little schmoozy around it over the weekend as you do and came up with a couple of issues which Im hoping someone out there can advise me on!
1: the horn doesn't work,
2: while pressing the horn vigorously to try to get it working, the SRS light has come on and won't go off!
3: there is a lot of backlash/shunting/looseness from the drive train when driving and I'm getting a whine as well (sounds like its running on knobbly tyres!).
Any pointers, advice, comments would be greatly appreciated
Oh, its a '94 300tdi with 210,000 miles on it
Cheers

Horn and SRS light could be the Rotary coupler behind the steering wheel.
£15 from ebay don't even cost a new one

My brothers disco was whining and it turned out to be a knackered transfer box, £50 and a few hours later = no more whining
The only way to describe the sound was like a straight cut gearbox

Loads of threads on the backlash......... just have a search. General wear in lots of splined bits of the drivetrain causes the backlash; Think from drive flange to halfshaft to diff to diff flange to UJ to prop joint to input flange on tbox to centre diff to input gear to gbox mainshaft PLUS the rear drive as well. Happy hunting.:mil81:

Oh bugger! The truck has been used by a stonemason for the last 12 years, probably pulling a trailer loaded with er...stones. Perhaps not the best purchase after all :-(

No such thing as a bad purchase

Just systematically work through the problems, they're cheap to fix

As above backlash manifests itself at every one of the 30 odd joints in the transmission system

Systematically working out what has worn most lets you know what to replace

Bad culprits in my experience have been axle diff cross pins and drive flange splines

Gearbox output shaft is another good one although it doesn't always give a good clonk...

You're right, no such thing as a bad purchase, i guess I'm just a little overawed by it all, but then i didnt buy a 20 year old car for it to be perfect! Can't wait til the weather warms up a bit

Did you not test drive it before buying ?

If all that was wrong with my Disco was the horn not working and a whining gearbox id be pretty damn happy!

Rich1989 said:

If all that was wrong with my Disco was the horn not working and a whining gearbox id be pretty damn happy!

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Init, my list gets longer not shorter

Yes,I test drove it before buying it, but it was only a short test drive and trust me the list is a lot longer than just a horn and a whiney g/box!

I take it you have checked the rubber doughnut as in my experience (On my 5th) that goes first an gives similar symptoms as mentioned and a lot easier and cheaper to replace than the above. The age of Disco 1's now , I see the many little things needing done as much as restoration as maintenance :0) but thankfully most are very cheap to put right.

fazer1967 said:

Yes,I test drove it before buying it, but it was only a short test drive and trust me the list is a lot longer than just a horn and a whiney g/box!

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If your list is less than a sheet of A4 then you have a good one.

Havent even started on actually writing a list, its still all in my head (sort of), im fairly certain it'll fill an a4, from little nadgery things to somewhat bigger stuff! Just can't wait for warmer weather

Just to follow up, I love this car and thanks to you guys and this forum, bits have started to be sorted! Rear electric windows....re-solder the dry solder joint.....top tip and **** easy to do, nice one!
Right whats next..........

fazer1967 said:

Oh bugger! The truck has been used by a stonemason for the last 12 years, probably pulling a trailer loaded with er...stones. Perhaps not the best purchase after all :-(

Click to expand...

Might have been a trailer full of heavy Masons? :lol:
Keep at it, its worth it on the few days that everything is working as it should do!

Another addition to the joys of first time discovery ownership, removing certain plastic panels to discover more of the dreaded rot! But then, i didnt buy this motor cos it was mint! Thankfully, none of the rot looks too bad