Good thing you posted. If that side had no restriction in it you would have been smoking pretty good after you put it back together and had some messed up vacuum in the intake. Nice to have caught before you reassembled all those pieces.

I can't believe that they put such an easily plugged piece in such an inaccessible location. As far as I can tell, the valve cover has to come off to get to that. Maybe that tube can be pulled out of the valve covers but mine didn't seem to want to budge. I had the valve cover off anyway so I didn't try too hard but it must come out. $40 in gaskets and 3 hrs. of effort to clean up a $5 part seems crazy even for LR.

 

the 99-02 can be pulled up from the top with needle nose pliers, if your luclky

 

Might help to pull it occasionally and clean it so it doesn't get stuck? I have not done this but maybe I will tomorrow.

 

yeah, no kidding. On the 03-04 models the brass fitting is capped off. Must be pressed in b/c I couldn't get it off for the life of me. Got to love the engineering on this thing

 

I think if you cut the tube in the middle and pulled it apart when you put it back together inside the hose an extra clamp would keep it in place and functioning.

 

03/04 comes out from the bottom with the valve cover off and the baffle removed. I have never been able to get the cap off of the tube.
Since you are probably needing new valve cover gaskets anyway just put a new pcv in then.
or if you just need a quick fix you may want to try spraying carb cleaner or brake cleaner into the small hole in the cap and let it sit for a bit then put a little air into the hole and see if will go through. If it's not too bad it may go through.

 

On our 2003 I have been able to use slip joint pilers and twist the tube out of the valve cover. The tube is a press fit but does come out of the valve cover to allow your to remove the oil separator.

2003 Discovery 144K

 

I figured it could come out with enough effort. Still a pretty crappy design if you ask me. Maybe if you found a compression fitting that fit it you could tighten that on it and then use a wrench to turn it out. That way you wouldn't risk crushing it.

 

I tried to get a few out from the top and gave up. I have even tried attacking it from the bottom, with the VC off, taking a pin punch the size of the inside diameter of the tube and knocking it out of the top with no luck. I'm sure the tube will come out because it went in but, I was afraid I would wreck the tube. Glad to hear someone had luck with that.

 

So a little update, ended up pulling the heads and I'm glad I did. Cylinder four (where I had the misfire) was so gunked up in the valve seats and on top the piston. Going to go ahead and pull the timing chain, update the oil pump, clean the oil pickup, new gaskets and check the water pump. Heads are currently at RPE machine shop in Hartford ct

Before and after cleaning the rocker covers


New parts


I need a bigger garage



Oil in the hose coming from the pcv tube



Cylinder four