Hey guys, I am trying to keep my disco alive. She has 146,000 miles(30,000 from me). There are quite a bit of slow leaks oil, power steering and now coolant. Now, I lack the garage and finance to do it all at once, but I am doing my best to maintain her with constant engine/tranny/axle oil changes. She's been a trooper so far but I can't ignore this coolant issue. Any and all advice or tips would be greatly appreciated!


Here is a picture of the lower radiator hose. Yesterday, I noticed coolant dripping from the pulley directly below it. I feel the hose leaks when it expands, would replacing the upper and lower hoses fix my problem?

closer shot.

 

I would start with a complete hose kit, that means lower, upper and heater hoses.
If you are on a tight budget RockAuto Auto Parts has a great price on hoses, I just replaced the upper and lower hoses on my Donor Disco for under $30 shipped, they are not of very good quality or fit but they do work.
Make sure you install new hose clamps as well.

 

And I would spring for something of higher quality than the Fram oil filter, if that is what the orange orb is in the photo. If you have more time than budget, I sometimes pickup cheapo salvage yard parts to try as a diagnosis - if they work, I usually find a way to get the new item. You are correct to keep on a budget, no matter if it a Rover, Mercedes, Kia, or F250.

 

Looks like a bit of oil on the oil cooler lines. Mine were leaking real good and I just replaced them this weekend. New hoses from AB are reasonable, and changing them is simple.

 

You can stick with Fram, just get the Tough Guard. I have logged thousands upon multiple thousands of miles on Tough Guard filters on multiple different makes and models of vehicles, and have never once had a failure.

As for the rest of your post, take Spikes advice. He knows what he's talking about.

 

Even over on Bob Is The Oil Guy all of those knuckle heads who spend $75 on a special tool to cut open their oil filters at each and every oil change and are WAY to concerned with oil and filters and such say a Fram Tough Guard is a great filter and is good for 10,000 miles.
TG-16 is the part number for our trucks.
I'm going to use one next time, just put one on The Donor.

 

SPiKE, thanks for the advise! I ordered the hoses yesterday, hopefully its here by Saturday. As for the oil filter, I've been using the Fram extra guard since it gets swapped out once a month. But, I will upgrade to the tough guard next change. Again, this forum has really been helpful and I appreciate everyones time and knowledge!

 

I see that you're doing frequent oil changes...at those monthly intervals, the FRAM will work great...I've been using K&N oil filters and have had great success with Mobil 1 as well.

On a side note, i would highly recommend you take your disco to a car wash and clean that engine bay out with some GEL engine degreaser (can find at walmart) and take a toothbrush to the hard parts...it will make it MUCH easier to track down the leaks and prioritize and budget for the repairs.

Lastly, keep an eye on your serpentine belt too, when you've got a lot of leakage, if it's getting on the belt, you'll have a failure...oil soaked belts are a ticking time bomb that can leave you stranded on the side of the road, usually at the most inconvenient times.

 

I am very reluctant to use the car wash sprayer under the hood at all. I did it once and it ran like crap for a few dyas, barely even got it home from the car wash. What I prefer is spray it really good with Simple Green degreaser full strength then wipe with rags. The more of the gunk you get off, the cooler it will run and the better you will see a leak.

if the power steering is leaking onm the bushings underneath the steering box or PS reservoir, it will damage the bushings pretty quickly, so pay special attention and fix that really soon.

If you are doing that much commuting, you may very well stretch your interval, monthly is pretty frequently. Also a couple of the suppliers do discount a larger purchase of oil filters. I saw that, I think it was AB that had them in a box of 6. They had anb economy filter as well.

I started using MAXLIFE by Valvoline. Advanced Auto has a 5.1 quart jug on sale currently for something like 16.99 each, It does take 6 to 7 quarts for our Disco's so the jug is not quite enough but 3 will you thru 2 changes. They also had some deals with a free filter with a 5 quart purchase.

Good Luck with it, lots of amazing little problems will surface when you start off doing one item, you will end up finding several more, so be prepared.

Also buy lots and lots of PB Blaster and spray everything really good a few days in advance, then spray it daily for the next couple of days and stuff will come loose a lot easier.

 

So, upon further inspection I was able to trace the coolant back to the water pump pulley. Looks like my water pump is going to ****!