I was driving down the highway and lost power steering. This should have been an instant warning sign, but my previous vehicle didn't even have power steering and I knew my Disco had a leak there. I thought maybe a hose came undone or the leak had grown and since I was 5 minutes home.

I looked at my ultra gauge which gives temperature readings and I notice it started jumping up from 190, to 210, 215, 220. At 220 I turned the engine off and coasted to the side of the highway. The temp spiked at 230 for a second and started slowly going back down. When I looked at the temp gauge on the dash IT BARELY MOVED past half way let alone, no where near the "H".

Once I popped the hood I noticed my serpentine belt was off but there was no visible reason as to why it would have been thrown off. Since I always carry tools with me I got the belt rerouted and when I applied pressure to the tensioner the pulley disintegrated (see image below). There were no bearings on the inside.

​​​​​​Since I was 5 minutes away, I got a ride home, pulled off the tensioner pulley off of the parts Disco and was back on the road within 10 minutes once I got back. I went to the nearest auto parts store and was able to pick up a new tensioner pulley.

Long story short, I highly recommend the ultragauge or some way to monitor these older vehicles to keep them on the road longer.








I have no affiliation with the company and in all actuality, I am still working with them to fix an error I am having with MPG due to the MAF sensor reading being 2 decimal places off.

 

the tach dropping to 0 is a good indicator of this as well

 

Really? I didn't notice the tach drop. Was probably hyper focused on the temp and no power steering.

 

yes, and battery light should have been on too.

I did this to mine

https://discoweb.org/index.php?threa...ng-lamp.99506/

 

Wow, that looks like some phd.level stuff! So you basically made the temp gauge more sensitive?

 

not exactly. I ended up tying it to the gearbox overheat lamp so when it starts blinking it means the coolant level is above ~ 212F. the gauge behavior remains factory

the majority of the circuitry was already there, rover just didnt finish it for unknown reason

 

a new disco owner here and just got my ultra gauge last week. engine temp been hovering around 177 when driving around town and highways here in san diego.

question – what other readings do people normally look at/have on their home screen?

 

I always check O2 sensor voltage trends. If O2s are switching properly, that tells me the fuel system is pretty good. Any O2 stuck at a solid value tells me something is wrong.

Also check short and long term fuel trims. They can help diagnose vacuum leaks or bad injectors.