Just wanted to share my "success" story. After 7 months of ownership I've finally managed to get on top of the maintenance on my problematic Disco 2. I drove it home last night and am pretty delighted with the way the vehicle drives.

Here are all of the issues that were addressed in the first 7 months:

• replace bad Battery with Odyssey.
• replace transmission cooler and lines. (previous owner swapped engine and damaged the lines and connectors on the cooler in the replacement. This resulted in a consistent problem where my Disco would blow the lines off of the cooler at inconvenient moments)
• replace front drive shaft with heavy duty Tom Woods driveshaft. (previous driveshaft had been rebuilt and was greasable, but was imbalanced and created a "grumbling" at 40mph.)
• replace all the tires and a proper spare.(cupped so badly the truck wouldn't drive in a straight line)
• replaced Airbox lid and clips(held on by duct tape)
• Fixed vaccum leak from an open inspection port in the motor.
• replaced MAF
• replaced rear door actuator
• Fixed wiper and Light switch stalks. (thanks to the Forum!)
• Replaced broken rear tail lights (previous owner used wrong bulbs, melted the plastic, which caused water ingress.)
• Full 120K service including:
  • Brake Pad replacement,
  • Cooling system replacement , new "Scottish" radiator, new hoses, new 180degree TD5 thermostat, new expansion tank and cap
  • spark plugs replaced
  • original plugwires replaced with 8mm wires.
  • replace Crank Position Sensor.

I left the best until last. Jahn@rovinrovers called me last week to let me know he'd found a dangerous situation with the OME lift, installed by the previous owner. a new set of properly matched springs from Expedition Exchange later and i now have a good riding truck with a 2" lift instead of the overly tall 4" mess that he uncovered.

Pics tell a thousand words. here's the springs taken off of the truck. Thats a 781 AND a 751 on the front. The rear was also mismatched with a set of 2" spacers, not pictured being used in an attempt to make the rear as tall as the front. What a mess!

I now have 779's on the front and 762's on the rear. much, much better. The truck sits about 2" shorter at the front than with the previous springs and the truck finally sits level. Maybe i can even fit in a parking garage now ?

I just picked up a Safety Devices Rack for a Disco 2. Now that my truck is running strong, i can finally start building it for some long delayed road trips!

 

779's with 762 rear's will not sit 2"s low in the front, that combination will normally sit within q 1/4 to a 1/2" low in the front which can be corrected still with a set of 1/2" isolators.
Might want to talk to your mechanic and have him actually measure the front and rear heights.
Might also want to consider doing your drive line and brake fluids to get your truck current on services.

 

That truck was a basket case!

Sounds like you're ready for some serious roadtrips now. The truck certainly looks badass. But I guess most Discos do.

 

nice looking ride

 

Hi Mike, you're correct, i think the intent of my statement got lost there. The truck now sits level.

2" lower was actually referring to how much lower the front of the truck is from previous state. With the previous mismatched springs on, the front of my truck was nose pointed to the sky. The handling was compromised as a result. I was originally planning on holding off on springs until i got the front bumper and winch installed, but with the cost of springs only being $300 at Expedition Exchange it would have been negligent not to get them swapped out once i discovered the problem.

I'm now running a standard OME 2" lift with their Heavy duty springs, approximately 2" lower than the disaster that was on the truck previously. It really was a mess. I forgot to mention the drive line and brake fluids. We replaced all of the fluids on this service to get a proper baseline for service on the vehicle. There were some other miscellaneous things that i took care of too, but neglected to mention.

My learning here, never take basic things for granted. my disco doesnt fit in my garage so on the few occasions i've been underneath (one of them to check the spring types), i never checked each spring. I just looked at what was on one side on the front and one side on the back and ASSUMED that noone would be dumb enough to put on a mismatched set.

 

It is pretty crazy that they put mismatched springs in there. What were they thinking? (rhetorical question, btw)

 

Seriously right ? At first i thought they'd just screwed up and put a rear spring on the front and the front on the rear on one side, but the springs don't constitute two correct sets.

Ah well, With the new thermostat, the maximum temperature i've seen is 210, a 5.6 degree reduction using the new system and 180degree TD5 thermostat, but most of the time it runs under 190 degrees.

On thursday I pick up the new to me Safety Devices rack and will start to refurbish it. Maybe by next week i'll have something new and shiny on the truck to show off ! (the first 7 months has just been fixing stuff )

 

By the way, the 751 springs are from a D1 and will give a D2 an extra inch over the 779's. I run 751's and 762' with D1 coil seats and it sets nice and level course I have 240 pounds of winch, bumper and dual batterys to level it out.

 

I'd have kept the 751's if there were two of them on the truck, but there's only one. They "paired' it up with a 781 on the front.

i just really don't understand it.

Anyone want to buy a slightly used single OME 751 ?