Thanks to others on the forum I finally managed to remove the plastic oil separator from inside the nipple on the RH valve cover of my 2003 Disco 4.6 V8 (82,200k miles). It was completely clogged. I have a lot of seal seepage that I am sure is due to this as the crankcase has probably been running high pressure for ages due to the clogged separator. A year ago I paid $1000 for the 90k service to British Car Service in L.A. and of course they didn't bother to clean or replace the oil separator. This is criminal in my kind but nonetheless I want to make sure this never happens again. Does anyone have an idea how to modify this s**t design on Land Rover's part so that the separater in the 2003-4 model is easy to get to like on earlier disco models? I.e. - I'm thinking about removing the separator from inside the nipple from in the valve cover, drilling a larger hole in the nipple and installing the separator above it inline inside the hose like the earlier models so I can get to it easily. Is this a bad idea? Any downside?

 

I would imagine with proper care it wont be such a bear to remove next time.
I clean mine twice a year with carb cleaner.
Take it out, clean it, let it dry, replace.

 

Did you have to pull the valve cover then?

 

I managed to pull the nipple out with vice grips without remvoing the valve cover but the plastic oil separator inside it had to be drilled out. The new one was not easy to get back in and getting it out to clean will probably be an issue. In my mind, this is an absurd design. I still can't get over the fact that a very reputable British Car Service here did not even look at it when they did the 90k service. It was completely clogged.