I've only had my '01 Disco II for a week now. I was finally able to locate and download an owners manual and I've been poking around here for some answers. My question is about locking the center transfer case. There's nothing about it in the owners manual and I noticed on the Expedition Exchange parts website there is a center differential lock kit that it says can be used on any Disco II that has a 'ready lockable transfer case' but lacks the means to do it.

How do I find out if my transfer case is lockable?

 

ok stole this from www.expeditionswest.com "1999-Mid. 2001 Discovery's have the CDL, but no linkage fitted to engage it. There is a 10mm stud on the top of the front driveshaft output.

Late 2001-2003: These Discoveries have no 10mm stud to use for engaging the CDL and require a complete replacement of the front output section of the transfercase. This job has been done by: Bill's European in Santa Fe, NM

Call, Expedition Exchange too though, they will be able to help out.

So, hopefully you got an early 01 year (says on vin/info sticker on drivers door). Hope it works out, CDL is very good to have, and really great if you have the traction control as well!

 

Thanks - the date on my sticker says 11/00 so I guess that would put me in the 'early' 2001 category but hard to know for sure. I mean, when do they actually start building the next years model and when do they end the production run? If I crawl up underneath is there something I can readily see that would give me an indication? Is the '10 mm stud visible from underneath?

 

so let me get this straight...you can't lock the differential on a Series II?
their is no linkage to engage it? why not?

On my Disco I all you have to do is be rolling at 5 mph, shift to Neutral, and shift to Low gear.

 

hmm...i dont think they mean calendar year in that post i put earlier, i think they mean model year. So as long as yours is a 2001 MODEL it will be CDL possible. I would say a 'late' 2001 would have been built IN the 2001 year, whereas yours wasnt. I have a july 96 built 97 disco, so I would say i have an early 97....i am not sure what the 10mm stud is even, i should crawl out there and find out for ya ....errr damn you! haha just got back in and short answer-if you can find the stud you get like a million cookies because i didnt locate garbage, but what i did do was take like 40 mins to check my differential fluids and t/c and inspect the undercarriage--thanks a lot! ahaha

 

In 1999, Land Rover was basically sold to BMW, who did something like 415 changes (mostly improvements) in their Discovery 'Series 2.' The introduction of electronic traction control (uses ABS to stop wheel slippage, kinda like a fulltime cdl/locking diffs in a way), and BMW felt that NO ONE used the manual CDL and they could just 'delete' it as their TracCon was good enough. Well, Land Rover had stockpiles of transfer cases, and so this stock was used up, they just plopped them into the DII's but they did not allow the transfer case shifter to move to the left, so they could only select L or H ratio. But, as many of the early DIIs were using older t/cases, the ABILITY to lock is there, but people like kcab have to buy a selector to replace the one they have, so that they can move to the left. MANY MANY MANY Land Rover enthusiasts were highly outraged at the deletion of the CDL. So in 2004, a manual locking CDL became a factor OPTION again, still not standard I do not believe. ANd now Ford has their LR3 in 2005 that uses traction control techniques and as far as I know does not have a manual CDL, again...

 

I have looked at gettin a CDL locker from expedition exchange. The one they have is cable actuated! this would solve the problem of the sticky linkage that we are all too familiar with