Just got done with my first deep dive into the motor to replace the valley pan gaskets... and holy smokes, what were they thinking with some of these design decisions??

1. The secondary air tubing that screws into the exhaust manifolds and how those nipples unscrew along with the union nuts... Why couldn't those nipples be cast into the manifold or maybe make them six-sided to get a good grip on them, but there's essentially zero position to put a crows foot bit and hold it well and the four-sided nature makes them all but impossible to tighten. The. Worst.

2. The casting at the bottom of the valley is so shoddy it made me think the casting busted. I had to look up photos others posted from that area of the engine to see that it's common and not something drastically messed up with mine.

3. THE COIL PACK MOUNTING. What the hell. Literally so bad I'm getting frustrated talking about it.

4. The valve cover gaskets are the first 12-point bolts I've ever seen in real life. Why? It would've been the easiest thing in the world to put literally anything else in there. Why 12-pointed??

5. The hard plastic cooling hoses that snap in half. OK.

6. The reason for replacing the radiator today: the screws that are 1mm longer than the hole they fit into, and then the fact that the hole the screws break through is the actual radiator tank. Sure. $300 consequence for doing something completely reasonable, you know, like screwing a screw into the hole. Dumb.

7. Much less frustrating than the above-mentioned, but after removing about 30 of these today, I'll add it to this list: the tension style hose clamps. HATE. Almost no easy way to take them off if they aren't perfectly oriented. In my opinion the best hose clamps are still the 1980-2000s era BMW clamps. They're like the typical screw/worm drive clamps but with smooth insides that don't cut into hoses like the cheap Autozone clamps do.

I'll end with things I really appreciated though...

1. Really love that there's only one drive belt. God that's awesome.

2. The automatic belt tensioner is a welcome design choice, instead of fussing with those old style types where you sort of have to guess the tension by depressing your finger and deflecting the belt. Good work LR... or maybe we have BMW to thank for that because it's the same tensioner system that was in my old 98 M3.

3. Radiator expansion tank not being integrated into the radiator. Another BMW reference. Good work LR keeping it nice and separate, easy to replace and attach new hoses to.

4. PIECE OF CAKE thermostat replacement. Most motors I've worked on required a pretty decent tear down to get to the thermo.

5. The snorkel style of the air intake is pretty clever for wading.

6. A 10mm and 13mm socket can be used to take apart most of this car.

 

Yep...yep...yep....gosh, have you never had a car with serpentine belts? Yes, they are so genius we early Bronco owners retrofit the system onto our old 289/302's. I converted my valve cover bolts to allen sockets. I am using studs and nuts instead of bolts on the coil pack. I also have a Topside Engine Creeper to make things easier. I never had a problem with those hose clamps, actually, I like them. I use a pliers to twist the latch apart, and a squeeze with the pliers clicks them back together again. Don't use the screwdriver method to get them apart. Wait till you replace engine and trans mounts.

 

Wait till you do timing chains on a 4.4 or head gaskets on a 5.0 . Or better yet deal with electrical issues in a L402. You'll be crying for your old disco with a basic Buick 215. I'm not saying it can't be better. Hindsight is useless unfortunately.

Cars are getting more complicated and very expensive. Clutch on to your old-school NA V8 with solid axles and a body on frame construction. They'll never come back.

My daily greivences as a professional wrench Turner.

 

It’s Buick motor with enough room under the hood to fit another. It could be worse.

 

All true things. I'm looking at 50,000 mile service for my RR Evoque with terror. There's not a single inch of empty space. The whole engine compartment is stuffed.

 

If you think the coil packs are bad on a D2 don’t ever look at a V10 Dodge Viper!!

 

Yep. I will say the spark pulgs and opti spark were a bigger pita on my 95 z28 lt1 than on the Disco.

 

I agree with the questionable design decisions. Been managing design engineers for 30 yrs and I could write a book on this thing. However, maybe I can help with a few of your concerns.

Take the sparkplug out, open end wrench on the fitting, big crescent on the tubing nut. Not that hard.

Let's not confuse design shoddiness with manufacturing shoddiness - LR had plenty of that in the early 00's as well.

Agreed. Once you get used to it you can get the upper intake off in about 5 minutes. Still shoddy. Fix inbound, more later.

Right! The one material in the world known for being flexible, especially at temperature. Let me tell you as someone who worked in the plastic industry the last 20 years it tool real serious incompetence to find a grade of plastic this inappropriate for that application. I have serious contemplated tracking down the offending engineer on LinkedIn and traveling to the UK to confront him face to face. Borderline deserving of a class action lawsuit.


Except it is complete garbage - you need to do a bypass thermostat mod.

For fun, I will add to the good design decisions and some other comments:

1. The suspension team was excellent. Shocks never wear out, suspension travel is excellent, spring rates and damping almost perfect.
2. Body fit and finish - very good.
3. Paint shop - what bs - clearcoat is garbage.
4. Leather, interior trim, etc - top quality. Best leather ever seen for those years.
5. Sunroof pan design - absolute garbage. Another engineer who needs a thorough *** kicking
6. Engine tune - pretty good. Torquey motor, good ecu diagnostics, simple components. Reasonable fuel economy given the weight, aerodynamic profile.
7. ZF automatic - brilliant.
8. Plastic engineering/material selection - radiator, coolant tank, bumpers, hoses, wiring looms, etc. Absolute garbage - #1 guy on my list for an *** kicking.

Have fun ya'll - keep calm and Rover On.

 

You should all change a pack on an M-1 Abrams, m113, or any other piece of outrageously priced miliatry tracked metal.

Hmmwv's arent that bad thank god.

 

This. I spent 15 minutes trying to get off ONE that was underneath the SAI hose. Terrriblleeee!