Hi all,

On starting out on a recent return trip, having already covered 450km the previous day,my 1997D1 v8 3.9i developed a slight but very noticable miss; particularly noticable on hills etc. It slowly got better on the trip home to the point where its just a minor miss now, but perfectly ok.

What are the likely causes; water and oil are fine so no head gasket problem. I suspect electrical; the leads are quite thin black ones which dont look too flash. Distributor cap/rotor maybe or coil?

A possible related issue is a slight ticking noise (not dissimilar to the sound you get if you test a spark plug while attached to a lead but removed from the engine) where the HT lead passes the power steering fluid contianer - I pulled the lead away from the fluid container and the sound decreased. I replaced the HT lead with a good replacement one, but the sound persisted. Any ideas on this weird one - coil shorting??

Cheers!!

 

I would say that you need a tune up. New spark plugs and wires. Are you sure that you have the 3.9L? My '97 has the 4.0L engine.

 

Hi

Will replace the leads and plugs i think. Definitely a 3.9, says so on top of the engine! Its japanese/Australasian spec. Im in NZ, we only have the 2.5 300 TDI and the 3.9 v8i in the 1989 to 1998 Disco.

Cheers

 

When you are done with your tune up, plan on doing an induction cleaning tto decarbon the engine, this will make a huge difference for you as the 97's were know to carbon up the valve stems.