Hello Everyone,

I am new to the forum and I have been with my 2004 Land Rover Discovery II for 3 years now.

I am a sucker for vehicles with characters. (Problem cars with good looks) =)

When I got my Disco 2 I did the following:
- Ignition wire change
- Ignition coil change
- Valve cover gasket change
- Intake manifold gasket change
- changed some of the vacum hoses
- brake flush
- coolant flush

It has been a good two years but early this year the Disco has been giving me trouble.

It started early this year with a cylinder 5 misfire that would not go away. I have not been able to feel the misfire until March. The engine feels like it is choking.

I have since gone to various forums and google searches to see that I am not alone. I've seen alot of thread starters but almost non that actualy confirms a fix. The only one I saw here was what ended up being a bad head gasket due to cylinder number 5 being clean.

Even that was not a definite because there was no follow-up post confirming the problem after having the head pulled out and confirming the fix.

So. Today I will embark on that journey from begining to end for the benefit off all that would need this information after me. The Landy is a 5th car so I can afford for it to be down and I am making a commitment to see this through.

To this day I have now two misfires. Cylinder 5 and 8. Having gone through the boards the mechanic I sent the car to recomended a KW engine seal thinking it was a micro crack on the cylinder sleve.

The KW block sealer did not fix the issue. He also replaced the #5 ignition wire with an original Land Rover part and still gets a misfire on that cylinder.

He has given up on the car and told me to take it to the dealer. I do not want to take it to the dealer yet. I will try to fix this myself. I am taking the car home tonight and pull the plugs again and see things for myself.

I will post pictures.

It would be nice if someone can recommend a good code scanner for the Disco II.

Thank you for reading.

- Arnold

 

Any OBDII scanner. For $69 the Ultra Gauge is hard to beat. Might wait this evening until it is cool and very dark, then look under hood at idle to see if you can spot any arcs from insulation breakdown. Plugs, wires, boot, coils. Also shake the harness, a skinned wire can make funny things happen.

 

If you had a head gasket leak you should be noticing some missing coolant and/or overheating (from not noticing missing coolant.)

Did your mechanic read the codes?

Take it to an auto parts store to get them read for free if not and not wanting to wait for your own OBDII reader. A real close auto parts store would be best.

 

I agree with Dave, but without a scanner, you may not know that coolant is overheating somewaht, the stock heat gauge shows 50% over a very wide range, like 130-240F.

 

with user name, gotspeed, you must have other vehics.
also curious what plugs and wires did you use. I used a set of cheapos from the a zone, a few years back. they had to be replaced in less than a year.
edit: just re read, I see the wire

 

Thank you for the responses. I just might hit the local Autozone (Los Angeles Area) and have them read the code.

I just thought it would be handy to have the tool accessible while going through this journey. Lol!

As an added info the car has 98K miles on it. I get most of my parts from Atlantic British or Rovers North.

It just occured to me now that this problem started after my kids used the car for 3 months. The first thing I asked them if they used bad gas. They all claimed they did not. (17 and 20 year old boys).

They could have used bad gas and fouled the injectors?

 

Now we know where the donuts came from on the 12th fairway....

 

Not sure about the donuts. =)

Bought a scanner. Here are the codes:
P1300
P0305
p1319
p0300
p0150
p0308

I cleared the codes for now. Dumped Techron on the tank.

 

Only had a chance to tinker with it tonight. I pulled out the #5 spark plug and connected it to the spark plug wire.

Something interesting happened. First crank showed a weak spark then as the engine was running it stopped sparking.

The spark plug smelled like gas and was kinda wet with gasoline.

Now I'm thinking bad coil since the misfire is on 5 and 8. The same coil bank. I just replaced that coil 2 years ago. Purchased from Atlantic British.

Thinking of getting Magnacor and replacing both coils again. Is there a high performance or better yet heavy duty coil I can buy?

Thanks

 

I can tell you first hand that those are the BEST wires you can buy for your money. I did end up having an issue with one, but they replaced it free of charge. I'm a very big fan of Magnecor. They are also available on Amazon.com with free shipping, which is a big deal for me.