Im planning on spending this summer renovating my 1998 Discovery (4.0L v8), and I have a few questions...

What are the essential books I should have to tackle a lot of the maintenance? Does anyone have any links to good websites that have walkthroughs and such? Perhapse an old thread to point me to. the 1200 page bently manual seems right, aye?

The difflock is jammed from years of non-use... the exhaust manifold needs replacement. The cruise control doesnt work, needs new shocks, would be nice to be able to replace brakes myself..... among many other things

And does anyone know what the cause of a horrible shimmy might be? When hitting an over pass (over 65 MPH) with a large bump, The steering wheel and entire truck will shake violently (for up to 1 minute or more unless...), and gets worse if I brake, It needs to be accelerated out of (only goes away when i floor it [ get weight off the front of the vehicle]).... I think it happens only when i get low on power steering fluid (which goes almost completely dry every month or so), however should I expect the shocks to be a culprit as well?

I really love this car, and It was a great first car for an abusive teen to own! She can take a LOT of abuse! I'd like to restore her back to being a comfortably luxury off road ute, rather than a dangerous feeling, non-offroadable tank of sorts

Any comments are appriciated! [8D]

 

Regarding the manuals, the Rave CD from rover-renovations.com is a good thing. But you'll have to wait for it for at least two weeks. It's worth the wait though, and it's free. You may get it faster off of ebay, you'll have to pay around $10 then.

 

For sure get the CD. You can print the pages you need and take them out to the truck. I find myself running back inside with greasy hands...=)

You can find a list of part suppliers under the general tech tab. If you are a little mechanically inclined and have some tools, you can fix everything you listed yourself. People are willing to help with any questions you may have. The shimmy could be caused by bad ball joints or steering stabilizer, or the shocks like you said .

You might want to look into re-building your driveshafts, depending on your mileage.

Let us know when you are ready to tackle something.

 

Too many questions to start answering. Send me your tele number and a good time for me to call you, make sure to have a pencil and paper.
Mike
mikeljacobs@comcast.net

 

the shake might mean you either have warped rotors(when you slow down) or you need to rotate your tires (when accelerating )