Replacing the front cover gasket. Have gotten a lot of help from this board so I figured I would try to offer some give back. What follows will be my journey towards replacing a front cover gasket on a '94 Disco. The truck has just over 101K on the motor.

The forum allows only 5 images per post. So I will break it down into multiple posts. Hope that is ok.

BTW... if anyone has any suggestions on how this job may be done betetr or easier... I am all ears!

IMAGE 1
The motor less water pump and radiator. This started as a new water pump job... but the fan clutch was frozen onto the old water pump, so the radiator came out prior to the fan and water pump as a single assembly.

IMAGE 2 & IMAGE 3
Need to pull the crankcase pully off. The nut securing it in place is ULTRA tight, I beleive over 195 Nm. So to get it off we used the ratchet in a steel pipe sleeve wedged against the frame. This can be seen in image 3. Just a flip of the motor for all of one second is all that is needed.

IMAGE 4
Motor less pully.

IMAGE 5b
The distributor and distributor removed form the front cover. Making sure to mark the position of the distributor relative to the front cover. I never had to adjust the timing on this motor. Isuspect that the Rover engineers that designed the distributor and the lockdown clamp/bolt... never did either. STUPID STUPID STUPID positioning of the bolt dead underneath the distributor with no easy angle for access.

 

Image 7 & Image 8

The bottom of the front cover rests on and is bolted to the oil sump. The two bolts in the front of the oil sump must be removed. These are in YELLOW circles. The other two to each side of the front must be loosened. These are in BLUE circles. I have read that in subsequent yeasrs these two bolts were replaced by studs on the cover plate. Since the oil is out, and you already have a mess on your hands... this actually might be a good time to replace the oil sump gasket and clean out any yuck?

IMAGE 9
Motor with the cover plate removed. With some gentle prying and back and forth movement... perpahs a light tap to break the seal?... the front cover come right off. There are two dowel pins for alignment, so the cover must come off flush and straight. Do not bend or pry it off.

IMAGE 10
Cover plate on the bench about to get a bath with Kero, de-greaser, and a parts brush.

IMAGE 11
These are bolts that came out of the front cover. They are coated with what looks like plumber's putty on the threads. Hav e to clean that out and make sure to reapply with simialr sealant later.


Thats it for one night... maybe more tomorrow. Hope this helps someone, someday, somewhere. OH...most iimportant tool in the garage... Toyostove DoubleClean Kero Heater!



Joe

 

Thats Loc-Tite on the threads.

 

Wow! Thank you for the pictures and everything. I'm most of the way through the disassembly on this job and I think the worst bits are over. Crank pulley, water pump, and the radiator are out.

I took out the radiator, because I'd originally planned on using an impact on the crank pulley. Then I decided to give the starter trick a try instead. Anyway, I'm just trying to figure out if I want to replace the oil pan seal. It wasn't on my original list of parts, but now that everything else is all torn apart, I'm considering it though it means yet another week (of waiting) before I can put things together.

Anyway thanks for the write up, hopefully this gets linked in a sticky HOW-TO post or something.

 

Using the starter for breaking loose the crankshaft pulley bolt would make me as nervous as he)) and risking damaging the crank pulley which is not the highest quality casting.

The better route for both taking it off and torquing it back on is to drop the oil pan and then have one person hold the flywheel while another does the bolt. Holding the flywheel can be done easily by using a round bar (like the butt end of a breaker bar) in the fly wheel and then just holding the bar up against the bottom of the side of the block.

It takes two people but is much safer and on the newer models (as you noted) you have to drop the pan anyway.

 

We always used the starter method, kinda hard to do the other without a lift.

 

What about when it goes back on???
Are you able to torque it to spec using only the compression or is there another trick for holding it back???

 

EDIT:
I'm just on the reassembly side now because of an unexpected trip for work. Anyway, it should be noted that Discovery II's have to remove the whole oil pan (or at least drop it) so you can unhook the Oil Pickup. I'm pretty happy, my pan was much cleaner that I'd expected.

Since you have to pull the pan on the Discovery II, it is trivial to throw an impact socket on a bolt down on the fly wheel. I slowly rotated it until the socket was snug on the housing, and then torqued it to spec.

I've still got a radiator to put back in, but I should know if all the pain was worth it tonight.

 

Thanks one more time. Everything is back together and it doesn't leak a drop. Between your guide, pictures, and the RAVE the job went as smoothly as I could expect. Most importantly, I feel like I learned tons about this vehicle from the process.

Best of all, it gives me a sort of connection that I don't think I'd have otherwise. Now I'm excited to do all the routine maintenance on my baby that I've drug my way though in the past. C'mon Spring!