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I've been working on my new to me 03 disco 2...doing the recommended things when you buy one of these beasts to make it more reliable. One of the items is to
change the rad hoses, flush the coolant and put a new lower temp thermostat in. I've done this on mine, first with a 190 degree (gray colored one) and what was
supposed to be a 180 degree (cream colored allmakes4X4 brand one). That is what is in it now. After adding new coolant and firing it up, it goes up to over 200 just
idling. The fan kicked in at this point. I took it out for a quick spin ...not far as these to me seems to hot (from what I've been reading).
What should the next steps be here to diagnose this? The orientation of the thermostat is as the one that came off it with the lower hose from the rad (bottom left)
goes into the bottom plug on the thermostat, the next one up (on an angle) goes to the engine water pump and the top one (going straight up) connects to the top
radiator hose.
As I recall the cream colored ones were a bit dodgy as far as temp went. The problem is you need to buy an actual LR product if you are staying stock, the soft spring grey or black TD5 both worked well for me. I have since gone in-line just because it is simpler to get a thermostat and adjust my engine cooling.
Installed and ready to fill.
Feel free to chastise / correct if I did anything awry. The hoses are pushed onto the fittings just over the bump in the housing. Clamps are installed on the inner side
of the fitting where the flange is on the metal part of the housing. If this is not correct, pls chime in.
oopsie...got a leak when I fired up the engine...just ran it for < 30 seconds...and it's coming out drip, drip, drip on the underside of the thermostat housing. Not sure
exactly where it's leaking. Just took the housing back off (and lost only a wee bit of coolant (that's a big bonus!). took the sensor port plug out and siliconed it.
re-inserted it and tightened it down. waiting for 4 hours until that has set before retrying. I'm thinking it's those tension spring clamps that are not securing on the
housing tight enough. Anyone have thoughts there? The 2 I'm using on either end of the housing are brand new clamps. I doubt it's the reusable gasket
(silicone one) but who knows. I tightened the nuts on both sides to 16lb ft pounds torque which I believe is around 200 inch lbs equivalent.
oopsie...got a leak when I fired up the engine...just ran it for < 30 seconds...and it's coming out drip, drip, drip on the underside of the thermostat housing. Not sureexactly where it's leaking. Just took the housing back off (and lost only a wee bit of coolant (that's a big bonus!). took the sensor port plug out and siliconed it.re-inserted it and tightened it down. waiting for 4 hours until that has set before retrying. I'm thinking it's those tension spring clamps that are not securing on thehousing tight enough. Anyone have thoughts there? The 2 I'm using on either end of the housing are brand new clamps. I doubt it's the reusable gasket(silicone one) but who knows. I tightened the nuts on both sides to 16lb ft pounds torque which I believe is around 200 inch lbs equivalent.
the silicone gasket needs to be perfectly centered between the two metal housings. If it's off a little, it gets pinched and drips. It took me three tries to get mine centered. BTW, I didn't use any silicone grease on mine. I though that would just temporarily mask an ill-centered gasket... if centered, grease is unnecesarry. Maybe somebody (@extinct) can chime in and tell me if that's incorrect.
Last edited by Trailmix; Feb 15, 2023 at 03:25 PM.
running too hot...
