So I have a buddy that's a lic. mechanic who agreed to do the work on my Disco II as my time is limited with work. He dove into the job and got started and along the way has so far torn the shifter assembly rubber boot in two, lost the plastic piece that goes inside the transmission shifter assembly that holds the cable in place, broken two more retaining clips and today lets me know that I am now to pick up the rover as he can't finish the job. I am now stuck trying to figure out exactly where he left off, what parts go where and what hardware goes where, how everything goes back together and where everything he has taken apart is located. Not gonna lie.... pretty pissed at the situation as a whole, nothing worse than trying to figure out what the last person has done or gotten to in mid tear down....On the bright side of things.... the transfer case is now back in gear and I managed to drive it home with the help of a pair of vice grips to move the tranny cable to the proper gear....

 

I don’t think he’s your buddy nor do I think he’s a licensed mechanic
you need a new one of both because that’s f up

 

@Blackrain I am with @redwhitekat here your buddy should have his license pulled if he has one that is pretty **** poor. All this stuff is an easy read on the internet literally 5 10 minutes of searching. And pretty standard, there is nothing revolutionary about a Disco or removing any of those bits.

 

In my buddies defense I will give him this ... he was doing the work at his home off the books at a really good price. But I agree with you both in the way he has dropped it.... not cool. I just hate having to get into this not knowing where all the nuts n bolts and the respective original locations to put back are. When I work on stuff I bag everything and label it so I know where it is supposed to go. I'm going to take some pictures as this is now a my problem to fix issue and get my reading glasses on to bring myself up to speed on everything. I lucked out with today being a day off for me I guess.... lol... So my first order of business will be to remove the broken end of the shift cable from the transfer case shift arm and clean that up. The drive home last night was interesting at low speed when I figured out he had put the transfer case into low gear instead of high... I got to play dodge the pot hole puddles all the way home to avoid having splash come up into the cab as the inspection plate is removed...

 

The RAVE manual will be helpful with its diagrams of everything.

 

You can have work that is cheap, quick, or good. But you must pick two. Cheap + quick: bad quality. Cheap + good: slow.
When it comes to LR, I would not trust any mechanic, even a licensed LR one, who does not pay great attention to how things are and how they should be. Discos are getting old and some of these screwups may cost you a lot. Spend your $ wisely.

 

Good advise Mr. Choodles... so I've started the work today... and boy did it end in a disaster.... Managed to get the pin out of the shift cable connector and the broken end piece off that was left over from the broken shift cable as well. I found some nylon nuts at a local store and managed to drill out the center enough to fit over top of the shift cable ball but it will still require a ton more sanding to get it slim enough to fit into the shifter assembly the way it is supposed to. I got the rear main seal stop leak stuff added today as well and was just moving the land rover up the drive way to straighten it out so I could pull it in the garage tomorrow when...... the breaks decided to not give me enough stopping power and I ended up driving into the garage door. This resulted in some broken plastic on the front bumper, dent in the garage door, pushing the whole door assembly in and twisting some of the slide rails along with snapping off a few bolts holding it all to the garage wall. Needless to say I just finished pounding everything back straight, untwisting the guide rails, re-bolting them back to the wall and taking the most of the bow in the door panel out. Not fun...

 

Dang.

 

@Blackrain that is just an all round sucky day