The day started with good intentions @830 am. The little ladies been driving the disco 2 daily for 6 plus months and adding water on a daily basis(maybe half a cup due to external headgasket leak). A valve cover leak developed maybe a month into ownership killing one of the new oem bosch replacement o2 sensors I had installed to get rid of the SES. It was always on since the bank 1 sensor died but the cyl 5 skip wasn't bad and never made the ses light blink. The cats are deleted so no exhaust to worry about. Bank 1 ran lean. I am working on a custom ac compressor mount brackets for my 1st gen 4 runner diesel build so I figured I'd turn wrenches on the disco between welding small sections.

We had a flashing cel this week on a 32 degree morning but it went away. 2 days later came back and never went away. The limp home and repair immediately type of skip.

I suspected leaky o ring seals due to the massive value cover leaks so I first pulled the intake on my parts d2 to make sure I had plenty of good o rings and injectors incase i broke anything or needed spares.

I also pulled the upper intake gasket and a primary o2 sensor. The parts 03 disco has 86xxx miles so lots of good spares.

I pull apart the 99 disco to swap parts and upper intake pulls out just fine. The valve covers, big pita thanks to pass side coolant lines and ac lines on drivers side. Playing tetris in my youth prepared me for such type jobs.

Thank God I had an endoscope with a magnet to fish out a valve cover gasket spacer. I also sliced one injector o ring but luckily i had a spares ready.

This is where the fun begins. I reinstall everything and she still has the cyl 8 misfire. I put in new bosch plugs due to no champion plugs to be found today. I then swap plugs from cyl 8 to cyl 6. Still have cyl 8 miss. Then I put in the plug wire from the parts rig. Still a miss. I now suspect a lower injector o ring. I run the cool engine with water running under the intake, no change in running.

Now it's time to change the passenger side coil with one from the parts disco. I tried to do it without removing the intake but that's a no go. Much easier to spend 10 min removing the intake. When reinstalling the intake I pinch the coil mount into the fuel hose. Not realizing it I push off the quick disconnect.

so now the intake comes off for thd 3rd time today. Luckily I didn't damage the fitting. I only had time for a 10 min trip drive but it checked out ok so far. The mis fire cel was coming on immediately on start up when put in gear. It's now 9pm.

 

Showed my wife how to change the low-beam headlight bulb on the 04 and resecure dash cluster surround (upper clips are broken, causing the two mount screws behind steering wheel to break plastic), used longer screws and a couple tiny washers to repair for now. We'll have to find a new one eventually. She even cleaned the windshield, months of cigar smoke had taken their toll.

She did get a little cocky, after her two repairs...mentioned she believes she could put the defender engine back together. Truth be told...may take her up on it.

 

What brand of cigars does your wife smoke?

 

White disco just started having a burning smell on my last 2 quick errand runs in the neighborhood. Crawled around it and solid look under the hood and didn't see anything obvious aside from one of the heater core hoses was leaking at the firewall. Hoses are maybe a year old, still using the stock pressure clamp. Switched to a hose clamp to get better clamping pressure. Haven't test driven it to see if that was my issue or not. A drip or two when not moving dropping onto the cat could very well have been the culprit..

 

The collateral damage made by cigars was me, 04 is my daily while 110 is engineless. She was just asisting in repairs, because l'm basically handless at the moment.

 

One thing I do on all cooling hose to keep them leak free. Dry the nipple as well as the inside of the hose. Put a thick coating of black silicone on the nipple starting about 1/16 back from the end (don't want it inside the actual pipe). Leave it for 24 hrs after installing so the silicone cures before installing the hose clamp. The hose is essentially glued to the pipe with the clamp only providing the retaining force, not the sealing (although it does assist in the sealing)

 

If I still have an issue I'll do that. I didn't feel like making a huge mess by pulling the hose off. The handful of drips while I messed with swapping clamps was annoying enough lol. I've had my share of coolant everywhere for a while..

 

I haven’t driven it much last month so today I checked all the fluid levels. I saw I needed to drain the cr@p from my rudimentary oil catch container doohickey.

 

Finally got around to replacing my drivers side door lock actuator. Now I don’t have to unlock my door with the key anymore.

 

How often do you have to empty that? I always wanted to install one, haven't gotten around to it. Seems like it would make for a cleaner burn.