Just bought a 96 Disco and while seeing if the low and high range worked i noticed the lever was really hard to move. After a few jiggles, the warning light came on and i could tell the center diff was locked. After trying forever to get it disengaged, it still remains stuck. Yanked on the handle, drove in reverse, tried moving and parked. What would my best option be now?

 

This seems to come up quite a bit, due to the lack of use the linkage will seize up. Be careful and DO NOT to try and force it as you could bend the linkage. Remove the console to get access to the linkage so that you can hit it with PB Blaster, and slowly wiggle it free, then grease the holy hell out of it.

You can do a search in the Discovery I section too see where others have dealt with the issue and how they fixed it....might require some patience. Good luck!

 

patience and lots of spray.

 

Sometimes power scrubbing the linkage from under the truck can some times help.
In the future don't lock it up when driving on the road, it can bind up the diffs real fast.

 

I had to deal with that same issue on my 97. To get to all that you need to bite the bullet and go ahead and remove the center console and gain access to the linkage.

It is comprised of a series of clevis pins, small delicate little metal pieces , clips that act as pivot points and all these bind up with corrosion. I bough all new clips and clevis pins fron Rovers North and patiently disassembled and rebuilt mine. Grease it up real good upon reassembly.

You will need a drill and pop rivet gun to remove and reinstall the black rubber boot. Drill out the factory rivets and lift it off, don't cut it like one dumbass did.

 

Thank you everyone for the help. After messing with the linkage the other day for about an hour i noticed the link for the diff lock was real loose around the case. I felt around and discovered a post it attaches to on the case that felt threded. Sure enough it was missing a small nut to hold the link together. Using my fingers, i disengaged the diff lock finally but have no idea what size that nut is.

 

10 mm.