kollekshun Skoolday Kollekshun Fred - I iz an idiot!

[DVee8]

That looks a good one,I'll happily take a pint with you if we ever meet.

I was on the rig in the middle 80's to early 90's..

[Spurious]

That looks a lovely Disco 1..  there's not many of those left and even less that aren't complete rot boxes.  The 300tdi aren't a complex engine anyway, much prefer it over the TD5... 

[NorthernMonkey]

46 minutes ago, Saabnut said:

lots of brass band and musical soundtracks may be looking for a new home

Err, hello.....my two favourite genres ! (seriously, ask @snagglepuss, he’s used to Les Miserables or Evita belting out when he’s in the car ?)

[Broadsword]

That is a lovely looking Disco. I would like one if the current P38 ever really broke completely but the rot thing gives me the fear. Manual or auto?

[Saabnut]

Auto. Has been garaged all its life but has still had a couple of visits to the welder! Hopefully I can stay on top of this one..

[Crackers]

Oh good god. I do like that. 

I'll have all the roffle tickets on that one please!

[leafsprung]

Makes sure you check the boot floor. LR in their visionary wisdom* included a nice absorbent soundproof mat under the carpet to catch the water leaking through the perished rear window seals. As mine did. RR classic floors can be adapted to fit if there's not much left. 

Those Tdi's do run pretty cold even with a working thermostat and the heaters continue the LR tradition of dribbling out the equivalent of tepid mouse farts. I retro fitted a disco tdi into a Defender a few years back and ran it for a couple of years without a fan and the needle rarely climbed above the middle.  Economical but sedate progress certainly.

[Saabnut]

Made a start on this today by taking it to my LR specialist for diagnosis. Of course, neither of his machines would interrogate it as it is too old (same software as the P38 apparently). However he made the suggestion that the most likely culprit was the AMM so we unplugged it. Tickover back to normal, and it drives much better though far from 100% but it would indicate the AMM is the fault. My specialist said that new ones are expensive, but it may be possible to get the old one reconditioned.

Once home, I was sitting drinking tea and pondering, as you do, when I remembered I have a spares 300 TDi outside, mechanically excellent but Rusty. That will have an AMM on it, I am not sure if the one for the Auto is different from the manual version, but it is a simple swap so I guess we will find out!

[gadgetgricey]

1 hour ago, Saabnut said:

when I remembered I have a spares 300 TDi outside, mechanically excellent but Rusty. 

The Autoshite dream,.

Forgetting you have a spares car outside for the new car you have just bought

[bezzabsa]

Do Miss a decent Disco 1....had a V8 3 door,3x 200Tdi 2 door  ,2x 200Tdi 5 door  3x 300Tdi 5 door....

and 3 RR classics V8 and 300Tdi flavours

[Saabnut]

Time to update this and confirm my idiocy. At my age you would think I had learnt, but apparently not!

First, I opened the bonnet of the spares car to snaffle the AMM. First idiocy point received, being manual transmission, it does not have the seperate AMM, bugger. On to the bay of evil to relectantly price a new one. None available, they are rare as they were only fitted to 300TDI automatics for a couple of years, and not many were sold when new, and with Discos rotting like they do, there are not many left. As it was after hours, I perused the main LR suppliers websites, but again none of them listed it. By now, I was getting the fears as it was looking like I may have to try and get one from a LR dealer (assuming they would still supply for a 22 year old car) and I was sure it would be cheap*.

Went back onto Evilbay and widened my search to include used units. Deep joy, there was but one listed from a specialist LR breaker darn sarf , stated as GWO and guaranteed to be, for the pricely sum of 28 quid delivered. There was a blur in the vicinity of my keyboard as I could not hit the"buy it now"button quick enough! This was Monday evening, with a scheduled delivery of Thurs/Fri but at this time of year expected it to arrive sometime next week. Tuesday morning I received notification it had been despatched, and Tuesday evening DPD notified they would deliver it Wednesday!  Yesterday lunchtime I got a delivery slot of 16:17 to 17:17 and at 16:15 it arrived, superb service from LH Spares and DPD!

Unable to contain myself, I found my torch and fitted it straight away and.......... no difference at all! Exactly the same symptoms. Feeling miffed I came in and opened a beer. Gave it lots of thought and decided to have another look this morning. A trip up the track and back still had a high tickover, a flat spot and EML when in the flat spot area. Back home, bonnet up and all looked OK. In desperation I unplugged the AMM and the tickover dropped to about 1400rpm and reconnecting it it dropped back to about 850rpm where it should be. A quick rev and the flat spot/EML seemed to be missing, so I thought maybe it had reset and all was good.

Decided to go and cast my vote (ooooh, political!) and give it a test.  Half way up the track and the flat spot/EML returned. Bugger again. Vote casted, I returned home and at the top of the track did another disconnect and reconnect of the AMM and all was good until almost home when it did it again. By now I was struggling, as the reset seemed to point to the AMM, but the chances of two having identical faults was slim. Then I remembered the PO had had a secondhand AMM fitted 5 years ago (just before giving up on trying to find the fault) so that meant three with identical faults. My brother phoned and in discussion with him, he said the car had been to two different garages back in the day, and it had had two secondhand AMMs fitted, both times resulting in a temporary fix, so that meant either 4 AMMs had failed in identical ways, or there was something else. Now the TDI is a pretty simple engine, but the 300 Autos are fly by wire, and several people had suggested it might be the pump itself so I looked at the alternative of swapping the pump/cables/throttle pedal etc from the manual one. Apparently it can be done, but it is a lot of work and I would lose the cruise control.

Whilst searching t'internet for more info on this, my friend Gary arrived to bring back one of my trailers. As we drank tea, I explained it all to him (Gary is my MOT man and a mechanic by trade, and a damned good one) and he was as confused as me. Once the tea was drunk, we went out to the car and he had a look under the bonnet. He too could not find a problem and retried the disconnect/reconnect of the AMM, making no difference. Whilst reconnecting the AMM he brushed against the vacuum pipe to the EGR and it fell off the EGR. He went to put it back on and looking at the bit of rubber pipe between the hard vacuum pipe and the EGR noticed a split. Squeezing the rubber pipe resulted in it disintegrating completely. A rummage on my shelf found the length of silicon vacuum pipe I had bought for repiping the Saab 900 Carlsson and a three inch length was cut off and fitted to the Disco.

A test run showed full power restored, no EML and no flat spot. So, 2 garages, 3 replacement AMMs and 5 years of poorly running for the sake of two inches of vacuum pipe! I really am an idiot, I should have checked the simple things first but was mislead by the garages looking at it so assumed they would have checked these things. So happy was I I put a new fuse in and restored the cigarette lighter to full operation.

Still, I now have a spare AMM which I am happy to keep on the shelf as they are hard to find.  Of course, that means that my AMM will last past the apocalypse, but it is a cheap insurance policy!

[Zelandeth]

Reminds me of my C900 being off the road for well over a month due to an incorrect rotor arm having been fitted...Simple fault, but boy did it take me a while to find it.

[Barry Cade]

On 03/12/2019 at 08:39, Saabnut said:

Very cold and very icy here so will have to leave a bit earlier than planned.

Breakfast:

And transport to the station, once I have defrosted it:

Just noticed your Astro has the flip down front number plate/step.. 

Still got it?

[Saabnut]

8 minutes ago, Barry Cade said:

Just noticed your Astro has the flip down front number plate/step.. 

Still got it?

Yep. Still parked in exactly the same place, not even opened a door on it since that photo. However, I shall be reiring March next year and the Astro is number 3 on the resto list, so hopefully it will return to the road in the next year or two.....

[High Jetter]

"three years on my wagon, and I'm still rolling along"...

[bezzabsa]

allegedly the Auto in the disco has approx 15Bhp more than manual...... supposedly to make up for being auto!!!