By Duckworths do you mean the LR main dealer in Boston?

If you can hear it running, make sure the washers on the mounts are the right way up. They are dished and want the bottom ones convex side up and the top ones convex side down.

Don't forget that a decent pump will run hotter than a knackered one. Not only will the motor run hotter as it is having to work harder, compressing the air will cause the air to heat up too.

You're right there. I took mine in for MoT a few weeks ago, he did the emissions test first, then put it on the ramp. Opened the bonnet and the first thing he noticed was a shiny new intermediate steering column and as soon as it was up in the air, a new drag link too. From that point on, it was more a cursory look round as he knows that I will always sort anything it needs when it needs it not just when it's MoT time. The fact that it was showing just over 400,000 miles and I'd already told him I'd got the best part of 6,000 miles to do in the next month meant he knew that I thought everything was OK.

Air hose entry is just a collet and pair of O rings the same as on the valve block and air springs. Isn't the bolt just a bolt?

Also, whether this is something that varied with the market or not I don't know, but a soft dash LSE over here would have had the Brooklands style bumpers and not the chrome ones like on that. Must admit it's very nice and would fetch decent money. Over here you'd be looking at maybe 40k max?

I'd be inclined to wirebrush it and paint it. If it starts to leak at some point in the future, deal with it then. Yes, it's a pressure vessel but only holds 10 bar so not like it's going to explode, just hiss a bit if it starts to leak.

I remember reading a report once years ago, after the Lancia rust problem came out. It seems that in those days car manufacturers were using reclaimed steel for body panels. Someone sent a brand new Alfa body panel to a laboratory who tested it and found it was something like 80% ferric oxide so no matter how much protection you put on the outsides of the panel, it would still rust as the rust was already in it.

On a DS21 Citroen I owned I spent days welding an old filing cabinet into the underside. The sills were square section about 6 inches square and the bottom would rot out on them. I plated all the bottom and outer sills and even bolted through and put L sections on the inside where it joined the floor. The fuel tank lived under the back seat so that had to come out while I was doing the welding and after I'd finished it, put the fuel tank in but didn't bother with the rear seat. Drove it down for MoT which it sailed through only to notice on the way home that the C pillars were wobbling around from side to side. It was only the back seat that was stopping the back end from waving around in the breeze! The join between the C pillars and sill sections had rotted away too. Fortunately all the outer panels on a DS were bolted on and the VIN plate was held on with self tappers. So I bought another that had rotten outer panels (and had been treated to a silver Hammerite, brushed on, paint job) and swapped the VIN plate, number plates and all outer panels from one shell to the other. Kept the old VIN plate in the glovebox in case I needed to buy any spares as on was a DS21 carb and the other was a DS23EFi........

We had a Disco 1 at work from brand new and as it had a 10m telescopic Clark mast on the roof, it was a bit top heavy. At the time LR did a rear anti roll bar as an option and we had that fitted which made a hell of a difference to the amount it rolled on corners. Still didn't stop one guy from rolling one though which resulted in H&S recommending that everyone that drove one got sent to Solihull to do an off road driving course. Not one of us complained, I'd have happily paid to do that course.....

The Disco 1 was replaced with a TD5 D2 when the time came and that had ACE fitted. Not sure if it made any difference to the roll, I thought it only supplemented the springs to give self levelling?

I think the original system on the DS only had 5 spheres, one on each corner and one on a pressure regulator. All of the ones I owned had the hydraulic gearbox so a manual gearbox but the gearchanges and clutch operated by the hydraulics. Got interesting when it lost pressure as it shut things down in order of importance so you'd lose the gearchange, then the suspension, then the power steering and finally the brakes (although thinking about it, you could very well be right and there may have been another sphere on the braking circuit). Still got the workshop manuals somewhere, although I can't see myself ever owning another DS, brilliant engineering but made from the poorest quality, most corrosion prone, steel ever produced, you could watch it dissolve while parked in the rain.

dhallworth wrote:

You can clearly see a big green ball in the wheel arch which looks exactly like a Citroen sphere that was half filled with Nitrogen for damping.

Nearly but not quite. Unless the Activa system was different, the Nitrogen gave the springing, the damping was done by washers with small holes in them to restrict the flow of the LHM hydraulic fluid into and out of the sphere. So no actual dampers at all. It used to be common to see an old Citroen bouncing along the road because the spheres had lost their Nitrogen and the only springing was in the tyre sidewalls! Back in the day, before they became highly collectable and fetch silly money, I went through 5 assorted Citroen DS models and a couple of CXs (never being one to stick with anything simple). There was a guy that lived near me who had been a design engineer working with Christopher Cockerell on the development of the hovercraft who designed and built the first rig for re-gassing the spheres. He was a very useful source of knowledge and spares (of which I needed plenty). He sold a lot of his stuff off to Pleiades, who are still based in the next village from me and are one of the few places that still do parts for the older Citroens. The height sensors were mechanical valves that opened and closed to allow fluid to whatever corner needed it with no electronics involved at all, just a 7 piston pump supplying fluid at 2,500 psi! Roll Royce also fitted green Citroen spheres to the Silver Shadow but to supplement the conventional springs and make the suspension self levelling.

and? I drove along worse roads than that a couple of weeks ago in Poland and they were considered public highway! At least we now know what mad-as looks like as he's never been able to get his webcam working when we had the virtual pub meetings......

Or we could meet up at Springfields? About half way for each of us.

Not over this way any time in the near future by any chance?

Rimmers are an hours drive for me so use them when really desperate, otherwise it's Island 4x4 or LRDirect.

I thought you bought a compressor recently?

Autodoc, Online Car Parts and various other names appear to be in the UK with a .co.uk website but they are actually in Germany. Their prices are good (sometimes) but everything takes at least a fortnight to arrive and, as you've found, parts may not be the best.

I use the mylpg.eu site and POI file. It's far easier to find LPG abroad than it is here. Stations are a bit thin on the ground in Holland but everywhere else there must be one every couple of miles, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia have LPG only stations as well as LPG at normal petrol filling stations (although in Lithuania it's called Ducos and Gaze in Latvia). Every German services appears to have LPG and then there are the Autohof areas just off the Autobahn that aren't signposted so you'll see a sign saying the next services are in 50kms, but an Autohof a couple of miles down the road.

Correction, pipes look like they've never been out. The grooves are where the O rings sit which is why RAVE says to trim 1mm off the end then chamfer with a pencil sharpener so the O rings bear on a smooth part of the pipe. Driver packs are always that colour.

I've used Britpart non-critical parts so door fasteners should be OK. I could have bought a set of Britpart front brake calliper seals for £3, but when you can get TRW ones for £6, why risk it? I've got a Britpart washer nozzle and even that doesn't work properly, instead of two nice jets of water it sprays water all over the place......

No so much preemptive (or preventative maintenance is the term we would normally use), but catching things before they become serious enough to stop the car. So on top of routine maintenance I'm always aware that a lot of the bits I'm relying on are 22 years old and getting worn. Hence carrying quite a few 'mission critical' spares when I do a long trip (starter motor, alternator, crank position sensor, set of ignition coils and leads). The sort of thing that are straightforward enough to change at the side of the road but would stop me dead if they failed.

Possibly, try pulling the timer relay. Although that doesn't explain why it only sleeps when you are in it.