OK, inside to thaw my fingers out before starting the delightful job of cleaning the old gasket off the front cover ready to fit the new pump. Surprisingly little damage considering. The front cover is marked but it has just kissed the surface and if I were to polish the surrounding area the marks would only just be visible.

The pump looks errm, interesting. It looks like when the bearing let go the first thing that happened was that the whole thing tried to move forwards so it was running with the impeller against the inside of the pump. What sort of bearing was in there and where it has gone I'd rather not think about. I didn't see any bits drop out when I pulled it off (but I am working outside with only a lead light dangling down inside the engine bay) and I can't feel anything loose down either of the waterways.

The pump has no markings on it at all, not even a casting mark, so unfortunately we don't know who made it.

Just getting the feeling back in my fingers now so I'll finish my coffee and get back on it........

I hope you meant C637 pin 17 as that is the tacho output but that'll be giving 4 pulses per engine revolution and it's expecting to see 1. Two choices, play around with the settings and see if you can find one that makes it read correctly or move the brown wire to pin 2, 6, 7 or 8 on C638 as they are the drivers for the ignition coils and leave it set at dual coils.

You have 2 physical blocks that contain the coils but each one has 2 independent coils inside it so you actually have 4. As it's a wasted spark system, each coil will fire once per engine revolution even though each cylinder will only fire on every other spark. But, having just had a quick look at the manual, it seems that your options are only single coil, 2 coils or Tacho. Where is the brown wire connected? Is it on one of the coils or on the rpm output from the petrol ECU? You won't do any damage if you change the settings and see what it shows you. By fiddling around you should be able to get it to display the revs correctly.

That's where the number of coils bit comes into the setup. It's showing 4x actual speed.

Sorry Mark, but that just made me laugh out loud........

I always thought it was a technical term spelt phuqued, but yes. Trying to get as much work done as I can this morning so I can skive off a bit early and get stuck into pulling it off to see what horrors are lurking inside.

Definitely a lot of slop and the clank at the beginning of the video would suggest the impeller is floating around in there no longer attached to anything.....

Woohoo! AA have just called. The car will be back here at around 11pm tonight and the weather forecast for tomorrow is dry and sunny. That probably means it'll be bloody cold by the evening when I get in from work but at least it'll be dry. Looks like the Airtex is going on, at least for the time being.

Mention of water pumps has led me to resurrect this thread. Set off this morning for a run to Shropshire via Coventry. Got to Coventry, did what we needed to do and started out for Shropshire. Just get off the M6 onto the M54 and I felt and heard a clunk through the steering, initial thought was a tyre but then it beeped at me and a red picture of a battery appears on the dash followed by 3 more beeps and Alternator Fault. Went to pull over to the hard shoulder to realise I'd got no power steering either. Opened the bonnet expecting to see the shredded remains of the drive belt and it all looked fine except for coolant everywhere and a virtually empty reservoir. Couldn't see any split hoses so put water into the reservoir to see if I could see where it was coming out. Couldn't really see much other than what was already there so started the engine. Initially the belt was only turning a bit, then it started to turn properly and I got sprayed with coolant that was pouring out of the water pump and being flung off the back of the pulley. Decided that the hard shoulder of the M54 at 2 degrees in sleet wasn't an ideal place and, as the next exit was less than a mile up the road, I'd at least get it somewhere a bit safer so I could have a better look. Just off the motorway I saw a BP filling station so aimed for there but with 100m to go there was a loud clanking from under the bonnet followed by a loss of charge and power steering again.

Seems the water pump had seized causing the belt to slip over the pulleys so the alternator and PS pump weren't turning. After I stopped it had freed itself but the bearing obviously then broke up completely and threw the belt off. There is a good inch in and out movement on the pump shaft and about 20 degrees of side to side slop in it. There is obviously no bearing left at all. The AA supplied us with a hire car (they were very apologetic that they couldn't get me a Land Rover so I would have to put up with a brand new Zafira instead) so we could continue on to Shropshire and then back home while my car was put on a transporter with the promise that it will be home within 48 hours.

Now I've got a brand new Airtex water pump that I tacked onto my order for replacement badges and other odds when mine was being resprayed as the SE has a Britpart that the previous owner fitted and started leaking within 2,000 miles. Fortunately, or otherwise, it's been too cold for me to summon the enthusiasm to get out there and fit it so that can go on as soon as the car is back here. Or do I keep that one for the SE and get something else?

What concerns me most is the complete lack of warning. The pump was replaced when the engine was rebuilt so it's done around 40,000 miles and it was an OEM although I'm not sure what make (been through my past orders with Island and it didn't come from them so it was either LRDirect, Rimmers or Nene Overland (as they are local) and I don't seem able to check them). As I'd got a 350 mile round trip to do today I opened the bonnet yesterday to check fluids and top up the washer bottle. The coolant was sitting at it's usual level smack on the line so it isn't like it has been slowly leaking. Had it been leaking or making a noise I would have done something about it (or we'd have used Dina's Merc today) but the worrying thing is how it went with no warning at all. With the sort of journeys I do, something that isn't going to give me the slightest hint of impending failure isn't something I want. Just got to hope the impeller hasn't damaged the front cover or it's going to be a bit more than a couple of hours out there in the cold.

Dunno about Swindon but the weather forecast for here is for sleet and snow showers.........

I've got standard smooth discs and Apec pads on mine and they certainly work well. Gave them the ultimate test the other day when a National Express coach decided to pull into the outside lane in front of me when I was doing 75mph. Completely fooled the ABS system by locking all 4 wheels and leaving some pretty impressive looking black marks on the road. Wasn't it bloody big enough for you to see?

Morat wrote:

Not wishing to be a party pooper, but would your vehicle still have type approval/MOT/Insurance after you modified a rather fundamental system?

Probably not but would anyone notice? I doubt the average MoT tester would even know what should live inside the EAS box and people still manage to get through the test on coils.

The Classic got the 3.9 from 89 onwards but I didn't think the Disco came out any earlier than that. However, Wikipedia says that the Disco came out in 89 and got the 3.5 engine on carbs for the first year and kept the 3.5 engine with injection until getting the 3.9 in 1994. Presumably they had some 3.5 motors left over so bunged them in the Disco after they'd stopped putting them in the Classic.

But either way, the timing wants to be about 4 degrees give or take a degree......

Or just get the existing one fired up for long enough to save the settings from that and load them into the new one?

Simon, are you sure it's a 3.5? The Disco only came with the 3.9 engine and fuel injection whereas the 3.5 fitted to the early Range Rover had carbs. Static advance on the 3.5 is 3 or 5 degrees depending on the exact spec of the engine (which seems to vary with what carbs are fitted), the 3.9 timing is 2 degrees for the low compression without cats, 4 degrees for high compression without cats and 5 degrees for high compression with cats. All are checked at 800 rpm with the vacuum disconnected.

Ah, in that case it does need to come off and if it's been run for any length of time like that, it'll need the groove skimming out of it. When I bought mine it was blowing the other way, number 4 was blowiing into the Vee. You could see the valley gasket jumping up and down every time it tried to fire.

Orangebean wrote:

Mine's a 36" and I can't remember how much overhang I get with that.

Bragging again.....

Or, unless it is showing signs of head gasket leakage, just leave them on and worry about that if it ever does.

C'mon Miah, how are you getting on, we're getting a bit off topic again.......

Hmm, yes. I can see that was some years ago. About where that hut was for the boat trips out to the islands there's now the steps going down to the underground multi storey car park that they built under the harbour. In 2004 I was there quite a bit as my mate was living about a mile along the coast road in Cannes La Bocca and we would regularly walk to the source of the best pizzas in Europe at La Pizza opposite the corner of the harbour. The road hasn't changed much, the hut has been replaced with a nice new building, La Pizza is still there (and has been for 50 years now) but you'd never find a parking space there these days.... My mate has a Cranchi 24 that lives on a mooring at La Napoule so most days when we've nothing better to do are spent at anchor between the Iles De Lerins.

I've got a feeling, from when I repaired one for someone, that the 5V regulator in there is a 1A version so the 2A one you have will easily be up to the job.