Just bought a Disco II

craig

Supporting Sponsor, Overland Certified OC0018
LC/LR4Life said:
You must have gotten a late Friday afternoon rig. Mine don't leak, no leaks anywhere actually.

Be patient, they will. :)
 

LC/LR4Life

Adventurer
Neither of my rovers- 2001 or 2002. If you take care of them, you shouldn't have any real problems. Using silicon spray on your seals occasionally keeps them good.
 

craig

Supporting Sponsor, Overland Certified OC0018
Definately, maintenance will help. In addition to the seals leaking, other things that cause leaks are the drain tubes cloggin, drain tubes cracking, or especially if you offroad, the frame loosening up.

My sunroofs lasted 7 years (5 in CA sun, 2 in WA rain) before the first leak but was much easier to repair than most internet posts on the subject suggest.
 
Last edited:

R_Lefebvre

Expedition Leader
LC/LR4Life said:
Neither of my rovers- 2001 or 2002. If you take care of them, you shouldn't have any real problems. Using silicon spray on your seals occasionally keeps them good.

Do you live in a dry or wet area? That makes a difference, obviously.

Anybody who buys a Disco should remove the black plastic tread plate from door apperture so they can look under the carpet. Find out what the situation is, because it can be a hidden problem that is or has rusted the floor and you might not notice otherwise. Mine was starting to rust pretty bad, but I caught it before any structural damage had occured. Luckily this tread plate is on a low spot on the floor, which is where the water collects anyway, so it's easy to check. If it's not rusty here, you're probably ok.

I had basically stripped my entire interior, put a rust paint on the floor, fixed the leaks, then put it all back together.

From what I found, these are the issues:

1) Drain tubes get clogged. This one is pretty basic. Sediment can build up and clog them. Need to keep them clear.

2) Drain tube spigots don't seal to the tray. From what I can see, the spigots click into the drain tray, and don't seal to the tray very well. This was my issue. The dealer fixed it by dropping the liner around the sunroof opening, sticking a piece of plastic bag or something on top of the liner to protect it, then shoot a glob of sealant onto the bag and press it up onto the spigot area. This sealed the bottom half of the spigot connection. I had one that would still leak if the water was coming down hard enough to build up in the tray to reach the upper half of the spigot connection.

3) Tubes not sloping away from spigots. The tubes can go up to the roof before sloping down to the A pillars. This can cause a "reverse trap" situation where the water has to build up before it flows down.

In any of these cases, if the water build up in the tray enough, it will get to the level of the sunroof motor opening, then it can drip down into the plastic trim around the sunroof buttons. This is what causes water in that area.

I solved my problems by removing the liner. I could see water stains on the top of the liner at ALL the drain tube spigots. They had ALL leaked at least a little at some point. Only one of them appeared to still leak. I gooped the top half of the spigot connection with a glob of RTV. The other 3 will STILL leak if I pour water directly into the tray. When it gets to a certain level, it leaks out the top of the spigot connection, but it doesn't appear to be a problem in reality so I left them.

I also rolled a ball of duct tape and put it between the drain tube and the roof panel, then taped all that to the panel. This holes the tube down from the roof panel a bit so it slopes better into the A pillar.

I think my drain tubes were probably clogged too, but I think the dealer probably cleaned them when they tried the original tray.

My windshield leaked from a REALLY crappy aftermarket windshield job. I bought the Permatex runny silicone and flowed that into the seals, and that fixed that.

The other major issues with the Disco are:

1) Three Amigos, or the TC/ABS/and...? lights being on. Can be caused by many things. One of them appears to be an electrical fault in a solenoid that IS repairable if you're really good. There's a how-to somewhere on how to do this, brought to us in fact from the Hummer H1 crowd, as they have the same modulator. (or is it H2?) Another possibility, in my possibility, is the system going bad from having dirty brake fluid in it. I flushed mine first thing. LR recommends a 30k mile replacement interval on this. This is much more frequent than normal cars. They obviously know something is up. Then you have the possibility of other things causing it, I think there's somethign with the sensors...

2) Front driveshaft U joints. They are non-servicable, and can go bad. When they go, the driveshaft can whip around and "***** slap the transmission case". Usually destroying it. Those need to be replaced with greasable joints, and greased regularly.

3) DO NOT allow the engine to overheat, AT ALL!!! If it's in the red, stop immediately, unless instant death would result from your stopping. Overheating is likely to slip a liner, ruining the engine.

Those are the big ones, off the top of my head.
 

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