I'm 0/2 on Disco Repairs Today

[AkioOhtori]

Well... today hasn't been a disaster by any means, but certainly has had some disappointments.

So what were you planning?

Well in preparation for our NYE trip overlanding in Arkansas, I was going to go ahead and change the plugs and blower motor in the Land Rover this weekend.

And how did that go?

Not well? Not bad, just... not well. Disappointing might be the right word.

Spark plugs

Alright well. I already had these in and for once I decided to upgrade my plugs. Usually I run copper plugs because I don't mind doing the work and read a long time ago that, overall, they're better than all the fancy plugs in terms of spark, even if they don't last very long. Either way, I decided to go ahead and throw NKG Ruthenium plugs in there. I'd actually bought them several months ago but didn't have time to put them in until now.

This time I'd also decided I was going to do my plugs RIGHT. Rather than start with the easiest plug and move to the hardest, the way you'd do it if you weren't thinking about it, I decided to start with the hardest and move to the easiest.

And so I did.

And it was a pain.

And turns out it was also an Iridium plug. I guess I decided to install "nice" plugs when I did the heads?

Which means it didn't need to be changed at all.

Furthermore the NGK plugs had the wrong gap.

So I didn't change them.

Blower motor

The blower motor in the Disco isn't actually broken, it just makes noises sometimes. Figuring it will choose the most inopportune moment to fail or, worse, start making a horrible noise, I decided to pre-emptively change it.

The blower motor isn't actually a bad job. Four clips, four bolts, and four screws will liberate it, allegedly.

So imagine my surprise when the manual was having me remove the 8 bolts holding in the passenger side dash support. And then unblot- crap. I went to the manual page for "blower assembly" rather than "blower motor". The former is a larger job, though not much larger.

That over, I pulled out the blower motor and discovered the source of at least some of the noise.

Heh. While the bearing in the fan felt fine, it did have a fair amount of axial play and the new blower isn't returnable so I opted to put the new one in.

In a stroke of genius, I decided to test the new motor before putting everything back together.

:tick tick tick tick tick:

Crap! Clearly I've messed up the install!

Tapping, loosening, and otherwise manipulating the motor didn't change the ticking noise. Crap.

So out the motor comes. I check the enclosure and can't find any anything in the housing...

So I plug in the motor and test it in free air.

:tick tick tick tick tick:

SONOFABITCH.

Faulty part.

Beer time

So yeah. I've got an email in to the eBay seller to see what they want to do on the blower and I need to decide what to do with $50 of spark plugs I don't need.

Just normal wrenching things...

[Jb boin]

Its always good to have spare sparkplugs.

[Urambo Tauro]

@akioohtori I've got what sounds very much like dried leaves somewhere in my truck's HVAC system; I can hear them when I turn the fan on. Unfortunately, GMT400s don't have cabin air filters, and I was disappointed not to find leaves in the squirrel cage when I replaced the blower motor (and resistor) last year. So they're still in there somewhere and I don't feel like tearing things apart to hunt them down...

I gotta admit though- buying the blower motor from a local parts store really paid off. Not only was the same brand, same part number a dollar cheaper at AZ than RockAuto (before shipping, even!), but it turned out that I had to cash in on that lifetime warranty after all. So much easier to take care of over-the-counter.

[AkioOhtori]

@urambo-tauro Wait... local auto parts stores carry car parts? I thought they were just there to sell armorall and light bulbs!
Ok I'm only slightly exaggerating. I do miss having a car that you could find parts for locally....

[Urambo Tauro]

@akioohtori Hey don't forget they're also there to sell overpriced DOT 3 "clutch fluid" LOL

[Chariotoflove]

@akioohtori If you’ve got all the fingers still on their correct hands and they are grasping a beer, I’m calling it a win.

[BeaterGT]

Could have been much worse! This is what I saw last time I pulled my blower motor. Poor guy picked a bad spot to build a home.

[derp]