Running report
PIGLET, MY 1996 Discovery, continues to earn its keep with a drive down to Bristol for family reasons, followed just a couple of days later by a day trip to West Sussex to pick up a 200Tdi engine for a conversion. These engines are not as easy to obtain as they were a few years ago and I was especially keen to get my hands on this one.
It came out of a one-owner Discovery with just 95,000 miles on the clock and a fully-stamped main dealer service history to support the mileage. The vehicle had come brand-new from Stratstones in London and spent its life on a farm not far from Crawley. It succumbed to the usual Discovery rot but spent another three years as an off-road runabout (still being serviced annually) until the clutch finally disintegrated after a quarter-century of towing heavy trailers across the Sussex Downs. A new clutch was deemed too expensive and I snapped up the engine when I saw it advertised.
The engine was still in the vehicle, so I brought a crane with me. My original plan was to put the engine and crane in the back of Piglet, which should have been well within the 700 kg carrying capacity, but I had some doubts about the rear springs, which are only a few months old yet already starting to sag slightly. I craned a spare engine into the boot at the workshop and the back end dropped down onto the bumpstops, so that was that. (I might try police-specification Range Rover rear springs to see whether I can live with the ride.) So I took my trusty trailer instead, and just as on the Bristol trip the old Discovery took me there and back without a moment’s worry.
I have mentioned before the intermittent immobiliser problems that have plagued this vehicle since I bought it. I thought the issue had gone away until one morning I went out to the vehicle and found that the key fob no longer did anything at all, however much I fiddled with it. The Emergency Key Access (EKA) code got me out of trouble and Ralph at Mansfield 4x4 kindly gave up his coffee break to code in a new genuine Lucas key fob for me. It is reassuring to know now that when I press the key fob button the immobiliser will disarm and allow me to start the vehicle.
Factory-fit immobilisers present no problem to the average teenage car thief, but they are very good at preventing the vehicle’s rightful owner from being able to drive it.