New owner

[Darknight]

New owner of 99 Discovery 2, can say I love this truck/suv. I know I will hate it sooner or later with money expense from what I read, but its a comfortable, well crafted machine.

Use to own a shop prior to cancer, so hopefully can fix most stuff myself. It had 99k miles, dealer maintained, new geolander tires, kyb shocks, new brakes, royal purple all last 50k, new serpentine, a/c charge, magnacores, oxygen sensors, etc.

Well after we got it, the bank2/sensor 2 o2 went out. This is a new Bosch replacement the prev owner put in 5 months ago and went lean. I replaced it, no issues.

NOW... today in Houston its raining this morning and take wife to work cause I need Rover to take son on errands and it throws a engine light and then flashes and hesitates, no power and DRINKING gas, and exhaust pipe is now black. had to put 30 miles on it due to could not cancel doctors appts.

I check codes and get 0308 and 0300. Plugs look good ,Champion line, wires are new and no arcing, all on tight.

I did not go through ANY high water, maybe 3 inches 5 inches max, nothing to get up on motor, but heck dont know, could have splashed on bottom.

I have read 98 up has problems with sticky exhaust valves, but wondering why it would instantly do it. Plus I ran lean for 2 weeks waiting on the o2 sensor to come in. didnt drive it much 18 miles a day easy.

watching my cheap scanner at home, the bank 1/sensor 2 o2 is not fluctuating as fast as the others, and heard these also like to be changed in pairs, also heard any moisture on MAF can do it.but dont know how that would have happened.

I just drove it 600 miles roundtrip last weekend and got 400 miles to the tank before stopping for gas, maybe coudl have gotten more, it shifted like butter (just flushed tranny) and it ran in the exact middle of temp gauge and coolant temp stays at 195-197 all the time according to scanner /sensor.

going to hit the forums, have a shop manual, but no diagnostic steps like all data at home either.

just 0308 registers, pending code is random misfire. Wondering if got bad gas, but i added another half tank to it at another station. It is drinking the gas like crazy.

 

[joey]

P0300 is random misfire, and P0308 is misfire on #8, If I were to guess I would say to check #8 fuel injector or make sure that the coil pack hasn't gone bad. burning excess fuel I would lean toward the injector.

Remember the second O2 sensors just read the CATS they don't really effect fuel consumption.

I would also clean the MAF and make sure you don't have water in the bottom of the air box.

 

[Disco Mike]

I hate to step on Joey's post, but you never clean a Bosch MAF on a D2 unless you want to buy a new one, they won't take it unless done properly with the right cleaner and directions which most mechanic have yet learned to do.
As for the injector, usually if #8 injector were acting up, you would have a 208 fault code and here again, D2's are not known to have injector issues.
Early D2's have had valve guide issues which might be causing the problem.
Before doing anything I would replace or move the #8 plug, see if anything changes, if not then consider the wire as a problem.

 

[antichrist]

they won't take it unless done properly with the right cleaner and directions which most mechanic have yet learned to do.

So what is the correct cleaner and what are the instructions?

 

[Darknight]

I picked up some seafoam and motor flush, going to swap plugs first, but figured flushing oil really good isnt going to hurt even though just changed it, and run some foam through it if plug swap doesnt do it. I read the TSB that exhaust valves gunk up and stick, crap I hope that isnt it, its past 100k so no one would do the work on it for recall anyways.
It ran absolutely beautiful last weekend, i cant see the valves gumming up in 2 days to this extreme, and not a heck of a lot additives or flushes can do for exhuast side anyways, seafoam will burn out in intake side pretty darn good, thats about it.

Wasnt going to touch MAF, never seen any brand or make take being sprayed with cleaner with good results. Usually if so bad it needs tht much cleaning, the cleaner makes it worse. MAF looks decent anyways, air filter purely visible all the way through and no moisture anywhere.

All I can think of is anything different and got gas sunday night, monday was fine, Tues it rained here and drove it in rain, boom , it started acting up. plug wires still look brand new, but i have seen new ones go bad in a week.

 

[Darknight]

Well after checking plugs again last night all looked perfect except 8, it was black and brown from not firing. I looked at the porcelin close and had a huge black burnt mark like explosion, so figured it went bad. Replaced all plugs with the stock Champions, easy and q uick, ran good to store, wife took to work today and said it did it again, light on, flashing, no power, now slight "clunk" on 2-3 shift, which I am assuming all the elctronics are getting out of wack because of misfire....tps, iac, maf, etc all send signals to ECM, which controls shifting as well. My Ws6 had a short once on a o2 sensor. A lead had gotten hot through the casing and once the car warmed up and went into closed loop, it would throw a MAF code, becaue the MAF and the o2's ran on the same circuit. Took me 2 weeks to figure it out, and car got 3 miles to the gallon, i had to change mufflers when fixed because of fuel.

All my other plugs were perfect, looked pretty much textbook for burn. So its not fuel overall I dont think. I misted the wire and got no arcing, did not ohm...motor was warm and a pain to get hand back there to pull it off. They are brand new magnacores though which in Rover world is the holy grail....will test it out, but guessing could be the coil pack on that bank? Havent dont a leakdown test yet, need to see if I still have that tester here or if it sold with the shop. Can do a compression test though.
I dont see how me changing tranny fluid last weekend could have caused this, that is only work done on it lately, and it drove across half of Texas and back perfect, so not sure.

 

[Disco Mike]

You might want to send me your tele number, I would be glad to help you.

 

[Disco Mike]

So what is the correct cleaner and what are the instructions?

I have been told, and never tried it that the sensor has to be cold, not sure of the cleaner, probably the CRC cleaner and then there is a drying procedure to prevent any residue. Like I say, I have never tried it, I'll see if I can find the old information, if I do, I'll get back with it.

 

[Darknight]

I believe I am going to be one of a million on a bad Magnacore wire. I did a spark test again with better inline tester and tested all the fire coming off that coil that 8 is on. The other plugs have a solid steady consitent lit up spark.
No 8 has an intermittent spark rhythm, like a drum beat. When I take pliers and twist the wire into another position...plug wire...it evens out almost completely.

My old Camaro a/c is out so wife has to keep taking it to work, so did not get much else done, but what are the wires like on the coil pack end? Can I use GM HEI wires to do a swap/test? I hate to drop 100 or so on a wire set for 1 wire to begin with. I can tell these wires are not very old, but no reciept came with truck so doubt they will honor any warranty for me to begin with. So looks like I am dropping alot of money on new magnacores.

 

[Darknight]

no8 wire on retest with a good spark tester showed unever pulse. Like a drum beat. Tested 6 and 4 and 2 and all stay a solid lit spark in test, barely can tell its pulsing, so for sure know something from coil to plug is off.

I twisted the wire by the boot connector crimp almost to an s and the spark evened almost completely out.

My theory is whatever happened that blackend the porcelain on the plug/plug blew internal or big voltaged jump/arc down the wire, may have caused issues at the core to boot terminal crimp. These new techology wires are sprial wound around a thread wire and problably lost a good contact.

So for now I took some decent crimpers and crimped the crap out of it at the wire /boot junction and the connector itself that goes on the plug to make it fit tight to hope for a better conduction.

I drove it for 5 miles, varying speeds and loads, no pending codes, no light, nothing so far. Drives pretty good too, bought like it was.

Emailed Magnacore, not real happy with response, basically said these cars have issues with wires and they see all the wires installed improperly. I can attest I have worked on over 5-6000 cars in my day and these wires were installed 100% correctly, routed correctedly, proper amount of dielectrode grease, kept away from exhaust, from direct heat, from laying on metal surfaces and no hard bends or twists, and the proper wire holder sizes keeping them in place instead of trying to cram a large diamter wire in a stock clip.
So basically they said they dont care that they are less than 6 months old, I can buy another wire......nice..