By Antony K on Wednesday, April 25, 2001 - 07:18 am: Edit

It always seems that whenever I have a fault with my Disco, someone else is having the same problem.

I don't know if it's good or not....

I've got a UK 1997 v8i ES. Fully loaded. I recently had a brake light failure on the right hand side rear. I realised when trying to find the panel that I would probably have to remove the jump seat(recessed one). I tried to remove it using both a hexagon bit and an electric screwdriver and an ordinary hexagon wrench. Both failed and I ended up stripping the hole... In the end I had to work around the seat. Definitely a pain in the backside. I managed to get my hand in to remove the bulb holder which happened to be the very top one. The only problem was getting it back in because it was catching on the seal and would not seat correctly. To progress, I then had to remove the wiring connector, unscrew the two cluster retaining nuts and push out the whole light cluster so I could work on it off the vehicle. It also gave me an opportunity to clean out the panels around the cluster cos they were full of grime. With the cluster out of the vehicle, you can see a large rubber seal that extends about 2 inches into the "hole" in the rear panel. Upon peeling it pack I found one of the sunroof drain pipes. (I'd been looking for them for quite a while trying to fix my leaky roofs.)

Once I'd replaced the bulb, which as it happens is a dual filament bulb normally used for both side light and brake light. (When testing my lights afterwards I discovered that the side light portion is not used and the actual side light is on the bumper. Strange.

Refitting the cluster was not too bad apart from the top plastic wing nut and metal bracket. When trying to re-thread it into the cluster (working in the vehicle behind the jump seat) the wing nut catches on an unusual threaded bolt that is too close to it. What a swine. When it came to refitting the bottom wing nut and metal bracket, I dropped the wing nut into the bottom of the panel and had to start all over again removing the cluster to get my hand inside from the outside of the panel.

After about two hours and by this time it was dark, I'd finished and had all lights working perfectly.

I noticed an unused wiring connector tucked into this panel and guess it has something to do with fitting a towbar electrics? Is this correct?

As I was now in the mood for work on the Disco, I thought I'd see how easy it would be to change a bulb on the left hand side of the vehicle. I'm now starting to wonder why I bought it.

I have a rear air conditioning unit as well as jump seats and it looks impossible to get a hand in to the rear of the cluster. Do I have to remove the jump seat and the aircon unit to gain access?

I suspect this is why the Disco II now has light clusters fitted much higher up the back panels.

I wonder if there is any way to replace the back panels of a DI with the back panels of a DII, extend the wiring and make life an awful lot easier when replacing bulbs. Does anyone know if they would fit, somehow I doubt it....

Antony.

By John Graham (John) on Wednesday, April 25, 2001 - 07:47 am: Edit

I noticed an unused wiring connector tucked into this panel and guess it has something to do with fitting a towbar electrics? Is this correct?

Yes, this is where the towbar electrics plug in.

By Jon on Wednesday, April 25, 2001 - 09:04 am: Edit

In regards to replacing the bulbs on the passenger side (with the A/C unit), there's a rectangular panel that removes, near the door sill just to the left (rear) of the jumpseat. Use a coin or something flat to rotate the slotted fastening plugs, and pull the panel out. You should then have full access to the tailight cluster (a little tight, but not too bad). Removal of the A/C unit isn't necessary. Refittment of the panel is opposite of removal, of course.