Hi all
I've had my Disco 1 about 4 years and one of my bugbears has been the poor brakes which have frightened me on a number of occasions where I've nearly pushed the back out of my seat trying to stop. I've discussed this on this forum which I recall made for some amusing banter including hanging a water filled tube over a motorway bridge to test the vacuum!
Anyway, I removed the egr a while ago and blocked off the end of the vacuum pipe. The other day I was giving the engine a little TLC and I remembered Pantelis's posting about checking unions on vacuum lines. I decided to remove the vacuum tube back as far as possible, I gave it a tug and it came away in two pieces! Where it went behind the exhaust manifold it had melted through!
I sealed off the union on the vacuum line and guess what the brakes of course work properly now, the harder I press the pedal the more braking I get! Also, the vacuum on the servo lasts for hours after the engine is turned off as opposed to seconds before. I keep doing emergency stops, just because I can - takes me hours to get anywhere now.
The fault was completely out of view, amazing to think, or maybe not, that Land Rover cold put a vital plastic tube so close to a hot manifold.
So if you own a TD300i engine you might want to check yours.
Cheers, Tony