Fitting a Safari Snorkel to a Land Rover Discovery 1 300TDI

Fitting a Snorkel

This is a description of how to fit a Safari Snorkel to a Land Rover Discovery 300TDI with ABS.  Considering I’m not planning in doing anything too wet i.e. wading in very deep rivers, you may ask why I want one?   

Well simply put the plan is to head down to Morocco in my 4x4 and I want to keep the air inlet up high to avoid sand clogging the air box with sand.  The original intake for the air box is in the front passenger side wing exactly where sand ad dust will be blown up by the tyre, someone at Land Rover had thought that through had they?

So after reading all the online shops I found out that snorkels cost from approx. £140 to £400, all seemed to do the same thing so I ordered a cheap one.  It was a Bearmach snorkel and was listed as compatible with a 300tdi ABS.  I got the snorkel and all excited I unboxed it went out to Larry and aligned the parts.  Bugger, the snorkel if fitted would need to go through, not around, the ABS modulator to fit?  Er?  

A quick chat with the supplier as well as a few pictures sent (they really did not believe it was wrong) and I got a refund and then went for a Safari Snorkel at a cost of £276.  When it arrived it said "Safari Snorkel Discovery 1 300TDI – ABS" on he box, yay, this looked a lot better.  I checked out the alignment and it all seemed fine. 

Then it rained continuously for 3 months, except for our trip to Yorkshire for the off road weekend which was lucky.  So the fitting job was put on hold.  Think about it, how ironic, I could not fit a snorkel because of the rain.

The right tools for the job 

Anyway March 2013, I had a couple of days off work and decided I would fit the snorkel, I read the instructions  watched a you tube video on “how to fit a Safari Snorkel” check the required kit list and popped off the local tool shop to buy what I thought I needed to do the job, which was;

86mm hole cutter to cut through the wing

Step drill to make the holes needed for the bolts

Riveter to rivet the snorkel to the a pillar

Tiger seal to seal everything up

So the job itself is quite simple and the instructions say it will take 2 hours, this is of course absolute nonsense for a part time mechanic like me.  More on that later.

At this point I would like to warn you about Tiger Seal.  It's an amazing product, glues really well and makes a complete mess of anything it touches.  Wear gloves, also as soon as you open it, use the whole tube.  You cannot save it for later. After I used some of it on the Landy airbox I went around the house sealing and glueing anything I could.  My gutters on the house ain't moving, like ever.  

I even started thinking about what it would actually glue, lets just say it has its limits.  Also note it takes 3 hours to dry ish but a full day to cure properly.  

Tip, put the Tiger Seal into some hot water and warm it up, its then a lot easier to use.

Fitting the snorkel

The process is as follows.  

Apply the template to the outside of the car aligning the cutting template along the top of the wing.  Drill pilot holes 2mm for the bolts and snorkel hole.  

Snorkel template aligned

Then drill the actual holes for the snorkel to bolt through, these are 16mm using the step drill and the big one use the hole cutter.  Trim and sharp edges from the cuts and prime.

Large holes cut into wing

You then drill a hole on the inside of the wing.

Inner wing hole also drilled

You have to remove the wheel and the wheel arch liner.  This allows you to get your pandies to the bolts on the back of the snorkel, do not tighten it up till everything is in place.  Liner hanging down.

Trim inside the wing pulled down

View inside the wing.

View inside wing where the snokel will be bolted

The snorkel itself has studs which you to put into the recesses on the main snorkel tube.  You do this by putting two nuts on the studs after they have been tightened in buy hand.  Tighten the two nuts together and screw the stud in using a spanner and the locked nots, then take the nuts off.  Sorry forgot to take a picture of this.

You can then put the snorkel on the car and loosely do up the nylock nuts, as below.

Nut in place ready to be tightened up

Now fix the A-Pillar plate, drill 4mm hole in it for the rivets.

Rivet holes drilled in A pillar

 

Fit rivets and rivet the thing, I have not used the rivet tool thing in the picture below, but you get the hint.

Ready to  rivet snorkel tube to A pillar

Go pet you dog, by now mine was pissed off, gwumpy doodle.

Grumpy Labradoodle

You now have to re-work the airbox by sealing the original air inlet; you cut a new inlet in the side, then fix a new locator plate which moves the airbox into the engine bay a little.  

Fill the old inlet, this is what it looks like when you start, I have also cut off the old locating pins and drilled 4 rivet holes.

Holed drilled in air box

Fix the front bracket, plug & seal.

Plug fitted/glued and spacer riveted to air box

Drill and cut new inlet.

Large hole cut by drilling many small 2mm holes

Done, then edges cleaned up using a file

Fit new tube plate.

New snokel inlet fitted

Fill all the holes, then in theory you pop outside and fit the snorkel to the car loosely, fit the tube provided between the inner wing and the engine bay, and reconnect to the airbox, then lastly airbox to air intake on the engine.

Bingo, its done, NOT!

Jappy Larry

However, the process above, whilst correct, does not take into account Larry is a Discovery 1 300tdi Japanese import, this means that the actual re-fitting of the airbox has some issues because my car is a late Discover 1 with the electronics for the Air Flow Meter and ABS, these are.

EGR is water cooled, this means the airbox bumps smack up against the EGR input cooler pipe, in fact the box should go where the pipe splits in the picture below.  This is pretty much makes it impossible to re-fit the airbox.  I bent the cooler tubes out of the way which no doubt restricts coolant (just as well these cars run cold).  I will be replacing the pipe.

Grr pipe in the way

Also the cables on the inside of the engine go around the second battery holder, again argh these need re-routing a little, the cable going to the left goes to the Air Flow Regulator.

Cabled need to be pushed down to fit airbox

Then the air inlet for the AFM system does not align with the output from the airbox and the original airbox rubber is too long, the AFM has to be moved left.

Miss aligned AFM system

So how to actually fit a Safari Snorkel to a late Japanese 300tdi.

Do everything up to the point of putting the airbox back in.

Move the cables out of the way and push out the way, preferable replace the EGR cooling piped and remove the EGR (de-EGR mod).  I had to put the airbox in with them in place till I replace the lower radiator pipe.  This is a complete pain.

Then undo the 3 bolts holding in the AFM and move it to the left one bolt, this aligns the airpox (I was getting annoyed by now) to the AFM.

Air flow meter, moving it to the left

Trim the old rubber pipe 10mm ish and refit.  I trimmed the bottom end in the picture below to move the jubilee clip over to the second ridge.

Pipe to trim

That little bit of info above took me and extra 4 hours to work out, what a pain.  Thanks to the people at Landyzone for the AFM fix.

One tool I wished I had was a trim removal took this would have saved another hour and the cost £2.

All in all I think it’s realistic to spend 4-5 hours on this knowing what I know now, not the 8 it took me.  I hope this blog entry helps you out.

The finished Landy with his new nose….

Discovery 1 300TDI ABS Safari Snorkel fitted

I have added all the pictures I took of the job here.