Land Rover Repair: Oil Sump, steering damper, t rush

Question
I own a LR Disco 300 tdi on an S plate.  It seems to be leaking oil from the Oil Sump.  Would this be a Gasket, is it a big job to repair in money or man hours???
Thanks for your help..............Lee

Answer
Hi Lee,

changing the sump gasket is a few hours of work.  You have to:

loosen the steering damper and trackrod,
remove the bolts from the sump,
lower the sump,
carefully remove the old gasket,
clean the two mating surfaces (use brake cleaner),
apply a new gasket (permatex gasket or make-a-gasket),
finger tighten the bolts,
torque down the sump bolts evenly,
reattach trackrod and steering damper.  

Just loosen the trackrod and steering damper on one end.  I don't think you have to remove them completely.  Just swing them out of the way so you can lower the sump.

Use an fine scraping tool to remove the old gasket...don't rush and be careful not to leave scratches in the soft metal.

I did this job in an afternoon one weekend.

Best of luck,

JohnMc