Paint!

I had a bit of time to work on the chassis, which has only surface rust, so I dropped out the petrol tank and some of the fuel lines from the rear. I also took out the rear section of the floor to get better access to the chassis. I only got about half of the job done. The metal was ground back to a nice shine and then painted in yellow. This might seem a bit gaudy but two things should be remembered:
1: this is the chassis, so it won't be seen.
2: this way, if the paint gets stone-chipped I will see a big black spot in the middle of the yellow, which makes rust inspection easy.
While I was at it, I also gave two body panels a quick spray to see what my plan would look like. I have to say I do like it!

"get the heat at it"

I haven't done much with the range rover lately, I simply haven't had the time. Last time I was working on her I had another go at loosening the crank-crank pulley bolt, no luck however. The starter assembly is also well-held and with it's incredibly annoying hex-head allen bolts now rounded I may get the drill out to get it off. My solution for the Crank bolt is, as a friend and fellow v8 nut said, to "get the heat at it", so it'll be gas and flame for this one. When i finally get that bolt out I won't be wasting time faffing about trying to do the impossible.
I will be able to:
-Remove the timing cover (front cover) from the engine.
-Remove the timing chain and sprockets from the cam and crank.
-Remove the cam.
-Remove the crank, pistons and bearings.
-Give the block a good clean (possibly a professional chem. clean)
-Strip the block of it's old liners.
-Have new ones pressed in.
-Have the head and block faces checked and skimmed as necessary.
-Start my part of the rebuild!!!!!

I've been doing a bit of rust repair here and there on the body and chassis, though there's nothing much more than surface rot (miracle!).
I have also now decided that the body will get sprayed by yours truly using plastikote cans and I have done a test panel, not in the end colour, but just to see what kind of finish i would get. Even in very damp evening conditions the finish was pretty excellent. I'm torn between colours at the minute, but I'm thinking of a possible G4 land-rover look or Arctic Cammo. I'm not exactly after the "all-black" look. :-)

I also fit the "new" wing (courtesy of Rick!). Someone wrote I <3 V8s on it... hmmm.

Not one-track!

Everything lately has been about the engine. I have still been attending the vehicle itself. Of late i removed all the interior carpets, the grab handles and the sun visors (because the interior was getting a bit smelly). Now it's mostly bare metal. I removed the sagging headlining, which showered me in spiders and flies. I fixed the rear right wheel, which sat very very flat until now. I also noticed that the 245s on the range rover, while they look ok/small on the car, absolutely dwarf even some large tyres on an r14! I must admit to going back to the engine a few times. I tapped out the core plugs, this is easy, just tap one side of the plug with a hammer and bolt, and when the other side rises, pull it out with a pliers. It's out with the old and in with the new, but not right away. I need to clean the engine "core" ie, the channels through which the coolant runs, which are filthy with residue.

Little by little:

I'm being held back by a few problems now. The bolt which retains the crank pulley to the crankshaft is quite seized, I can't decide what to do about it. I restrained the crankshaft and pulley assembly and it DID NOT move, but neither did the bolt. I stopped out of fear of damaging the engine-bellhousing junction where the engine stand is connected. Also the starter bolts (which have an allen key head) are held in tight and i can't remove one of them. The assembly is held by two bolts, one of which came off with some effort, but the other one is just "spiralled", the allen equivalent of "rounding". The allen wrench just slides out under turning. The head of the bolt is too smooth and round to grip with a pliers or vise grip. It might even take the hacksaw to solve this but I haven't given up yet.

Again the waiting game:

I've got the heads off and the sump now and i've to make a bracket to take the crank pulley off before i go any further. So that's one job I'll be getting on with during my next mad bout of working on her. However i now need to slow my pace as my plans have changed somewhat, and i can't afford all that i want to do.

The plan (all going well):
-Rebuild it, everything will be replaced but the block, timing cover and sump
-I have plans for stage 3 heads
-An upgraded camshaft
-As close to TVR spec as possible
-Some upgrades in terms of off-road ability.

Where does it all come from????

First off i need to amend my last post and say that the "biting" around the valley of the engine is "probably just rough casting" as i've been told by v8 people, and shown in photos of new (yes NEW) v8s.

So Liam, it's not your fault or the previous owners fault!

Which is great, absolutely great...

...but


where the hell did the three tones of scrap metal in the sump come from??

There is at least two cups full of swarf and chipped metal, it's honestly piston-sized quantities, and if the metal didn't come from the "biting", so Where DID it come from? With the bottom end exposed now I can see almost everything is in good shape. The only one real problem is the 50 kilos of burnt oil (caused by her overheating problems!) and that's only a problem because I smell of 4x4 every time i take the bus. Yes, I said bus, I'm saving up for parts!


That's all for now.

The engine (so far):

So far, with the engine out, i've removed the plenum chamber, intake manifold, valley gasket, water pump, rocker covers and the rocker shafts.
The inside of the engine is fairly sickly in appearance, the oil sitting around the rocker shafts was burned black and full of tiny "lumps", shards of metal - bad news! on further inspection there were tiny "bites" out of the metal of the block just above the camshaft in the same region as the tappets. This is somewhat of a mystery to me as the camshaft (from in-situ inspection) seems perfectly healthy and all of the tappets are also reasonably good, all have a rounded wear pattern on the camshaft contact surface - a sign of rotary wear (a good thing).







The damage to the block (while not visible itself) is in the region of the bottom of the valley between the left and right rows of tappets (can be seen in the last photo - if the block valley were really a valley, the problem would be the erosion of the riverbanks, only the banks are made of cast aluminium... oh dear!)

Progress

The engine is now out, pictures and details to follow!

Finding the time

I've found it hard lately to get the time to work on the project, i made one attempt at removing the engine and had to replace it when i ran out of time. The engine stand i ordered has now arrived (several weeks late) and i'm going to have another go, armed with some new knowledge and more extensive manuals.

All that's left to be done before removing the engine is to remove the mounting rubbers and the flexplate to torque-convertor bolts. (which i couldn't do by myself as the crank-shaft simply rotated with the torsion of the ratchet.

The quality of the photos isn't great (phone camera) but you can see the level of preparation so far.

-The radiator hoses were all removed (including those carrying various oils)
-The fan cowl was the removed.
-The radiator itself was unbolted and removed.
-All hoses and wires on the engine were photographed/documented and then disconnected.
-Instead of removing all the wiring from the engine, the engine loom was disconnected from the ECU and Relays under the drivers seat and passed through the bulkhead hole just to the (engine) right or starboard of the heater assembly in the dash.
-Judicious/mildly excessive/insane use of cable-ties held all hoses out of the way.
-The exhaust system was disconnected (on the starboard this was done at the manifold to downpipe join, on the port however this had to be done at the head to manifold join as the other bolts were rounded and seized)
-On earlier models, the front panel (runs in front of the top of the radiator) is simply bolted on, in my case it was welded and i had to drill these welds out.
-The throttle was disconnected.
-Fuel lines were disconnected (with care because of residual fuel pressure)
-The Haynes manual was scrutinised for whatever the hell "that thing" was, several times.
-The the transmission oil cooler pipes were detached from the engine and the oil cooler assembly was removed to allow greater clearance for removing the engine.
-The alternator was removed.
-The lower bell-housing cover plate was removed (easy as pie)
-The bottom few bellhousing to engine bolts were removed (not too bad)
-The remaining bellhousing to engine bolts were removed (insanely difficult) access for these bolts is ZERO, and they were all nicely seized. This task took up a day and a half of dawn-to-dusk work.
-I checked that everything other than the flex-plate to TC bolts and the engine mountings were removed.

-MOST IMPORTANTLY, several (in double figures) cups of tea were consumed while admiring the beast, and it's middle-of-progress heart-transplant.

Things i need to "get around to":

I'm planning to take out the engine to work on it, so core plugs won't be a problem. The interior, though it looks reasonable here (despite the colour), is actually in a bad state and needs fixing, but most obvious to the naked eye is the damage to the front left wing, which must be replaced along with a bonnet repair. I'm not going to repair the bumper or wind-dam because after factoring in that full cost, i might as well get the brooklands body kit, but that's well away on the horizon, first on the list is the engine!

The engine.

The engine is a 3947cc Rover V8 EFI with a lucas distributor. I'm planning to take this wonderful lump of aluminium out of the engine bay and refurbish it to the best of my ability (thank god for haynes manuals). The radiator reservoir and bottom (Y-shape) radiator hose are new and GENUINE landrover parts, i shall probably not buy genuine parts again, because these parts added 20% to the value of the vehicle! When i've finished the engine refurbishments i plan to fit it with an LPG dual fuel conversion for cheaper running and i'm debating whether to keep the current 4-speed auto gearbox or lift it and replace it with a 5-speed manual, again for better fuel consumption. Town driving comfort vs economy and off-road handling, i'll decide at a later date!

Introduction

My name is fergal, i'm a student in my 2nd year of university (NOT STUDYING ENGINEERING!!!!!!) since i took an interest in cars (at a young age) my favourite car has been the landrover defender. From my love of this car sprung my love of the series landrover, discovery and range rover classic. This interest took a turn for the expensive when an opportunity to purchase a V8 range rover classic presented itself. Naturally i jumped at the chance. Since then my love of the big old lug has almost exceeded my love of the defender, and my love of MY range has far exceeded my love of any car!

I won't go into detail of how much the rangie cost, but it WAS cheap. The problem is that you get what you pay for, the vehicle has had at least two prior accidents, a collision with a VW transporter and another with a truck. Luckily the damage is localised to the front nearside wing, but is extensive and a replacement will be necessary eventually.

Aside from this there are a few minor issues with the range:

-When i bought her there was a repair to the bottom radiator hose which "wouldn't last", sure enough, it didn't. In the same incident i lost the radiator reservoir and both the hose and the reservoir had to be replaced.

-The alloy of the spare wheel is buckled and cracked, thus it is useless, the roadside-jacking kit is missing, and had to be replaced at some expense.

-The engine burns some water, and doesn't burn cleanly in general.

-The core plugs (aka frost plugs, though that's NOT what they're for!) are mostly gone, those towards the rear of the engine leak a surprisingly large amount. All of the core plugs need replacing.

-All of the coolant hoses need replacing as they are cracked and perished.

-The interior.... almost exists to be honest, the dash is not secured, the airvents and their feeding hoses are not connected in any way, the courtesy light doesn't work, all but two of the factory speakers have removed and have not been replaced, the cubby box is broken, the headlining is filthy and sagging, the electric window ecu needs replacing, and i'm sure i'm leaving out some problems.

Apart from all of these issues, she is still a range rover! And a 3.9 V8 at that. Every time i complete a task or plan one, i'll post to my blog. If anyone sees something i'm doing wrong or can offer any advice i'll be very appreciative of tips.

Thanks, F.