Landrover engine

[martynharrison]

I've started stripping down a landrover engine and it has various bits in it, obviously. The pistons are 8.13 rather than 9.35 or whatnot and various other parts are different to the SD1.

 

I was thinking the flywheel was in decent nick. Is this the same as in the SD1?

 

Same question for the rest of the engine, there are lots of bits that are different.

 

At the end of the day the block is all expected to use but there's reuse and whatnot.

[andrewt]

The landrover flywheel is much heavier than the SD1 and is also drilled for a 10.5" (i think) clutch, rather than the 9.5" clutch used on the SD1.

The flywheel is heavier to suit the heavy vehicle & higher drag and a 10.5" clutch is not required on a sportscar. in fact i use a lightened & balanced flywheel on my V8 with no problems idling smoothly. the blocks are the same (depending on age!) but the timing cover set etc is different. You can fit the SD1 stuff to it and the pistons would be useful if you were to turbo the engine!

 

Andy

[martynharrison]

Yes I've thought about the lower compression pistons and a twin turbo that was for sale a while back, but got put off trying to fit that as it tends to blow the doors off, by all accounts.

 

Pity the flywheel is too big, as the one on the car is chewed up at one point and can jam the starter a bit.

[andrewt]

You could always swap the ring gears or put a new one on the SD1, the ring gear is common to both, a new one is £42.99 (inc vat) from Rimmers.

An easy enough task if the flywheel is out of the car.

 

Andy

[martynharrison]

That sounds like a good idea, how do you swap the ring gear? It looks like the teeth are just cut into the edge of the disk, so there must be a trick to it.

[andrewt]

Well normally to take them off you cut or drill a hole most of the way through the gear, then split it with a chisel. this will then let it spring open & come off the flywheel. To put one on, you heat it uniformly (to expand it) then pick it up, with gloves or whatever, & drop it on the cold flywheel & gently drift or tap it into place before it cools. If you are not quick enough then it can get stuck half on & half off. in theory you can get them off by heating as well but i have never tried this. The problem is how to heat the ring without heating the flywheel as well. For all the cost you may be as well buying a new one.

i have usually heated them using a blowtorch, with a good heat of flame, keep moving the flame round the ring in a never stopping circle to heat it uniformly. something like 20 times round, taking 4 secs per rev. should do it. you will know if it is not enough as it wont drop onto the flywheel. Don't heat it enough to blue it or get it red hot!

Also be sure to put the ring on the right way round so the starter gear has a lead in.

 

Have fun

Andy

[Cinnobar]

Mine runs a defender engine, 1mm skimmed heads to get CR to 9:1, modified alternator mount using SD1 mount to get alternator lower & SD1 sump, pickup & windage tray. LR flywheel doesn't fit the bellhousing, even SD1 is too lardy. Mine is skimmed by 3odd Kilos and could still be lighter ;-)

I wouldn't bother swopping ring gears as they're relatively cheap. Try Paddock Land Rover for engine bits as they're extremely cheap or Jim Robinson (Jim Robinson [jrv8@btinternet.com]) who is in Ireland, he's been working on RV8s for many years and has piles of brackets and bits. My sump etc. came from him as well as the SD1 alt bracket & strap.

 

Jim

[martynharrison]

In case this isn't obvious, the engine is a landrover one but will end up as an SD1, more or less.

 

I think I'll junk the flywheel, then, it sounded a bit difficult anyway so this is probably easiest. I have to take the bellhousing off Engine 2 anyway so I might as well bolt the flywheel and clutch on from the running one to the newly rebuilt one. If the ring gear is as bad as I think it'll turn out to be, I'll think about a replacement ring or a good S/H flywheel.

 

Got it down to the block, with one broken screw in the front valley gasket bracket hole. Hopefully I can grip this with moles, haven't tried yet.

 

Anyone know of a place where I can get the engine bathed in acid (well, alkali, is it?) to clean it up nicely? In the Bucks area, I'm M4 / M40 corridor. I can carry the block about quite easily in my hands / car so location isn't *vital*. I imagine I can do the heads, block and rocker / front covers all in one visit, is that about right?

 

Planning to reuse the crankshaft, oil pump - if this fits the SD1 front cover that's going on it. The landrover engine, despite being seized on one cylinder (and cleaned up when I freed the piston) seems to have unworn, polished bores, shiny oil pump, what looks like a new water pump. I think it must be in quite good condition as these things go. It's an SD1 type block with decent seals (not rope or lip) but not a vitesse type.

 

I even thought about reusing the main bearings, they seem to be relatively unworn. I have a set of new ones but the crank has obviously worn in to these - advice on that welcomed.

 

The cam is scrap, it's ground off the tip of at least one lobe so the cam and all the lifters, although they look quite decent, are dumped for the replacement cam&lifters I have. I think I got it out without damaging the bearings in the block.

 

Chain was very slack, and bizarrely unlike the alignment I'm expecting to set the new on up with, i.e. the notch facing the dot. It was two teeth from that, on the cam sprocket. I make that 18 degrees one way or the other.

 

Head bolts had some gunk on them that hardened once I got them out, although I cleaned more or less all of it off before it did that. I think this means the bolts haven't come out before so they ought to be reusable, which is nice.

 

Front pulley was worst of all, first there were three bolts to undo which had nuts behind the pulley, cleverly recessed into the pulley so even if you had a 13mm spanner and a 13mm socket, you could at best put the spanner in at about 60 degrees away from horizontal and the edge of the centre boss prevented high quality (and thick walled) sockets from fitting onto the bolt.

 

Then, once that was removed, there was what looked like part of the pulley revealed. This screws onto the crankshaft, keeping the pulley in place and has an integral starting handle fitting point which slides over the handle in one direction and allows it to push the crankshaft round in the other. Not surprisingly, it's arranged so that the only way you can put force onto the bolt is in the direction that would tighten it up / turn the engine over.

 

You look at this for a bit and realise that even if you had a socket wide enough (my 32mm wouldn't go over the starting handle prongs) it also had to be about three inches long just to reach the nut surfaces.

 

And also, it's done up tighter than a Politician.  

 

Anyway, all done now with the correct deep 34mm socket which I bought specially and will probably never use again, so if anyone local wants a landrover front pully nut cranked off you know someone who has the right socket.  :cool:

[anthonyt]

Unless you are completely skint you should never re use bearings, if you plan to give the car some track time you should replace the head bolts as well.

[andrewt]

Martyn

Once you find a shop with the bath (any good engine shop should have this) they will also be able to polish the crank for you. You don't need to grind it unless it is damaged. it might also be worth asking them to hone the bores (but keep them in tolerance) This will be the best thing to let the new rings bed in.

Also not that the SD1 timing cover won't accept a Land Rover water pump. you need either an SD1 or P6 pump, then the pulley & alternator mounts that match. i would recommend buying an aftermarket timing chain kit with steel sprockets. Real Steel will supply these for comparable money (or perhaps cheaper) compared to OE parts.

 

Have fun.

Andy

[martynharrison]

Yeah I have a new cam, followers and timing chain from S&S and a new water pump, to go with a used SD1 front cover. I dunno if I should put anything special on the lobes or just oil it up with 20/50 before it goes in. ISTR I need to leave the followers in a bucket of oil the day before, so they prime.

 

Re-use, well I have new bearings, the thinking I had was the ones that are in there are not really worn and have bedded in with the crankshaft so new ones might need to do all that again possibly with less success. But since changing the mains would be engine out again, I'll use the new ones - they're not pricey and I have a set ready.

 

I don't think I'll change the head bolts, these are clean and look to be used once so, as it says in the Book of Lies they should be changed after the fourth use, I guess they'll be ok. The other engine has re-used bolts and I thrash that about without pain or misery so I guess that works.

 

I honed the bores with a sort of three-way drill attachment, didn't want to take much off as the bores feel very smooth at the moment and wear in the bores is, I think, the problem with the other engine. It'll get used SD1 pistons with new rings, hopefully that will run in ok.

 

For another reuse question, the pistons have big end shells secured by two bolts and nuts. ISTR reading these "should" be replaced but they seemed to be captive. Do I have to replace the bolts? Or just the nuts, or can I reuse both?

 

Plan to resuse the main bearing shell bolts too, these look ok but they live in oil so that's hardly surprising.

[andrewt]

On the SD1 type engine i built i replaced all the bottom end bolts with ARP fasteners. These are recommended by many (most?) of the engine builders. this is not too expensive & is stated as preventing the problem of main bearing caps walking at high revs! For the cam, i use cam lube which is basically a very high viscosity oil. Also before ever cranking the engine over, i remove the distributor, make a tool to go over the oil pump drive and spin the oil pump with a high torque low speed air drill to circulate oil. (After priming the pump with petroleum jelly of course)

I kept pumping until oil was visible running from the rocker shafts. this guarantees oil is everywhere it should be before turning over and is IMO the best way to protect the engine on first start up.

Note of course the bores shouldn't be polished, but should have hone marks apparent (these hold the oil) the purpose of the hone is to break the glaze that can form so that the rings can bed in.

The rod bolts will come out of the rods, they just need gentle persuasion with a gently wielded soft mallet or similar. if you are going to reuse them, don't remove them.

Enjoy

Andy

[martynharrison]

I've never actually bothered with torque figures up to now, but obviously need to with an engine rebuild. I'm puzzled as to whether I am doing this properly.

 

My torque wrench has a handle that winds in and out and a sort of screw in valve marked "lock" and "unlock". I'm guessing that unlock enables the torque feature and the handle is marked with torque values from about 10 lb/ft up to about 260 lb/ft.

 

On this assumption, I was tightening up a bolt and expected the wrench to just start slipping when the desired value was reached. It didn't, but instead there was a "click" once the bolt got tight. Experimenting showed that the click happened with more force when the lb/ft setting was higher so this appeared to be my torque setting being reached.

 

But it seems much too early, I'm barely raising a sweat and the bolts were massively more difficult to undo so would seem to have been on much tighter to begin with. The Haynes Book of Lies tells me 55 lb/ft for the main caps 1 to 4 and 70 lb/ft for the main end cap. Are these really quite gentle forces like my torque wrench is telling me or is the wrench broken, or set up wrong?

 

I know also that the head bolts are probably torque angle, is the BoL having a laugh, or is it correct to do the bolts up (to what would be about one turn after finger tight, so to speak, before the wrench goes "click".) This is the SD1 book, naturally.

 

I'd have done them all up a lot tighter if I hadn't got a torque wrench.

 

Also the camshaft appears not to be held in by anything, as I recall this is as it should be and the tappets keep it in line, but just to confirm this.

 

The front cover doesn't appear to connect up the oil pump to the crankshaft, I'm thinking the dizzy fits into the pump stem and meshes with the camshaft gear so this is presumably also ok.

 

For the oil pump itself, do I just pack the bit where the gears mesh with vaseline, or is there something more cunning to do there? Also with this question, the new lifters came with instructions that said "do NOT prime the lifters with oil, this can cause bent rods and stuff. Instead, turn the engine over on the starter with the plugs removed until normal oil pressure is reached." Now this seems eminently sensible but do they assume the oil pump is packed with vaseline? Does it matter if the oil filter will be empty?

 

Sorry for all the questions, it's my first engine build.  ???

 

P.S. a tip for anyone else doing the same job. When you take the camshaft out, decide it is scrap, and bin it because that's the day the rubbish is collected, don't forget to remove the little bit of metal in the end of the shaft, as although it looks like part of the camshaft, the new one comes without it. It's a small bit like a pound coin cut in half, but longer.

 

Luckily for me, I had a spare camshaft from a seized engine I messed with to learn up what goes where, and although horribly rusty, special tool RoverP102934845* was effective in removing the chip of metal and reinserting it into the new camshaft, where it now locks the pulley and camshaft gear in position.

 

Another quick check, the new timing chain pulleys have timing marks and notches. The timing marks are dots so I think the pulleys need to be on so that you can still see the dots, and the timing positions are where the dots face each other or both face down, which is the same position moved round. This is correct? I did get shown at the time I got the chain but it's a vague memory now.

 

(* - special tool RoverP102934845 is, of course, a large hammer and a screwdriver where the blade has half broken off while it was being used as a handle to operate the engine hoist.)

[Cinnobar]

I soaked my followers in oil as I always do. It makes it easier to start as until they fill no valves open.

Your torque figures are correct. Head bolts are torqued unless you have a very late engine, don't over tighten & check for raised threads in the block. Make sure they're lightly oiled as all fastners should be before torquing.

I used Paddock Land Rover & Progress Engineering for my bits. Both deal in RV8s by the hundred so are invariably cheaper than others.

Debated whether to change bottom end for ARP or new. Eventually on Progress Eng. advice used ARP main stud kit cos the standard bolts are cack but reused b/e fixings. Be warned if you go to ARP big end bolts & nuts they need putting in with a press and the ends recircling afterwards.

Thoroughly pack the oil pump gear area with vaseline it should be oozing everywhere, failure to do this means you'll struggle to get oil pressure. Also check and if necessary replace the oil pressure release valve & spring. My old spring was 3mm shorter than the new one.

The chain on the cam keeps it in-line, carp design I know, in fact you can get "button" to hold it in-line but generally not needed until you go to wild cams.

The little piece of metal in the cam is a key!

If you've honed the block it will need a LOT of washing with warm soapy water before you start with petrol. Wash bearings off with cellulose thinners before installing & oil well once in place.

 

Jim

[martynharrison]

It's a road engine so it'll only be doing 5500 - 6000 revs tops, and I think the hydraulic lifters will enforce that so I don't see a need to replace the bolts with studs.

 

The idea is to build this, swap it for the engine that is in the car, and see how it goes. The longer plan was to rebuild the other and use this one temporarily, but I think this block may be better so I may well find this is the engine that ends up in the car long term.

 

So it won't be the end of the world if it throws a piston into the head. Oil pressure release spring is a good point, though, I'll see if I can get one of those.

 

I did wash the block off with warm soapy water, and a hose, two or three times, oiling the various surfaces afterwards. Hopefully all the dust is gone. And I drilled holes in the front to lubricate the chain, which also produced lots of bits of sharp metal that I hope got washed off properly.

 

The bearings got drenched in engine oil, they were out of a plastic wrapper so I assume they started clean enough.

 

Ok, if nobody is convinced otherwise, I'll risk re-using the big end bolts and nuts.

[andrewt]

To prime the oil pressure, simply drive the end of the oil pump (where the distributor would go) with a slotted tool & a low speed drill. That way you are not turning the crank until oil pressure is built up. ensure the oil pump is jammed full of vaseline before cranking. this will also fill the filter for you. The rover torques are low, but exceeding them risks pulling threads in the alloy block or breaking bolts.

The SD1 manual tells you how the dots line up on the chain, but from memory they go together.

 

enjoy

Andy

[maddog]

The engine I have fitted is out of a range Rover, it already had the heads skimed and such.

 

I bought my oil pump tool from S&S done the trick, oil out of the rockers and oil light off.

 

Having now started the engine, the oil light goes straight out, but then come back on with the tick over below 1000.

 

Do you have to change the pressure switch? Could the releif valve be sticking, I have replaced this for a new standard unit.

 

Andy

[Cinnobar]

The oil pressure relief valve is a pretty cack design. Progress said they get a few that give problems despite careful assembly. THey also said that standard one is OK unless very high power is being sought. The bits were literally a few quid ( spring  & piston) however check housing for burrs on the port where it fits.

Martyn, mine has a mild cam so no more than 6000RPM however the main bolts offended the engineer in me so I brought £65 of mains bolts. The engine rebuild cost me around £ 1,500 and 145 man hours. I didn't fancy doing it twice! How much is reliability worth? But its your call.

Generally never bothered with priming the oil pump with a drill, packed with vaseline & bearing lubed with oil/Wynns mix they get oil pressure within a few turns anyway.

 

Jim