LiamC

It feels like a significant milestone getting it fired up. Still plenty to do though before I can take it for a drive. I'm currently waiting on various parts at the moment as orders/deliveries are not as consistent as usual at this time, for obvious reasons. Ha, nothing exciting, all I said was "We got oil pressure as soon as I turned the key."

Today was a quick engine start test to check my wiring up of the ECU and immobiliser.

I have been giving a lot of thought to the cooling system. It turns out that the BMW radiator and intercooler from the doner car look like they would be a good fit to the land rover. I had considered getting a TD5 rad pack but as I already have the BMW pack which is matched to the engine it seems sensible to use them. I will experiment at the weekend. Mounts for the engine are also ready to install at the weekend. I'm using the BMW rubbers which have a vacuum feed that connects to a solenoid controlled by the ECU, which adjusts the stiffness of the mounts at different engine speeds.

I got the new engine dropped in this weekend. I have got it mounted on the two rear mounts, (one on the transfer box and one on the gearbox), just need to work out some engine mounts now. Ideally I want to pick up on the existing chassis mounts so I don't have to weld to my galvanised chassis.

Thanks guys for the excellent suggestions. I have actually found the issue now. Because I was trying to attach the heavy transfer box single handed I put some lengths of threaded rod in the mounting holes to get it aligned. As I slid the box on it came to a halt at one point. I assumed that the one sided weight was causing it to twist and bind on the threaded rod so I wound some nuts on to push it up. I believe actually the adaptor shaft must have been binding where it wasn't square and pushed the output shaft back and into the gearbox slightly on its bearing. I have just set up a puller to test my theory and the shaft came back out just a fraction to it's "home" position and now everything is free as it should be. I shall try to fit the transfer box again but will pay more attention to making sure it is going on square this time.

I've actually pulled the transmission off completely so it's now stand alone. Having spent the evening learning how manual gearboxes actually work I'm pretty sure it's the 5th gear syncro ring which is not coming completely free from the 5th speed gear cone. The transmission has been sat for several months so the oil may have drained off the synros and they could be quite dry. I have also been bench shifting the box which apparently you shouldn't do if it's been sat or is dry. I wonder if it will free itself once the oil gets circulating? As I say it's not locked but there is a lot of friction.

Well today has been a bit of a disaster. I've spent the day trying to work out what is going on with the gearbox. I've played around with this box many times, selecting all the gears and counting the number of turns on the input and output shafts to check that the ratios are correct and it all worked very well and was always easy to spin by hand. Except for today when I bolted up the transfer box it was very stiff to turn even though it was in neutral. It concerned me enough to pull it off the engine and remove the transfer box to see what's going on. In neutral it feels like the input and output are connected together, however if I get one person to grab each shaft you can just about turn them independently by hand but only just. All of the gears still select but again it requires all my strength to grip the shaft tight enough to rotate it even with no load. Fifth gear is straight through (1:1) which still works fine and is free. Clearly the resistance is when trying to turn the input and output at different speeds, there appears to be some sort of drag/friction between them but why has this problem suddenly occurred? Or is it a problem at all, when the engine is running will it spin fast enough for the oil pump to run and free off whatever is sticking/dragging? These boxes are usually really reliable. Any input greatly appreciated.

I just prefer a manual transmission, I know modern autos are really good and I did consider this route but I still have a slight preference for the manual. Also, as Ross said, controlling the auto involves quite a bit of ECU work to get working properly. I have read about people using the auto box from the BMW X5 which I think is a good option but it will be expensive and complex to set up.

Finally a free weekend to work on the Landy. The transfer box is back together with the 1.1:1 gear set and the 2.5NA is out! The previous owner rebuilt this landy on a galvanised chassis about 4 or 5 years ago, all the bolts were greased which has made removing the engine and transmission a really easy job. I removed the engine, gearbox and transfer box all in one go by lifting on a overhead beam and gradually pushing the landy backwards at the same time until it came clear.

Very jealous, I would love to have a drive of one of those. I'm waiting for the technology to become cheaper as not within my budget currently. Would make a great second vehicle for trips where you don't need the range.

A small update. I spent an evening this week disassembling my spare LT230 transfer box. I plan to order Ashcroft's new special 1.1:1 gearset. I have checked over all the components and as far as I can tell everything seems to be in good order. However I have never opened up one of these boxes before so I don't have anything to compare it to. I'm told that this box has covered 97k miles in a disco 1. The oil did look like it was overdue for a change but all of the bearings seem fine so I was planning to reuse them? I will change the seals though as they are relatively cheap. If anyone has any advice on what to check while I have it apart or and tips for reassembly then please let me know. I don't have the handbrake mechanism from the disco box so I believe I will have to tap some holes in order to mount the old style defender mechanism? I have also just discovered that I will have to switch to the 26 tooth input gear in order to use the new Ashcroft gearset, so that's another £78 to add to the ever building unplanned expense!

Oh ok, thanks for clarifying, when you said "the guy" I thought you meant it in a bad way. There are three sources for the specific adaptor that i need, one of which I have chosen to avoid as he has a bad rep with the Cummins crowd, the other two remaining options being Shabs at Syncro or Nick Finlay. I'm just making sure I do my research and listen to all sides before making my decision and handing over the cash.

Can you elaborate?

The transfer box adapter plate and shaft is the most expensive part of the project. There's a good chance I might go with this one: https://www.onlinegearboxparts.com/product/bmw-6-speed-n47-zf-gearbox-to-lt230-adapter-kit/ Does anyone know anything about this company? I did a bit of googling about them and found mostly positive things.

A small update. The doner car has gone now, in the end I recovered £400 from the sale of a few parts from the BMW, so the engine has effectively cost me £300 which I'm quite pleased about. I bodged together a temporary stand alone wiring loom to see if I could get the immobiliser working. With a bit of time going through various pinouts I got the starter to crank and I can connect to the ECU with the INPA software so its looking good. I also used the time I had during the wet weather to refurbish a 300tdi discovery rear axle which I picked up back in the summer. When we eventually had a dry weekend I managed to get it fitted to the 90. I always planned to fit disc brakes at some point and thought it better to get them sorted before installing the new engine. I have finally found a sensibly priced BMW 6 speed manual gearbox with the correct bell housing for my engine, I'm going to have a look at it on Saturday so hopefully I'll be bringing that home.

I had a free day on Saturday so thought it would be a good opportunity to get the engine out of the doner car. It all went quite smoothly really. I'm going to remove a few more parts from the car and put them up on eBay to try and recover a little bit of the cost, then I'll have to get the BMW off to the breakers yard so I can free up some space at home.

The 6 speed manual is a gs6-53dz which is used it all sorts but needs the correct bell housing for my engine so I'm looking for one from e46 330d.

You can't actually use a complete R380 from a P38 as the rear end is different because the P38 didn't have the LT230 transfer box. The common thing to do without using an adaptor plate is to use a defender or discovery R380 and then source the bell housing from the P38. Indeed the P38 clutch/DMF setup isn't good enough for the M57 but clutchfix do a very good clutch and SMF to suit. As I have mentioned though, I would want to use a late suffix R380 which I do not have and to be honest I'm quite keen to try and get the six speed in there. Ashcroft now offer a 1.1:1 ratio gearset for the LT230 which I think would be perfect with the lower ratios in the BMW box.

Well if I had a suffix K or L R380 lying around then I would probably use that. Unfortunately my 90 currently has an LT77 which simply won't do. I do have a good R380 in the back of the garage but it is a suffix J which is not as strong as the later TD5 R380s. Yes you can buy an uprated R380 from Ashcroft which would be great but they're about £1200, if I'm going to spend that kind of money I would rather buy a transfer box adaptor and use a BMW 6 speed. Would be nice to have six gears too.

Interesting theory, sounds plausible. Most folks that do this conversion seem to favor a single mass flywheel, presumably for reliability, but a dual mass is an option for either gearbox set up. Yeah you are right, it is going to be a lot of work, but I'm in no rush and this helps to spread the cost over time as I go. Hopefully it'll be fun too and I'll learn a few things along the way. Indeed Ross. As I think you may already know, I work for your old neighbor Neil Kinch. How's your project going? You've gone for an OM606 I believe? I'd love to come and have a look some time if you would be up for showing round?

I'm still considering my options gearbox wise, but the current plan is to source a GS6-53DZ 6 speed ZF manual from an E46. It's a very strong box and the E46 version will bolt straight up to my 184 M57. The tricky bit is mating it to the transfer box, there are close couple adaptors available.........they are expensive but this would be a neat solution. A cheaper option would be to use an R380 with a P38 bell housing, but this is right on the limit of what the R380 can handle and I think it would spoil the enjoyment of driving it if I'm constantly worrying about over stressing the gearbox.

I’m about to start an engine conversion and I thought it might be interesting to some people if I share the progress of my project. This is definitely going to be a slow project as I don’t have time to work on this regularly. When I purchased my 1988 90 I had always intended to replace the 2.5N/A engine at some point, partly because it would be nice to have more power but mainly because I fancy the challenge. I was originally looking to use a Mercedes OM606 but have now decided to go with the BMW M57 as it’s a bit more refined and economical. This engine is a common rail inline six cylinder diesel with an excellent reputation. I have decided to use the older version of this engine which produces 184BHP in standard form. My boss very kindly let me borrow the work lorry to go and collect my doner vehicle which is a BMW E39 530d touring with only 78k miles on the clock. This car had suffered water ingress where it had been stood for some considerable time, which in turn has caused considerable corrosion to the many electrical connectors that are under the driver’s carpet. As a result nothing electrical is working properly apart from the engine systems. The car won’t even drive as the auto box is stuck in 3rd. I paid £700 for the car which might be a bit high but the seller wouldn’t budge and it is worth it to me just for the low mileage engine. I have started to remove a few bits and bobs in the evenings, in preparation to lift the engine out when I get a free weekend.

Hi Zandy, I'm afraid not and I recently sold this land rover so I can't check. This was some time ago now but from memory, once the frames were cut flush it was just a case of bolting the new seats up to the existing land rover frames. I think I had to drill some new holes in the frames to get everything to line up. Make sure you don't use the seat belt receivers that are built into the new seats as the land rover seat frame anchorages are not designed to take seat belt loading, it is important to use the existing land rover seat belts with the existing land rover receivers that are bolted down to proper seat belt anchor points in the floor.

Sounds like a fun trip, wish I had enough leave left to join you.

Thanks western. I actually replaced the pivot ball as it was worn. I fitted new slipper pads too and added a cable tie to the push rod plastic clip so it won't move out of place. I have just had a fiddle with the push rod through the slave aperture, pushing and pulling the rod and something must have moved into place as the rod is now meeting resistance in the correct position. I refitted the slave again and the pedal feels fine and clutch is engaging and releasing correctly now, its puzzling. Think I will fit the mounts and props so I can take a little test drive and see what happens.