Tetsu0san

I know what you mean, I have never had to test anything like this before, but when the bloke says it won't go into gear you have to wonder what that means. I only bought it for the linkage as I am going to convert a Discovery R380 to have the Defender selector but as it looked so much better than I imagined it would be ideal to use it if possible. I bet there is nowt wrong with it and I am just being paranoid, but you just never know. And the way my luck is at the moment... I am going to have a good look at the weekend and see what happens.

Hi all I have just acquired a Defender R380 gearbox which I was told would not go into gear. However, the seller didn't actually know what that meant, having himself acquiring the gearbox from a vehicle that didn't drive. So my question is how do I test it? I don't really want to fit it and then find it's knackered, but equally I can't really see how to check this sort of thing without fitting it. And I certainly don't want to take it apart if possible. I have tried putting it into gear while rotating the input shaft from the bellhousing and the output shaft does seem to turn. I did manage to get it into what seemed like reverse too, but the main gear lever is not attached and I only have the cup on the end of the selector shaft to try to change gear with (if that makes sense). I will be fitting the main lever probably tonight so that should help with gear selection. The gearbox looks in good condition externally and the output shaft has no wear on it at all so I would really like to use it if possible. Cheers

No, you can just drive it. It's not like a rebore or engine rebuild. Just keep an eye on the temperature and drive until the thermostat opens and then check the water levels. Hopefully you have got all the air out of the system anyway but the 300Tdi's can be a pig the bleed.

I wouldn't worry about cleaning the rockers or the shaft, just clean the head. I would have used my dishwasher but I value my meat and two veg...

I just re-read your question. Don't worry about your timing when you put the head back on. Just put in on and tighten up the head bolts. If this was an overhead cam you would have to worry, but this is a simple engine, nothing to complicated. Did you make a note of which push rod went into which hole?

You could use some brake cleaner or some degreaser to clean the head, but as it's alloy you have to be careful with some degreasers. If you have access to a steam cleaner that is pretty good, but failing that even just some washing up liquid, a brush and some warm water is good enough. If you can clean the exhaust and inlet ports out you should be able to see if there are any cracks. These will show up as a black line in the casting where the carp gets in and it's not cleaned out. Hopefully you will be OK. Are you going to reseat the valves? If you can it would be good as you can't do this with the head on, but it's not the end of the world. Clean the surface of the block with a nylon scouring pad. Make sure you get rid of any debris that falls into the bores. Also, just before you put the head back on I would put a little oil in each bore. This will help it starting over when clean and help prevent damage to the bores. The rocker will just go back on but you will need to check the valve clearances once it's all back together. Once thing I will say is just make sure that there are no cables or pipes in the way when you put the head back on. It's very easy to get something caught, especially around the back. Just check and check again, just in case.

Head gasket is quite involving but as long as you take your time it is a pretty easy job. Tools you will need are a socket set, torque wrench and a dial gauge for tightening up the head bolts. I would also get a tipex pen or similar to mark the head bolts you have tightened as it can be easy to forget which one you have done. You tighten them up with the torque wrench first, then you turn them 60 degrees and then another 60 degrees. People say to replace the head bolts but this is up to you. I think the Haynes manual says you can use the bolts up to 5 times or something, so I don't see the point in getting new bolts, but they are stretch bolts so a new set might not be a bad idea. Get a good quality head gasket, a Payen one is as good as any and make a note of the number of holes in it as this is a thickness indicator. If in doubt replace with a 3 hole. I would get the head skimmed and if you can, get it pressure tested. 300Tdi heads are prone to cracking and you can usually spot a crack but sometimes you can't. Also I would re-seat the valves and replace the valve stem oil seals. Once the head if off I would check the bores for any nasty looking scores and also see if then bores are glazed. If you are thinking of scrapping then this might be the reason to either keep or scrap it. Glazed bores or scored bores could mean a trip to the local engineering shop for either a re-hone or a re-bore and this could get expensive. But again, it depends on how much you want to throw at it. Glazed bores will just give poor performance and probably make the engine smoke. When you have got it all back together I would do the valve clearances. And, when you take the rocker shaft off, make sure you don't lose the valve caps either on the floor or inside the engine. That is a right royal pain in the backside.

I don't have a viscous fan as the transit engine sits even further back than the Land Rover engine. There is a poxy little electric fan covering about a quarter of the radiator at the moment, I will be either fitting a double fan or a larger fan (not decided yet). I will give them a bell and have a little chat. I have spoken with Dave in the past and he was a very nice man.

OK, now I have been reading into this and I have had another change of plan I am going to replace the gearbox and transfer box with a Discovery one so that the engine sits further forward. This will reduce the replacing/extending all the pipework and getting another downpipe and I think this is the best option for engine position, but I am not totally happy with the Discovery gearstick. At the moment I have an LT77 from a Discovery and having read up on the Ashcroft adapter as detailed by Aragorn I really like the idea of modifying the gearbox so that I use the Defender type selector. However, will this adapter fit on an LT77 gearbox using the LT77 selector from the Defender gearbox? If it does I will be well pleased. If not, then do I need the LT77 quadrant instead? And, to throw another spanner into the works I may have an R380 from a Discovery available too. This would obviously be the ideal option but will the LT77 selector setup from the Defender gearbox fit to the R380 using the Ashcroft adapter?

Thanks for that, I may well do that at a later date, but for the moment I want to put the Discovery 200Tdi in on the existing gearbox. But as there are no engine mounts I can use I will have to use the Discovery ones. But everyone, including yourself only use the Discovery ones because you are mounting the engine forward due to the Discovery gearbox. I just want to know if it is going to cause me any trouble using Discovery mounts rather than TD/NA or petrol mounts. Whatever I do I will have to weld the mounts in.

Has anyone put a Discovery 200Tdi into a 90/110 chassis and used the Discovery engine and chassis mounts? It seems the the only people I can find who do this also use the Discovery gearbox so the engine is further forward, but I will be using the original gearbox so the engine will be further back. Are there going to be any issues in welding in these mounts? I have to weld something in as the original mounts have been removed anyway. But if this is a problem area then I will need to try to find some Defender chassis mounts or similar.

Sorry, but am I missing something? Linky... I know it's not much money, but it certainly ain't cheap, and collectible?

I basically have a 200Tdi Discovery as the donor vehicle so I want to use the engine and whatever I can from this. What I was hoping someone would say would be that I could unbolt the gear stick from the box I already have in the 110, bolt this to a Discovery LT77 or an R380 gearbox, drop it in and mount the engine further forward. But I think I will probably just end up putting the 200Tdi in as it is and use whatever I can from the Discovery to plumb it in. And maybe come back to the engine further forward after I have rebuilt the 300Tdi. Thanks for all your information though. Really appreciated.

I already have the 200Tdi which I know is a good engine so I am going to use that. I have an old 300Tdi which needs rebuilding (was ran on no oil by a complete numpty ) so this could be a project for next time. If I put the 200Tdi in the standard location without any other mods I am going to need to get longer oil cooler hoses than the Discovery will provide?

Firstly, sorry for all the questions, my mind is running on overdrive at the moment! Anyway, I am going to remove the transit engine from my 110 and replace it with a 200Tdi from a Discovery. The gearbox in the 110 is an LT77 with a short bellhousing so this should be an easy enough transplant. However, the original engine mounts have been removed in favour of the ones for the transit engine so I will have to put some more in. And this is my dilemma. On later Defender's with a 300Tdi, the engine is closer to the radiator than the 200Tdi and earlier engines, and I know they use a longer bellhousing/gearbox combination. I think this engine position is far better as you have access to the rear of the engine, easier to get to the bellhousing bolts etc. So I was thinking about putting the 200Tdi nearer the front. Now, if I were to do this, how easy is it to put the engine mounts further forward on the chassis and has anyone done this? Pipework shouldn't be too much of an issue and I have access to some 300Tdi Discovery bits so this should help. But am I just making work for myself of is there actually a benefit to doing this? I realise I will have to find another gearbox, so if I were to source a Discovery gearbox, could I unbolt the gear stick assembly from my old LT77 gearbox and bolt it to the Discovery gearbox, or are they just too different? I could source a Defender 300Tdi gearbox but it seems that Discovery gearboxes are a lot easier to come by. I don't like the idea of having a standard Discovery gearbox because of having to modify the seatbox to accomodate the Discovery gearstick. I don't really want to go automatic either. Any help/advise would be warmly welcomed.

If there was a proper Land Rover fixing bracket, that would be a better option for me. But I can't see where one would go without drilling holes. Having taken the old seat belt out I have noticed that they have not used high tensile stuff on the floor mount anyway...

Hi all I am trying to fit some inertia seatbelts into the 2nd row of my 110 and I can't really find a good place to fit the inertia bit. It currently has a fixed belt which it bolted to the floor just by the feet and the other end up near the roof. Is there a part you can buy for a fixing point, or do you just get a bit of angled steel and bolt it to wherever you can? I am not bothered with the center seat though, a lap belt there is OK. It hardly gets used anyway. Any pictures would be great if possible.

If the chassis is brand new and you have proof then that would (I think) not be counted in the points system that Tanuki is talking about. But basically what you are doing in a round about way is putting a Defender shell onto another chassis/running gear and potentially this would be a completely different vehicle to what you originally started with. As for engines, I believe that a 300Tdi has the holes to fit a 200Tdi engine mount so you can actually fit it into a 200Tdi chassis without having to weld on more brackets. This is only on the Discovery engine though, not the Defender one. I haven't just made that up, I have seen the additional bolt holes with my very own eyes, but I may have been seriously misinformed as to what they are for though. I am sure a grown up will be along soon to tell me what a plonker I am.

Funnily enough, I do have one but it's sitting in the back of my Discovery which is on ebay for sale. Linky... If the Disco doesn't sell I am going to split all the offroad bits off it and sell these on their own, including the parcel shelf. If you can hold fire until after the weekend then I may have it for sale. it's not pristine and could do with a good scrub with a brush, but it does work.

I think they are aftermarket wheels. They don't look like Land Rover wheels to me

Nice. I cancelled my subscription to 'International' a while ago as it got a bit much. Having a quarter of it as adverts just gets on yer t*ts after a while. This might be a good thing to read. And I class an early 110 as a classic! A Discovery wasn't quite a classic.

Is this a new magazine or has it been around for a while?

What colour blue? I have a light colour blue bonnet. If you move the steering wheel and the shaft moves to the steering box but not a lot happens after that, then I would think your steering box is duff. Is this a 300Tdi or a 200Tdi? The R380's on the 300Tdi's seem to have a habit of the syncromesh going on 1st and 2nd. It could be that. Not a lot you can do except either live with it or get your gearbox repaired/replaced. A change of oil in it might help.

Hi all I am trying to identify my transmission parts on my 110 and I just want to see what you guys think. The serial number I found on the gearbox looks like RB50462555D, however the letters are difficult to read. Reading a few other posts I think the '4' could possibly be an 'A' which would make this gearbox a 50A? Also, does the D at the end mean it's a suffix D (probably a very obvious answer, but I thought I would ask)? So what I think I have is an LT77 with a slightly different ratio 5th on a suffix D. Does that sound about right? Also, the gearbox casing is a kind of aqua blue/green colour. Could this be a recon box from Land Rover themselves? I am also trying to find out the number on the transfer box, but at the moment I just can't find one. Can anyone help tell me where it is? The front axle is (I think) 21L06451A. Again, can't find the one on the salisbury yet, but I think I now know where to look so I should have that tomorrow. Cheers

You won't get the noise out of the back because that is where the noise is meant to go. Anyway, sounds like you found your problem. Take off the rocker cover and have a look. Might be just the clearances that need setting, but check it all including the rocker shaft itself.