Andrew Cleland

God, those con rods are gorgeous (In fact, even nicer than the Childs & Albert ally one from a top-fuel dragster that I use as a paperweight - £10 from some Swedes at Santa Pod!)

Last update from me - passed the MoT today (after some swift mid-test cleaning on the connectors for the horn) :-) Emissions were slightly over 1% on the CO and 100ppm HC at idle - not quite good enough to pass the cat test but fine for my pre-cat era engine. Off to get road tax tomorrow, then time to kiss goodbye to my healthy bank account after 6 weeks of cycling everywhere!!

Cool. Ours is booked for Thursday morning - might have to take some time off work before then... Shiny V8 pics are nice - I have a close-up of the valve gear as my desktop now - better not tell the family, who were displaced by it!!

Tempting! It might have a 5.5l V8 but apart from that it's an absolute horror, plastic bodykit everywhere. To be fair, the neighbour probably thinks the same of the 110 (apart from the plastic bit)

Don't worry - he redeemed himself yesterday by attacking the neighbours AMG 55 ML with a ratchet yesterday* - Land Rover to the core! Andrew. * [Luckily he wasn't seen and I stopped him before he did any damage!! That would have been expensive...]

Indeed. Not that I'm into deflecting blame onto the helpless or anything like that, but I kept anything tempting out of reach of the probable culprit... P1000558 by AC72, on Flickr

I've been quiet, but that's because I've been busy! Got the heads back from being skimmed at Cambridge Rebores - £90 the pair, including a good deep clean. P1000555 by AC72, on Flickr I had 40thou taken off, partly to get rid of as much damage as possible and partly to make-up for using composite gaskets on a 14 bolt head (designed for tin). It's hard to see any signs of damage on the number 2 cylinder bowl, just a small mark near the inlet valve. P1000557 by AC72, on Flickr I also cleaned-up the piston with a Scotchbrite - it still looks like a bulldogs love toy but there are no lumps to make hot-spots now. I did look at getting a new piston, but Rover want £130 for one and Real Steel won't split a set of 8. (For some reason I don't seem to have a photo of the piston, sorry). Replaced all the big-end shells as well - that's a not much fun job from underneath the engine with oil dripping on you. At least it didn't rain. Got the engine put back together, swapped the Rhodes Lifters for a set of Real Steel normal lifters. We'll see how they (or the cam) lasts seeing as they didn't start life together. I had a good look at the old Rhodes lifters and there's no sign of wear on the face, so hopefully I'll get a bit of life from this setup. If not, it's only £50 on the Real Steel lifters against £160 for a set of OEM. Plenty of cam lube and a bottle of zincified slippy additive stuff in the oil - we'll see how it goes. P1000561 by AC72, on Flickr I had a slight moment when I was putting the heads back on and noticed that there was no engine number on the block - I'd had the block rebored a couple of years ago and the main bearings honed, but I didn't remember having it decked... Visions of valves kissing pistons Luckily I keep all my engine bits of paper and found that I had had it decked by 10thou when I got it rebored. A gentle turnover with a pair of solid lifters and there was no sign of valve contact. Did the sums and I think we're now looking at 9.57:1 compression ratio, so still acceptable, particularly as I'll be mainly running on LPG. Anyhow, rest of the bits went on without a problem, apart from a lot of swearing and hammering on the exhaust. Finally got the Y piece fitted properly with the help of a ratchet tie-down strap between it and the front axle and a 4lb lump hammer. Fired-up first time, with only the sweet burble of a contented V8 from the exhaust Next step, sort out the idle fuelling for low HC and off for a MoT...

Now there's an idea - live video streamed from Nige's workshop - eat your heart out JenniCam!

Un-be-fricken'-lievable Remember the thumb and how easy that could have been if it had been caught in-time? Hint.... TBH, you probably don't need A&E, just go to the docs for a dose of antibiotics to fight infection, I really don't want to see a photo of your manly chest oozing puss and stuff (where's the emoticon for chucking-up?)!!!

That sucks Glad no-one was seriously hurt though. Any clues on what happened - arson? I've some seats from my S3 Lightweight - front cushions and backs, along with rear benches, that he could have, but I'm the other side of the country from you, so probably not much use. Andrew.

Reminds me of this - I love the 'Ron Dennis' quote at the end

My coffee mug... IMG_1267 by AC72, on Flickr (although I do think the choice of wheels are slightly 'off-message')

Yup, there should be a vacuum pipe from the regulator to the plenum housing - it connects just by the idle air stepper motor on the back of the plenum. The idea is that it adjusts fuel pressure depending on manifold vacuum, so when the vacuum is high (engine load is low) fuel pressure is reduced and when the vacuum is low (engine working hard) fuel pressure is increased, so more fuel goes into the engine with each squirt of the injector (which is time based). However, the pipe not being connected really shouldn't stop the engine from starting. How does the engine not run - does it turn over, does it try to start, do you get any signs of it firing, are you getting a spark, can you smell petrol at the exhaust?

That sounds about right, I had the 20 lbft number in my head but couldn't remember from where. I'm hoping this quote from mez.co.uk will be accurate: "The Thor manifold, when used with either a standard cam or a mildly tuned cam, gives a strong torque peak at around 2,000 rpm, much higher than that achievable with the Lucas plenum design." If it's true that should be ideal for long-distance driving as 2,000rpm is about 65mph in 5th in the 110. The old Lucas 14CUX on the 3.9 with the standard cam struggled a bit with this, particularly when the 110 was in 'family holiday fully laden mode', fine on the flat but give it a slight hill or headwind and the engine really started to labour. True, particularly about the tuning stuff (and the advertorial chapters for JE and Wildcat are worth skipping) but it's a handy reference for the RV8 upto the GEMS 4.6. Certainly more use than the David Hardcastle book, which stops at the 4.2, although the pictures are fun

Basically what Markyboy says - first straighten it out, then use the old pipe as a template to bend the new one. To straighten it, unroll the pipe, then with a pair of heavy gloves on, grip it with one hand and pull it through your grip with the other hand, which will get it reasonably straight - that's hard to explain but it's fairly instinctive to do - imagine straightening out a bit of wire, just thicker. Then get a couple of blocks of soft wood, off-cut of pine or similar, and in each drill a hole which will be a tight-ish fit for the pipe, then use a tenon saw to make the holes into slots. The idea being that you fit the pipe down the slot in one bit of wood, then through the slot in the other bit of wood, put the two bits of wood next to each other and then turn one bit so that the two slots are at 90 degrees, so the pipe is now surrounded by wood. Clamp the two bits of wood in a vice and pull the whole length through from one end to the other, then back again. Do that a couple of times and the pipe will be straight as you like. To bend it, get hold of one of these - they're not expensive and you should be able to get one from a decent local motor factors or depending on where you are in Herts you're welcome to borrow mine from Cambridge: http://www.demon-tweeks.co.uk/Product.do?method=view&n=1734&g=0&p=41135

Just been reading Des Hammill's book on the Rover V8 - the first chapter or two goes through all the various flavours of block - it's interesting but also quite depressing reading - so many problems over the years. I think it's the other way around - red were the best blocks, reserved for the 4.6, yellow were intermediate and used on the 4.0 (and the 4.6 when they ran out of red blocks) and blue were the thinnest, 4.0 only. Having given this a fair amount of thought over the years, if I had the money I'd go for a late Coscast 4.6 block (and if I was *really* rich, I'd get it top-hat linered for belts & braces) but failing that look for a cheap 4.0 or 4.6 and spend the money on getting it tested and sorted by an engineering shop. That way you have a degree of confidence that you're starting-out with something good. By going for a 4.0 or 4.6 you get the cross-bolted block and crank-driven oil pump, along with the serpentine belted front-end. Moving away from the block, I'd also get one with the latter Bosch 'Thor' injection, assuming it's a 'normal' Land Rover and not a racer - the Thor manifold is (apparently & I'm hoping) much more torquey at lower revs at the expense of running out of puff at higher revs, which doesn't bother me. You can also (as I'm doing) retro-fit the Thor manifold to an earlier V8 but it's quite involved with lots of little 'gotchas' - once the engine's running, I'll write it up for the site. Andrew.

Going off in a slightly different direction from bright lights for when you're stopped, if you do lots of driving in the dark a pair of small (say 3mm or 5mm) standard (not hyperbright or ultrabright) orange LEDs up in the roof over the driver/front passenger give a surprisingly useful amount of light for when you're driving and don't effect your night vision. I'll be putting a pair in when/if I ever get around to fitting a roof console. Andy.

That was running through my mind. I wasn't sure if the engine originally had a metal gasket or composite, but I'd forgotten that the 14 holes are the giveaway. Sounds like going for a head skim might be the best option, especially as I'd already ordered a pair of new composite head gaskets from Real Steel earlier today. I'm tempted by the 4.6 route but realistically getting the heads done and a new piston in will be far quicker - and that's probably what matters most at the moment, seeing as we've been without a car for over a month now. Cheers, Andrew.

10 points to Need4Speed! Thanks to Phil for hassling me to get the other cylinder head off - I've found the problem and it's not pleasant... Removing the cylinder head was pretty much as bad as I'd remembered, although the exhaust manifold was only fairly annoying the alternator bracket also needed to come off, which needed the PAS pump moving to get to the bolts & that's an ar$e to do. Anyhow, got the head off. First look it's much like the even bank - coked-up and generally pretty manky: _DSC4782 by AC72, on Flickr A closer look down cylinder #3 is revealing: _DSC4783 by AC72, on Flickr Yup, that's a bit of metal sitting there and those are chunks missing from the piston The cylinder head is no better: _DSC4786 by AC72, on Flickr Complete with lump of metal embedded in the ally: _DSC4787 by AC72, on Flickr Cleaned-up the piston: _DSC4789 by AC72, on Flickr and the cylinder head: _DSC4788 by AC72, on Flickr Ugly! Or as the missus would say "Bruto!" The only good bit (apart from finding the problem) is that the cylinder bore seems to have miraculously survived without a scratch. It's not very easy to photograph but I had a good look with a bright light and can't see any scratches at all. P1000548 by AC72, on Flickr These are the two bits I salvaged, the bigger was laying in the bore, the smaller embedded in the cylinder head. They're steel (ferromagnetic) and have taken a bit of a pounding, but I have no idea what they could be. They're not piston ring and the valves and guides are all intact. I've got them sitting in-front of me on my desk, so hopefully if I stare at them long enough, I'll work it out... _DSC4791 by AC72, on Flickr So, the piston's toast, as is the cylinder head. Con-rod looks OK, big-ends are in the same state as the others - not too clever looking but intact. Both valves look fine, no sign of scratching and the stems are straight. It's irrelevant but the inlet and exhaust tracts are fine in the head, so whatever it was must have been quite small. I'll need to look at numbers and decide whether to go with a new piston and cylinder head or whether to take it as an opportunity to stick in a x-bolted, serpentine belted, crank-driven oil-pumped 4.6...

Sorry just re-read my old post, typo in there - it's 500 miles, not 5,000, and probably not even that as I haven't had much use of the landy since the cam went in last summer. Cheers, Andrew.

I went straight to the horse and e-mailed Rhodes for advice. Obviously you'd expect them to be a bit biased, but they do say in the FAQ that there's no point in fitting them with a factory cam & I did make it clear that I had the lifters already, so they weren't going to miss a sale and I wan't going to demand a refund or sue them or something and I got this reply: "You are getting some bad information. Any time you use a performance cam, Rhoads Lifters will substantially help your low-end torque and drivability. I would recommend them for your application. Hope this is helpful." I suppose it's all down to whether you'd class the Crower 50229 as a 'performance cam' or not.

I did try suggesting to the Swiss border guard that we were in a Land Rover and really had no inclination to use their motorways (which was actually true) so we really didn't need a motorway vignette but they wouldn't waiver - "Sie müssen eine Vignette!" ;-) To be fair though it's about £25 for a year, which you can easily spend in a day at the péage in France.

It's a dodgy Double-S stainless tubular manifold, along with studs on the manifold I am sorely tempted to replace the studs with 3/8UNC cap screws, which would be a lot easier to get on and off, but I wonder if they'd get tight enough to stay done-up...

If only it were a half an hour job - the exhaust manifold on that side is a total pig to shift and will lead to much swearing and bleeding. I guess it's got to be done though (and it would be a good time to get around to lagging that exhaust as well...)

I checked one yesterday (in a spare 5 minutes sneaked-away from the gardening ) Pulled one out of the engine and tried pushing it in and it was absolutely solid - Neil V8Freak and I tried this on Friday as well and it was solid then. So I put it in the vice and slowly squeezed it which made it ooze oil out of the little hole on the side and then once empty it moved up and down easily, so I think the lifters are full of oil.