Andrew Cleland

Like this? http://www.showcomms.co.uk/peltor-nexus-pole-inline-socket-p-1430.html Expensive for a 4 pole jack though!

Now that sucks! I wonder if I pulled a Rhodes lifter apart and compared the bucket to an OEM one, whether the OEM internals could be fitted into the Rhodes bucket.... Not yet - didn't get anything done last weekend - rained all day Saturday and Sunday was spent in the garden (under orders....). To be honest a break from the engine probably did me good as well. Cheers, Andy.

That's what I remembered from when I installed them - don't presoak. I did set the preload with them dry and had to shim the rockers by about 10thou from memory (the middle shim in the kit from Real Steel anyhow). The lifters had been fine, in so far as the engine had been working and not making nasty noises with them fitted, so I think the whole thing of whether I should have them or not is a bit of a distraction from the actual 'nasty noise' problem. If though, as Kiwicar suggests on v8forum, that they are 'costing me a load of torque' then that's obviously something I need to address as the whole aim of any improvements I do to the engine is to get low-end torque, because that's why I like V8s! The question I've asked now on v8forum is, bearing in-mind that the cam has only done about 5,000 easy miles without any revving over 3,500rpm, can I get away with putting new OEM lifters on the existing cam? I don't really want to write-off a 170 quid cam as well as the lifters.... Oh, it's a 110 Stationwagon with an LT85 btw. Cheers, Andy.

They are Rhodes bleed-down lifters, recommended by V8Tuner when I got my Crower 50229 cam. The only thing is the people over on v8forum reckon they're totally wrong for my engine http://www.v8forum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8694 Ar$e!

Where are you going? We do UK -> Italy and back quite a lot (wife's Italian), but tend to go across to Dunkirk then Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria (or Germany, Switzerland*, Austria) to Italy. Not only do you avoid the French péage but you also get a very cheap tank of fuel in Luxembourg. Obviously if you're going to France or Spain/Portugal that's not going to help! Andy * - sometimes even Germany, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Switzerland, Austria for the sake of it

Ar$e - they're Erling composites and not that old - seems a shame. I like need4speeds idea and an extra 5ft-lbs on the nuts! However I've long since resigned myself to throwing money at the Landie (lucky I don't have a 'proper' mistress!!!) so new head gaskets it is, along with big-ends. I'm not doing the mains as I can't see it's possible in-situ and I'm not pulling the engine out... Cheers, Andy.

Cheers - luck seems to be needed at the mo! I'm trying to decided how far to go with 'rebuilding' the engine at the moment. I always try to do as much as possible, so it's tempting to do all the big-ends, pistons, etc. whilst it's open, but factored against that I'm rapidly running out of credit with the boss, who's getting a bit fed-up of being left with the kids every weekend while I get oily! Things like oil and sump gaskets I always change in any-case. The head gaskets are pretty new and genuine parts ones (=£££) so I'd rather not bin them if possible. New big-end shells though are I think in-order. Cheers, Andrew.

Thanks Quagmire - appreciated. Thinking about it, I might even have signed-up for that forum at some point in the past, I'll need to check. Cheers, Andrew.

I do remember seeing a truck-cab 90 with a GM 6.2 V8 diesel at Billing quite a few years back; it had a pair of chromed pipes coming through the load-bed and up behind the cab, like a dinky version of a big American truck, complete with the flappy rain covers on the ends. Looked OK on it, as it was obviously an out-and-out toy, but it would look a bit out of place on a series...

OK, so it was too much to expect that it would be obvious! So, following from the very high compression test reading on cylinder 2 (195psi) and the fact that it's the easier of the two cylinder banks to get to, I pulled the head on this bank today: _DSC4767 by AC72, on Flickr First thoughts are "that's a lot of coking for an engine with less than 5,000 miles since a full rebuild" - but to be fair it's been running a badly-tuned (and I think over rich) Megasquirt for the last 6 months and before that it went to Italy and back in limp-home mode on the 14CUX, so a bit of coking is probably understandable. The head wasn't much better. Number 2 is on the left. The oil is just stuff that leaked out from around the studs in the head when I lifted the head off: _DSC4769 by AC72, on Flickr Next step was to clean-up the pistons with petrol & a toothbrush. What was odd here is that cylinder 2 (the one I'm suspecting of being dodgy) cleaned-up really easily, but the others took a lot more scrubbing and didn't come as clean. The same story, but maybe to a lesser degree, with the head - number 2 cleaned-up better than the others. Having cleaned things up and turned the engine over a tad to expose the bore of number 2, I saw this: _DSC4772 by AC72, on Flickr It's not as bad as it looks, in that it's not actually a gouge in the wall, but just staining - I don't feel it if I run my nail over it. None of the other cylinders have this, and I'm guessing it must be fairly fresh as it looks like the sort of mark that would polish away as the engine was run. Next I decided to drop the sump (again, my second least favourite job, exhausts being my first least favourite) and remove the piston from number 2. It came out easily enough and cleaned-up with petrol to look (to my untrained eye) OK: _DSC4775 by AC72, on Flickr _DSC4777 by AC72, on Flickr (the compression rings weren't gapped both in the same place when the piston came-out, that's a result of my cleaning). No obvious damage on the piston or con-rod and the little-end slides side-to-side nicely on the gudgeon pin but I can't detect any wobble at all. The big-end bearing shells however don't look too clever for about 5,000 miles use: _DSC4773 by AC72, on Flickr _DSC4774 by AC72, on Flickr I'm trying to remember if I got them from Paddocks (the rebuild was in my pre-LR Series/Britcar days) or Real Steel. I think they could well be Paddocks and thus Britpart... Last step was to take the valve out of the head and check them over: _DSC4779 by AC72, on Flickr Again they look OK, if a bit manky for 5,000 miles. The inlet valve does seem to be 'browned' from heat - I wonder if that's excessive? _DSC4780 by AC72, on Flickr So, no smoking gun My theory is that the staining in #2 suggests that there has been water in there recently, and I'm guessing it got in when I had the inlet manifold off the engine for a week earlier this year. I'm trying to back-up that idea with the fact that #2 was easier to clean than the others is down to the steam cleaning it will have had when the engine fired. So, bearing in-mind that the engine was absolutely fine (at least with regards to nasty noises) before I changed the manifold and as soon as it fired-up with the new manifold the knock was there, so whatever happened was pretty instantaneous, I reckon maybe I hydraulicked that cylinder.. Although that doesn't explain the very high compression reading I got when I tested it on Tuesday, as by then all the water should have gone (and it was dry when I took the head off today). Also, if indeed that is what's happened, I still can't see what's making the noise, apart from the worn big-ends everything looks OK to me & I can't see that that amount of wear would cause such a noise and come about so instantly. It could of-course be that focusing on cylinder 2 is a red-herring and the problem is actually else where? More questions than answers! I think the next thing to try is to stick the piston back in and put the valves back in the head and put the head back-on & try another compression test to see if the high-pressure is still there. If so, I'm going to (temporarily) swap the lifters from cylinder 2 and 4 and just see if the high compression moves to cylinder 4, in which case I'll suspect a dodgy lifter (only 6 months old and done bu^&er-all miles). Failing that, I'm going to put all the plugs in, turn her over on the starter, which in the past made a clonking noise, and pull each plug in-turn to see if the loss of compression in a cylinder makes a difference to the noise. Any other suggestions? Andy.

I'm just so envious of that huge, well-equipped, warm, dry, well-lit workshop!

Didn't get away early from work yesterday, today is rain all day, so tomorrow avo with any luck...

OK dokey, nipped home during lunch today and did a basic compression test on the cylinders. All plugs out, three seconds on the starter and each cylinder gave 170psi (plus/minus a couple of psi) on the gauge, with the exception #2 at almost 200psi So that would explain why it sounds like a diesel! Work permitting I'm going to try and get home before dark and see if I can get the head off to take a look into #2 cylinder. The good news is that bank is a lot easier to get open than the other side - small mercies. AndyC.

Isn't there a history of problems with the vacuum capsule on the LT95 central diff lock failing, I think through the diaphragm rupturing or corroding? Not saying that you couldn't make a better capsule than 1970's BL though! FWIW it's an interesting idea and my feeling is to go with a pressure operated, fail to locked design. Fail to locked for the obvious reasons and pressure operated would be fine as anyone who's interested in fitting such a device would either have, or be amenable to fitting, on-board air. As mentioned above, do a kit with a little compressor, receiver, maybe an air-line take-off for tyres and (importantly) a well thought-out way of wiring it into a Landy's electrics. Cheers, AndyC.

Rather than buy a socket set why not get a decent ratchet and then by decent sockets as and when you need them, building up over time? That's the way I did it, buying a Beta 1/2" ratchet (the push-through to reverse type) for about £30 about 15 years ago, probably would be double that now, but it's stood-up to years of (ab)use and apart from the occasional night with the head sitting in a jar of oil, hasn't needed any attention. Sockets are about £5 a pop for Britool from the local engineering supplies. Over the years I've built-up a set of metric from 8mm to about 25mm in the useful sizes, along with a couple of bigger ones for things like radius arms and hub locknuts & a few imperial ones for the engines (all V8s, so a mix of imperial on the block and metric on the induction/ancillaries). You don't actually need a whole load of sizes - 8, 10, 13, 15, 17, 19mm, the odd big ones and 1/2", 5/8" & 3/4" AF on the engine. You'll probably end-up paying more than buying a set but doing it over-time spreads the cost and lets you buy better than you'd otherwise be able to afford. At the end of the day there's little more satisfying than decent tools!

Mike, I think you've misunderstood me - I'm actually pretty impressed at what that Ford is getting from a 6.2 litre V8 truck engine! This is why I was trying to compare it to the BMW V8 which, OK, get's only 10bhp less from 5 litres rather than 6.2 litres, but is a high-tech, highly tuned sports-saloon engine (so much so that the ECU won't even let you rev it beyond 3,000rpm until it's finished warming-up) which would be pretty hopeless at shifting 3 tonnes of truck, unlike the Ford V8.

Exactly - if I'm working underneath then all four wheels are on. Short of pulling out an axle there's very little than can't be done with the wheels on, and even those things can be planned so that most of the work is wheels-on or reaching in from the side rather than being underneath. Just strikes me that squashed under 2 tonnes of Solihull's finest would be an unpleasant way to go, especially the couple of moments when you realise it's about to go! Cheers, AndyC.

I think you're right. I started by getting into the cam valley today and all looked fine, lifters all ok and the pushrods all tight. Then I pulled the plugs and turned her over on the starter - the noise was still there but seemed to be coming from deeper inside the engine (and was a deeper thonk at starter speed and without the engine firing). Next step was to drop the sump and have a butchers - all looked fine, no bits of metal in the oil and I checked the torque on the mains and the big-ends and all was fine. What I could see of the underside of the pistons looked OK, but it's hard to see much from down there. I put the sump back,fed it fresh oil, checked the oil pump pressure with the priming tool in the drill and got plenty of oil flowing down the Vee when I did that. Stuck the inlet manifold back on, refilled the coolant and started the engine - noise still there :-( So, by elimination, it must be either the pistons or little-ends. I guess the next step, short of pulling the heads (which I hate doing because of the exhaust manifolds), is a compression check to see if a cylinder is low. Maybe that way I'll only need to pull one head! Ŵhat I really don't understand is how an engine that was fine when I started the manifold swap should be instantly wrong as soon as I started it up with the new manifold? There's nothing with the manifold that should cause this. The two possibilities running through my head are either that something has somehow fallen into a cylinder, maybe a small nut, but I doubt even an M6 would get past a valve. The other possibility is that it somehow got water into a cylinder and it's hydrauliced a piston - it's fair to say that the weather has been a bit sh#t while I was doing the manifold swap but (I thought) I'd taken good care to cover the inlet ports when the manifold was off... Frustrating day! Andy. p.s. Sounds to bad to try driving, so can't tell what it's like under load and the igniton is EDIS so I'm slightly weary of pulling plug leads, especially in drizzling rain, as it can give you one hell of a belt!

Hopefully not that! The engine was fine and hasn't had anything done to it that could cause that, so finger's crossed! Anyhow, it's 7:30, not raining and there's daylight outside, so I'm going to crack-on with opening up the engine and seeing what I can see...

Well, the oil pressure light goes out on start-up, so I guess so - "dinky dizzy" must be doing it's job. I did check the dipstick and it was looking a tad low, but that was just after my efforts with the priming tool, so I figured some oil was probably still hanging around in the galleries and the Vee, so it would read a tad low. I plan to check the level again tomorrow morning after we've both had a night's rest! Andy. p.s. Have some photos of my bodge modification to fit the EDIS coilpack bracket to the Thor manifold which I'll send through to you.

I posted a short version of this in the Megasquirt forum, but seeing as it's more of a mechanical thing than a fuel injection thing, I thought I'd throw it in here as well... I've just fitted a Thor manifold onto my 3.9 V8 - not too tricky but a few gotcha's, which I'll write-up as a 'how-to' for the forum one of these days. As well as the actual manifold I also fitted the Thor injectors and fuel-rail (as the Lucas one doesn't fit) and now have the fuel pressure in the rail controlled by an external Aeromotive unit. The engine is mechanically fairly standard, although the cam is a Crower 50229 and it has Rhode's lifters. It's been running for around 6 months with this cam and the lifters without any problems or nasty noises (in-fact much quieter than I was expecting for Rhode's lifters). This morning I started the engine for the first-time with the new manifold - fired-up fairly OK, although the Megasquirt will need tweaking as the Thor injectors flow more than the old Lucas ones, so the idle needs a bit of a help with the accelerator pedal, especially as the engine's cold. The problem though is a very nasty knocking sound coming from the engine: It seems to be coming from the valley area, which makes me suspect a stuck lifter. I've given the engine a few minutes at a gentle idle to see if it would go, but my mechanical sympathies eventually won out and I stopped the engine, as it's a nasty noise. I've also used the oil pump priming tool in a drill to give it a few minutes of oil at pressure (around 2,000rpm on the drill) to see if that would cure it. No luck So, I'm resigned to having to pull the manifold off again to get into the cam and see what's what, but before I do (and it's a PITA to do), does anyone have any thoughts on what could be causing this noise? Cheers, Andy.

(Quick message as I have to head out in a mo.) Just finished fitting the Thor manifold to the 3.9 and had a quick trial start. Started-up OK, bit of tweaking needed, but a very nasty noise coming from the engine - a hard knocking sound. I'm thinking it could be a lifter short on oil (they're Rhodes lifters) as the engine hasn't been run for a month or so. Or, worst case, my two year old was 'helping out' and I wonder if he's managed to drop a small nut or something down an inlet runner and into a cylinder.... Here's the sound: (try to ignore the rusty bulkhead in the video - it's on the list of jobs...)

I don't, but I'm sure Marsland Chassis will and they're a helpful bunch.

To be fair though, the engine seems to be pretty decent - 410bhp from 6.2l is pretty good for a truck engine, assuming it still has proper American V8 levels of low-end torque. It's 10bhp more than the 32 valve, quad-cam, double VANOS, throttle-body injected V8 from the E39 M5, which made 400bhp@7,000rpm from 5l but with bu&*er all below 3,000rpm (or at least bu&*er all for a 3 tonne truck ) Would be fun to put one into a 110!

Ah yes - thanks for that explanation - it makes a lot of sense and I can visualise a light body bouncing around 'over' it's springs and a heavier body making the springs do all the bouncing. Does explain why the 110 seems to be a lot more refined less harsh when it has a bit of weight in the back. Cheers, AndyC.