monkie

I serviced the car, renewed the pollen filter (old one wasn't that bad), checked the A/C drain and it was fine. I set off one of those purifier aerosol and so far I have to say it has done wonders. Be interesting to see how it is in a few weeks.

The first time I serviced my wife's car (citroen C4 Hdi) it took me about 40 mintues to change the oil and all the filters but about 4 hours to find the filters!

I renew the pollen filter every year. I haven't checked the evaporator drain though. I'll look at that. Thanks

I posted this as OT as it isn't Land Rover specific but just a general car question. The air-conditioning in my wife's car has started to smell a bit. I've seen aerosol cans in Halfords of air conditioning cleaners that are supposed to kill any bacteria and freshen up the AC. You start the engine, put the AC on full blast on recirculate setting then set off the aerosol in the car. Anyone tried them and get good results? The air conditioning is run all the time all year round and the cabin/pollen filter is changed regularly.

What I can say from a short static test is that the engine started straight away with no preheat, sounded great and no smoke other than the brief puff of smoke you get on start up.

Yes I have. Although I haven't been able to test them out properly due to a fault on my rebuild. I'm hoping to get my 110 up and running at the weekend.

Im glad I have a 110 if that is the extent you need to go to remove the fuel tank from a 90😊

Well after alot of jiggling around on the engine hoist, it's in. I've connected up the wiring and fuel pipes but I've started to feel rubbish so off for a PCR swab. No more on the 110 until I feel better

That's rotten luck. I second the above for parts from Turner Engineering.

Been a while since I've got anywhere with this. The new shells supplied were the wrong type (12J engine) so that delayed me while they were swapped for the correct type. The engine is now built up and hopefully be put back in tomorrow. The crank turns really smoothly so all should be good. I've changed my mind on the cause. I don't think too much oil on the bearings was the issue, although I did use engine oil this time rather than assembly lubricant. I think there was an issue with the big end cap. I carefully rechecked them all once again before assembly. Fingers crossed the oil pressure will be good this time.

These are brilliant.

What are they from?

I recommend a couple of simple hints for this job: Go easy undoing and then tightening up the nuts, don't over tighten them (access to a torque wrench and a proper releasing agent like plusgas will help you). Rather than throwing the old gasket straight into the bin, carefully inspect it to see where it was blowing and ensure the mating surfaces on the head and manifolds are clean with all traces of old gasket/carbon are removed before fitting the new gasket.

Have you spoken to a friendly local garage?

I like that comparison

I fitted Stack guages (oil pressure, oil temp, volt meter, EGT, boost pressure and coolant temp) earlier in the year and I have to say I'm impressed. I can actually read the guages in the dark and the oil pressure gauge saved my engine from destruction as per my 200Tdi rebuild disaster thread.

I hate messing about with props full stop whether that be with spanners or the socket tool!

I've been reading this and wondering. As it happens I have a full 19J setup and a defender 200tdi in my garage. I shall measure both (as well as the exhaust) and post it on here.

Retrieved the crank, conrods and new bearing shells from the engineering shop at lunchtime. New seals etc from Turner's arrived yesterday. I shall start rebuilding the engine tomorrow.

Yes this is a hard (and expensive) lesson to learn, but I look on the bright side: No one died/got hurt, I was able to pull the engine out and find the cause with the help of this forum and the engineering shop. I shall have the engine rebuilt and running a lot sooner than I thought possible when I came to terms that something had gone very wrong requiring it to be taken out and pulled apart again. I wanted to post the findings on here to stop someone else making this mistake in the future and maybe not realising as quickly resulting in much more serious and expensive damage.

The more I think about this; I'm becoming more certain of the cause: Faulty parts? I doubt it as all were purchased from Turners and not elsewhere who supply blue box parts. Something wrong with the engine before it was stripped down? Yes its an old high mileage engine but as it was running well for Ian albeit with a blowing head gasket which I saw on the first strip down, I am certain there is nothing seriously wrong with it. Parts out of spec and not inspected thorougherly? I checked every part very carefully as per the manual and everything was in spec (inc all 4 conrods). The crank did have very light scoring, but was clean and not rough to the touch. This was confirmed by the engineering shop. Silly mistake on rebuild? I think this is most likely, but what? I'm very sure of the following - Everything was thorougherly cleaned and assmebled in a clean environment, pistons were put in correctly with ring gaps spaced as they should be. Conrod right way round and bearing caps matched up to their respective conrod and put on the right way round. All fasteners were torqued to the correct torque using a calibrated torque wrench. I failed to check the clearance in the bearings with plastigage but more importantly and the more I think about this the more certain I am - I think I was far too generous with assembly lubricant on the bearings. The assembley lubricant is thick stuff so won't squish out the way quickly, I think it is quite possible that I tightened that cap down too quickly with too much oil. It distorted the shell which I was oblivious to and before the ladderframe was even on the block the smoking gun had been loaded for that bearing to fail whilst I continued to rebuild the rest of the engine with all due care and attention blissfully unaware I had set up that big end to fail. Lesson here for all - my granny was right: The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I thought I had nicely pre-oiled all bearing surfaces ready for the inital start up when infact I had caused that bearing to distort and become tight. The bearing detroyed itself followed by total loss of oil pressure which thankfully was at no load idle, I noticed the drop off in oil pressure and shut the engine down to investigate before more damage occured.

Yes, that is what I did. Shells in place onto the clean dry conrod and cap, oil onto the crank journals then cap put on and tightened down to the specified torque.

This is as interesting observation. The assembly lubricant is also very thick, much more so than engine oil. I am wondering if I over did it with the oil? I will go much more easy this time round; rather than liberally applying oil on and then torque up, I will use less and spread it round carefully then go easy tightening up and check for free rotation. The only other thing I could think of is a blob of white metal on the undersidd of the new shell, but I think I'm clutching at straws there. The guy at the engineering shop agreed with the thoughts of @Bowie69in terms of the odd wear pattern and it seemed to be focused on the thrust side of the bearing.

Well, I'm certain it was last time as I clean it all up to inspect it all at the kitchen table, but I will double check everything to make sure of no repeat!

Indeed. I plan to have all items in hand for next week, then take a day off work so I have distraction to rebuild it back up. I have thoroughly washed the block and all parts to remove any traces of chewed up bearing shell.