Jack Sugden

I had endless leaks from my 2.5TD consisting of the injector pump leaking fuel, crank seals, valve stem seals, I could go on. It would be more economical in the long run parts and labour wise to swap the engine for a 200tdi from a discovery if you are feeling slightly adventurous? It's the best thing I've done on my '87, got an engine with 110,000miles and everything to get it up and running for £400 off ebay and it only took a day to fit. There's plenty of guides on how to get it done on the tinterweb : )

Dad 0 - 1 Son

I did my 1st drop arm ball joint at the weekend following the tech archive and found it to go quite smoothly only taking an hour and half. I was expecting the swine to be an all day jobby as I've read it can be. The only delay I had really was the fiddly little boot retaining clip round the top of the boot. In the end the circlip pliers managed to open the clip enough to get it over the boot. I'd already bought a bearmach ball joint kit before I read about the conversion so went ahead and fitted the repair kit anyway.

I'd say your water pump is on it's way out. The pump can get quite noisey when the bearing starts to go, mine went tuther week

I've just bought some Lucas grease that is blue, not sure if the specs are the same as the JCB stuff off hand but it seems to do the job ok. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/320757986158?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2648#ht_500wt_1180

No.. they're 265 75 16's

I fitted a 1:22 Disco transfer box out of a 300tdi into my 1987 200tdi conversion 90 with LT77, as the standard 1:4 defender box was making the 200tdi engine rev its tits off with a top speed of around 40 - 50 mph. The 1:2 box sorted it straight out. The engine revs to road speed is perfect now. The 200 and 300tdi's are higher revving engines than the N/A and turbo diesel thats why they were fitted with a different gear ratio in the transfer case to compensate for the difference in engine revs. Not sure if the 2.5 petrol has a 1:4 but a standard 90 box was a 1:4 ratio as far as I was aware.

I don't think that you have the same problem as I had as you haven't fitted a new input gear by the sounds but I thought I'd post as it had the same symptom as you. When fitting a recon LT77 to my 200tdi conversion 90 last month I also bought a second hand discovery transferbox (1:22). I also bought the relevent crossdrilled input gear for that case. When mating the two boxes together I couldn't get them to go fully home, all but 20mm or so. I scratched my head for a bit and then after a few brews I realised that when I replaced my old input gear, the transfer box had an oil feed plate previously fitted to help against spline wear. I didn't realise that if fitting a new cross drilled gear and your tx/box has the oil feed plate it has to be removed or the gearbox won't mate up fully. Jack

Yeah It's the same gasket for the 200 & 300tdi

I do like mk1Escorts, I've always wanted one but... a few days! I'll need a few months or even years to get that looking half decent. I bet there's more filler on that car than there is car

As Boro says, pressure bleed the clutch don't just pump the pedal as it wont get all the air out in most cases. When fitting my new clutch the pedal was flat to the floor and really slack so I bled it the old school way by pumping the pedal which seemed to work at first until I was out on the road an hour later and the pedal went slack again and i couldn't engage gear. After pumping it vigorously for a minute it came back stiff, which mean't I still had air in the system. I bought a pressure bleeding kit which works off the tyre pressure and it worked a treat and pushed all the air out. Never had a problem with it since.

Before using the tap method to heave it out I did have a bash with the grease compression method as the Haynes suggests but my makeshift piston didn't fit the bore in the spigot tight enough so when I whacked it there wasn't enough compression, I didn't have anything else to hand to use that was a tighter fit so I resorted to using the tap. I found this to be a much quicker and cleaner method once I'd cleaned 4 tons of grease from inside the spigot

Gerry McGovern needs publicly castrating with a pair of bolt croppers!

Glad you got it sorted! When changing my clutch the other week and fitting a new spigot the old spigot was siezed in like a b******d, had to tap a thread in it with a big tap and yank it out!

Looks like reaction to old paint did you use a bar coat?

have you tried turning the engine over with a rachet while jiggling it in to make sure the splines line up properly?

Sounds like I was one of the lucky ones then as they didn't ask me for Jack sh*t

I notified them of my conversion about 2 months ago, they didn't ask for any other details I just filled in the new engine number on the V5 and it came back a couple of weeks later with the new engine number on it. I was quite surprised I thought they would have wanted proof of who fitted it and everything but they didn't ask for anything.

I'm using that set up on my 200tdi conversion with kenlowe fans. The switch is there for an override and is best to keep it if possible. Try using this part to seal the top hose and the probe thats what I use on mine with no leaks. http://www.holden.co.uk/displayproduct.asp?pCode=080.256 Jack

There is a difference, burning oil gives off blue smoke. Timing out, water in fuel or fuel starvation will give off white. If its definitely blue it is burning oil.

If it was the injection timing it would be white smoke not blue would it not? and it would run like a sack of manure even when warm. Sounds like valve or turbo seals like already mentioned, oil leaking past them and burning off when warm, had that problem with my old 19J

yeah it is! Great video btw Dave I can also vouch for the quality at Ashcrofts having bought a recon exchange LT77 a few weeks ago which I'm very pleased with! Dave was extremely helpful with all questions I had regarding gearboxes and transferboxes which I thought was excellent customer service. I will definitely be using them again in the future

Note to self: Jack try and read all previous comments first

It shows a good video of the LT77 and a bit on the LT230 too