@Bennehboy ...been a while mate, what you been up to?

Hiya,

I've been around, mostly lurking. The car is going strong, no issues at all. Have been working on some ECU tuning with a mate, it's based upon Offtrack's 'New School' methods. Mainly I'm just programming the tune to the ECU and testing though.

Most of my spare time I've been spending prattling about with electronics and writing c++ code for the in car multigauge system I'm building.

It can now interact with a TD5 ECU and pull out useful sensor information. You can also log all the sensor information to SD card.

Anyhow, more info in this other thread -> https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/in-car-multigauge-project.298267/

Spoke too soon....

Head gasket failure 2 weeks ago (although I may have tuned it just ever so slightly too much!)...
Also found rocker/cam lobe no 1 badly scored, so swapped both those out too..



Got it back together then a week later the selector ball and bush decided to part company with the selector yoke in the R380 - both found their way to the bottom of the extension housing.

Tried to get the oil seal collar off in situ after dropping the LT230 but it just would not budge, broke my puller, so dropped the box off...



Turned it upside down and shook...

Since the gearbox is off and I'm putting a fair bit more power through than stock I thought I'd treat the gearbox to a set of HD rear support bearings.

I've previously asked the 2 firms who make these if they would sell me a casing with the bearings pre-fitted and both declined, I was in communication with one of these companies and asked again to get a further no.

So I thought I'd look into this myself with the help of my local bearing specialist.

In short it looks fairly straightforward.

Layshaft bearing can be replaced with an NJ304, this requires 2 things: 1) rear casing boring out from 47mm to 52mm, 2) a sleeve to reduce the NJ304 inner diameter from 20mm to 16mm. The NJ204 is 1mm deeper than the RJ2023 which it is replacing, but keeping the insert to the orginal bearing depth allows it to overhang the 5th gear securing nut.

Mainshaft bearing can be replaced with an NJ206, this requires 2 things also: 1) rear casing boring out from 60mm to 62mm and 3mm deeper 2) a 40mm OD, 30mm ID, 2mm wide spacer to sit between the bearing center and the oil feed collar to resrict oil flow through the bearing which would divert it away from the mainshaft drilling where it is needed.

Anyhow, I've purchased the bearings and am talking to a precision engineer to get the machining work done on a spare case, I'll keep you all informed.

Cost so far £31 quid inc VAT for the bearings (NSK/SKF good quality) - these can probably be had cheaper.

Sailed through the MOT yesterday, phew.

Been a while since I posted here.

I'm on to a 2nd engine rebuild....

I've been running engine studs for a while and had nothing but trouble, probably needed more torque but I've blown the HG 3 times in the last year.

Anyhow, having dropped the boost slightly and switched from an injection timing based map to an AFR based one I'm swapping back to stock head bolts.

I'm also refreshing the bottom end bearings, piston rings, and rehoning the block - the reason for this is that the engine breaths a lot. When I rebuilt it last time it was following a suspected HG failure. The symptoms persisted after the rebuild and ~ 1000 miles of driving and it turned out to be the cylinder head was cracked in an exhaust port, it was replaced with an AMC head. The failure blocked up the oil and ****ed coolant into it. Anyhow I think the rings suffered and the bores look a bit polished.

So anyway I'm copying some posts over from another forum, the info might be useful.

OK so engine rebuild pt2 is due to commence this weekend.

I'll be switching back to standard head bolts, fitting new main cap shells and big end bearings, putting new piston rings in, rehoning the block, and crossing my fingers a lot.

Some booty has started to arrive:

Flex Hone - GB 3.25" Silicon Carbide 120 Grit


Bottom end gasket kit from Turners, chain tensioner washer, piston rings, main shells, big end shells, thrust washers, crank pulley bolt, oil pump bolt


Head bolts (OEM allegedly), 3 hole Elring gasket (but will measure piston protrusion), exhaust to trubo gasket, coolant flush, coolant, quality filter set.


Conrod bolts & main cap bolts arrive tomorrow.

Bore gauge should drop in then too - will be checking taper on the bores in case it's goosed, got lots of blow by but I suspect that's down to bore polishing.

Need to pick up a ring compressor & ring spanners later today.

Got the ring compressor onto an old piston to get it a bit more circular before use.



Assembled the Laser piston ring groove cleaning tool and gave it a test run, big thumbs up... 2mm setting for bottom compression ring and oil control, 2.5mm for top compression ring.





Various other bits, cylinder bore gauge, assembly lube, bahco gasket scraper, & piston ring pliers - theses are amtech, Chinese cheese metal, avoid them like the plague they are pants. I've ordered some Geodore German made ones which look far superior.

Then it was time to strip the vehicle down.

Did a by the book (ok I cheated a little bit!) strip down of all the bits that would allow the head to be lift off:


Tried to set the engine to TDC _AND_ get the timing links in the right places, but for the life of me could not find the 2 coloured links, I think the gold electroplate has evaporated off the chain. Just the drak link for crank pulley bottom could be found


Very carefully removed the vac pump hose union - this thing is like cheese and the previous owner had already given it a good rounding off - needs a 14mm spanner to get at it, a crows feet might work well.


Then onto the timing chain tensioner, again very easy to round, use a 27mm socket and a long bar.


Timing guide pin next, be sure to use the correct size allan key!


I use a magnetic tray to keep all the bolts & bits as I disassemble, then each sections parts go into a sandwich bag so they don't go walkies.


Cam sprocket tie wrapped and the three bolts removed, be careful not to drop them inside the engine.


Now that we're getting close to being able to lift the head off, I undo the rearmost gearbox mount bottom bolts and jack the rear of the gearbox as high as it will go, this makes it much easier to get the head out (especially when it has to clear the studs I have fitted!)


After removing the stud nuts (or bolts for most of you) the head can then be lifted out, previous owner misplaced on of the lifting brackets so I use a chain weaved through into the manifolds.


Off with his head! You can see the former contents of my shed in the skip there :lol1:


Part way through stud removal - 4 came out by hand, the others needed double nutting


Aux belt off and time to remove the PAS/water pump block, no A/C so this much simpler for me.


The bottom rear and front middle bolts/nuts are a pain on the pump/pas block, I used 2 long extensions and a wobble to get the rear one off with my windy gun, the front one I had to spanner off veeeeery slowly



Engine mount top nuts undone


Cue 45 minutes of wondering why the engine would not pull out... then realizing 1) I'd left a bell housing bolt in 2) I'd left the timing tool in the bell housing locking the flywheel in place.... oopsie


Block is looking a bit grubby

And so is the bell housing... all this looks to be from the rocker gasket.


No leaks from the rear crank seal


Some oil looks to be making it onto the clutch & flywheel


Clutch has seen better days


This is the belt and braces way of getting the crank pulley bolt out when you forget to do it with the engine mounted - oh and dont brace on the crank flywheel locating dowel... they shear off, doh!


All the ancillaries off, their respective bolts bagged up


Timing cover off


My mystery timing links are where? I reckon I can count links to get to the two that should be marked, I'll make a small dremel etch on them. Failing that will buy a new chain (they aint cheap!).



Gave up for the day, cream crackered

Ok so carrying on from the last pics...

Next job was to remove the big end caps so that the crank could be lifted out.


All of the bearings looked ok on the bottom, but that's to be expected as most wear is usually on the upper shell as below....


Keeping everything lined up in order in the shed


Took the rear crank seal off


Undid the main cap bolts... the main caps can be a bit stuck to the crank due to the oil film - simplest way to get them off is to wind one of the oil stiffener plate bolts in and give the cap a yank.


With all the caps off the crank can be lifted out. All of the crank shells were pristine.

After that I set up my bore dial gauge to measure the bores - this turned out to be a mare...

In short you first set up an outside micrometer to the exact minimum spec for the bore, 84.442mm, my gauges are only good for 100th's of a mm so I simply set mine to 84.44. The bore gauge is then set up with the correct size anvil and shims so that it sits in the micrometer gap - wiggle it about to get the max deflection then zero the gauge at this point.

Once zero'd the bore gauge needs to be inserted into the bore to a depth of 2.75 inches (where the rings ride) and a measurement taken in light with the thrust axis (across short axis of the block), and one in line with the crank (long axis of block).

Mine was reading 84.47 for the short axis, and ~84.48 for the long. so almost 0.01 mm of out of round in the thrust axis - this is to be expected as the piston is pushing against this side... 84.46 is max permissible bore diameter, at this point my heart sunk. But then I took measurements from the very bottom of the bore where the piston rings never ride and it read 84.46. so in short I think the cheap bore gauge has an offset when it rests on the two wheels... I checked this and the wheels mismatch in diameter by 0.04mm

With this in mind my max bore diameter decreases by 0.02mm to be just on tolerance.

At least that's what I'm telling myself, a short engine from Turners is 1900+VAT, and a used engine could be as bad or worse.

Next stop BMW M57 if this rebuild misbehaves!

Setting up the bore gauge



So, here's the gauge in checking the thrust axis, you can clearly see the deflection from zero of 0.04mm


And the crank axis with 0.03mm deflection

Next I wanted to remove the piston oil squirters so I wouldn't hit them with the honing tool, unfortunately all of the hex nuts were super tight and the bit felt like it was going to round itself or them so I left them in place


Here's one of the cylinders, you can see some crosshatching but it's not great, there's also a soot ring around the top of the bore.


And honing - ATF & hone slurry still in, but you can see the nice angle on the cut.


All 5 honed - some slight marking at cylinder top but the rings don't ride there so am not worried.


It's really important to thoroughly wash out the bores with soapy water after this, the slurry makes a perfect grinding paste so it's really not a good idea to fire up the engine with anything left in (silicon carbide in this case!).

Next I measured the crank journals - first I set up the mic to the minimum size they should be 53.99mm (actually 53.995 looking at the dial)


This very snugly just cleared the journals with some wiggling, so within specification.


Next phase is going to be thoroughly cleaning all the stuff that came out - particularly the pistons ready for the new rings.

Coming back to my timing chain issue, I just counted the links on a chain photo on turners website. there are 27 links to the left of the lower timing link and 26 to the right, this before the 2 upper coloured links, so as long as I get the sprockets lined up with this count of links between the marks it doesn't matter if they are at the timing marks or not.

So checked the chain, the links at the expected positions are just _very_ slightly different shades to the others. Counted links to be sure then marked the timing links up, C for crank timing mark, and S for sprocket...





Gym tonight, so probably won't get much done other than removing the old piston rings.

One of my all time favourite freds on ere.

Shame about the HG.

That hone looks da bomb!

Interested to see if switching back to bolts over studs cures the problem?

I hope so

I reckon the studs would work just fine but I've got them up to 110 lb ft already and am super weary of stripping the threads from the block, a chap on another forum reckons they need quite a bit more torque to get a small amount of stretch on them, but I'm just done with experimenting for now.

Got nowt done yesterday, hoping to get the crank, pistons, block & ancillaries cleaned down tonight, degreaser for the block, paraffin for the other bits. Will then fit the new rings.

Also have another issue to correct, 4 of the pistons have the conrods back to front, I noticed this at the last rebuild but didn't know enough to correct it - I don't think it's really made any difference other than perhaps the balance has been affected.

That's interesting did you ever notice any vibration?
Keep up the pictures I'm thinking of re building my engine this year and it's interesting to see what you find.
I wondered about having mine lightly honed and then get the block caustic washed to clean out all of the nooks and crannies

raywin said:

That's interesting did you ever notice any vibration?
Keep up the pictures I'm thinking of re building my engine this year and it's interesting to see what you find.
I wondered about having mine lightly honed and then get the block caustic washed to clean out all of the nooks and crannies

Click to expand...

That's just it, the engine makes really good power and isn't noticeably shaky - it's a TD5 tractor lump afterall though so my expectations for smoothness are not high

Caustic wash is a good idea, I'm going to settle for blowing out all of the oilways/pipercleanering them.

I was looking around to see if there's a decent engine shop nearby and the closest I can find is Bradford, the idea was to get it rebored +20 thou, deck the block, and have the cylinder head refaced & valve seats cut, but tbh it's all expense and time I just don't think I can be bothered with - not when I consider that the engine makes good power immediately after previous HG changes...

I'd rather save my cash in case I plump to stick a bimmer or merc lump in.

Did you get a chance to measure the bores after the hone ?
By the way I have an old internal mike if you need to use one it is very old but gives consistant readings so you get a good comparison on the two axis readiungs an d betwen the different bores.
I also have a spare block I got from Arron Morris

raywin said:

Did you get a chance to measure the bores after the hone ?
By the way I have an old internal mike if you need to use one it is very old but gives consistant readings so you get a good comparison on the two axis readiungs an d betwen the different bores.
I also have a spare block I got from Arron Morris

Click to expand...

Yeah I forgot to write that I mic'd them afterward and the readings are identical, the hone shouldn't take any diameter out of the bore, it's just scoring the surface.

Gave the block deck a very light sand with 400 grit wet'n'dry & WD to remove any highs and old gasket. There's some very fine pitting in places, mainly around coolant bores, and the original milling marks came up. I'm tempted to get the deck skimmed but I know my piston protrusion was quite high before so this block could've been done previously.


Then got a straight edge on it with a 0.05mm feeler gauge, couldn't get it under the edge without forcing it. That doesn't mean my straight edge is good though! The workshop manual doesn't state tolerances for the block deck, just a maximum warpage of 0.1mm for the cylinder head.


Got the rings off the pistons


For that job this is the tool you want, German made Geodore ring expanders, superb kit.


Cleaned out the parts washer and treated it to 10 liters of fresh paraffin, the pistons are having a dunk to soften up the sooting prior to having the ring grooves scraped.