Woeful VM lump..... designed for a boat, ended up in the Leyland Sherpa... and then the Range Rover... Mine is a wheezy 2.4 that is all mouth and no trousers, the only think it does well is Battleship impressions.... 'Make Smoke Number One', the Navy would be proud of her!! If it were the 2.5, then I would look into the possibility of coaxing a little more power from it. But it isn't, so faced with either the prospect of being prey to electric bicycles and milk floats, the only hope of keeping up with modern traffic is to change the engine.
A 300 TDi would be a good option, but if I'm going to stuff the MOT exemption, I may as well go for broke and give it some real power and a 6 speed gearbox... might even give it an overdrive too! The BMW 2.9 TD6 is a lovely engine and is standard fitment in the early L322's. It can be made to run 'stand alone' without too much bother, or, cost and is readily available from a number of cars, so spares are easy to get too. And lastly, for a small cost it can come with a Land Rover badge!!
I'm undecided at the moment, I might just get an L322, wait for the gearbox to give up and convert it to manual.... at which point I could very well end up just keeping that, they do have a far superior ride than the Classic and the comfort levels are in a different class!
And
brianp38dse I have already made contact with said member, and it was an X3... although under the skin there isn't a lot of difference