luggsey

Active Member
Hi all, I just bought a "Landrover engine" off of Ebay. Turns out it is in fact a Sherpa 2.5 diesel engine from a C reg sherpa. Will this engine fit my Petrol 90 1984? Are there any problems with flywheels or engine mounts or clutch?
Thanks for any answers, I need to know quickly as I have to pay for it if it will indeed fit my Landrover.
Cheers.
 
can you post a link here from the ebay site for it, might give the info we need to help you chap...sounds like a perkins prima might need an adaptor plate new engine mounts needs sherpa sump pan altenator and bracket and flywheel if I recall right...good luck chap...;)
 
It's a 2.5 NA in a C reg sherpa, the seller says it fits but I want to make sure. Been told a 2.5 sherpa is the same block as the Landy one.
There is no picture of it.
Hope I havent dropped a B*****k:confused:
 
Whats the item number chap...it will fit but nay need adaptor
Perkins Prima into a Landrover

The 'other' way to do it.

There are a couple of companies supplying the bits to do a Prima conversion for the land rover, and if you're going down the buying bits route I would reccomend getting your gubbins from Richard at IntegerSpin.co.uk: Index. Now if you dont fancy buying stuff, have some ability with a welder, have time on your hands and like to get involved in stupid projects then read on....

Richard's, and other's, adapters replace the montego gearbox adapter at the back of the engine giving the correct offset for the landy gear box, provide a mount for the starter and a hole for the crank into which an oil seal sits. The offset (distance from engine block to bellhousing bolt face) varies in the different adapters from something like 58 to 61mm, we calculated i believe to 58, and there are adapters at 61, whatever, its arbitrary as we shall see, but handy to keep that figure in your head.

Now, interestingly enough, while the montego adapter is a clever bit of machined alloy, the adapter as fitted to the Sherpa van running the normally aspirated prima is this:

sherpa.jpg


Thats right, flat steel plate thats 10mm thick, with all our mounts, oil seal, starter hole, all ready for us, that takes 10mm off our offset, so we now need to make up the extra 48 - 51mm. We chose to use 50mm, as its a nice round number and also steel stock is available in this size.

So, to create the remaining stand off we could be posh and use some bar stock which we drilled and tapped for studs, or, we could just be lazy and weld a bunch of M10 bolts to the adapter, guess which we did? I know some might say that its a cheap and nasty approach, but then hey, thats the way all of this started! So the tricky bit is getting the bolts into the right place, 2 choices, measure very very carefully using some kind of compass hanging out of the crank to get a good circle for the bellhousing bolts. Or, get an old landy bellhousing with an input shaft attached, stick M10 bolts in each hole (with double nuts at 50mm, and wrapped in tape to center them), fit the pilot bearing into the crank, and offer the two up together to get the bolt circle. If you do this you need to up end an engine (we had a 'spare' just for mocking up on) because otherwise there is far too much play to get in the right place. Check the input shaft spins absolutely vertically, a good way is to shine a light past it and use its shadow on a notepad to check for runoff, keep adjusting the postition till its centered. Then tack weld each bolt in place, and you'll end up with this:
jig.jpg


Its entirely up to you how safely you get there, we employed Zim Health and Safety methodologies throughout the project as Rob_M demonstrates:

studs.jpg


Cool, so now to fill in the gap and make it strong, grab some 50mm by 2mm or 3mm (i forget which we used, might have been 3) strip steel and get wrapping:
wrap.jpg


Start with the stud just below the starter hole, go round tack welding as you go, then finish near the other side of the starter hole. Its important that the strip is well positioned here, too far out and you foul the starter mount hole, to far in and you foul the flywheel, ours have about 3 or 4 mm clearance with the flywheel. Once its all in place, weld it up, but as you do, offer it to the bellhousing as the welding pulls it all inwards, so Land Rover Special Tool #1 is needed occasionally. Dont forget to weld those pairs of nuts (ooh sir!) to the band. Make some nice curvy bits for the starter, and chop off the power steering mounts that stick out, as they foul in the landy (we found out the hard way), fill any gaps and drill a drain hole in the base of it:
welded.jpg


Note the adapter 'stand', absolutely critical to get one of these! Tidy up any errant welds with Land Rover Special Tool #2, especially those on the starter cover that will go under the bellhousing. Note how Rob_M is again employing a sensible attitude towards protective gear when using dangerous power tools:
grind.jpg


And thats it, a lick of engine enamel and you have an adapter! (or two!) (note the Power steering mount is still there, we had yet to realise our folly):
pair.jpg


Engine mounts are actually pretty easy, if a bit fiddly. The prima engine is shorter than the 2.25 and handily, 10mm narrower, so 2x5mm plates drilled for the prima mounts and bolted on the side of the engine can be tack welded to the old mounts with the engine up in place on its shiny new adapter, before removing the old engine make a note of the position of the crank relative to the chassis rails, and suspend the new engine in this position.

mounts.jpg


You'll have to tweak the oil feed to the turbo out of the way, and weld a stud on the RH mount for the alternator adjuster, you can always download and use Richards plans for these as well, but we were lazy ;-) We did use his alternator mount plans though (cheers dude!) as we couldnt find anyway of suitably cheating!

So thats how you physically get the engine in place, when I get some time I might put some other info up about exhaust/cooling/etc issues that came up and were solved during the conversion, there are a lot of ways of doing this conversion, and the choices, at the end of the day, are yours. There are also now some addtional pics in my gallery, linked below, which were just photos taken during the conversion, they may be usefull...



Free Hit Counter HomeGallery
 
Just had another email and the seller confirms it "is" the Landrover engine.
Thanks for the post about the prima Perkins Cartman, I may do that later on if my cousin gives me his series 1 as promised.......
I would still like to hear any more info about this engine swop if anybody can help??
 
Thats excellent Carty. I would like to make a comment on health and saftey. You aught to be careful when wearing open toed sandals, if you inadvertantly stand in some dog crap it can work up over the front of the sandals and into the toe area it could then get under the toenails and if not cleaned out properly can lead to nasty infections. Don't like to sound all important about picking up on these things but it can and has happened.
 
fair point sir grunt not me in those pics i aint that adveturous, not a bad bodgin site though.i'm gonna go the tdi200 route i think as i avent got any sandals, got an idea now, im gonna develop open toed steel toe cap sandals (patent pending) sell em at george at asda....ill be a millioneir maybe...:rolleyes:
 
you also need to take car when working in just a vest, especially when the sun is on your back, i done this once and i were red raw, red raw i tell yer ;)
 
why use a sherpa engine anyways , the landrover N/A can be picked up for pennys.
is the sherpa more powerfull or something?
 
I have been looking for a LR engine for ages, this was sold as a "land rover" engine but turns out to have come from a Sherpa.....
It's cheap, £90, 59000 mile with new injectors and £50 delivered.
I can't get a Landy engine locally for anywhere near that....the one I was offered on here was £450!!!!!!!
 
I have been looking for a LR engine for ages, this was sold as a "land rover" engine but turns out to have come from a Sherpa.....
It's cheap, £90, 59000 mile with new injectors and £50 delivered.
I can't get a Landy engine locally for anywhere near that....the one I was offered on here was £450!!!!!!!

really? thats a wee bit steep for a N/A engine.
where abouts are you?
 
After reading your post Nobber I cancelled the Sherpa engine (It was sold as a Land Rover engine) and I'll keep looking for a proper Landy engine.
I'm in North Devon if anybody has a good Landrove diesel engine for sensible money........
 
If its any help witham sv have a disposal auction on monday I think and they have a whole bunch of 2.5 na diesels going for sale on the auction list I'm sure your could phone bid or something they have guide prices of £150...have a look....

www.witham-sv.com
 
Sherpa engine will fit no bother, one engine mount is in the wrong place slightly can be easily moved to fit. The front cover is also slightly different and not sealed like the LR one otherwise the engine is identicalto the LR one built in the same place all parts are the same except the front cover.:confused:
 
I phoned them up, they won't deliver and they won't tell me if they are good or scrap! Thanks anyway.
 
Sherpa engine will fit no bother, one engine mount is in the wrong place slightly can be easily moved to fit. The front cover is also slightly different and not sealed like the LR one otherwise the engine is identicalto the LR one built in the same place all parts are the same except the front cover.:confused:
MMMM, does the exhaust manifold line up to the existing Landy petrol exhaust? (Presume I can use my existing exhaust?)
I just told the guy I would not have it because it was too different but if it's as you say I'll eat humble pie and email him again.
Also would I be able to fit a "proper" landy front cover??
 

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