OFFICIAL Land Rover thread.

[iansane]

But it's finally starting to come together.

[Northern]

Certainly made you work for it. Looks great now that it's coming together.

[econti]

Eventually sold my TD5 Defender. I'd put it underwater some years back and kept having electrical gremlins, like the ECU not powering up when the key was turned, fuel pump sometimes not turning on, weird stuff. Became a large problem on a trip to Fraser Island (big sand island here in Aus) by losing all power on the beach, with a rising tide, and nobody around to recover me. Thankfully I was able to get off the beach without drowning it but once that confidence was gone it was gone.
TD5 owners, be careful with water. The ECU is under the seat and if there's water on the floors it's high enough to get into the connectors.

Great car otherwise, phenomenal offroad, but yes. TDi Defender will be next on the list I think.

[Northern]

Well I did a thing.

Sandwiched between the ads for knockoff dick pills and a cryptocurrency scam, Fecebook graced me with a post from a local guy in the LR Discovery Canada group because Roysneon commented on it.

Seller said a shop told him the block is cracked, and the rear of the frame is toast. He was considering selling it to a junkyard, so I knew he would part with it for cheap.

I know a new rear 1/4 frame is 800USD, so it's not the end of the world even if it was completely fried.
Roy's had a few engine issues with his as well, so I'm relatively familiar with the issues with head gaskets and sleeve/block issues.
I figured if the engine is toast, Roy can use the spares and I'll try to find an LS.

So I went to look at it and it wasn't terrible. Some rust holes in brackets off the rear frame. The frame itself, while crusty, doesn't seem to have any holes.
Block and bare heads were installed, but everything else was in the trunk, clearcoat on the hood/roof is terrible, there's sketchy looking wiring under the hood, and it has various dents/scrapes/rust that make sense for a 23yo vehicle here.

I bought it, and we towed it to Roy's place and rolled it down beside his garage. At some point here, my other friend Alex showed up.
Since the engine was exposed and I figured it was worth preserving for parts, I said we should throw the rocker covers on and tape up the intake.
An hour later, we had pushrods/rockers/shafts/intake back on and the thing was running with 2 people's digits worth of meat stick vacuum plugs.
It burns coolant, and makes a mean milkshake, but it ran and even drove briefly.

I think the next course of action is to throw some head gaskets in my next parts order and see if I get lucky with the head gasket vs cracked block.
If not, I'll be looking for a local rusted out POS with an aluminum 5.3 and 6L80e.

[2mAn]

You got rid of a sh!tty E30 and bought a sh!tty LR ... meanwhile the good E30 is sitting waiting for ...?...

[Northern]

And the LR4 is still here. It's served as the wife's daily since April and no hiccups. Bought a GAP tool last Black Friday. All I've done with it was read/reset some codes and disable TPMS so far.

I did have it in the garage for a month over christmas to do:
Touch up a lot of paint.
Rear upper balljoints
RR upper control arm (bad bushing and most bolts...)
LR strut boot
LF Seized caliper
Hatch button
headlight polish/ppf
keyfob re-shell/update.

Still looks the same. Working through other minor problems it has from years of deferred maintenance/repairs. Might need rear brakes soon, otherwise no "new" problems since I bought it.

From last winter:

[Northern]

You got rid of a sh!tty E30 and bought a sh!tty LR ... meanwhile the good E30 is sitting waiting for ...?...

hahahah

I need to do a few larger jobs to the LR4 that I missed last year, and some mods:
Air compressor desiccant replacement.
Small leak in the front half of the air suspension
Parking distance fault
Replace LF Caliper
LR lower balljoint creaks
Rockers probably (Patch panels are surprisingly cheap, and hidden by plastics)
30mm body lift
Hidden winch
Undercoat.
And a few other minor things.

Hopefully that's done sometime Dec. The local Jeep club does a trail run on New Year's Day and I'd like to go.

From that point onward, it's all E30. The D2 is going to sit for a bit (other than a day or two to try the headgasket to see if I need to get a swap together...)

[Alba Mentor]

Still looks the same. Working through other minor problems it has from years of deferred maintenance/repairs. Might need rear brakes soon, otherwise no "new" problems since I bought it.

From last winter:

One of the most dependable cars in the lineup.

[Northern]

It has been bulletproof so far. Has some sort of engine noise - I don't think it's chains, maybe cam phasers but I'm going to just live with it until it gets worse... I know both issues are very common on the 5.0/3.0SC

I have it back in the Garage at the moment to do the above list.
All the plastics are off and ready to lift the body off the frame to install the spacers/bolts. Not sure what else I'll encounter (I'm told brake line standoffs at most, but likely more)

Rockers have a fist sized hole at the very back mounting hole at the bottom of the dogleg, but the rest is fine. Should be a straightforward fix.

[Northern]

For the D2, I've been trying to secure some sort of engine donor, whether it's an LS or something else (M57 X5s keep popping up on marketplace and that's tempting.)
I missed a deal on a Tahoe with an Aluminum 5.3 + 6L80e and the two M57 donors seem to have slipped away as well.
I think this evening I found a "good" rover 4.0 and LT230 transfer case with a locker (mine is not locking), so this might not get swapped right now after all?

[econti]

Depends how cheap the 4.0 is to make it worthwhile swapping. If it had top hat liners installed then you're on with a reliable candidate. They're just such shit motors in so many ways unfortunately. They are very common down here and just as common is people rebuilding them after a catastrophic failure only to make 90whp and be sad.

[Northern]

They're just such shit motors in so many ways unfortunately.

Isn't that a fact. $1500 for the engine without accessories/harness and the locking LT230. Not sure if the transmission comes with it but it ate a driveshaft at some point so it's not usable anyway.

Swap is looking like $6000 bare minimum between engine donor, Tcase adapter, all the other adapter/modules/mounts to fit the engine, and various "while you're in there" maintenance.
Hell of a lot easier to swap, even if temporary. The laundry list of D4 work and my dream of having my E30 on the road next summer would benefit.