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:

Acquiring a vehicle with a challenged credit history carries a significant premium which must be thoroughly factored into your planning. With a representative APR of 19.9% the overall expense of the loan increases markedly. For instance securing a £9,500 car over a four-year term with zero deposit ultimately translates into a total payment of £13,463.42 for the purchaser at Car boom Potential borrowers should carefully weigh up the merits of Hire Purchase with its guaranteed ownership outcome against the lower monthly payments offered by Personal Contract Purchase. Always scrutinize the total repayment amount to protect your future financial standing.

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.

[Northern]

LR4 update:

Air compressor desiccant replacement... Not yet done lol...
Small leak in the front half of the air suspension - I think it's valve, will swap with junkyard one and see if there's an improvement. It's a very slow leak.
Parking distance fault - I need to paint a new one somehow to match the outer/front bumper.
Replace LF Caliper - Trying to not do this for some reason, I'm sure it will come back to bite me.
LR lower balljoint creaks - Seems to have stopped, no play yet. going to defer for another year lol.
Rockers probably (Patch panels are surprisingly cheap, and hidden by plastics) - Well they're corroded pretty badly inside at the bottom of the dogleg. I see rocker panels for sale but nothing that goes up high enough so I just made my own sections. Both lowers are welded up, but the left side needs a few more pieces up under the door, then bodywork.
30mm body lift - This is progressing. Body lift is done. More like 33mm, trimming for the rear bumper is done. Nothing done for the front yet. Air tank + compressor hung low so I'm relocating them higher up.
Hidden winch - I have a generic (princess auto/HF style) winch mount and CAD up a bunch of gussets/mounting plates for the frame rails/air valve/washer res and ordered them from cutmyparts in Ontario. Price was good, 6 day turnaround, and finished parts look great, just need to fit and weld everything.
Undercoat. - Will happen, just a ways away yet.
And a few other minor things:
New(er) air tank from the junkyard. Not sure how mine held air, but the mounting points were obliterated, so I am swapping it for my spare.
Air compressor bracket - I think the only thing holding my air compressor in was the foam/plastic shield. Each mounting hole in the bracket was now a massive corroded void in the part. It's truly impressive how bad it was. Aliexpress had new ones for $40 or so, with new hardware/rubber.
Coolant Pipe relocation in the rear may be easier than most because of the body lift. Seem to be a lot of side benefits to the space created by the body lift. Access to things/etc.
I gave up on building rock sliders. 3d scanned/CAD some stuff but couldn't find anywhere that could both make them for a half decent price and get them to me, plus the timeline to figure out the rest/paint was stressing me out, so I bought a set of Britpart sliders from LRdirect, and I'm reasonably happy with them other than the hardware they came with.

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. - This is funny because at best, I'll be able to make this an entire year later than planned.

D2 update:

Removed heads, RTV all over both gaskets which probably explains the leak.
Unfortunately I broke a head bolt and was not able to extract it. I have a jig I'll 3d print and make some drill guides on the lathe for that to try to drill it out.
If I can get it running, I'll probably resell because...

I bought a 2003 D2 (facelift w/ 4.6) from the father of a friend from FSAE.
Same colour, also an S trim or whatever doesn't have the dual sunroof BS.
Lots of aftermarket stuff - bumper, 4 sets of lights, winch, roof rack.
Otherwise seems stock.
Overheating issue - seems to be a bleeding issue that I've been fighting with and haven't really come out much ahead of when I got it.
Also has a rotten rear frame, but seems to be limited to the bottom face of the box beam, so some 2.5" flat bar and a day with the welder should solve that.

[LateFan]

Thought I'd pop back in here some, as I've recently bought my son's E30 back from him.

My other son's Land Rover story continues...

In HS, as a father-son project, we bought a worn out '87 RR Classic from a postman with an early Series truck, who used to put a trailer full of motorcycles to Mexico from Montana at freeway speeds, then across the desert. It looked good, but had a lot of miles and had that impossible injection system. The suspension pick-ups had big elongated holes and you couldn't get it aligned to stay in place. He took it off to college two states away. It quit randomly in faraway places, long towing bills. He found a great LR specialist mechanic in Seattle, and even he scratched his head trying to get the injection right.

When it just wouldn't go any farther, that mechanic and now friend took it (as a parts car) on partial trade for a '94 blue D1 with a replacement motor when it was fairly new. We put the Old Man EMU suspension from the Classic on it and it was a great truck. Same 100" wheelbase, same agility. Many long trips, remote fishing and camping trips. I didn't do any work on that one, he was far away, It survived a night at -27F in Dillon MT when he had to get to school.

In school in Bozeman MT (also a cold place), it gradually developed an engine knock. Got worse. He had changed the oil regularly. He needed something to get across the state without worry (hah). At about the same time, he found a local LR club (really?) and a former Porsche tech with a 2006 LR3 for sale. A club guy bought the D1, planning another engine swap. The LR3 guy sold it to him for $6000 with a lot of miles on it, but very well maintained. What a truck that is! Bulletproof Jaguar V8, it'll climb at 45 degrees and never loose oil pressure, low range with A/C on, and so comfortable.

He and I replaced air struts, air lines, the compressor, lots of wear items. It's driven across the country twice. 210,000 miles. A local LR specialist told him that's the smoothest Jag V8 he's heard, just keep changing the oil. Now roof glass badly cracked, headliner falling, that rear seat video thing keeps falling down. Just annoying stuff. But a month or so ago, the transmission starting doing a weird stutter skip jerk thing. Wouldn't shift right. After some reading, it seems many of them start to do this - the friction material on the torque converter discs starts to go. You can extend it some with some friction additive. A used salvage trans also has 200k miles, and no easy way to check it. An Atlantic-British ZF-remanufactured is $6000, plus shipping, plus labor to install. He and his wife both have 30 mile commutes to no excuse jobs. Kids and camping stuff and canoe and big dog for fun.

So they decided to bite the bullet and buy a dealer demonstrator Defender (new? wat??). It was ordered by someone as a base truck with coil springs, rubber floors, 4 cylinder. Then she bailed and never picked it up. Apparently not the kind of thing their New England clients expect or would buy. They expect posh. So it sat unsold. Screaming deal. Dark green, looks sharp, scrubbable seats, rubber floors. The coil springs come stock at air spring off-road height, so it looks good and no fussing around with settings and electronics. No air bags to replace. 2-liter turbo is their most reliable other than the V8, and has plenty of power and torque. He's hyper-miling it and getting 28mpg(?)

He hopes to sell the LR3 cheap locally to a DIY'r.